Chapter 61: Hanako’s True Thoughts~

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

Hanako Time! The funny thing is, there have already been Hanako POVs in this story, so this really shouldn't be any surprise to anyone~

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V and his… passenger manage to escape the sealed compartment long before the parade is over and the float comes to a full stop. Meanwhile, Hanako makes herself presentable once more, cleaning herself up and fixing her appearance. By the time the sealed compartment is opened again and Oda and Goro step in, not a single hair is out of place, her form once again pristine.

Her trusted bodyguard's cybernetic eyes flicker as he scans the compartment, his lips curling down into a telltale frown when he notices the complete and utter absence of the one she'd been meeting with. So V and Alt had managed to leave without being noticed. Hanako is not surprised.

"Arasaka-sama… is everything alright?"

At the same time that Oda asks that, Goro speaks up as well, his face scrunched in hope.

"Did the meeting go well, Arasaka-sama?"

Hanako's bodyguard throws an angry look at her father's former samurai, but Hanako lifts a hand and cuts off any recrimination on Oda's part. Instead, she simply smiles.

"Subete wa keikaku-dōri."

Both Goro and Oda's eyes widen at that, and both of them immediately bow to her. Hanako, meanwhile, simply tilts her head before stepping past them both, allowing them to fall in behind her as she leaves the parade float and makes for the vehicle that will take her back to Arasaka Tower.

Of course, once she's safely ensconced in the back of said vehicle and has a moment to herself having ordered Oda and Goro into the front, the Princess of Arasaka has a chance to reflect on her words to the two men.

'Everything went according to plan'.

Had it? Had it really? No… of course not. Unless, that is, one looked at it from the proper angle, she supposed.

When her father's engram had revealed himself to her some weeks ago, after the failure of Michiko and Danger Gal and the arrangement of tonight's meeting, Hanako had… very easily fallen back into old habits. After all, there had never been a fight when it came to Saburo Arasaka. Not for her anyways. You simply did your best to dance to his tune and hoped he considered it 'good enough'.

But then… well, tonight had gone off the rails quite quickly, hadn't it? Now that she can, Hanako sends a secured ping to Mikoshi… and receives nothing back but silence. Her father might very well be gone for good this time. Mikoshi and the Secure Your Soul Program might very well be over. And all because V somehow had Altiera Cunningham in his head instead of Johnny Silverhand.

How THAT had happened, Hanako didn't know… but then, it wasn't her place to find out, now was it? No, they'd made that… very clear to her. A shiver runs down Hanako's spine as she reminisces on the events of less than an hour ago. Her tongue darts out to lick her lips in a display that breaks decorum as she plays back the memories and shudders.

Hanako Arasaka, for all her pedigree, poise, and influence… has always existed to fulfill a role of stereotypical, traditional submission. Always the Princess of Arasaka… never ever the Empress. Even at almost eighty years of age, Hanako knows this to her core. She is not meant to rule.

And yet, at the same time… there were a lot of things Hanako had taken upon herself over the years that she wasn't originally meant for. Her father's original purpose for her had really boiled down to nothing more than sitting around and looking pretty. She was but a gem on his mantle, the shining jewel of his empire.

But then things had happened, hadn't they? Her eldest brother had died and both her niece and second eldest brother had proven too willful by half. Even after forcing them to come crawling back to him, to the family, to the corporation… Saburo hadn't been able to truly rely on them. Not like he could rely on her.

Hanako had taken some strength from that fact. She'd grown outside of her original mandate, her traditional purpose. She'd turned the title 'Princess of Arasaka' into a weapon over the decades. Yet… she'd always known that no matter what happened, she would never inherit her father's position.

He would either find a way to live forever, as he thought he had with his engram, or the structures he'd put in place would ensure that a proper man with the 'head' for leadership took his place, even if they did not have the name Arasaka.

Hanako had, of course, always known that it would be that way. She just hadn't expected everything to get so damn… messy. And she suspected her father didn't expect it either, really. Otherwise, Saburo wouldn't have sent Goro Takemura away that night. It never even crossed the Emperor of Arasaka's mind that Yorinobu might be capable of patricide.

But he was and now here they were. Her father's plan had been to bait V into a cage with the promise of separating him from the Relic that was no doubt already overwriting his mind. From there, the engram had intended to use the data they gained from that work to download himself into Yorinobu's mind, effectively overwriting her brother and granting himself a functional form of immortality.

It wasn't Hanako's place to question her father's plans of course. Nor his orders. But now that it had all blown up rather spectacularly in their faces, she had to admit to some level of disquiet with how everything would have gone.

Yorinobu deserved death for his crimes against their family and the corporation, that Hanako could no longer deny. Murdering their father was bad enough, but seeking to dismantle everything their family had built… that was unforgiveable.

However, the type of death that their father's engram had described… disturbed her. Hanako could even admit to being glad that it would no longer come to pass. That Yorinobu would die cleanly, or at least cleaner than their father's engram had intended for him.

Still, with Yorinobu dead, there would be a power vacuum. That… that was where Hanako would come in. Not to lead though. Never to lead.

A shuddering breath leaves her lips and Hanako's golden fingers twitch in an aborted move towards more sensitive parts of her body. She maintains her composure though, even here in private. There was no point in touching herself anyways. Nothing she could do to herself would compare to what V and Alt had done to her back in the parade float.

