Chapter Text
Tomi stomped the loam until it was well flattened before replacing a clump of sod, tall with wild prairie grass, atop it. He carefully fitted and pressed it into place, until the section of earth he’d disturbed became nearly indistinguishable from any other in the vast, rolling steppe. Then he turned his attention back to Daken, who was sitting two meters away, knees pulled up and hugged to his chest; his psyche felt like radio static. Tomi walked over to him and knelt down. He sought for one of Daken’s hands, wrapping it tightly in his, and sat silently with him for a while. He heard Daken take a deep, rattling breath, and the sensations that ran through his psyche were like physical pain.
“... What comes next?” Tomi whispered to him.
Daken just shook his head. Throughout their circumnavigation, Daken had made no mention of plans beyond burying the last traces of Romulus, and Tomi hadn’t asked. Now the last piece was in the ground, and as soon as they walked away, its location would be lost, like all the others. “... What do you want?” Daken asked in a hoarse rasp.
Tomi sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think I can’t go home.”
Daken’s head tilted slightly and he wet his bottom lip. “... Depends. Is ‘home’ a state of childhood innocence and security?”
“No. I never really had that,” Tomi said. “I meant in the literal sense… Obviously not the house I grew up in, but I think I can also never go back to Japan either, can I?”
“Do you want to?”
“I’m a fugitive there.”
“... Twenty percent of the reason the authorities got so scared of you was your powers,” Daken said. “The other eighty percent was because you went outside the accepted power structures, thus earning yourself the label of being an ‘out of control terrorist’.”
“So?” Tomi frowned, puzzled by why it should matter. “I know it was a foolish mistake, all of it, but what difference does it make now? It’s not as if the ‘accepted power structure’ is going to forgive me and put me on one of their little state sponsored ‘hero’ teams. I wouldn’t want to be anyway.”
“Well now you’re being very naive,” Daken said, and climbed stiffly to his feet. “You’re assuming the legitimate government is the only one that matters.”
Tomi got up and fetched the shovel, then followed him to the rented six-wheeler. “You’re talking about the clans?” he asked, climbing into the passenger seat.
“Mhm.” Daken nodded, starting the engine. “Ever since the Yashida’s Ginjishi* made a name for himself, cutting such a gloriously shiny figure, now all he clans want their own post-human powerhouse. And as poisonous as the ‘terrorism’ incident was to any other career prospects you might have had, I think it may make a good CV to a weak but ambitious clan.”
Tomi turned that over in his mind for a minute as they bumped through the grasslands. “But a weak clan wouldn’t have enough clout to give me legitimacy,” he said. “To ally myself with a powerless house would do nothing but advertize my home address to the Ministry of Defense.”
“So then, not a weak clan but a weakened one,” Daken said calmly. “One with history and clout that has taken a recent blow to their potency.” He paused for a minute, the static in his psyche strengthening again, before he went on in a quieter voice that Tomi had to strain to hear over the six-wheeler’s engine. “I know of one like that. And I think I could make a pitch for mutual interest that would get their attention.”
“What clan?”
“Ogun-Rengo.”
000
The lack of any dismembered body parts in their luggage had enabled Tomi and Daken to take a passenger cruiser on their way from Thailand to Madripoor, instead of surreptitiously occupying a tiny crew cabin on a freighter with a side-hustle in smuggling. For a week they played tourists, with Michelin rated meals, massages, live music, and short excursions into kitschy little day-tripper ports, where locals hocked their culture reduced down to a cheap tchotchke, themselves, or their children in a desperate attempt to make ends meet as they fought economic exploitation and the ghost of colonialism still haunting their shores.
Finally they disembarked in Madripoor at a harbor that had been built just for the cruise ships, with an overpass to take tourists straight into Hightown without having to suffer setting their eyes upon Lowtown at all. A shuttle carried Tomi and Daken to a hotel halfway up the hill, where Tomi glared as much as someone with no eyes could at a bellboy who tried to take the sports bag from him. Then, after checking in, the mildly cowed and empty-handed bellboy escorted them up to their suite. While Daken was over-tipping to allay any inclination toward raising complaint in the form of breakroom gossip, he heard Tomi drop the sports bag onto a chair in the sitting room as he walked past it, and then the sound of lacquered wood clicking softly against itself as the bellboy was departing. Daken smiled, turning to see Tomi settling himself onto the bench in front of a baby grand.
