Facing East

[IamLEAM1983]

The samurai grunted. "Count your blessings, then..."

He was silent for a moment and then narrowed his eyes again. "Traffic's gone down, but the folks came back from the fields..."

Katsumoto then stepped forward and joined Crystal and Archie. "Thank you, Inoue-san, but I believe we'll have to postpone your preliminary examination of my friend and use your back door.
- Is something wrong, Katsumoto-san?"

The Japanese spy made a small grimace. "You'd better close your doors until the guardsmen give the all-clear... If there's any guardsmen left. It's too quiet outside."

Fear touched the man's features and he bowed sharply. "Lowell-san, Holden-sama - domo."

He then gestured for them to follow. The group would soon be spirited into the narrow tangle of alleyways typical of small Japanese villages. "Do you have a headcount?" asked Archie, which left Eiji to nod in the negative.

"No," he said, "but we know they wear Mab's blue. They aren't hiding - they're making a statement. Stay low, all. Keep quiet. We can enter the Lord's estate through the servants' entrance."

[TennyoCeres84]

At Katsumoto's instructions, both women slipped into stealth mode. Aspasia walked as lightly and discreetly as her hooves could go, while Crystal quietly padded along after the elderly man as he led their group.

[IamLEAM1983]

If Archie had learned anything from Katsumoto, it was that proper spies and assassins were quiet. His time in Russia had introduced him to the idea of brazen revolutionaries who conducted massacres in public squares, or alien intelligence ordering widespread purges across the Caucasus and up to the edges of the Black Sea. Artyom Puriskevich had been quiet enough, right up until he'd needed to become Lancet again. Anastasius' suppression had been violent, noisy and political.

This, however, was different. A lack of politics and pure professionalism - dedication to one's craft - paved the way for the kind of silence the villagers of Eien-No-Yuki mistook for the silence of the back streets, further away from the market lane. A few wood and thatch walls away, people obliviously led their lives, never seeing or sensing the four strangers who crept towards the outer wall of Lord Urakawa's castle. Eiji had them ignore the road and cut across the reeds and snow-dusted summertime plants that waited at the outskirts of the village. Around the keep waited a mixed orchard, apple and cherry trees both bearing fruit despite the cold, the perfect orbs of nearly-black cherries dappled with frost.

Eiji told the group to run across the field at the count of three. Nothing happened. Past the outer wall, the same eerie calm waited. Daisuke's stableboys worked, and so did his own blacksmith and storekeeper. The head of staff's residence was empty and his tabi were missing, which suggested he was inside the keep proper. Ahead waited a wide stone tower of typical Himeji design, slanted roofs and walls intersecting harmoniously. A few dependencies were attached, but the brunt of the structure seemed to be comprised of three levels, all poised in order to be able to look out past the perimeter wall at the village beyond. It seemed easy enough to imagine Urakawa-san at the top tier's balcony, his keen Malk eyes picking out the tiny figures of each villager, his nose perceiving their wafts of contentment, pain, pleasure or heartbreak, and his ears understanding distant calls from street vendors or mothers calling their children for supper.

Eiji was still tense, however, and he could tell the keep's front guards also were. The pond's Zen fountain hadn't finished murmuring and lightly clacking as it refilled its flask and emptied it in the small body of water, the blacksmith hadn't finished hammering out horseshoes and the storekeeper had just offered a sack of rice to a relieved family man - but something was still amiss.

"We might have a better view from inside," he suggested. "We should-"

He'd barely spoken that his eyes locked onto a flash of blue in the trees outside the keep's walls. A steely glint made him raise his cane in a scything motion, and a slender steel dart fell to his feet. Men in blue hakama jumped over the wall with the ease of the Fae channeling their Mantles, and seemingly filled the air with metallic hornets. Archie had barely enough time to pull out his sword cane that the blade was cut off, metal projectiles ricocheting off of his face and arms and tearing into his clothes. Pain would suddenly sear across Aspasia's left arm, but the series of inflicted cuts wouldn't have disabled her limb or otherwise severely marred it. Crystal hadn't been in position to receive more than a few stings from those shots that ricocheted off of Holden.

As for Eiji; the old man had simply vanished. Or so it would seem, until a flash of black and white moved atop the tower's roof. Light flickered, more metallic hornets buzzed, and some of the more mature trees outside the wall groaned as a few of their bigger branches were severed by a literal hail of kunai. In the ensuing crash, the party would barely be able to hear the screams of now grievously injured would-be assassins.

