Kyuden Shika

It was... very, very early at the sake house. Well before operating hours.

But when an armed bushi responded to polite suggestions that he come back later with a murderous glare and a slight movement of his hand toward his katana, a bottle was found.

And then another.

I fucking knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I fucking knew it, fucking fuckers.

He didn't let them clear away the empty bottle, either.

"I am making decisions about my future. If you fucking interrupt me, I'll need to start all over again."

It was the sound of clinking, he thinks, which draws him into the bar. Either that or the perturbed staff that had run by the inn that morning.

With sympathy, he stood before the drinking Shiba.

"Shiba-san."

"Kitsu-san."

He knocked back another drink.

"Good news or bad news for you?"

"Good."

He wasn't sure if he wanted to elaborate further - for Raizo's sake, but instead put a hand on the soldier's shoulder.

"You remember what you told me yesterday?"

"I barely remember my own name. A bit more of this shit..."

He sloshed the sake bottle.

"... and I might even be able to take care of that."

In a surprising show of force, even for him, he slaps the bottle out of Raizo's hand, sending it spiralling into a corner of the bar.

A servant looked to interject, but the grim, damning face of the Lion stopped his approach.

"Before I came here, I think I could have accepted just about any spouse without any sense of disappointment. But now? Now that acceptance has been taken away."

He gestured to the slump.

"So what's all this, then?"

"The natural outgrowth of the Deer Clan's sadism, since you ask. I could have accepted it before. And as I said yesterday, I can't now. And our gracious fucking hosts are the ones we can thank for that. They gave me something- someone- to lose, and then they took her away. And then, the crowning fucking absurdity, they pair me with one of their own. Someone I've never even fucking laid eyes on. So."

He picked up his empty bottle and heaved it across the room to shatter against the far wall with an impact that rattled the bottles on the shelves.

"They brought me down here, had me dance for their fucking amusement for two weeks, and then just say, 'here's someone you've never met- or fucking HEARD OF- from a Clan you now hate, and you get to marry them.' Before coming here, I could have accepted that. Now I can't."

"Yes, you can."

...He then realized Raizo was probably drunk already, and so decided to reiterate.

"The woman you love has no ties to hold her down. The Deer will do nothing in the case that you just leave. I don't know this Kasuga-san fellow, but I've seen one too many people give up the fight for what they love."

He met eye-to-eye with Shiba Razio.

"Don't let it be you."

Raizo.. snorted.

"You think I'm taking any of the shit the Deer just shoveled out to me lying down, you're out of your mind. But what comes next is... delicate. And I don't do delicate worth the steam off of my piss."

"Good, good."

That was one fear alleviated.

"Then do you, but all I ask is that you don't kill anyone. I've worked hard to pull the Deer out of one war - I don't wish to write the obituary because of another they accidentally got involved with."