Ficlet: Traitor
Another in the Other Side series. Requested by Nezu. Much love for her and Ginta. <3333
Traitor
Okano Mitsutada exhaled, squinting at the papers in front of him. In the corner of his desk was a tray full of scrolls, each one urgent and demanding immediate action. But the paper he was reading demanded it all.
Traitor.
Just that one word, and cold beads of sweat was already trickling down his temple. Who? Who could the traitor be? He had so many men, and each one was just as likely. So many body guards and now they felt like a cage. Or maybe it was his advisors, the men who read the political winds like a book and told him who to kill, who to bribe, and helped him get to the point he was today.
All of them could be one. Or was this meant to make him paranoid? An outside enemy, co-opting one of his spies?
But. If that was so, then. If one is lost, how many have been feeding him false threads of information?
Misutada traced threads and lies and silken words through his mind, and he knew he could trust no one.
"Mitsutada-san?"
Except.
Uramatsu Takanao bowed, his soft white-blond hair falling into his face, and the short young man tugged the errant strands behind his ear and spectacles, only looking up at him when Misutada curtly told him to straighten.
A very polite, well brought up young man, he was a jewel in his cohort of advisors, always checking back with him or the other more experienced advisers. He had the occasional brilliant insight, and while it didn't always turn out to be correct, the boy was obviously learning, and pathetically eager to please. While he'd only been here for a month, everything about him turned out to be as anyone could expect, a boy who was prim and proper outside in his workplace, and had a furtive clandestine affair with an older advisor. In Mitsutada's experience, people coudln't keep more than one secret that big. Takanao was the only one he could trust, because what else could he hide?
"Mitsutada-san, I have something I need to tell you." The boy's blue eyes were earnest, worried. Maybe it related to the traitor message?
"Approach."
Takanao bowed again, and padded up on soft feet, right up to Mitsutada's desk. "Did you receive a message?" he asked, his eyes flicking down briefly to the message, and then up to Mitsutada's face.
He was. Takanao knew about it. "What do you have to tell me?"
"I had to tell you."
When Mitsutada frowned, looking up at the boy's pause, he was disconcerted by the boy's grin.
"My name's not Takanao."
Mitsutada barely had time to see the short kodachi slice across his neck before he started to choke and drown in his own bodily fluids.
The assassin shifted back to avoid the spray of blood, watched him jerk for five seconds before turning to the papers on the desk. He plucked out a sheet and a scroll, rolled them up and placed them into his sleeve, before pulling a black mask over the lower half of his face and exited through the window.
He left behind Uramatsu Takanao and a corpse.
Traitor
Okano Mitsutada exhaled, squinting at the papers in front of him. In the corner of his desk was a tray full of scrolls, each one urgent and demanding immediate action. But the paper he was reading demanded it all.
Traitor.
Just that one word, and cold beads of sweat was already trickling down his temple. Who? Who could the traitor be? He had so many men, and each one was just as likely. So many body guards and now they felt like a cage. Or maybe it was his advisors, the men who read the political winds like a book and told him who to kill, who to bribe, and helped him get to the point he was today.
All of them could be one. Or was this meant to make him paranoid? An outside enemy, co-opting one of his spies?
But. If that was so, then. If one is lost, how many have been feeding him false threads of information?
Misutada traced threads and lies and silken words through his mind, and he knew he could trust no one.
"Mitsutada-san?"
Except.
Uramatsu Takanao bowed, his soft white-blond hair falling into his face, and the short young man tugged the errant strands behind his ear and spectacles, only looking up at him when Misutada curtly told him to straighten.
A very polite, well brought up young man, he was a jewel in his cohort of advisors, always checking back with him or the other more experienced advisers. He had the occasional brilliant insight, and while it didn't always turn out to be correct, the boy was obviously learning, and pathetically eager to please. While he'd only been here for a month, everything about him turned out to be as anyone could expect, a boy who was prim and proper outside in his workplace, and had a furtive clandestine affair with an older advisor. In Mitsutada's experience, people coudln't keep more than one secret that big. Takanao was the only one he could trust, because what else could he hide?
"Mitsutada-san, I have something I need to tell you." The boy's blue eyes were earnest, worried. Maybe it related to the traitor message?
"Approach."
Takanao bowed again, and padded up on soft feet, right up to Mitsutada's desk. "Did you receive a message?" he asked, his eyes flicking down briefly to the message, and then up to Mitsutada's face.
He was. Takanao knew about it. "What do you have to tell me?"
"I had to tell you."
When Mitsutada frowned, looking up at the boy's pause, he was disconcerted by the boy's grin.
"My name's not Takanao."
Mitsutada barely had time to see the short kodachi slice across his neck before he started to choke and drown in his own bodily fluids.
The assassin shifted back to avoid the spray of blood, watched him jerk for five seconds before turning to the papers on the desk. He plucked out a sheet and a scroll, rolled them up and placed them into his sleeve, before pulling a black mask over the lower half of his face and exited through the window.
He left behind Uramatsu Takanao and a corpse.