She'd enjoyed it. That much Hanako can admit in the privacy of her own mind. She'd enjoyed being turned into their plaything. Submission came easily to her, not just because it had been trained into her from an early age, but also because she was naturally submissive to those with authority and power over her.

Only tonight had things taken a turn for the sexual, however. And Hanako… Hanako had liked it very much. She was four times V's age, but younger than Altiera. And yet, it was V who had taken her in hand. Who had commanded and controlled her. And she hadn't gotten the impression that Alt was in turn commanding him from the shadows either.

No… V was the natural leader of the two. Where that had come from, given what she knew about him and his past, Hanako didn't know. But then, she also didn't know how Alt had replaced Silverhand in the Relic either. Such things were beyond her understanding.

Altiera Cunningham should have been almost seven decades dead, and yet here she was in the digital flesh. Silverhand should have been overwriting V's mind right this moment, but he was nowhere to be found.

In the end… did the 'how' truly matter so much as what it meant for her? If it had just been V and Silverhand, then her father's engram probably would have gotten everything he wanted. There was, after all, more than enough countermeasures packed into that compartment for the Emperor to make whatever he wanted to happen tonight… happen. Even if it required him to spend Hanako's life to do it.

But because it was Alt instead of Silverhand, all that technology, all those countermeasures… had ultimately proven useless. Her father had died an ignoble death yet again. And Hanako had an opportunity presented to herself.

The old men of Arasaka would never allow her to ascend to the head of the corporation. Even if Yorinobu died, she and Michiko would be passed over simply because they were women and the misogyny was baked into the corporation's foundations. It was why Michiko had created Danger Gal in the first place, seeking to spread her wings and fly out from under the umbrella that was their family's traditional values and expectations.

But that hadn't worked out very well for her in the end, because Saburo Arasaka didn't like to let his pretty birds fly too far before reeling them back in. And so Hanako had stayed right where she was, the ever dutiful daughter, hoping that maybe with her Dove Faction, she could eventually convince her father to change things from the inside.

In actuality though, even those executives who were part of her Dove Faction within the Arasaka Corporation didn't consider her their real leader. She was a figurehead for their faction and nothing more than that. Or at least, that was what they believed.

The truth was… Hanako had weaponized her submission. She was the perfect loyal doll to her father and the perfect loyal Princess to the old men on the Board of Directors. However… the definition of Princess had transformed over the decades. And those under her did not see a doll. They saw a woman in charge. They saw their leader.

Of course, what her subordinates and underlings thought didn't quite matter when they had no real power within Arasaka. But that could change. If the right men were removed alongside Yorinobu, then the right men could be promoted into their empty positions… and regardless of what her father wanted, regardless of what the foundations of Arasaka said was 'right'… Hanako could change things. She would be the one to decide what was right.

…

… At the same time though, she found herself longing for another chance to be with V and Alt. A flush rises to her cheeks even as she once again valiantly resists the urge to touch herself right there in the back of the vehicle. The way V had dominated her physically while Alt dominated her mentally had been… sublime.

She'd meant what she said to them. She would serve them both diligently. It was simply a matter of making sure that they understood how valuable she would be if they helped her clean house at Arasaka and installed her at the head of the corporation. She could serve them so much better if they used her as their figurehead, and Hanako suspected she would enjoy being their figurehead a lot more than anyone else's.

Of course, she couldn't rely solely on V and Alt, now could she? No, she would need to pave the way for them. Not just to take down Yorinobu, but also the rest of the old men of Arasaka still clinging to their wretched power. And she couldn't do it alone either.

Smiling softly, well aware that Alt is probably watching her right now, Hanako nevertheless places a call to Michiko, one that is answered within moments.

"Auntie. What is it?"

Raising a brow, Hanako smirks.

"Are you not curious how tonight's meeting went? After all, you helped arrange it."

Michiko frowns at that, not quite flushing as she crosses her arms over her chest.

"… I assumed that I would not be allowed to know how it went."

Hanako chuckles throatily at that. Michiko did not know about Saburo's engram, but she did know that she'd been frozen out of things when he revealed himself to Hanako. The Emperor of Arasaka did not respect the value Michiko brought to the table. He considered his granddaughter to be little more than a malfunctioning tool, only to be used for low priority tasks.

But Hanako knew better.

"You would have been correct if circumstances had remained as they are. But things have changed, Michiko. We should meet in person as soon as possible to discuss it."

There's a brief pause and for a moment Hanako wonders if Michiko will be petty enough to reject her olive branch. But finally, the younger woman just huffs.

"Very well. Come to my office and we can talk."

Hanako smiles thinly at the soft rebuff. Perhaps Michiko just wants to see how serious she is. Or perhaps this is her attempt at offending Hanako so she leaves her alone. In the end though, it doesn't really matter does it? They need to be on the same page. And Hanako knows that her new Master and Mistress have a soft spot for Michiko given how gently they treated her and Puma Squad.

"Of course. I'll be right there."

Michiko's poorly concealed surprise almost makes Hanako giggle, even as she ends the call and waits for them to arrive at Arasaka Tower. Smiling smugly, she licks her lips, feeling better about the future than she has in quite some time~

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The Vote:

[X] Tying up loose ends, V and Alt bring Beatrice into the fold as part of the crew next (8ug8ear) - 71%[ ] Tying up loose ends, V and Alt give Beatrice a one-off but don't make her part of the crew (8ug8ear) - 6%[ ] V and Alt satisfy Beatrice's needs off-screen and we move on to their plans for the Queen of the Afterlife (Rogue) - 23%

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