Story:

It was Kicho who noticed it first—the scroll, wrapped in ceremonial silk, still in Danna-sama's hand, carried with a care he reserved for few objects.

Her fan tilted. "Nobu-kun. What is that?"

And so, settled onto cushions with tea and his wives bracketing him like a pleasant interrogation committee, Nobunaga told the story: the flawless discipline of the palace staff, the bamboo curtain, the Tenno behind it.

How he had asked her directly to approve the shogunate appointment, and she had granted it—Yoshiaki the Fifteenth Shogun, Mitsuhide the General of Kyoto Guards, all legitimate, all sealed.

And as a reward, he had received... the Tenno's calligraphy.

He unwrapped the scroll and laid it before them: Tenkafubu, in a pretty woman's flowing, graceful hand.

Euphy studied it, tilting her head, processing.

"...Nobu-kun." She looked up. "You marched forty thousand men, conquered the capital, fed the army, bribed half the roads in Yamato, and put a Shogun on the throne with your own money and men. And you got... a drawing."

Her eyes narrowed with a queen's instinct for terrible bargains. "Did the Tenno offer anything more?"

Nobunaga's face turned an extremely interesting shade.

It was, his wives both noted, an embarrassed shade. Oda Nobunaga, who feared neither gods nor demons nor empresses, sat before them with a faint flush and his eyes anywhere but on them.

And Nobunaga did not lie to his wives. Ever. That was his belief.

"...She made a proposal," he admitted. "That I marry into the imperial family. Become emperor consort. Stay at the palace by her side... and share half the ruling of the realm with her. The land, and the heirs', forever."

The room went silent enough to hear the pond water rippling.