Page 82 of Kotori
"Loyal servants." I let satisfaction color my tone. "How interesting that loyalty now includes undermining authority, questioning judgment, fabricating evidence, and meeting in secret to discuss my inadequacies."
My grip tightens slightly on his shoulders. "Stand."
He complies on trembling legs, and I guide him to the center of the room where all can see. Tea ceremony suddenly transformed into something far more primal.
"Takeshi," I say conversationally, "please explain to our honored advisor the consequences for questioning your oyabun's authority."
"Hai, Aniki. Response involves public correction. Demonstration of proper hierarchy. Restoration of respect through educational methods."
Educational methods. Such elegant phrasing for what comes next.
"But this isn't simple insubordination," I continue, circling Sato. "This is coordinated challenge to family leadership. Conspiracy masked as concern. Fabricated evidence designed to trigger violence between families. The kind of betrayal that threatens everything our ancestors built." I stop in front of him, close enough that he has to crane his neck to meet my eyes. "What do you believe that level of disrespect deserves?"
Sato-san's mouth opens, closes, opens again. No sound emerges. Around the room, the other advisors watch with the frozen attention of men who've suddenly realized they're surrounded by immanent death.
"I think," I say with quiet certainty, "it deserves creativity."
I gesture almost casually, and two of my men step forward. Almost gently, like museum curators handling priceless artifacts. They guide Sato-san to his knees in the center of the room, positioning him so every face can see what happens next.
"Acknowledgment begins education," I explain, settling back onto my cushion while he kneels before me. "Say: 'I questioned the authority of my oyabun.'"
"I..." Sato-san's voice cracks. "I questioned the authority of my oyabun."
"Good. Continue: 'I betrayed the trust placed in me.'"
The words come out as barely a whisper.
"And finally: 'I accept whatever correction Matsumoto-sama deems appropriate.'"
When he speaks this time, tears streak down his weathered cheeks. Around the room, absolute silence broken only by the whisper of summer wind through garden bamboo.
"Takeshi," I say, not looking away from Sato-san's face, "the tanto."
The ceremonial blade appears in Takeshi's hand—wakizashi shortened for close work, steel folded a thousand times until it holds an edge that could split silk scarves dropped across itssurface. Hiroshi makes a sound of protest that dies in his throat when my eyes find his.
"Yubitsume," I announce, as if discussing flower arrangement. "Little finger, first joint. The price of questioning authority."
I accept the tanto with ceremonial reverence, testing the blade's sharpness against my thumb. A thin line of blood wells immediately—perfect edge, perfect balance, perfect tool for what comes next.
"Hand," I command quietly.
Sato-san extends his trembling left hand, spreading his fingers against the wooden block Takeshi produces. The little finger stretches alone, isolated, waiting.
And then I see it.
The missing joint. Clean scar tissue where the first segment should be. Old wound, expertly healed, the kind of precise amputation that speaks of correction performed decades ago.
My blood turns to ice.
Recognition crashes through me. Twenty-six years dissolve in an instant, and suddenly I'm sixteen again, watching my father's blade descend on this same hand, hearing this same man's screams echo off the walls.
Sato-san's face goes ashen as he sees understanding dawn in my eyes. Around the room, absolute silence as everyone realizes what I've discovered—not just defiance, but repeat betrayal.
The memory floods back with crystalline clarity: I was sixteen, standing behind my father's shoulder while he delivered justice to a man who'd betrayed clan intelligence to rival families. The same man who knelt before me now, twenty-six years older but apparently no wiser.
"This is what happens when loyalty becomes negotiable," my late father had said, tanto gleaming in his steady hand. "When service to this family becomes secondary to personal advantage."
I'd watched, transfixed and nauseated, as the blade descended with surgical precision. Sato-san's scream had torn through my teenage composure. Blood had sprayed across my school uniform—the same uniform I'd worn to classes that morning, now baptized in the reality of what our family required.
