☆` someone once told me the grass is much greener

[kagayakashi]

Who: Gracia (kagayakashi) & Akechi Mitsuhide (wavesoakedlegs).
Location: Their home, living room.
Time: Morning-ish? After New Years.
Style: [ ACTION ] tags, for efficiency? Unless you want prose, Bell. That's cool with me too!
Status: Closed.

[ The sound of footsteps, and then... ]

Father?

[ Gracia approaches Mitsuhide in the living room with her hands behind her back. She looks curious about something, with those wide eyes and that lower lip pouting slightly to the side. ]

Can you tell me the answer to something?

[ She takes another step forward and leans her elbows on the nearest plush chair. The tone she uses seems like the question is lighthearted enough, but still. With Gracia, you don't know what you're going to get. ]

Comments

[wavesoakedlegs]

[Mitsuhide is sat on one of the sofas, a book on his lap. He doesn't turn the pages often, which suggests his mind is elsewhere. He blinks when Gracia addresses. After examining her face for a moment he smiles and nods his head.]

I can try.

[After carefully placing a bookmark within his book, Mitsuhide closes it and puts it to one side.]

What's on your mind?

[kagayakashi]

[ Gracia plops herself down on the plush seat she was leaning on just a few seconds before, her gaze never straying from her father's face. Not one to beat around the bush, Gracia continues; ]

[ She remembers the sight of his scars, and she remembers that conversation in the tattoo parlor all too clearly. ]

Father, what does..."sacrifice" mean? Truly?

[ Gracia inches forward on her seat, eager to know the truth. ]

[wavesoakedlegs]

[That question surprises Mitsuhide, and it shows. His lips part and he frowns a little, before giving a logical and basic response:]

Loss of something, to benefit something else.

[Mitsuhide's eyes slide closed then, as he attempts to steady himself. This is not going to be an easy conversation at all. He can already feel certain emotions welling up in his chest, and none of them good. But it would not be fair for his daughter to be exposed to them again. Bad enough that he allowed himself to burden her with them in the past.]

That's not the answer you're looking for, though, is it?

[He pauses, quiet for a moment as he thinks how best to approach her question properly.]

Gracia, you know of the sacrifices I have made, correct? Before I try to answer, I want to know how you feel about them. I know it will be hard, but for this... it is necessary.

[kagayakashi]

[ His question brings up Gracia's own discomfort. But she inhaled deeply and faced it wholeheartedly. After all, she knew what she was walking into the moment she decided to ask her question. She was ready to face whatever came their way - bad memories, insecurities, fears and all - so long as she finally understood what it all meant. Why all the war, why all the bloodshed...when in the first place, they raised their swords to stop war itself.

It just boggled Gracia to no end. She frowns and glances back up at Mitsuhide's face when she replies. ]

I..I don't like them. [ Pause. ] I don't like it when you get hurt. Father only wanted a caring, gentle land. You wanted your dream to come true. I feel very sad that only a few people saw what you were really trying to do.

[ Gracia feels a lump forming in her throat, but she swallows it away and continues. Her eye contact breaks, however, and she focuses her gaze to a particular spot on the floor instead. ]

[wavesoakedlegs]

[That is as he expected. It is odd; married as she is, woman as she is, there is a side of her that is very childlike. She adores her father, she puts him before all other things.]

[It makes him both happy and sad, to know she is like that. Two opposite feelings, entwined in his heart.

Do you think there was another way to achive that dream, Gracia?

[He tries to stop the sadness from becoming obvious in his face.]

In the land we came from? Would would have happened, do you think, if I had rejected my blade from the first moment it was given to me?

[He's not inferring any particular answer. Mitsuhide just wants her to think, and guide her to a conclusion rather than giving her one.]

[kagayakashi]

[ He's successful in making her think, certainly. Gracia clenches the lining of the seat firmly, as if his question had literally swept her off of her feet, off into another world. Their world. In her mind, she's returned, and there is no lovely home under the sea, no new friends, no cute pets to play with. There is only a battlefield, stained with blood. Bodies left and right, dead or dying, underneath an equally sunset red sky.

