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Iemitsu hated men.
She hated how they took, took, and kept taking from everyone around them. How they acted as if they were superior merely for having a stronger physique — such a lie, considering she killed the oaf who dared besmirch her — and thought themselves above her.
Above a shogun.
But she was that in name only. Any public meeting was a farce, where a man stood in her place. She didn’t even have permission to use her own name, the one given by her mother.
She couldn’t bear to think of her mother. She was killed so easily, as if it’d been an animal to be put out, and Iemitsu had been taken to the palace. Forced to forget her past and her true name.
Finding out that her father, the real Iemitsu, was no lord who loved his family and was always traveling, but a depraved lecher who violated her mother as if it were nothing, was the final straw.
Or she wishes it had been. How she wishes she could’ve raged, truly escaped, and had her revenge against the world. But clearly, she was cursed.
The one time she was able to almost escape, she herself had been violated. Torn open by some disgusting, demented oaf. At the very least, she killed him with her own hands. Anything but would’ve been unacceptable.
Escaping the palace became an impossible dream. And to live where? With the commoners, who died daily from the disease? Work in the fields when there was famine?
Her lessons revealed a world she didn’t want to believe in. Iemitsu tried to hope (against hope) that the world outside was better than this place. Curse her father for having given her enough intellect to realize that wouldn’t be the case.
And the first time she truly left the palace, well guarded and protected, and walked around as a woman, she saw how disgusting and barren it was.
Iemitsu stopped hoping from then on.
“That’s a fine horse.” Iemitsu admired the dark, powerful horse as it stood proud and tall.
“Indeed she is, majesty! Our very best, she is!” The groundskeeper replied as if it were his own daughter. In a way, maybe she was.
This horse was powerful, imposing and well-fed. Much better fed than the great majority of the country, Iemitsu thought, without much empathy for either the humans nor the horse.
The groundskeeper continues on, always checking if he’s allowed to keep speaking by looking at her bodyguard. “She’s currently expecting! Once the foal is born, we’re hoping of pairing her up with another fine specimen. They’re expensive, but worth the price!”
At that, Iemitsu can’t hold down her laughter. It quickly develops into hysterical laughter, which irks the horse. Immediately, the horse is sent away and only she and her guard remain. She still can’t quite breathe, and even tears come out.
A joke no one but her could understand.
So she’s just like this horse. Existing solely for the sake of breeding and unable to even choose her mate. At most, they can pretend to revolt, kicking away the human males that go too far… and that’s it. That is the extent of their freedom.
A shogun is just the same as this animal.
Actually, the horse is much freer than she’ll ever be. By breaking a leg and, therefore, becoming useless, the horse will be put out of its misery. She won’t.
Regardless of all the injuries she’s suffered so far, the worst being the one within her thighs, no one will kill her. She stands as tall and proud as that horse, but it’s just a sham.
That horse is luckier than she will ever be.
Briefly, she considers ordering the horse to be put to death. It would be a small mercy, Iemitsu thinks. Better dead than being forced to mate repeatedly for some useless bloodline.
But she remembers her daughter. Gone much too soon, only alive for a couple of hours.
The babe had been a result of the most detestable act on this earth, done by the most despicable man — whom she personally killed. She expected to hate it just as much and yet… something in its small, hopelessly vulnerable form, touched her. Even though the child looked so much like that disgusting man, she couldn’t help but want to hold her.
And the first thing she’d come close to loving after years left her.
She’d probably never have children again. She certainly didn’t care for going through any of the motions, be it intercourse or birth. Both were as detestable and as disgusting.
But the baby in her arms wouldn’t leave her mind.
Iemitsu decides to spare the horse. Maybe it’d also find some small happiness and freedom with its foul.
Showing empathy for a horse… that’s something she could never let anyone know, much less Kasuga. She’d most likely kill the horse just for the sake of it. But there was that silly soft monk… in all his senseless, irrational talk of good, he might make for good conversation company. If he kept his mouth shut.
Her hatred of men never waned. But Iemitsu also hates women, now. She sees her mother and nursemaid as exceptions. What surrounds her are hateful, corrupt people willing to do anything to get more power. Use her in any way they can to do so.
Her name is long forgotten. She is lord Iemitsu now, until her death. The bastard daughter the public will never recognize as, clearly, a man must be in power.
Kasuga was the absolute example of a hateful woman. So concerned about politics and power, and always confusing Iemitsu for her own father. Hating women just as much and always appraising men, as if they were somehow better. As if there were a man alive who could outsmart Kasuga. And still, her right hand thought of men as superior, as the rightful owners of titles and the true holders of family names.
