Coming from
Takemikazuchi’s Anvil.
This post encompasses an S-rank mission containing the following storyboard elements:
- Facilitate a major peace agreement (5)
The Samurai General was a stern man not much older than Hawke with a neat salt-and-pepper hairdo, a cropped beard and a face that seemed to consist only of tight lines. As he soon as he ducked under the doorframe, entered the man’s private mediation chambers and laid eyes on him he understood why it there had been so many obstacles in the way of this meeting. The incessant searches, the chakra inhibitor anklets and the constant delays might have been worth it. Tatewaki had the look of a commander about him and the aura of control he exuded was undeniable. Even seated on a tatami mat, surrounded by scented candles and dressed in loose-flowing robes the man looked stately. It was almost enough to make even a handsome, roguish highwayman like himself feel a little envious.
“No weapons,” Hawke observed flatly by way of greeting as he stepped into the circle, prodded by the hilt of Samurai Girl’s katana. “I’m guessin’ that’s not a show of trust?”
Tatewaki remained silent and simply gestured towards a bigger mat across from him, which Hawke took as an invitation to sit down. Then, to his surprise, his guardess simply turned and left the room, closing the heavy door behind her and leaving the two men alone in the candlelight in silence. The General, unperturbed, poured himself some tea and then with a gesture offered Hawke a cup.
“Uh, no thanks,” was his puzzled reply, but Tatewaki still filled the cup and pushed it over to his guest, who begrudgingly picked up the delicate container with his thumb and forefinger.
“Look, General-” Hawke began, feeling more than a little annoyed, but the Samurai commander chose that exact moment to speak.
“Your misdeeds in the Land of Fire alone are what some would describe as inhuman.” The delivery was casual, but the observation was anything but. Tatewaki shot him a hard look. “Cruel, wanton acts of destruction and violence for the sake of it. One of my advisors called you a disease.”
Disease? Hawke’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance.
“-and so I decided to see you for myself,” the General continued without missing a beat. “After all, you are no longer just a faraway blight. Isn’t that right, mister Hawke?” There was a shift in the man’s voice as it took on a hard, grim flavor. “And this isn’t your first stop on our Peninsula. Isn’t that right, mister Hawke?” There was a sound of teeth grinding against each other, so soft that it was almost mistakable for sputtering candlewick. There was no mistaking the stop he was referring to.
“The pit,”
“Yes, the pit,” Tatewaki repeated deadpan. “Where twenty-one of my Samurai were killed by a giant asshole and his merry band of murderers.”
The turn of phrase seemed so out of place that Hawke could not help the little grunt of laughter that escaped him, which only hardened the General’s already flint-like visage.
“Yes, of course their lives are meaningless to you,” he sneered. “But they aren’t to me.”
Hawke held up one of his shovel-hands conciliatorily, a gesture he had had some luck with in recently. His words, however, were just the opposite. “Not meaningless,” Garrett objected, but then shrugged. “Definitely not meaningful though.”
“You’re just an animal.” Tatewaki abandoned his thin veneer of diplomacy and showed the bitten commander that lurked underneath. “The only reason you were allowed into the Monastery at all was to get you in here so-“
“You should listen to what I have-“
“This is not a negotiation!” the general boomed with thunderous authority, interrupting Hawke and leaping to his feet. “The day I sit with you as an equal is-“
“Today,” the grizzled veteran growled darkly, meeting his counterpart evenly just as he had the man’s lackey. Despite the Samurais’ precautions he let his chakra flare like a campfire suddenly fed with oil, showing a very different kind of aura than Tatewaki’s. “What word did you receive from the Anvil?”
“New management and new workers,” the General’s disdain was plain.
“I let your guards take my stuff because it makes no difference,” Hawke bit out as he stood back up. “The searches, the chakra inhibitors, all the foot-dragging to prepare this…” He just shook his head. “This circus?” A grunt and he continued. “Irrelevant, but acceptable because I think you’re just strong and smart enough to realize how fucked you are.”
That seemed to catch Tatewaki off-guard, but his smoldering expression did not relent. “I think your tactical assessment could use some polishing.”
“Maybe,” Hawke allowed with a shrug. “But you’ve got me mistaken for the disease when I’m just a symptom of it, and that’s a strategic assessment that’ll cost you.”
