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Thread: [Benihime x Youko Gaiden] The Crimson Kunoichi & The White Ronin

  1. #211
    Benihime had busied herself watching the moving bodies of the servant and deciding that this green eyed kitchen woman would likely be on her list of people to chat with a bit later. But before she could even properly cement this as an idea, her eyes widened, why Ouetsu felt the need to bring her into his rage against Youko, she could only hazard a guess at. 'I wonder if he is trying to pit us against each other... how much should I play along with such a thing?' she wondered but aloud she had something entirely different to say. "How nice of you to think of me, Tokudaiji-sama. If you have an extra job for me, just let me know, at your leisure~" the young woman responded seeming not to care one way or another, but thinking it would be for the best if this man suspected nothing of her other dealings around. The redhead found it odd that the Daimyou thought to mention her directly in such a space, but figured it was likely just to press Youko's buttons, something she noticed he did an awful lot.

    That being said, it seemed Youko had plenty of sass left for the Daimyou, in particular he sought to use the man's wife and though to most his words would likely just seem a bit respectful, all the women in the room knew he was flirting in an outrageous manner. This was an especially telling sign to Benihime and Hiromi as the white haired man used the words this woman had spoken to him upon her exit from the redhead's room in the wee hours of the morning. 'Ara, I thought he was an outrageous flirt on purpose, but it's almost like he can't help himself~' Benihime thought a knowing smirk spreading across her face. Hiromi to her credit managed to suppress the surprise in her face. Obviously, she was quite used to these formal affairs and being greeted this way by servants of all sorts, the only difference in this moment, being that she knew the servant in question rather intimately. A blush came to this older woman's face as she turned her head after catching view of his wink and processed his words. "You've hardly been rude at all. There isn't any need to fuss over me," she said. All the while Kazumi looked at her mother with narrowed eyes. She recognized Youko to be flirting, but her mother's reaction to it, was quite unusual for a married woman. The young girl became huffy at her plate and honestly seemed a bit jealous. Benihime watched this young woman's reaction, but couldn't really place it. She didn't have enough time around this young woman to know what her angle was, and wondered if she was a bit more attached to the attention of the white haired man than he was aware of. "Also it's nice to see both of you, Onee-chan, Kazumi-chan,~" she mentioned with the same bit of respectfulness she always had, but being rather obvious that she'd already met both of these women as she knew it would be no problem, given Ouetsu's obvious favoritism of her.

    While dinner carried on in hilarious fashion, the other half of Benihime's person in the form of a shadow clone, found herself talking to a shop owner who was apparently selling scrolls and other such items. Benihime bought them without care, but recognized some of the materials as ones belonging to various other ninja villages not her own. Special markings denoted this, but she could only tell that because of her own affiliation. "Onee-chan has such a good stock, I figured I'd be out of luck looking for things like this in a land without many shinobi around~" the young woman said which made the shop keeper laugh. "Onee-chan? What a sweet girl, actually we have a lot of ninja pass though here, not many hang around though. I can't say I've seen any more than once. Afterwards I started getting pretty regular shipments of things, it's pretty nice, I get a very discounted rate and I get to sell wholesale." the shop keep mentioned which made Benihime smile but her head was currently processing this information in a very negative way. 'Hunter-nin gear, scrolls from the Konoha, weapons made in Iwa... every other ninja that has passed through this place has died, had their gear stripped and it's being sold to the next person to visit. This is getting really suspicious...' she thought, but she didn't do anything else. Instead she smiled at the shop owner and nodded. "Arigatou Onee-chan~ I'll be back to restock sometime, and maybe, we could watch the sunset together next time?" she posed the question which made the woman blush but then left without a bit of fuss. A few seconds later she was hidden behind a building sealing the evidence away within a scroll and which linked to the ones she'd so recently created which would leave the materials within her bedroom before this version of her also disappeared in a cloud of smoke. This would of course return the woman within the Daimyou's Palace to her full strength.

  2. #212
    "Oh no, I insist!" Youko demanded in response to Hiromi. "A whelp such as myself should show the proper respect, especially to the lady of the house. Please, accept my most humble apology. I only hope you will now allow me to be of service to you, just as I have been of service to your lovely daughter. It is the only way I can think to truly repay the debt I owe for Toku-jii letting me draw breath on a daily basis." These words spoken by Youko were a direct affront to Ouetsu in many ways, and many of those ways were completely lost to the Daimyou himself. Still, he took great offense to the way Youko spoke, yet he was inattentive enough to his wife to have her reactions go unseen... for the most part. Hiromi was behaving quite oddly for these interactions with a stranger, whom he had nary a positive thing to say about, but more importantly at the moment was the blatant disrespect this boy offered. "I will tolerate no more of this. Katsuhara, if not for my daughter's favor, I'd have seen you executed ages ago! No longer will I tolerate this speech of yours interrupting my family's dinner! Any more of this, and Suzukou will have your job soon enough!"

