Fujiwara Chise's Scheme (1)
Early morning.
Noah sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. Out of habit she scratched the back of her neck—and realized, today of all days, that her hair was a hopeless tangle.
"Ah."
She hesitated a beat, then gathered the mess roughly with the hair tie around her wrist.
When she shuffled to her feet, Chise—a towel wrapped around her body—greeted her.
"Good morning!"
Noah answered, still fussing with her hair.
"Horrible morning."
"Hair all knotted?"
"Yeah."
"I'm done washing up, so it's your turn."
"Yeah."
Chise frowned at how gloomy Noah looked today, then understanding dawned and she broke into a bright smile. Something glittered in her eyes. Noah headed into the bathroom.
A little later, Noah emerged freshly washed, shook her head like a puppy, and started drying her hair. Chise helped from beside her. On any other morning Noah would have recoiled and shut it down at once—I'll dry my own hair—but today she was uncharacteristically meek.
"All done!"
"Ah. Yeah."
She put on the neatly folded clothes one piece at a time. Sitting on the bed in a half-daze, she tugged her knee-highs all the way up, buttoned her blouse, and finally stepped into her skirt.
Then Chise held out something white from beside her.
"Noah. Didn't you forget something?"
Noah's vacant pupils trembled.
"So the bastard finally showed up."
"Mm. He arrived a little early this time."
"A week of war, then."
"You're irregular, so it might wrap up sooner."
Noah unzipped the skirt she had just put on and let it drop with a soft thud.
Chise wiped the corner of her mouth.
If I pounce right now… it might actually work?
No, Chise! Taking advantage of her when she's at her weakest is a crime against human decency! That's Suzuki talking!
Chise swallowed hard and, with superhuman restraint, turned her back.
A few soft rustles later, Noah's worn-out voice drifted over.
"Done."
"Shall we go?"
"Yeah."
Today was the day the spell took Noah.
That day that comes for every woman.
It differs from person to person. Some grow irritable and throw tantrums; some sail through without a flicker of pain. Noah's case, however, was in a league of its own.
Pain, though, is nothing more than the brain recognizing a stimulus, sorting out what kind it is, and feeling it.
So what happens if you simply let go of your mind?
You stop feeling the pain.
This was Noah's secret technique, honed since her previous life. The so-called Pain Block.
Which meant the Noah of this moment had abandoned reason entirely—and was running on pure instinct.
"Where're you goooing?"
"I'm going to the bathroom!"
"I'll come too."
"Here. Hand."
She got clingier than usual.
"Ah—are you okay?"
"It hurts…"
And weaker than usual.
"F-Fujiwara-senpai?"
Yuria asked in bewilderment, staring at a Noah who was, by any measure, a completely different person.
"Minamoto-senpai, is something wrong? She seems like somebody else entirely."
"Ah. Today's that day."
Yuria thought for a moment about what day that might be, then blinked.
"Pardon…?"
"Noah has it dozens of times worse than a normal person. She's in a lot of pain."
"Th-that doesn't look like she's just in pain, though…?"
How to put it. She was more—
More…
Utterly adorable.
Nothing like her usual fierce self.
Chise grinned.
"She just doesn't have the bandwidth left for the outside world. You could call it Noah's own way of conserving her strength?"
"She's not a squirrel…"
Yuria swallowed. She stared hard at Noah. Even on a normal day, if she simply sat still she looked gentle. Today that gentleness felt sharper, quieter, almost inviting.
If it's now…?
Yuria had always wanted to touch Noah. Just once. A single time. Wasn't this her chance to make that dream come true? Noah looked completely unguarded. Harmless, even.
Swallowing dryly, Yuria stepped closer.
"Hey."
Chise, who had been steeping tea, spotted the scene a beat too late and reached out. She was already too late.
A dry metallic click.
Noah had a pistol trained on Yuria's forehead.
"Eh?"
Yuria froze, eyes vacant.
Light descended from the heavens. The light changed shape. It was an angel.
"I've been waiting for you, baby……"
Grandpa…?