He didn’t have any sheet music, he wouldn’t have been able to see it if he did, but the next moment Tomi was playing Chopin from memory and, so far as Daken could tell, doing so perfectly. “I thought you might like that,” Daken noted, strolling to the sofa and sitting down.
“You chose this suite for the piano?” Tomi asked, seeming to find no difficulty in playing and speaking at the same time.
“This hotel has a dozen or so suites this size and layout with slight variations in the furnishing, to meet the preferences of different guests,” Daken replied with a shrug. “I saw on the listing that a few of them had pianos.”
“... It’s been almost a year,” Tomi murmured.
“Before they called you a terrorist, they called you the greatest musical prodigy of your generation,” Daken mused. “You play other instruments too?”
“Koto, viola, flute,” Tomi agreed, nodding. “This is my favorite though.”
“It’s beautiful. I wish I’d attended one of your symphonies.”
Tomi’s fingers faltered then, losing the rhythm for a second or two, before recovering. “... I’ll write a new symphony to you,” he said softly.
Daken bit his lip, and turned his gaze to the coffee table in front of him, annoyed by the continued complication of the boy’s crush.
000
“How long will we be here?” Tomi asked, picking at vegetable stirfry.
“A week,” Daken replied, his head was turned slightly, and Tomi thought he must be looking through the rotating restaurant’s large windows. “Just long enough to get suits tailored, and we’ll do a little shopping for suitable shoes and accessories.”
“Suitable?” Tomi raised an eyebrow curiously.
“Expensive enough to say ‘you can’t afford me but you want me’, yet not so expensive as to make us look crazy or stupid,” Daken explained.
“I see.” Tomi ate quietly for a few minutes, studying Daken, the way he had one elbow rested on the table, and his cheek against his knuckles, gazing out at the city. “You like it here,” he noted.
Daken lifted his head, turning it, and his full attention, to Tomi. “The early footprint of what would eventually become the modern city was founded by wokou*, and in the centuries since, waves of more Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Indonesian immigrants, British and American occupiers... It’s a very mixed micro-nation. I look normal here.” He sighed and shook his head. “That, I suppose, predisposed me to feel comfortable in Madripoor… And it’s bright, busy, built-up, the kind of place Romulus doesn’t-- didn’t like. The vestiges of its wokou roots linger, and they unofficially provide safe harbor to disreputables, so it was easy to use that as an excuse for making it my default place for going to ground.”
Tomi nodded slowly.
“I have a Madripoor sleeve. That’s probably not something your psi-senses would pick up, is it,” Daken murmured.
“Madripoor sleeve?”
“The style of tattoo worn by Madripooran pirates. Looks like a mashup of Ryukyuan, Maylay and Polanisian traditions,” Daken explained. “But an asymmetrical imbalance is considered the ‘correct’ way here. To individuate Madripoor and show that they are at peace with being a nation of rogues.” He paused to take a sip of his wine, and then tapped his finger softly against the side of the glass for a minute in distraction. “I managed to find a real tattoo-witch. It wasn’t easy, but Madripoor is one of the few places they didn’t get forced underground or into retirement the last couple centuries... It’s resistant to my healing factor. I’d tried several times before that, but the ink always disappeared after a few days.”
Tomi frowned, digesting that. “... A tattoo is the kind of distinguishing characteristic that would get you noted in intelligence indexes,” he noted quietly. “Why would you wear contacts to disguise your eye color, but then get a distinctive tattoo?”
“You’re absolutely right. And Romulus was furious,” Daken sighed, shaking his head. “I… wanted to mark my body. Because I wanted to make it my body.”
“A rebellious act of body-agency… I see,” Tomi murmured and nodded.
