Bloodlines

Peeling Back the Mask

Ieyasu didn't want to hand over the tape. He only relented after a fruitless night tossing and turning, his mother's blood-streaked face burned in his nightmares. Was she still alive? Was she still out there, chained and imprisoned in some dark basement, captive to nothing more than the heartless blink of a video camera and the cold link of chains on her wrist?

But he needed details. He needed the where, when, how old, and so he handed over the CD, heart in his throat, to Mitsunari.

"Don't–" He stammered, trying to think of anything to say to his least favorite person. Don't fucking say anything. Don't you dare be cheery right now. You can't see me weak.

But Mitsunari just nodded and pushed his glasses up his nose, more serious than ever. "I'll do my best to find the information you need."

Ieyasu balled his fingers tight into fists and choked a strangled, "Thanks."

—

The video was from around 1999. That explained the grainy footage. She'd gone missing around 1998, so that lined up. How was he supposed to feel? On one hand, it was very possible her situation was worse (though he honestly couldn't envision how and didn't want to)–and on the other, it felt very likely that the sweet embrace of death had taken her from her misery.

Ieyasu didn't want to wish death on his mother, but he assumed in this situation, it was a mercy.

Later that day, his cellphone buzzed. A glance at the number and his stomach dropped.

"Are you alright?" She was doling out some pasta dish or another that she'd cooked tonight, poised with the pot braced between her ribs and elbow. "Someone calling with information?"

"No," he managed. "It's... it's my 'Uncle'."

They fell silent. The phone buzzed loudly on the wood grain table three more times. He couldn't clue anyone in that he knew what was happening. If his mother was still alive (if, that was a very big if), then her safety hinged on his cooperation.

He flipped the phone on and pinned it against his cheek. "Hello?"

"'Yasu!" The man's cheery voice roared through the speaker. Once his Uncle's inability to use a normal volume was funny. Now it was just awful. Ieyasu braced himself in his chair and screwed his eyes shut, swallowing the waves of venom rising in his throat. "What are you doing?"

"Having dinner."

"Having dinner? With someone?"

Ieyasu cast his eyes over at the Princess, who just finished scraping the pasta into bowls and returned to the kitchen. "No?"

"Huh." A beat. "Well, your Aunt misses you. You should come by tomorrow, have a bit of dinner. We might even go to the movies. How about it?"

A sickening twist of I know who you aren't and sure, yep, sounds great surged through him. This man–this stranger–had raised him. How could he separate that from the truth grinding in his ears? How could he reconcile the lies to the reality of the past two decades?

"Y'okay there?" His Uncle asked.

"Yeah," Ieyasu lied. "Trying to think of my schedule. Hold on."

"I thought you had a normal nine-to-five?"

"You know that's not the case in practice." He made an audible show of getting off his chair and pattering into the kitchen, squeezing past the woman with a hand to the small of her back. She jumped and blushed, but he pretended not to notice, just rifling through his calendar. It was always possible that the man really was asking him to hang out, but the more cynical part of him assumed that wasn't the case. There was an angle somewhere.