The only definitive losers of this unorthodox welcoming committee would've been the tower's two guardsmen - a two-tailed fox who'd been sporting a pair of tachi swords, and an ox with red-tipped horns that had been hefting a massive warhammer. The assassins' supernatural hail of steel had turned them into a display of torn clothes, exposed meat and gristle.

Three men had made it past the walls and Katsumoto's throwing knives, however. They looked human enough, but their eyes were unnaturally blue for people of obvious Japanese descent. The second one, lean and wiry and bristling with the zeal of energy, headed straight for Aspasia, shortswords at his sides and waiting for what would likely be a series of attempted crossed slashes. Another one went for Holden and Lowell, and a third opted to take the long road to Katsumoto's position, darting left and right as he ran in order to avoid the old man's kunai.

[TennyoCeres84]

Snorting off the pain, Aspasia knew that directly charging the assassin wouldn't do much good, and she knew the Fae was faster than she was. A quick action was needed, causing her to recall Eiji's comments about the chopsticks making perfect projectiles. She deftly pulled the tashi from her pocket and swiftly threw them in the air. with the aid of her keen eyes assuring accuracy. What would normally be used for eating by any non-Fae came hurtling toward her attacker at a surprising speed and went straight for his unnaturally blue eyes with a sickening squelch, as they would've been just as vulnerable and squishy as those of any other living thing.

As for Crystal, she wasted no time in shifting to her lupine form. Thankfully, she had worn winter clothes that had been composed of the same material as her police uniform, which allowed her to shift easily without having to remove a single garment. On all fours, she was frighteningly fast as she darted back and forth, turned ever so sharply, and then launched herself from the wall of a nearby building. She then went all in on the attacker, clawing into and biting at any bit of flesh she could get her natural weapons could get a hold of.

[IamLEAM1983]

The force of Aspasia's throw turned the assassin's forward motion into a dual jump-kick caused by his head whipping back. He landed on his back and immediately clutched at his face with shrieks of sheer agony.

Crystal's mauled assailant, however, seemed to have planned for her tactics. Metal armbands met with her claws and teeth, diverting some of the damage she'd intended to cause but still offering at least one arm to a decent bite and a few good worrying motions. Still, Archie wasn't one to let his loved one face danger alone. Just as the spy managed to force Lowell to roll off of him, he found himself meeting with the severed haft of the Lord's sword cane against his throat. A practiced overhead kick-flip forced Holden to back away, his motions now bearing the arachnid-like qualities of his maximum levels of main spring tension.

"Who sent you?!" barked the spy in Japanese, to which the assailant only replied with a leer. The back of the assailant's hakama did showcase the ideograms for kori - or ice - in a white circle on his back, but that could've been a division's callsign or a personal choice, as far as Holden currently knew. 

The assassin's blue eyes darted between Eiji, Aspasia, Crystal and Archie, and stopped briefly at the sight of the old man elongating both his cane and his arms in order to climb down from the tower.

"An old technique," he finally said, choosing to only acknowledge Katsumoto. "One that hasn't seen the light of day since Tokugawa fought against Imagawa...
- Good steel stands the test of time," he replied. "Not like you newcomers. Urakawa-sama won't remember you a fortnight from now."

The assassin's smile turned hard. "We'll make him remember. He'll never forget this. Consider it payment for Boshin."

Frost lined the assassin's eyebrows and eyelashes, and his posture turned fluid, his tachi sheathed in the same motion as what looked like an opening stance for some form of tai chi, in a faster and more nervous form. His hands were brought together, and a sphere of ice took shape between his palms. Waves of almost visible cold began to surge forth from the assassin, the formerly lithe Clank turning rigid as some ancillary and core mechanisms began to ice over. An almost contemptuous side kick was all the assassin needed for a sickly grinding noise to be heard from within the automaton's chest. Archie's facial rig turned spastic and then froze completely, his body having seemingly been paralyzed.

Other guards screamed, motioning for evacuation. Someone had to find the Lord and his chief tactician; that kind of cold would kill everyone in the compound! They had to evacuate the village to the mortal plane, quickly!

