When he saw the movement in the treeline, Mitsue knew that his time had run out. He stayed quiet and still, sitting on the pier, but inwardly he cursed his karma. He started to second-guess his actions. Should he have hidden until the last minute?

  No, he decided. If his pursuers had found him here, then they knew what he was here for. They would know that he had to be on this ferry. If he’d hidden in the town or the wilderness, they would have been able to intercept him. Or just sink the boat, if they dared.

  He had been so close, though. Dawn was coming, and the boat arrived a few scant minutes after that. Just a little bit longer, and he would have been free.

  Exposed like this, he must have been noticed. There was no point in running; nowhere left to run. All that remained was for him to face his fate with dignity.

  A single man, dressed all in black, stepped onto the pier. Mitsue’s eyes narrowed. Doctrine when making a capture was to use three agents to ensure the outcome was never in doubt. That was the common practice for executions as well, but there were some in his Clan who preferred to work alone.

  When the man stepped under one of the few street lights that illuminated the pier at night, Mitsue’s eyes narrowed. He knew this assassin.

  So, he has decided to make this personal, Mitsue thought. That was always a mistake, but it was a mistake that everyone made, at least once. Like his sister…

  Perhaps I will live to see the dawn, after all, Mitsue thought. Kuroda Ryuji was skilled, but Mitsue had beaten him before in spars. Perhaps… two times in five. It was a chance.

  Wary, but unable to tamp down the hope that surged in his heart, Mitsue decided to face his executioner with the proper respect. He rose and turned to face the approaching ninja.

  Ryuji stopped just within earshot of a normal voice. Encouraged, Mitsue gave a proper bow.

  “Your sister is dead,” was the first thing that Kuroda Ryuji said.

  Mitsue didn’t let the pain show. “She was dead the moment she threw me out the window,” he replied. “She sacrificed herself to save her younger brother.”

  “Why?” Ryuji asked, with far more emotion than was proper. “Why did she turn on the Clan?”

  Mitsue blinked. “The Clan turned on her, Kuroda-senpai. She learned something… something that she was not supposed to know. It marked her for death. I never knew the secret, but… she was my sister. I had to support her.”

  Ryuji snorted. “You don’t even know the reason for your death?”

  Mitsue’s eyebrows rose. “I am to die because I tried to help my sister escape,” he said. “As reasons to die go, it is a fine one.”

  He tensed himself to dodge. Now that a conversation had started, it would be poor form to attack him without warning. But Ryuji had started talking without a greeting, which was just as rude.

  Ryuji continued to defy expectations by not attacking. He continued to talk.

  “You’re going to that place,” he said. “To tie your fate to their purposes.”

  “We did not receive official notification that the village had severed all ties with us, but we assumed it was so once the fighting started,” Mitsue said carefully.

  “Was this her idea, then?”

  “It was. Without a sanctuary to run to, escaping the village could only be a temporary solution.”

  “You think this isn’t? Three years isn’t a lifetime.”

  “It is three years longer than we had,” Mitsue said philosophically. “It is three years of growth, of strengthening existing skills and learning new ones. It is three years to find friends who will stand by me.”

  The words were not his, but his sister’s. They were all that he had of her, now.

  “You think the allies you make there will stand against the village?” Ryuji asked scornfully.

  “Who knows? The students there are said to be a powerful and capricious lot. Perhaps in three years, the village will have moved on.”

  “Unlikely,” Ryuji said. Then he paused and swallowed. “Look, I—”

  He stopped. Mitsue waited patiently. It was unlikely that this conversation would go on long enough, but it wasn’t impossible.

  “I—” Ryuji tried again. “I… liked your sister.”

  Mitsue stared blankly. “I’m sorry, but she never mentioned you to me.”

  “I never told her, all right? She didn’t know.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “I see…” Mitsue said. He didn’t exactly, but matters were becoming clearer. “This is why you came alone?”

  “Part of it,” Ryuji admitted.

  Mitsue tried to understand what was going on. He tried to read the half-covered face of his opponent.

  “There is no need for recriminations,” he said. “Even if it was you who struck the final blow. You could hardly be expected to turn against your family for a crush you hadn’t even confessed to.”

  Ryuji flinched. Mitsue seemed to be winning the emotional battle, even if he couldn’t see the battlefield.

  “That’s not— I didn’t— It doesn’t matter,” Ryuji said. “I came to make sure that no one else did.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mitsue said.

  “I’m letting you go,” Ryuji explained. “It’s… what she wanted.”

  Mitsue let the silence extend. “I feel that if I thank you, you’ll change your mind,” he finally said.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Ryuji said with a snort of laughter. “I’ve said my piece, so I’m out of here. Good luck in your new school.”

  Before Mitsue left, Kuroda Ryuji appeared once more. He showed up at the end of the pier, waving at the boat as it left. Mitsue tentatively waved back, still not sure what to think. When Ryuji saw that he had Mitsue’s attention, he made a sign in the finger-talk of their clan. It was a short message.

  I lied.