000
“Supporting the community and solidarity is all well and good, but Carnation’s designs are just a bit too much for attempting to make a favorable impression on traditionalists,” Daken noted, glancing through a large display window at a collection that redefined ‘flamboyant’ as he guided them on past it toward a store displaying Versace and Valentino.
“That’s the New York mutant designer?” Tomi asked.
“Yes. His pieces aren’t overrot, but he definitely has a ‘go big or go home’ bias,” Daken agreed and caught the handle of the door, pulling it open. “This will better impress our target audience,” he said, holding it for the boy.
“<Hello, did you need help with anything?>” a salesman called in Mandarin, hurrying over.
“<Oh, I’d say... two designer suits a piece and a few extra shirts should do it for now,>” Daken replied casually. “<Until a closet situation gets sorted.>”
“<Yes, I can help you out,>” the salesman said brightly. “<Did you have anything particular in mind?>”
“<Do you have anything in eggshell melton? And maybe a heathered dove gray silk-cashmere?>” Daken asked breezily, and then turned toward Tomi. “Do you have preferences?”
“I don’t really know much about suits,” Tomi said with a shrug, and then frowned. “But are such light colors like you mentioned usual for that occupation?”
“Not really. The ‘uniform’ has become a great deal more flamboyant in the current generation, but still biases toward the darker end,” Daken agreed. “When they look at me, first they’re going to think I’m an out of my depth fop who doesn’t know what I’m doing. Once disabused of that notion, they’re going to decide I’m an eccentric, possibly attributing it to my mixed heritage.”
Tomi frowned, tilting his head. “Is there an advantage to that?”
“I’ve never really walked into a situation that I intended to stay in before,” Daken admitted with a shrug. “With the idea that we may be there indefinitely… I thought perhaps I shouldn’t plan upon playing a character forever, or not moreso than everybody else does. So I suppose the reason is to set up realistic expectations.”
“That you’re an eccentric.”
“Yes,” Daken agreed.
Tomi seemed to consider. “I like red, but would that be too eccentric?”
“A dark red might not be out of place, but it would almost certainly be a custom order and take a bit of time to fill,” Daken noted.
Tomi shook his head. “I think it would look silly anyway, like some casino performer,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be sillier than outfits I’ve seen some little brothers running around in,” Daken chuckled. “A red tie and accessories, or a red shirt would be entirely doable on short notice.”
“Should the suit should be black though?” Tomi asked, turning his face toward Daken. “If I want them to think I’m taking them and myself seriously?”
“Mm, seriously indeed. The older officer ranks might appreciate a traditionalist look,” Daken agreed.
“And it will contrast you,” Tomi decided. “A strong visual contrast, setting me as austere next to your eccentric.”
“Running along the lines of the proven effective good-cop-bad-cop gaslighting strategy, mellow-gangster-serious-gangster. Could make a useful impact in the first impressions.” Daken felt himself smirking, then he glanced to the salesman. “<Sounds like black suits for my friend,>” he said. “<He isn’t familiar with fabric, so please show him resilient ones in weights appropriate for a temperate climate, we’re headed for middle Honshu in a few days. Budget is irrelevant, quality is not.>” He turned to Tomi again. “This helpful associate is going to pick out some options for you in the right color and weight, and you can pick the ones that feel nice to you. Wool isn’t supposed to be ‘itchy’ unless you’ve got a sensitivity, it’s cheap garbage, or something else has gone wrong.”
“Alright.” Tomi nodded, and then turned himself toward the salesman and shifted to strongly accented but grammatically flawless Mandarin, “<I am blind. Please guide me to black suits that are conservative but not old fashioned.>”
“<Of course, young man, of course. You can trust me, I’ve been a clothier for years,>” the salesman said graciously, and then gently took Tomi’s arm and steered him in the direction of a small forest of black. “<Everything in our stock is this year’s designs, I assure you.>”
000
They managed to be on a passenger ship again for their return to Japan, but like when they’d been trafficking Romulus’s dismembered body, it was surreptitious; their cabin was officially empty, according to the ship’s log, and they would be disembarking without the scrutiny of any customs agents that could potentially recognize Tomi. Daken had made it sound as though this was a fairly normal business practice for ships in the Madripoor Royal Cruises line. But the other passengers were unaware of their clandestine nature and paid them no particular attention, allowing Daken and Tomi to freely wander the decks and indulge in the amenities.
