[Angst with a happy ending Medieval AU wherein Momo is a princess and Jiro is an assassin sent to kill her feat. MomoJiro.

Requested by seoyoungsaysno]

Kyoka Jiro Had been trained to kill since she was only seven years old. Now at fifteen, that meant she'd been on this path for more than half her life. She had been a member of the guild of assassins since her mentor was hired to kill her parents, and decided to take her in as a foundling and a new recruit, younger than most, but still plenty old enough to hold a knife and hide in the shadows.

Jiro latched her dark cloak around her shoulders and pulled the hood up, obscuring her face. The door of the assassins guild creaked as it opened, but her soft leather boots made almost no sound at all as she stepped onto the cobblestone streets.

She had killed counts, and thieves, and talkative servants, and once a barbarian from an enemy country. All were felled by her blades. The contract she'd taken most recently, was to kill a princess before she could marry a nobleman from a neighboring kingdom and secure a merger between them, a merger which the people of the nobleman's land were vehemently against.

Jiro had infiltrated a number of grand chateaus, but none as grand as the royal palace. She had to go through quite a bit of trouble to get a detailed map of the place, complete with secret passageways marked, then there were guards to bribe for their patrol schedules, and she painstakingly planned a route to the princess' bedroom to strike her down swiftly while she slept, then an escape route to get out undetected.

Weeks of planning had gone into this assassination, and all there was left for Jiro to do was carry it out.

The first part of the plan went off without a hitch, and she snuck in through a secret passageway under the palace, down the corridor between the guards' patrols, and into the princess' unlocked bedroom, but the room was empty. The princess was not in her bed, nor anywhere else in her room.

Jiro decided to wait a while to see if the princess came back before going to look for her, or leaving to return and finish the job the following day. She sang quietly to herself as she examined the room, then blocked all but the main exit, and the window, outside of which was an unsurvivable drop.

Meanwhile, Princess Momo Yaoyorozu was in the royal library, worrying into a book, searching for a way to form a merger without her having to marry the nobleman. He was a vile man, revolting, repugnant, and though she was already fifteen, she was not yet ready to be married. In addition to that, while, admittedly, she had not yet met any man she found attractive, the nobleman was among the most repulsive men she'd ever had the displeasure of meeting. She had met him on only one occasion, and once was more than enough.

She knew that no matter what, she could never go through with the marriage or she would live in misery and anguish for her whole life. She knew how much her parents wanted the merger, but she would sooner die than marry that awful man, and she swore she would if it came down to it.

She had never heard the other kingdom's thoughts on the merger. As far as she could tell, it didn't benefit them much, and they'd never had big enough disputes with her own kingdom in the past to warrant the ceremony for ceremony's sake. As far as she could tell from the arrangement, the nobleman had only accepted to get his hands on her, which made her shudder with disgust.

She pored over book after book, scouring page after page, looking for a way out of the arranged marriage, but all she found were fairy tales and religious texts, the latter sometimes indistinguishable from the former. Nothing of use was to be found in the royal library, not for a woman, at least. She was not allowed to look at the books which might actually help her—those were for men. As a woman, she was lucky to be able to read at all.

Finding a solution was a matter of life and death, and yet she was heavily restricted from anything that might provide one. She had been searching for weeks, and all she had to show for it was mental exhaustion and mounting despair.

The lanterns in the library had been lit at some point beyond the notice of the princess, so when Yaoyorozu looked up to see the pitch black of night outside one of the library's open windows, she was quite surprised. She hadn't meant to stay up so late and the hour to sleep must have long since passed.

She gathered up her skirts and scampered out of the library, up the stairs and down the corridor to her bedchambers. Once there, she attempted to relieve herself of her many layers of skirts and petticoats, but it proved too difficult a task to manage on her own.

"Oh, if I hadn't spent so much time in the library, someone might have been around to help," she muttered to herself.

As the princess struggled with her gown, Jiro couldn't help but smile. It was funny to watch her battle ungracefully with the elaborate and immaculate clothes which only nobility could afford. The princess was obviously no threat to a trained assassin, so Jiro thought to toy with her a bit. One way or another, the princess would die that night.

"May I assist you, your highness," Jiro offered.

"Oh yes please," the princess said. "Thank you so much, I don't think I could ever reach the lacing on the back of the bodice."

Jiro had never seen such fine clothes before, and hadn't the slightest idea how to disassemble them. She simply cut the lacing and tossed the bodice piece aside. The princess sighed with relief, and took a deep breath. Jiro helped her remove her many skirts, and when she finally stood before her in a simple white slip, Jiro couldn't help but marvel at the princess' beauty.

Her skin was smooth, and pale and completely unblemished, and Jiro wondered if it was soft too, like rose petals, probably. Her black hair shone in the candlelight, her eyes sparkled, and her face was kind. It seemed a shame to damage something so radiant.

"I'm sorry," the princess said, interrupting Jiro's revelry. "I'm afraid I don't know your name. I don't think I've ever seen you around the palace before. Are you new? I'd hate to think I don't know someone who has worked here long."