A kindly smile. It was Yuria's grandfather—the one she had so desperately wished to see, even if only in a dream. A single tear rolled down her cheek.
Grandpa! I missed you! Why don't you come to my dreams anymore? But it's okay now—
"But it's too early now, bitch!"
"Guh—!"
Yuria crumpled to the floor.
"Are you okay?"
Chise asked, worried. Yuria stared at her with vacant eyes. Then her face crumpled and she started to wail.
"Waaaaaah! Why only meee?!"
Soft, even breathing. Noah was fast asleep in Chise's arms.
Yuria glared at her with puffed-out cheeks.
"Why does senpai only do that to me? She won't even let me touch a single hair."
"You can't just walk up to Noah during this time. Except for the bare minimum of reason, she's pouring everything into cutting the pain, so she can't tell friend from foe."
That was not comforting in the slightest.
"She's perfectly well-behaved with you, Fujiwara-senpai! You're stroking her as much as you want right now."
"Oh my. Are you jealous?"
Chise tilted her head. Yuria looked away and sipped at tea that was already gone.
"Does the air taste good?"
"There was some left, actually."
She answered primly, then fidgeted. Chise found her adorable.
"Don't be too disappointed. I'm just Noah's possession, that's all. Nobody puts their guard up around their own belongings, do they?"
"Eh?"
Chise chuckled at Yuria's flustered face, then started talking.
"Ichinose, how much do you know about the history of the Minamoto and the Fujiwara?"
"...I know the Fujiwara Clan comes from imperial blood."
"Not exactly imperial. They just succeeded at becoming regents after a long campaign of purges and intrigue. Installing puppet emperors, that sort of thing. So what do you think the Minamoto are?"
Yuria thought for a moment. She wasn't particularly well-versed in Japanese history. It was too hard, and more than that, she hadn't been interested. She was a physical type; she'd focused on training her martial arts. But this much she knew.
The clan whose civil wars had been the fiercest in Japanese history. The clan that had, quite literally, wrecked the Japanese archipelago. Thanks to them, later generations had twice as much to study.
In a word, the Minamoto were……
"Troublemakers?"
"Ahaha."
Chise burst out laughing in a thoroughly undignified way—something she hadn't done in a long time. Wasn't that the perfect analogy?
"That's right. Troublemakers, the Minamoto. Then and now. They make life difficult for the Fujiwara."
"But why the sudden history lesson…?"
"Because if I want to tell Ichinose what she actually wants to know, we have to go back a thousand years?"
Chise beamed. Yuria made a sour face.
"Is it that far back?"
Chise nodded.
"You don't have to listen if you don't want to. It'll probably be boring."
But Yuria wanted to know. She had no interest in history—she was interested in Chise and Noah.
"Please tell me. I'm curious."
"You know the Minamoto were a shogunal house, don't you?"
"A shogunal house? What's that…?"
Recalling that Yuria had originally been a foreigner, Chise explained.
"It means the ones who ruled the Japanese archipelago."
Yuria answered the earlier question.
"Ah, right. More or less. Open a history book and it's nothing but Minamoto stories, so I knew they were a big deal."
"Even when the Minamoto were the shogunal house, the Fujiwara still controlled the imperial court. What do you think the Fujiwara chose to do?"
"W-well. I wouldn't know."
She felt like she'd learned it in class, but nothing came to mind. Chise took a sip of tea.
"They were born for intrigue and politics. A cowardly clan that knew nothing else. So they were terrified. Of the Minamoto, who had real power."
"Eh… so? Did they surrender?"
"No. The Fujiwara fought the Fujiwara way. They sowed discord, turned the Minamoto against each other, and placed a bet on one of them. That's how the Age of Blood began—the Minamoto civil war Ichinose hates so much."
"Th-that's basically a blood feud, isn't it? This is all in the history books, right?"
Chise shook her head.
"What I just told you isn't something ordinary people know. I said it, didn't I? The Fujiwara are cowards. We wouldn't go around advertising anything that makes us look bad."
Yuria swallowed dryly.
"That's completely… n-never mind."