  3. #213
    Benihime received the full breadth of information discovered by her clone, and stood behind the Daimyou pinching her nose with her index and forefinger and she processed it. She knew for certain at least one thing was very wrong within this place and that all of the comrades she'd come to check up on, were officially to be moved to a list of deceased individuals instead of the missing-in-action roster they were currently part of. Still there was much to process and put together, all while she witnessed the travesty which was this very strange dinner. 'Ugh, multiple countries' shinobi all dead. Daimyou still requesting more. A country in the middle of an economic boom with no explanation as to why. A leader who is clearly too involved in state affairs, placating his daughter, and ignoring his wife. What is likely a bastard child somewhere out in the city, and... someone who is trying to set me up against this guy I probably shouldn't actually be fighting ever,' she thought absently her hand moving from the bridge of her nose to the back of her head. She wished to pace and continue thinking, but couldn't given the current situation. This was turning out to be a lot more work than she'd initially intended to do. That being said, she supposed she was doing solid favors for multiple countries looking into this matter.

    Beyond all this, there was Youko, still speaking to the Daimyou's wife, and once again using someone's words against them, but this time it was the words of the Daimyou himself which got tossed into the general speech. The wife of the Daimyou looked towards the young man with wide eyes and wondered how he managed to get away with such impudence all the time. "If you insist, it would be quite rude otherwise," she said towards Youko before aiming to placate her husband more than a little. "Dear he doesn't seem terribly rude to me, though I understand your need for less speech at dinner..." she managed looking towards the redhead after speaking. "Also, it is nice to see you as well, Hime-chan," she said speaking to the young girl with a level of familiarity which made the woman's daughter look at her with her brows drawn together. "Okaa-san, I didn't know you bothered speaking to anyone anymore. Much less someone Otou-sama hired as a guard," she managed still seeming quite fussy as she picked over her food. This young girl's attitude towards Benihime had gotten no lighter, still she managed a nod in the girl's direction which she supposed was about what she could expect given the man at the table had just threatened to remove her favorite guard from her service. "While preparing for her duties around here, Hime-chan happened upon me and was kind enough to introduce herself," she said as if it was the clearest point in the world. "It isn't my fault you seem to require your own guards attention so much that he's rarely seen by anyone else..." the woman mentioned which made her daughter narrow her eyes. Suddenly this dinner had become rather tense as if hidden sparks were flying between mother and daughter. 'Hm, does Kazumi know, or is she just mad because Yokkun was being... flirty?' Benihime managed to wonder. She now fully understood why the white haired man had advised against too much time spent within this dwelling. Some kind of strange not obvious argument seemed to be on the horizon between mother and daughter.

  4. #214
    "Ahh gomen, gomen! I'd hate to be replaced in a job that doesn't pay me at all. Give it up, Toku-jii! I'm sworn to this, and I'd see the end of your orders a lot sooner than you'd manage to have my head," he said with blatant disregard to whatever abilities Ouetsu had to deal with him. Ouetsu himself grimaced into his plate, finding Youko to be more unbearable by the moment, but knowing deep within the recesses of his own mind that he could not do away with the ronin so easily. It was for this fact, as well as the fact that he'd never hear the end of it from his daughter, that Ouetsu had yet to eliminate the white-haired male. Regardless of Ouetsu's issues, Youko was quite entertained by the goings-on. There seemed to be a very hefty amount of tension in the room from this family's women, and Youko didn't yet know whether to blame the nature of Kazumi, or the brief change in Hiromi's lifestyle. Perhaps he would be able to find out for certain which thing was the cause of this, or maybe both were true. Whatever the case, he felt as if a full-fledged argument was not far away. "Well then..." he interjected, clearing his throat between clauses. "Speaking of attention, I think it's about time I stepped out and did my part to secure the area. Is taking some of the workload off your own personal hire enough for me to keep my precious job, Toku-jii?" Youko offered this query as he walked toward the exit of the room, but no answer came from Ouetsu. No, instead he allowed the white-haired lad to exit the dining hall of his own volition, thinking it best to avoid further discussion altogether.

  5. #215
    The raised tension level in this room had the redhead staring with an impassive face. She found herself rubbing the back of her head and struggling against her desire to move and pace. The out she would have taken to this madness was soon enough captured by Youko himself who seemed to think it would be some great favor to her to take over the shift of securing the area which she would have taken. Beyond all this Tokudaiji didn't seem to stop the young man. So it seemed the redhead was stuck for now. "Arigatou~" she said to the man who moved out of this place, choosing to forego the use of his pet name before his charge lest the young woman's fury become redirected at Benihime in this moment.