"I'm only working here tonight your highness," Jiro said, moving to stand between the princess and the only unhindered door, ensuring that she could not escape. "I've never worked here before, and after tonight, I'll probably never work here again."

"I don't understand..." The princess took a nervous step backwards, and Jiro saw her gaze shift from Jiro's dark cloak, to her tough leather padding, to the daggers she now held in each hand, to the ones on her boot and on her belt, and the throwing knives strapped to her thigh. Jiro saw it on her face when the realization dawned.

"I am an assassin, come to kill you," Jiro stated calmly.

"Why?"

"Are you going to beg for your life now? Pray to heavens for your salvation before you go to meet your maker?"

"The heavens did not hire you," the princess said. "Nor does my maker decide whether I live or die tonight. I only want to know why you've been hired to kill me, nothing more."

Jiro could tell that the princess was scared. Who wouldn't be in this situation? But she was holding herself together very well. Clearly she possessed immense grace under pressure. Jiro considered the request for a moment, before eventually deciding to answer her.

"The people of your betrothed's lands don't want the merger to occur," she said cautiously. "That's why I was hired to kill you."

"They don't?" She didn't sound distraught, or even disappointed. She sounded... relieved. "His people don't want the merger."

"You seem pleased," the assassin noted suspiciously, and she was right, Yaoyorozu was very pleased by this revelation.

"I have been tirelessly searching these past weeks for a way to merge our lands without a marriage, but if his people don't even want the merger, then I can just refuse!" She smiled brightly at the assassin, and saw a gentle blush climb onto her cheeks. Then Yaoyorozu's smile fell. "Oh no. My parents would never allow me to refuse... but I could... maybe I could run away. That horrible man can't marry me if I'm nowhere to be found!"

She looked up at the assassin desperately, fully prepared to beg. "Please, help me escape this place," she asked, gazing into the assassin's deep, dark violet eyes, and they were almost hypnotic in their loveliness.

Though this assassin was clearly a dangerous woman, Yaoyorozu couldn't help but think that she was more attractive than any of her numerous gentlemen callers. It was no wonder, men's infatuation with the female sex, with women like her walking around, stunning as a queen without a drop of royal blood to speak of.

"I'm not here to rescue you," the assassin said, but it seemed that her resolve and her cold, confident demeanor were beginning to falter. "I'm here to kill you."

"You're here to put an end to the merger," Yaoyorozu tried to reason. "The people who hired you don't want a merger. I don't want to marry a man. Help me run away, and everyone wins. The merger won't happen, I'll be free to live however I wish and love naturally, and you don't have to spill any blood today."

"I'm hardly a stranger to spilling blood," the assassin argued. "It would be less work to strike you down where you stand."

"Please," Yaoyorozu begged. "Let me have a second chance, I beg of you." The assassin said nothing, but she did sheath her blades. She leaned against the door and reach up to rub one of her earlobes absently, eyes closed in thought. Though she seemed to be vulnerable, Yaoyorozu had little doubt that an assassin such as she could kill her with one hand easily, even while her eyes were closed.

At length, the assassin sighed. "What's your name again, princess?"

"Momo Yaoyorozu," she answered. "And what's yours?"

"Kyoka Jiro."

"Will you help me, Miss Jiro?" Yaoyorozu asked hopefully.

It was the 'second chance' thing that got her. Jiro had been the child of corruption, doomed to repeat the mistakes of her family if she had stayed with them. Assassination wasn't the most upstanding of jobs, but when it came down to it, if someone hates a person's guts so much they'd have them killed, that person's death usually results in an overall positive outcome.

Jiro had been given a second chance before she knew she needed it, and she was pretty happy with the way her life turned out. She believed in second chances. And this princess, Yaoyorozu, she didn't deserve to die. She was just an unwilling participant caught in the crosshairs. She felt bad about not knowing a servant's name whom she'd never met before in her life. She spent late nights in the library, and put countless hours into trying to solve problems by herself.

She had thought before that it would be a shame to kill such beauty, but Yaoyorozu was so much more than just a beauty, and here she was, asking an assassin for a second chance. Victims begging for their lives was something Jiro was quite accustomed to, but she'd never had one beg for a new life.

"I'll help you," she said finally. She went to Yaoyorozu's vanity and pulled out parchment, pen, and ink which she had found there during her earlier search of the room. She scribbled down a note in her rough handwriting, she hadn't had much practice writing since she'd been taught as a child, and used a knife to affix it to the wall.

By the time you read this, your princess will be dead and gone. There was never anything you could do to stop it.

"Now follow me, Yaoyorozu," Jiro said, and she led the way out the bedroom door, down the corridor to the secret passage through which she'd entered. Unable to see well in the dark passage, Yaoyorozu took hold of Jiro's hand, and Jiro couldn't help but think that she'd wrong before. Her skin was even softer than rose petals.

[I was worried that this might get unseemly long, but for the first time in probably years I've actually hit my intended word count, like, almost exactly. Wow. This is like, unheard of. I feel like this could have been shippy-er, and maybe angstier, but I think I did okay? I hope this lived up to expectations, and that you folks liked it! Please give me requests via comments or PMs! Love y'all.

<3 Raaor!]