“How so? And a symptom of what, exactly?”
“Of the times we live in, of course. You’ve got a few years on me, so you know there wasn’t a fraction of the chaos we’re seeing now during even the darkest days of the Freehold.”
“We are Samurai,” Tatewaki stressed the word. “We have dealt with the chaos of ninjutsu-users for hundreds of years. And you did not answer my first question.”
Hawke was thankful that he did not, because he was not interested in a historical debate. “When I and people like me are dying fighting gods and demons it means that you and people like you are an afterthought. You just haven’t accepted the new reality.”
“That people like you are dying to infighting with other demonspawn?” It seemed the General was not above being pedantic when it suited him.
“That there are things out there whose attention alone can make whole counties disappear, mate. You must’ve seen what Ashikaga’s rampage did to the north of the Badlands?”
Tatewaki had seen it that much was clear from the grimace he made at the mention of what little the fires had left behind.
“My attention may be just a spring fever to Takauji’s pandemic, but you know as well as I do that one fight begets others.” Hawke filled in the silence with stern impassion. “Should I fail, others like me will come, with different methods if you are lucky, but someone will come and take this land and do with it what they please.” He let that sink in for a moment before he threw in the bait. “Lucky for you, in this new reality I’m the best friend you’ll ever have.”
“And pray tell me why that is?” The question was deadpan, but still asked. That was good enough for Hawke.
“Because I like screwing people on their own terms. I’m a man of simple tastes, General. I like money and power, but I have no appetite for work or responsibility. You see, taking the Peninsula by force means killing you and everyone who would oppose me. It means destroying all your defenses and cities in a campaign of terror that’d go on until no one’s left to fight.” Hawke shook his head again as he tore off the chakra inhibitors around his ankles. Tatewaki did not react to it; his expression had gone from angry to disbelieving to grim during the course of Hawke’s little monologue, but since he voiced no protest the Brother just kept going.
“I prefer latching onto things that already work, yeah? And you’ve got the location, the manpower and the know-how to do it. With the proper muscle you could make a real push for your place in the sun.”
“So you want to be a bloodsucking tick and simple people like us should just thank you for it?”
“What I want is to put as many undesirables as the world can spare into the mines and have them dig out cities and tunnels while making me rich in the process.”
“And that will what for us, exactly?
“Your society lives in a desert of snow and relies on metal for everything. What laborers you have in the mines are Samurai rejects and castouts. With more hands I can push their output up tenfold, sell exclusively to you.”
“Sell us the bounty of our own lands?” Tatewaki sounded almost sad, but that was overshadowed by his indignant anger at the suggestion. “Preposterous!”
“My Brotherhood will handle all costs of the operation, so think of it as putting a public expense in private hands. You can even keep security there, if you wish, as long as they don’t interfere with operations. The Samurai could have infinite resources and men enough to use them. All I want in return is a profit on minerals and metals, and access to your engineers and technicians for the city that’ll be built down there.”
“Or maybe my people and I refuse to compromise our sovereignty and simply kill you right now.”
“Instead of accepting my guarantee of protection?” Both men were nearing the end of their patience. It was deal or no deal. “General, either you are able to kill me and will have to do that to retake the Anvil, or you aren’t, in which case turning me down means getting less than nothing, yeah? See, because I hold grudges I’d sell every rock as far away from here as it can get, after I’ve turned the whole Peninsula to glass, that is.”
“So dealing with your blackmail means having to pay you for our minerals or fighting you for them?”
“For starters, yes, and the price will be fair.”
“What do you mean ‘for starters’?”
“General Tatewaki,” Hawke felt a wolfish smile drag at the corners of his mouth. “You’ll come to have me and my methods even more than you do, but you’ll tolerate both because of what it’ll do for the Iron Peninsula.
The Samurai said nothing for a long moment, obviously deep in thought. He looked his twelve-foot counterpart up and down trying to discern the caveat behind an offer he could not foresee all the implications of. Finally, he nodded slowly.
“I will need to convince others,” he cautioned Hawke first. “But if you keep within the Anvil and consult with me on every decision of import then I believe we may be able to come to an agreement.”
Hawke’s small grin widened into an almost face-splitting smile. “Strange times makes for strange bedfellows, yeah?”
“Oh do shut up, please.”