She inhales sharply, and looks back up at Mitsuhide with the most hesitant of glances. ]

I...I don't know what would have happened. [ She speaks the truth. She tries to imagine it, but perhaps it's because of her lack of experience that it's difficult for her to picture it. Her father, not the strongest warrior she knows, but someone else entirely. Someone who did not fight for the weak, and for honor and justice and peace. She continues; ]

So you needed to sacrifice things that were important to you for you to achieve what you wanted? Why? I don't understand it at all. Why do you have to risk what matters to you the most for you to achieve peace?

[ It frustrated her, and it showed in her tone and in her body language. The way she shook her head and spoke as if she was asking herself all of these questions. ]

[wavesoakedlegs]

[A deep sigh.]

It was not a matter of I 'had' to. Just that I had to be prepared to make such risks.

[What Mitsuhide says next is beyond difficult for him; his body tenses up as he speaks. That he can even say it out loud is a sign of how far he has come, but it is still hard to deal with the subject of the Demon King. It probably always would be.]

There are always men who will fight and kill simply to fuel their own desire to rule, to gain power.

[He lowers his head.]

If... if Nobunaga had united the land and becomes its ruler, what kind of land do you think Japan would have become?

[kagayakashi]

[ There were many things she was unsure of at the moment - and even back then, everything was all a jumble of who was right, who was wrong, and what was in between - but no matter what, Gracia would hold true to the words she speaks next. ]

It would be a frightening place to be in...[ She speaks softly, her hands clench at her upper arms as she holds back a small shiver. ] And that's what I don't understand. [ Gracia shakes her head. ] He sacrificed the lives of many people to gain power, but only you saw that he was hurting others, and his land wouldn't be a gentle land. When you did what you had to do in order to achieve peace, nobody came to your side.

[ Gradually, her voice rises and she looks back at her father's eyes with a fiery gaze. Not only did the memories frustrate her, they angered her. Made her lose her way. Confused her.

Scared her, more than Nobunaga's ambition ever would. ]

You sacrificed just as much as Nobunaga. And Hideyoshi. [ The anger becomes even more evident now. Wildfire behind pale green eyes. ]

What makes them such heroes, and you such a villain?

[wavesoakedlegs]

To betray one's Lord is considered a sin. A grave sin at that. When I chose to rebel, Gracia, I was fully aware that people would think badly of me.

[Mitsuhide sighs, deeply, and looks away. It is not an easy task, to stare into eyes so angry on his behalf. Gracia loves him, she is his child, and she sees him in the best possible light. But she shouldn't have to feel bad for him. It wasn't fair to her.]

I became a sinner to protect Lord Motochika, and stop Lord Nobunaga's... tyranny.

[Memories of Honnouji flood his mind again, and he can see the Demon King smiling, even as he dies.]

That was a sacrifice, my girl. I know now I would not change what I did, even though it burns at me every day. Even though I must live with the knowledge that I am a traitor.

[kagayakashi]

That's so unfair! [ She stands up abruptly, without breaking eye contact even though her father has long looked away from her. She trembles, and more so than ever, the truth is obscured from her reasoning. ] You did what you had to do, for a gentle land! For peace! Nobunaga...he killed more people, he was cruel and frightening...does that mean that his sacrifices and sins are more forgivable than yours? Just because he's your Lord?

[ Gracia was never one to adhere to hierarchy seriously. She openly defied authority when she saw it fit to do so. Even back home, with her own husband... ]

Nobunaga's a traitor too! He betrayed you, didn't he? Tyranny! [ She exhales heavily. Her father trusted him to bring peace and justice to Japan. He clearly didn't deliver, no matter what he said. ] That's why you had to do what you did. I just don't understand any of it at all...

[ Gracia plops back down on her seat, and sinks into it, eyes closed and hands over her face. The more she spoke, the more she felt the emotions she tried to deny so very long ago. ]

[wavesoakedlegs]

He did not betray me. As his vassal, I was to do what was expected of me under his orders. Lord Nobunaga had no duty to carry out my vision, only I to carry out his.

[A pause, as he collects his thoughts and steadies himself. After this he is going to need a long period alone. It's agony to him, but helping Gracia must come before his own problems.]

In our country, Gracia, betraying one's Lord is a high sin, as I have said. It would have been considered more acceptable had I remained loyal, and you must understand, many believed the Demon King's methods necessary...

[Mitsuhide folds his hands in his lap. He isn't sure she will ever understand this, not really. Not when he doesn't himself, sometimes.]

You are my child. You love me, you see only the best in me. That is not the case for most others.