[TennyoCeres84]

Avoiding his kick, Aspasia sprinted over to the downed assailant and rescued the pair of chopsticks from his eyesockets, scurrying back to the group. Crystal recovered from biting the metal armbands and carefully collected Archie onto her back, much as she did in Hope months ago.

Over the chaos, various feline yowls were heard, one responding to the next as they hurriedly coordinated an evacuation plan for the villagers. Eiji would recognize many large, two-tailed cats entering the area, some solid black or white while others were spotted like calicos. The clowder of nekomata had likely been on a hunting trip, which would have explained their delayed arrival.

Two more Malks immediately charged the assassin holding the cold-emanating sphere from behind, pounced, and proceeded to maul him viciously. One was covered with many scars, and the other one was slightly smaller but no less lethal. Katsumoto would recognize them as the daimyo and his wife.

[IamLEAM1983]

The orb-carrying assassin disappeared under the pack's flashing claws and fangs, but not before tossing the ball of ice aside. Like an overheating nuclear engine, its power kept building up and expanding despite its lack of supervision. The nekomata owed their continued existence - and mobility - to what likely was a set of protective heating wards coupled with a fairly strong level of inborn resistances.

Still, seeing the orb's continued effects, Eiji realized no help seemed to be coming. He steeled himself, swept his blade aside, drew in a breath, and dashed towards it with a Berserker-worthy kiai. Unfortunately for him, his planned heroic sacrifice went nowhere, as a naginata fell from somewhere above and split the orb in two. The area's pale of unnatural cold collapsed, leaving only the village's normal faint chill. As for the weapon's owner, he swooped down on outstretched feathery arms and arched back up as he recovered his spear. Sojubo Kurama seemingly was an anthro raven, the red eyeshadow of the Wyldfae here traded for a dark shade of blue, the only patch on his body where the feathers that grew weren't jet-black. Unlike common anthros, however, his lower limbs weren't quite exactly a predatory bird's grasping appendages twisted into analogues to human feet and legs, but rather still displayed the double-jointed slenderness of a wild raven's own limbs.

If the village had just been dangerously close to annihilation, he showed no trace of concern for it. His strangely expressive black eyes appraised the scene with a matter-of-fact look, professional concern only touching his features as he gazed on Daisuke Urakawa and his wife.

"Milord, Milady - are you well?" he asked in curiously antiquated Japanese, something in the question suggesting he had no doubt they were.

Naturally, Eiji didn't take well to the slant. "We're fine, thank you very much!" he said, deliberately sticking to English.

Kurama gave the old monk a sideways glance, and nothing else. He might as well have said Well, good for you. That left the old spy to help Aspasia and Crystal recover.

At best, the Chimera would catch the old monk grousing in modern Japanese, before looking to her with a scoff. "Charming fellow, isn't he?"

[TennyoCeres84]

"Quite so," Aspasia grumbled, then sighing.

Momentarily humoring Kurama, the male Malk replied in the same archaic Japanese. "We are well, Kurama-san."

He and his female counterpart shifted back to their humanoid forms. Daisuke Urakawa still retained the noted hunger that all such Wyldfae of his ilk carried. He displayed a headful of graying black hair pulled into a top knot. A black ori eboshi was secured on top of it. Given that they had just returned from hunting, he wore an elaborate but still practical hakama in dark blue and a frosty lilac hitatare underneath the typical leather samurai armor. On the sleeves, the hitatare had a repeating circle pattern that contained a stylized image of a guarding nekomata. Black tabi covered his feet. Much of his face was covered with hard-earned scars and piercing blue eyes, which gave a slightly unsettling air to an otherwise noble demeanor.

Kasumi Urakawa apparently bore some Yuki-onna inheritance as her skin was far paler to that of her husband. Her hair was styled in an elaborate bun with long sidelocks and heavy bangs, and despite attempts to calm it, it still displayed a certain amount of unruliness. While she could've been seen in a multi-layered kimono, she was wearing a deep purple kimono and lavender hakama. The notable feminine detail were snowflakes that somehow resembled flowers as well, which contrasted nicely to her own armor and white tabi. Her irises were a frigid lilac with blue flecks.

Daisuke noticed Aspasia and offered her a subtle and toothy smile. "My deepest and sincerest apologies for our delayed arrival, Aspasia-san, Katsumoto-san," he said in a thick and gravelly accent, bowing and then turning to Holden and Lowell, who had shifted back and now gingerly held her paralyzed boyfriend. "And we had best get your friend to the hearth in order for him to thaw from the effects of the assassin's attack."