  Mitsue was left to ponder that message for the rest of the trip. He hadn’t found any answers by the time he landed on the island. What had Ryuji lied to him about? Not about letting him go, it seemed, which was the important thing.

  The boat had been a special charter arranged by his sister before her death. They were expecting him. They were also expecting his sister, but nobody said anything about that.

  He was not expecting to be met by a maid at the docks, let alone a Western one. He reminded himself to keep an open mind. Aramara recruited from a wider pool than just Japan.

  “I can take your luggage,” she informed him. Expectantly.

  “I do not have any,” he told her. He had barely escaped his former fellow villagers too many times to keep anything other than what he was carrying.

  “I see,” she said disapprovingly. “Follow me.”

  He did so, getting into the back seat of a Bentley. Modified with an electric engine from the look of things. An odd blend of traditional and modern.

  The maid drove him up to the main building and then led him to an opulent waiting room.

  “Please be seated,” she said. “The president will see you shortly.”

  Mitsue frowned. Wasn’t the head of an academy the headmaster? He noticed that the door the maid went through was marked with an embossed brass plate.

  President of the Student Council.

  That explained… very little, really. Why was the student council handling enrollments? There was no one to ask, so Mitsue resolved to wait patiently. As promised, he was not kept waiting long.

  “The president will see you now,” the maid told him. He followed her into the office.

  The office of the President of the Student Council was… plush. Richly furnished, with wood-panelled walls. Oil paintings covered three of the walls, and the final one was taken up with a large picture window. Sitting in front of the window was a large, ornate desk, and sitting behind it was… the president. Older than Mitsue, but still young, with a shock of expertly tousled dark hair. Haircuts in the village tended to the simple and short, and Mitsue found himself jealous of the President’s access to stylists.

  Right now, the President was busying himself with paperwork, but he indicated that Mitsue should sit in one of the chairs in front of the desk. One of the two chairs. Mitsue took a seat without comment.

  After writing a few more lines, the President looked up. “My name is Yamada Shintaro, the president of the Student Council. You are Kageya Mitsue-san.”

  Mitsue got up and bowed. “As you say, Yamada-san.”

  Yamada Shintaro frowned. “We were expecting your sister.”

  Mitsue bowed again. “She has unfortunately passed away, Yamada-san,” he said politely.

  “I’m aware that you think that, but our information is rather better than yours. She is alive.”

  Mitsue gaped at the man. “She is alive?” he said. So that was what Ryuji was lying about?

  “She is. What she is not, is here,” Shintaro said testily. “Your enrollment was conditional on hers, and she is not here.”

  “I understand,” Mitsue said. “I have to go find my sister now, so I will be out of your hair as soon as the next ferry leaves.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Sit down,” Shintaro said. Mitsue did so and then looked at his legs in surprise. He hadn’t had any intention of obeying the President, but his legs did anyway.

  The President waved a piece of paper at him. “You know very well that you wouldn’t last a minute trying to rescue your sister.”

  “Perhaps not, but I could at least try,” Mitsue said reasonably. He gave walking out another go… it didn’t work.

  “This has upset things,” Shitaro told him. “Events don’t always go as planned, but now calculations need to be… recalculated. Prophecies need to be reinterpreted.”

  “If I might ask,” Mitsue said. “Why is the Student Council President interpreting prophecies in the first place?”

  “I’m not,” Shintaro said evenly. “That is the province of the administrators. Concerning themselves with such matters is why… lesser administrative details have to be handled by the Council.”

  He gestured at the piles of paperwork on his desk.

  “I see,” Mitsue said.

  “Returning to the subject at hand, I can’t let you leave until the wrinkles in this development have been worked out.”

  “You intend to keep me prisoner?”

  “Do I need to? Are you that eager to run to your death?”

  Mitsue thought about it. He didn’t like the answer, so he thought about it some more.

  “I want to save my sister,” he said reluctantly, “But I do realise that I cannot. Perhaps with your help…”

  He looked at the professionally bland face of Shintaro. It gave away nothing.

  “But you owe me nothing. If you help, it will only be in accordance with these prophecies of yours.”

  “It’s not that your troubles are without merit,” Shintaro explained. “But there are… higher concerns.”

  Mitsue sighed. “To be honest, I have nowhere else to go. I will allow you to detain me, for as long as these prophesies take.”

  “A wise decision,” Shintaro said. “Then, you will start with the new school year.”

  “Enrollment?” Mitsue asked. “But the deal was not honoured… I have no money for tuition.”

  Shintaro waved dismissively. “Rest assured, tuition is not an issue. The wealthy pay handsome sums to send their children here, hoping their families will become powerful. The ones that want to be here subsidise the costs of the other students, the ones that need to be here.”

  “And am I… one of the second group?” Mitsue asked.

  “You have nowhere else to go,” the President said. “You are being kept here against your will. And you still have a connection to your sister. I would be shocked if you didn’t turn out to be a missing piece of our jigsaw puzzle.”

  He came out from behind the desk, and Mitsue found himself standing again. The President shook his hand.

  “Claudette will get you set up with an allowance and show you your new room in the dorms,” he said. “Welcome to Aramara Academy.”