    Mother and daughter seemed to be staring at each other across the table. "Okaa-san, no one asked you to come down for dinner... nor did I ask how I should be treating my guard. Ugh, you infuriate me sometimes..." said the girl which made Benihime's eyes widen. Still the redhead wished to shrink down further and found this conversation to be strange to her in many ways. As someone who didn't get along with her own mother, she could kind of understand why the teen was upset, even so, Benihime was just respectful enough that she never truly went off on her mother until the woman gave her reason to. 'Yare yare, how spoiled is this girl?' wondered Benihime. Still, Kazumi continued to eat as if nothing was wrong and instead, it was Hiromi who pushed her plate away and frowned. "I hope you're happy Kazumi, you've turned into a real brat. And absolutely ruined my appetite," mentioned the elder woman who was in Benihime's opinion well worth appraising even right now. "I'll leave, but you should consider how your selfishness will play out for you, girl." she said and with that the woman of the house got up and left. As well. Benihime was left in this room with just the Daimyou and his daughter and she'd start speaking, but it had nothing to do with her mother. "Otou-sama, why do you always provoke him like that? He tries to be nice you could meet him half way considering..." she said seemingly able to switch to negotiations within just a few seconds of doing something exceedingly crude to get her way. Benihime's eyes widened but she said nothing. She waited until she was dismissed, as it appeared the girl's pause denoted she wanted the redhead to leave the room as well. "Hm? Private conversation then? Tokudaiji-sama would you like me to leave as well?" she asked of the man whom she actually worked for. Given he'd stopped eating she could only wonder if the man was also at a complete loss at this point.

  6. #216
    It seemed Ouetsu had nothing to say regarding the squabble between his wife and daughter. At the very least, the departure of Youko allowed him to comfortably return to his meal, though not long before his wife excused herself as well. It did not matter to him how they spoke to one another, nor how they reacted on an individual level. As far as he was concerned, one of them leaving the table only put an end to the noise they were producing as a unit. Since his daughter remained, however, he was soon accosted with another matter regarding Youko. "The boy tries to do nothing but irk me, Kazumi! Never will I stand for such blatant disrespect; I have worked far too long to become what I am today. You would do well to learn that lesson, too," he said while ramming his fork into a cut of steak, intending to have at it after his response was given to his own personal guard. "Iia. That scum boy is gone, but I'll not have both guards away from me. You will stay."

    Meanwhile, the departing Hiromi was soon to learn that Youko had not traveled far upon his own leave of the dining hall. The very moment the door closed behind her, Youko was at the woman's fore with a hand pressed against the door frame. From only a breath away from Hiromi's face, he began sharing words with her. "So, you couldn't take much more of it either, huh? I figured the two of you would come to blows soon, but I didn't expect one of you to just leave like this. Or... maybe you left for another reason?"

  7. #217
    "Otou-sama! You're being unreasonable!" the girl exclaimed as her fork stopped moving and she looked up at the man with impunity. It seemed that she felt safe enough from her father's wrath to continue their conversation, and Benihime, much to her own dissatisfaction, wasn't allowed to leave as Youko had already left. "As you like, Tokudaiji-sama." she mentioned, though internally she was cursing the wanderer for his ability to create a quick escape. She also mentally made a note to herself to keep a clone for these sorts of time, lest she truly be unable to catch a break from these people at any point in time. Regardless of this Kazumi's father seemed like he wouldn't dismiss his secondary guard leaving his daughter to explain herself, making the assumption that the man trusted this one enough that she could speak freely in front of her. "Otou-sama, you can't call him scum, I told you I want to marry him, and you won't let me. And you keep setting up these situations to make both of you mad. It's not even fair!" the girl said pouting. Benihime for her all of her experience hadn't expected the words uttered by the young girl and couldn't suppress the shocked expression which came to her face. Suddenly a mirade of the young girl's behaviors made much more sense, but some of them were still not making sense. 'I wonder of Yokkun knows that...' she wondered, knowing that the man and the Daimyou's wife were both gone, she could only figure he had done what she would have, and pursed the lady of the house instead of actually doing his duties. She didn't care much about this, she simply wished she wasn't stuck in the middle of the most awkward family dinner she'd ever come upon in her life.