How ridiculous. Iemitsu never understood how names weren’t transmitted through mothers. They were the ones who went through the laborious process of pregnancy and birth, and didn’t get a single word of gratitude or appreciation. And who was to guarantee the father’s identity? Iemitsu only dared say that once. Kasuga never understood.
In this awful cage, surrounded by untrustworthy people, Iemitsu hates herself even more as she eventually starts relying on Kasuga and her servant. Trusting the enemy, the one responsible for killing her mother, and crying on her lap like a child… Iemitsu becomes more and more disgusted with herself.
“Why am I to be taught so much when I won’t even govern? I’m just an interim ruler.” A walking uterus, more like. Never to be named or known publicly.
“Majesty, with all due respect… until your son is of age, it is important you acquire such knowledge and lead.” Kasuga always respectfully replies, bowing. At the very least, she is never false in her respect.
Not respect for the young woman in front of her, but for the position she holds. What she represents to the country and what the blood inside her means.
The shogun Iemitsu.
Apparently, she’s as cunning and smart as her father had been. As wicked and violent as him as well, she hears from servants. She wishes she could cut all their tongues so they would shut up. Why would she care about a useless man who only brought her mother pain? She was like her mother, not like him! But nowadays, her memory of her mother becomes murkier and murkier… even blending with Kasuga… and deep down, she’s well aware she was never like her mother. And that’s what she hates the most.
Arikoto is so feminine, gentle and kind that he doesn’t seem like a man. There is something so unique about him, so… welcoming, and different.
It is not because he is a monk, for Iemitsu has met many monks, and none of them have this. Not even his own servant is like him. No, that boy is all wildness, cunning and irreverence — quite like her.
What a joke. To be born a man in this world, to hold all the power, to be able to continue his family name, and he throws it all away to become a monk. She sees no meaning in fortunes, but there’s also no meaning in religion. It’s just a tool to appease the masses.
Arikoto never agrees with her. He is polite and he is quiet. Hitting and berating him will shut him up — like everyone else — but he will never acquiesce when he doesn’t believe in something. He doesn’t try to please her, ever.
And Iemitsu can’t stand that, most of all.
So she humiliates him. Names him as a woman not by obligation (though she must, by Ooku’s laws) but to bring him down and show him his own name means nothing here. Just like hers. She orders him and all men to dress as women, to use the hair she’s collected, her own personal victory against the girls who get to live freely across the wall.
But nothing works. And seeing him, dressed as a woman, so beautifully, so heavenly… more lovely than any woman she’s ever seen, even her mother… and she breaks down. Not Iemitsu, the shogun, but the girl she’d once been.
She breaks down crying and, for the first time in her life since her identity was taken from her, she is held and loved.
Nothing is ever the same.
The unbearable seems even possible now, with Arikoto by her side. Was this what love was? Having someone you could open your soul completely to, devote your being to? If so, she understands now.
She did love that baby, born too cruelly, dead much too soon.
Even Kasuga complies, happy that there will be an heir now. Iemitsu can finally accomplish her job, as the horse did — she’s seen the newly born foal and part of her is ashamed of the envy she feels. That such a horse can have its child and she cannot.
And as three months pass, she realizes motherhood is denied to her. The one time in her life she desired it, and it’s denied.
Kasuga is beside herself, begging, demanding Iemitsu to take other men into her bed. “How could you sacrifice the country for your own selfishness?” The old woman screams at her, so unlike her usual polite but sharp words.
Iemitsu won’t budge. Why can’t she be selfish for once? Is she not even here because her father had been selfish and a lecher?
“Why, Kasuga? Why does this matter so much to you? What if the bloodline ends with me?” She screams at the same volume.
No servants dare enter the room when they argue like this.
The look in Kasuga’s eyes gives Iemitsu goosebumps. In the old woman’s eyes, she sees pain, suffering and resolution.
And for the first time, Kasuga tells her all about her past. The loss of her family name and her father’s execution; the state, the country had been torn into pieces by multiple wars; her own marriage without love or choice, and the only choice Kasuga did: to come to the palace and raise the (possible) future shogun.
Kasuga was one of the main factors — if not the main one — for why Iemitsu’s father assumed complete control and power. The reason why the country was not torn into war even now. The violence Iemitsu suffered the one time she attempted to escape from the castle, was a daily occurrence for commoner women, especially at war.