“‘The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry,’” Daken read, his voice calm and even, soaking in like the heat of the sun even as the words slipped by and away like the breeze. “‘All family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor. But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the whole bourgeoisie in chorus.’ If this is so very boring, then it rather defeats the point of me reading to you.”
“S-Sorry for my distraction,” Tomi said, shaking his head. “... How do you know Ogun-Rengo will accept us?”
“I don’t ‘know’ anything, nobody does, the ones who claim that they do are hopelessly arrogant religious zealots,” Daken replied, setting his phablet down on his lap. “But Ogun-Rengo’s influence has been declining sharply since their previous patriarch’s death a few years ago. Before his passing, Ogun showed a more than a passing interest in post-humanity playing a role in the future of the clan, even adopting a pair of prodromal mutant twins and naming them his successors.”
Tomi frowned. “If they’ve been such incompetent successors as to send things into decline, then why would the clan be interested in more mutants?” he asked.
“They’re five years old,” Daken replied, shifting to lounge more heavily on his deck chair, leaning his head back. “The clan is in decline because it was decapitated and the chief advisor is attempting to do both his own job as well as play regent. Meanwhile, all the competition smells blood in the water.”
“I see,” Tomi said, nodding. “But you don’t think loyalties to the old patriarch’s wishes could be an issue?”
“Not if we aren’t trying to usurp the twins’ position in the clan,” Daken said with a vague shrug. “They’re five. If we’re able to set you up as lieutenant, not only will you have a significant level of prestige in the short-term, but you’ll also be well positioned to influence the twins’ world-view as they grow, shaping future policy. And, rather than painting a second target on you, as would happen if you were at the head, this would place you under the twins’ protection, which is to say the protection of all those loyal to the memory of their father.”
“I’m to be the lieutenant and not you?” Tomi asked.
“You’re stronger than me, and you’ve already made an intimidating name for yourself, which will do much to counteract concerns about your age. They’ve never even heard of me, so I’m a completely unknown quantity with nothing to get me through the door but my charisma,” Daken explained. “All that being said, the overall leadership structure is of course going to be a bit atypical. They’re already in a strange and uncomfortable position, what with to head of the clan not only being a duality, but also five, and so waltzing in the door with more ideas that flaut tradition is going to be alarming,” he warned, rolling his head to the side, presumably looking at Tomi. “You’re inexperienced with both bureaucracy and, please excuse me, persuading people to your viewpoint, so I hope that you will not be too proud to take advice and criticism and let me lead that first impressions conversation.”
“I will never be too proud to listen to you,” Tomi said quietly.
He felt a flicker of discomfort in Daken’s psyche. “You’re bored by Marx at the moment though, it seems,” he said.
“It’s not boredom,” Tomi muttered. “It’s fatigue and… nervousness, I think? It’s an unfamiliar feeling.”
Amusement rippled through Daken’s psyche and he chuckled softly. “You aren’t sure what doubt feels like, now that is a special level on the child prodigy hierarchy.”
Tomi resisted the urge to protest that he wasn’t a child, knowing that path lead to either an argument or Daken getting up and walking off. “Or an over-sheltered upbringing,” he said instead.
“Mm, that too,” Daken agreed, and lifted his phablet again. Instead of going back to reading, he tapped and swiped the screen a few times, and then set it on the drink table between them as it started playing Beethoven. “Enjoy the paradisiac sun and relax. If Ogun-Rengo doesn’t pan out, we’ll do something else.”
Tomi yawned, stretched his back for a moment and adjusted his legs as he settled into his deck chair again. “... And it will still be somewhere we go together?” he asked softly.
Daken was quiet for a moment, his psyche buzzing with static, disrupted here and there by shades of uncertainty and melancholia. “I think… I think I may be incapable of autonomy. If I ever was, it’s been long since carved out of me,” he said very quietly. “I am not saying that I’m not in a better position than I was before, or that I’m ungrateful, but you did cut my anchor chain. So I’m your problem and pet now.”