    Meanwhile right outside the dining room entrance, Hiromi was being accosted by the wanderer who hadn't gone far from his original post. It seemed he had words to share with her, from a proximity so close it made her heart thud within her chest. She took a breath as she shifted her glance to avoid the rather intense eye contact she knew she was sure to find if she looked. "Actually, I left because that child is always a brat and her father does nothing about it. Besides that level of bratty behavior was shown exclusively because you decided to flirt with me to piss off my husband. You don't know when to quit do you?" she asked of the young boy before her. Even so she couldn't deny that he was incredibly close and she was quite aroused by the idea of having him now knowing it would be a rather easy way to proverbially stick it to both her husband and her spoiled daughter. One of whom failed to notice the obvious flirting with his wife in spite of the words spoken directly, and the other who managed to be more upset that it wasn't her receiving the attention.

  8. #218
    "And I told you, not while I live! That boy will have no hand in my years of work, building this country from nothing more than ideals! If you were to wed some trash like that boy, all of my work was for naught!" If it were at all possible, Ouetsu rather angrily chomped into the piece of steak upon his fork, driving his teeth into it repeatedly, until there was no toughness left to it. In this precise moment, he somewhat wished it had been Kazumi to leave the room, not Hiromi. On the other hand, he was glad it worked out how it did, as he still disliked the idea of Kazumi being alone with the ronin. Little did he know...

    In the meantime, Youko received Hiromi's response. He did not fail to notice her gaze was away from him, but he was not deterred by something so trivial. In fact, he saw this action not as dismissal, but as avoidance in some respect. This made a grin appear on his face as his free hand rose to touch the cheek of the woman. "So you didn't leave just to come looking for me? That's sad... and, no, I don't know when to quit. You're wrong, though. I wasn't flirting with you to piss Toku-jii off; I can do that by saying hello. I was flirting with you because I was certain you wanted me to. Was I wrong?"

  9. #219
    "Why does that even matter, it's your work not mine!" the girl was adamant that her father's ideas were lost on her. She wanted Youko and as selfish as that was, she thought it was more ridiculous that her father sought to control her life as an extension of his. Unbeknownst to her, Benihime whole heartedly agreed with this sentiment, and felt at least a little for her plight as a young woman simply trying to find her way in the world. Not that she'd voice that at this point. 'Parents forcing kids to do stuff is horrible. Even so, she talks to people like she doesn't understand the depth of the world. She's sheltered and spoiled and has no idea what the world is actually like. She just found her a man that satisfies her and wants to keep him. Yare, yare... this is making my skin crawl...' the redhead thought though her demeanor remained as absent as it always was, meanwhile the bratty child pushed away her plate. "Well fine! Be that way!" and just like that the girl got up from the table and left the dining room, though the opposite door of the one her mother and Youko were against, as if she intended to travel through the kitchens instead. With her leaving the room, Benihime let go of a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, this situation was rather stressful and she needed to get far away from it, but couldn't so long as Ouetsu demanded she stay.

    And while her daughter pleaded with her father about her desire to wed the ronin, Hiromi was being confronted by that very individual. He spoke on his sadness that she hadn't come out looking for him, though if she thought about it reasonably she knew she probably would have talked herself into doing exactly that if given enough time. "Well... I... uh... actually..." she stumbled over her words as his hand touched her face. "I suppose you aren't wrong..." she said about the flirting. If she was being honest, she'd jumped at the opportunity to be paid attention to, both he and the redhead had managed to give her the sort of attention she craved by way of her absentee husband. "I didn't come looking for you, I might have done later... after talking myself into it, I do that from time to time..." she said, knowing full well she'd talked herself into doing several things in the last 24 hours that she wouldn't have dreamed of before. She found herself being a bit more confident and hazarded a gaze towards this man's face.

  10. #220
    "My work will be your business one day!" Ouetsu replied, knowing very well that Kazumi was in line to take up his legacy, should he fail in his endeavors at any point. Of course, there was much more to this than the Daimyou was willing to share, but there would be no future issues if he had his way. Speaking of having one's way, Kazumi did not have hers once more, and thus she left the dining hall through the opposite path of the others. This left him in the room with only his most recent hire, but that was fine as well. "I appreciate your silence, Suzukou, but you are free to speak. Tell me, would you truly be unopposed to some extra work? I may be getting rid of that Katsuhara after all, and I'd rather keep one such as yourself on hand. I don't trust that boy as far as I can throw him..."

    The male being spoken of was just about pressed against Hiromi at this very moment. Much to his expectation, she confirmed his suspicions while finally permitting some level of eye contact between them. In that moment, Youko's piercing gaze fell upon the shifting demeanor of this woman, whilst she spoke of talking herself into approaching him. "Hoh? Hell of a thing to have as an occasional activity. What else do you do from time to time, huh? I'm really itching to find out, onna~" he said, closing the distance between himself and Hiromi until his lips virtually brushed against hers during his speech.

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