Both Malks then proceeded toward the palace, with the fauness and the werewolf following after them. Crystal only had a few superficial cuts, while the gashes on the Chimera's arm had clotted and could be bandaged later. The former carried the automaton by his torso, and the latter supported his legs.

[IamLEAM1983]

The tower's particularly wide base was where the salon, dining area and dojo were all located, several sections of its stone base serving as exterior balconies. The Daimyo had an exterior writing desk at his disposal, as traditionally low as could be expected and designed to be either sat at cross-legged or with bent knees. The guest areas were on the second floor, with both Malks could appease their instincts as climbers and surveyors by using the third story's windows to access what little remained of the orchard and cherry tree yard's thicker branches. The sandy tones of rice paper and beige dojo and dining mats were broken only by the dark wood essences of the associated frames and supporting columns. That might've made for a drab appearance, but the fortress' keepers kept the core building stocked in ukiyo-e paintings. Long strands of Daisuke and Kasumi's respective calligraphy could also be seen regularly, unspooled rice paper rolls hanging from a thread or length of twine attached to either end of the scroll's tube.

All things considered, the expected mixture of delicate attention to detail and spartan vigilance could be seen. Poetry and condensed axioms from the hagakure, translated verses from one of the English Gruffs' watchtower lays, a page of Ieyasu Tokugawa's journal dating back to his first dealings with William Adams... There wasn't much of the wider world of the mundanes and mortals to find, but the occasionally odd sight of a framed Western portrait of Hanako, Nami and Matriel - or of a single one of the three - added a bit of familiarity to the ensemble. Daisuke would've ended up roasting your average LCD picture frame, however, as well as anything close to a television. Crystal might catch sight of an old Victrola gramophone in the salon, something that had probably jumped owners between Archie as a gift-giver, Eiji as a first recipient, and the daimyo as the final inheritor.

As expected, the dining room's firepit was heated by genuine embers taken from Oberon's Hearth. The end result was a constant and discreet sense of comfortable warmth, something in the firewood's faint crackling wounds evoking shamisen strings being plucked or the low murmur of conversation in the language of Basho and Buson. Someone like Vernon Haskill might have been awakened to Faerie to the tune of London-town's fiddling and the Christmastime jigs and square-dances of the working quarters, chances were Daisuke's own accession to Fae nobility had been notably more spiritual. The right offering at the right shrine, perhaps, or the right sutras sang at a low key in the right Buddhist shrine...

Or maybe the art of war had sealed his fate. After all, the samurai were well-known for attaching spiritual importance to combat.

In any case, Archie's covering of frost soon began to crack and fall off, the spy soon clutching at his chest with a freed hand. He gasped as he tried to speak.

"Main spring... too fast for other gears! It thawed out first; there is... too much inertia in my limbs left! Main gears are grinding, like - like cardiac arrhythmia... Augh - chest pains..."

He gasped again and barely managed to turn on his back, sending a look at Crystal. "Grab... main spring's turn-key. Turn it, loosen it... until breath stabilizes. Then engage once more. Body needs to... catch up to heart. Heart needs to... slow down..."

[TennyoCeres84]

Stroking her boyfriend's head, Crystal did as he asked. She gently turned and loosened it. After closely watching the rate of breaths slow to normal, she reengaged the key into its compartment.

Removing her coat due to the comfortable temperature and hoof boots out of cultural courtesy, Aspasia snorted lightly in the tears of her shirt and jacket, reminding herself to find a needle and thread to stitch it up later. The same could go for her arm, but other matters were on her mind. The satyress eyed the Urakawas, Kurama, and Katsumoto and sighed. "What's the current turnaround rate for retribution-based attacks?" she asked.

"The Yuki-Onna's forces will likely know the outcome of their assassins when they do not return by either tonight or in the morning, Aspasia-san," Kasumi guessed. "We will still need to keep an eye out for additional men, but we are safe for the moment."

"Boshin was almost 200 hundred years ago, so they might come soon enough or wait a while in order to devise another attack. For the time being, we will get your belongings into your rooms and have you settled in for the evening, with Holden-sama's training beginning as soon as he is physically able," Daisuke added.