“You’re nobody’s ‘pet’,” Tomi retorted. “You won’t be bestialized again. You’re more than human, not less.”
Daken hummed vague acknowledgement, and then sighed, dolor pulling across his psyche. “You know that I’ve been broken,” he said quietly. “Removing the cause doesn’t simply fix it, anymore than putting a rock back outside fixes the window it was thrown through… So please be mindful of the level of influence you have over me.”
Tomi bit his lip for a moment, brow pinching. “I know that you are deeply scarred,” he said. “You are my only friend and family… Anything I can do that would help you to heal, I gladly would. And I will never attack you as some sick ‘lesson’.”
“Okay,” Daken whispered, and then went quiet, his psyche easing into a meditative blankness.
Tomi yawned again and tried to relax as Daken had suggested.
000
They left the ship in the pre-dawn hours and stole silently through the Port of Tokyo, slipping undetected past any interested parties like customs or harbor police. Once on the city streets, they strolled unassumingly and blended in, as much as a school girl and business man walking together at three in the morning can, as they made their way to the train station. From there they rode the rails, eventually arriving in a grubby neighborhood on the outskirts of Kanazawa as businesses were beginning to open for the day. After stopping for breakfast, they walked to a disreputable, by-the-hour hotel that wasn’t overly concerned by customers checking into one of their rooms first thing in the morning, or by a grown man checking in with a young ‘girl’.
Inside the room, Daken tossed the keycard, his attache case, and their garment bags carelessly onto the bed. “Okay, shower, comb your hair, brush your teeth, et cetera, et cetera. You have a very important job interview today, make yourself immaculate,” he announced, shrugging out of the jacket of his cheep, dark gray, polyester suit.
“Yes.” Tomi nodded, setting the sports bag down on the luggage stand and digging through it for his toiletries case, then he disappeared into the tiny combination lavatory and bathroom.
Daken unzipped a garment bag and pulled out one of Tomi’s new suits, examining it for any wrinkles that could have reared their head during travel. Satisfied, he laid the shirt, slacks and tie out neatly on the bed and hooked the jacket, on its hanger, to one of the pegs by the door, before extricating his own pale gray suit from the other garment bag and giving it the same treatment. He went over to the sports bag, finding their belts and new, perfectly unscuffed shoes, and staged the latter in front of the door, then fetched their watches and cufflinks out of his attache case. Montblanc, Bremont, Cartier and Konstantino. He laid the jewelry pieces next to their corresponding suits, and then pulled out his phone and scheduled a car service to pick them up.
Tomi immerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, hair still tied up on top of his head to keep it dry. “Your turn,” he murmured, walking past Daken and going over to examine the outfit laid out for him.
“I’ll be quick. I’ve ordered a car to pick us up,” Daken said, stepping into the bathroom. He scrubbed down with the garbage hotel soap and blowdried his hair. When he came back out into the main room, he found Tomi standing dressed except for his coat and shoes, running a boar brush through his hair.
“Are we bringing the music boxes?” he asked, tilting his head questioningly.
Daken shook his head as he pulled on his undergarments and picked up his slacks. “We won’t be allowed to present ourselves to the patriarchs on a first visit,” he said, pulling up his slacks and grabbing his shirt. “While it may seem a bit uncouth to show up without gifts, I think it would be a great deal more uncouth to show up seeming to have made the presumption that there was any possibility we’d be allowed to see them uninvited.”
“I see,” Tomi said, nodding.
“Anyway, we’re not finished gift-shopping,” Daken said, threading the belt onto his slacks. “A couple trinkets from a foreign port might be fun, but we need to show an appreciation for distinctly Japanese culture. Don’t forget that we’re dealing with hyper-nationalists.”
“I see.”
Daken glanced at the face of his watch as he pulled it on. “The car will be here in ten minutes. Don’t worry about putting anything away, we’re going to hang onto the room so we don’t have to cart our bags around like vagrants.”
“We are vagrants,” Tomi noted with a hint of amusement, dropping his brush on the bed and picking up his tie.