What shocked the shogun more was the one revelation, the most secret of all:
“Your own son… and you will not officially name him so?”
It seems incomprehensible to Iemitsu. She understands why, if that were the case, it’d be seen as a power play by Kasuga, and he’d need to leave the palace. One of the few good men here, one of the few trustworthy ones, Iemitsu always felt safe with.
So that was the source of his eternal loyalty to both of them.
Kasuga only bows lower, displaying complete reverence.
“We’ve both decided it long ago, my liege. For the country.”
For the country.
Iemitsu can’t bring herself to bite back or even punish the old maid. Kasuga is many things, but a hypocrite isn’t one.
This woman only asks her to sacrifice everything for the sake of the country, for she has already done so.
And they now both know the price of chasing selfish passions. A leader cannot bring the country to its knees. For that is a child, inept to rule, and no leader.
Iemitsu is none of those — not anymore.
Seeing her newborn, still so small, scrunching up her face, eyes still unable to open, makes her tear up. Iemitsu does not care if the baby is, objectively, rather ugly and reddish — just like her first had been — and her servants lie and call it the most beautiful being on earth.
Because to her, she is. Her daughter is the most beautiful being in this world, and she would do anything to protect her.
The father doesn’t matter (of course, she’d permit him, and Arikoto, contact with the child), what does is their relationship.
Mother and daughter.
Shogun and possible heir.
The palace is celebrating, from the lowest servant to Kasuga, who cries copiously in joy.
“If only it’d been a son, it would be perfect, my liege!” She is still so happy to see that the bloodline continues on.
For the first time, Iemitsu reconsiders the idea that a son should be heir. And when her second daughter is born, she knows gender means nothing.
“You’ve changed.” Arikoto smiles as he says, a bit forlorn. “Motherhood has changed you.”
‘For the better’ is quite clear for both of them. Her violent temper is quiet, and something in her softens. Iemitsu herself can tell. She only wishes Arikoto had been the one to make her a mother anew. Not some man she cannot remember the name of.
He must know. For, even if Arikoto may never possess the shogun — no one could, truly — he did possess her soul.
“You are the only man I shall ever love, Arikoto. Never forget that.”
And for that small, fragile moment in time, it seems enough.
Daily life, filled with endless tasks, cries of corruption, and dealing with the epidemic that never stops, reminds them that it will never be enough.
The population of men fell to a fifth — too low to ever bring it back to balance, so her advisers say. A country doomed to fall.
She begs to differ.
Something in her, maybe her shogun self, or maybe her mother self, tells her Nihon has a future. That, eventually, everything will right itself.
But she must think of the now and what can be done.
She thinks of her daughters: all capable, all healthy. There had been no sons. Even for the families who had sons, it was as a ticking time bomb: any time they could lose their heirs. She’s heard whispers of women already taking over their family’s leadership, only hiding as men. Just like Iemitsu did.
The current reality already reflected the obvious: women were the leaders. Not forever, but only for now, until things returned to balance.
Dressing as a man, impersonating their mannerisms, was odious. It made her hate men even more. But she bore it, as did her fellow women leaders.
But Iemitsu sees her daughters and decides: this will not be their fate.
She motions to officiate women as the holders of family names. So they may dress as they please and no longer live a farce.
The official names shall remain male, as this is but a short, strange period in their nation. Iemitsu believes so, at the very least.
A leader puts the nation before oneself. Man or woman, it must always be so. Those who fail at it lead the country astray.
Her father would’ve been through the same if he’d lived. But it’s so much easier for a man, who just needs to lie with women, his job done only too quickly. The woman is the one who risks her life at birth, spends months nurturing, only to then pray for the child to survive early infancy.
Iemitsu never met other shoguns, or even other country leaders, but she dares say it is doubly difficult for her to do so. Double the burden, as she must care not only for her subjects, for which she cares not, but now for her children as well.
As the horse, she may never spend too long not pregnant. She must keep giving birth and maintaining the bloodline. Her mind understands it; her body does not.
There is only so much a body can handle. And Iemitsu lies down, for the last time, still young, so young.
Her life passes through her mind. Mercifully, the worst parts fade all too quickly. She focuses on the ones she loved instead: Arikoto, the one man she’d ever love and her darling daughters, each so different from the other and so lively, how she wishes she could’ve spent more time with them. Even Kasuga and her mother reappear, overlapping in her memories.
A leader sacrifices themselves. Iemitsu did that all her life, splendidly so.
And the shogun wishes she’d been anything but one.