"Awful, right? The Fujiwara. They just use people."
She'd heard that more Japanese had died in that civil war than in the First World War. Honestly, that was what she'd been thinking—but Yuria said nothing. The Fujiwara sitting in front of her wasn't the Fujiwara of a thousand years ago, after all.
Still, it felt strange. A story out of history. It was so distant to Yuria it might as well have been myth—and yet a figure from that myth was sitting right in front of her, stroking a sleeping girl's hair.
Chise went on.
"The Fujiwara bet paid off. Luckily, the man they'd backed in the war was regarded as the strongest Minamoto in history. As a result, the Fujiwara were able to bind the Minamoto with a debt of gratitude—a curse, really."
Yuria asked, looking uncomfortable.
"And the Minamoto just sat still once they found out?"
"Of course not. The moment the bloody purge ended, the Minamoto tried to clean up the Fujiwara."
"What? You just used the word curse."
Chise smiled brightly.
"The Minamoto knew from the start. That the whole war had been set in motion by the Fujiwara. But they accepted it. Taking what you want by force is the Minamoto way. They absolutely demolished the Fujiwara."
Chise was using some fairly violent language. Yuria listened in silence.
"Even so, wiping out the Fujiwara entirely sat poorly with the Minamoto. The emperor was standing behind them, you know? That's a different problem from raw power. So instead, they took a prize."
"A prize…?"
"Mm. The Fujiwara clan head at the time was a woman. Apparently she caught his eye."
Extremely barbaric… but also kind of cool. Do I… have this kind of taste?
Hey, Icchi. Be a good girl and become my wife.
M-Minamoto-senpai…?
Yuria shook her head hard, banishing the fantasy.
"What the Minamoto clan head said then is incredibly famous."
"How about that?"
"Th-that's incredibly romantic."
"Right? I imagine our ancestor at the time didn't entirely hate it either. A woman's inevitable instinct to be drawn to the strong."
"And after that they made up…? You two senpai get along so well now."
"Calling it making up would be a little off. The Fujiwara were, to the end, spoils of war. But Minamoto possessiveness is truly something else. Unexpectedly, they were kind, and they protected them. From the Fujiwara side, there was nothing to complain about. No—the Fujiwara of today only exist because the Minamoto lent them their strength."
Yuria answered faintly.
"...That's overflowing with romance."
"Right? The Minamoto are romance."
Chise looked bashful.
"That's why the Fujiwara devote themselves to the Minamoto. They offer the finest woman of each generation. The chosen woman must be the heir, and someday she has to go to the Minamoto and give them everything—body and soul."
The way Chise said it sounded a little suggestive. But Yuria had just realized something enormous.
"Then even now…?"
Chise laughed playfully.
"That's right. I'm the heir to the Fujiwara, and I'm fated to offer everything to the Minamoto."
Yuria was a little thrown. Noah was a girl, so she couldn't be the counterpart. A family of that stature would have plenty of children. Which meant Chise was supposed to marry some other Minamoto, didn't it?
"That can't be right! You're going to marry some man you barely know? For some outdated reason like that? It's 2025! That's just… too miserable."
"Hm? What are you talking about."
Chise toyed with Noah's cheek.
"I told you, didn't I? I'm Noah's possession."
"Eh?"
Yuria blinked.
The current Minamoto line had only one descendant: Noah. Having reflected on the past, the Minamoto made a point of having only one child.
"W-wait a second—then you don't mean—!"
Chise smiled sunnily.
A shocking truth.
"Ehhh—!"
Yuria couldn't take it.
"That doesn't make any sense! Two girls can't make a baby, you know!"
"Hehe. The marriage part is a joke. We are engaged, but it's in name only. It's tradition. Just a procedure to make the Minamoto recognize who they're supposed to protect, and to imprint on the Fujiwara who they're supposed to devote themselves to."
"I-I see."
"...Of course, I fully intend to actually marry her."
"...Senpai?"
"Hm? It's nothing."
"Y-you just definitely—!"
Chise smiled with her eyes and stressed it again.
"It's nothing."