“Yes but we don’t want to look like it,” Daken replied, and looked at Tomi as he put on his tie, contemplating it a moment, then Daken strode back into the bathroom. He sifted through Tomi’s abandoned school uniform and pulled the neckerchief. “Come here,” he said, as he walked into the main room again.
Tomi turned toward him with a quizzical expression, and Daken held the neckerchief up against the boy’s chest for a moment, checking that the shade was a virtual match, then lifted it to Tomi’s face and tied it around his eyes, carefully arranging the long hair at the sides of his face to drape in a pleasing frame around the blindfold. “This doesn’t seem particularly inconspicuous,” Tomi murmured.
“We’re taking a car from this doorstep to theirs, not riding public transit,” Daken said. “Now isn’t the time to be inconspicuous, it’s the time to be striking.”
“It matches my tie?” Tomi guessed.
“It does,” Daken confirmed, picking up a pair of designer sunglasses and slipping them over his own eyes. “Bloody red, which makes a nice, metaphorical sort of impression.”
“Except I can’t kill with eyes that I don’t have anymore.”
“A bloody bandage, and a galvinizing moment, when you ceased to be a pampered child prodigy and became something much more dangerous,” Daken said, walking to the door and slipping into his shoes. “A wronged man looking for the opportunity to earn the dark reputation forced upon him.”
000
The car pulled up to the curb and stopped in front of a large compound with a wall that had been built in a traditional shape and aesthetic but of rugged, modern materials. Daken squeezed Tomi’s shoulder as the driver set the break and jumped out. “Let nothing spoil your calm. They’ve seen you in your wrath, now show them how cold you can be,” he said, for the fourth or fifth time that day.
Getting annoyed by the repetition would have only served to prove that Tomi needed it, and so he only nodded and murmured, “Yes.”
The driver pulled Daken’s door open, holding it for him as he stepped out onto the sidewalk, and Tomi slid across the seat to follow in his wake. On the sidewalk, Daken held a tip in paper-cash out to the driver without turning his head to look at him; the driver took it with a gracious thank you as he pushed the door shut. “Do you know what time you’ll need a ride back?” he asked.
“No, I’ll call,” Daken replied, still not bothering to look at him, making a show of giving the gate his full attention.
“Of course, sir,” the driver said, bowing and getting back into the car.
Tomi matched his pace, a step behind and to the right of Daken, as they walked up to the gate. A pair of men in suits approached from inside, wary suspicion coloring their psyches. “Hello, gentlemen,” Daken greeted, and Tomi psionically sounded the area to catch the fine details; he could feel Daken’s face shape into a smirk of priggish confidence. “We’d like an audience with the chief advisor.”
“Not likely,” one of the men said in a flat tone. “Which clan are you?”
The other man’s face was turned in Tomi’s direction, and a vague feeling of uncertain familiarity drifting through his psyche. As if he half-recognized Tomi but couldn’t quite place him.
“That’s precisely what we’re here to talk to the chief advisor about,” Daken replied, voice serene. “He’ll want to hear what we have to say.”
“You can get the hell lost,” the first man spat, simmering with quiet outrage. “Tell whoever sent you that Ogun-Rengo remains strong.”
“Nobody sent us,” Daken said calmly. “We--”
“Who is this boy?” the second man cut in.
Shades of smugness moved through Daken’s psyche and he turned his head just slightly in a vague gesture toward Tomi. “He is Shishido Tomi,” he said.
Shock rippled across the psyche of the man who had asked, and he drew a breath so sharp it lifted his shoulders. The other man glanced at him him, reading of confusion and concern for a moment, until he heard his companion whisper, “The Gorgon.” Though the man hadn’t recognized Tomi’s real name, he knew the epithet, and went silent, turning back to stare at Tomi, with short glances toward Daken.
“Nobody sent us,” Daken repeated. “And we didn’t come to make any threats. We have a proposal which I believe may interest the chief advisor.” Nervous uncertainty flickered through both men’s psyches as they exchanged a glance. “Shouldn’t you at least inform the chief advisor we’re here, and let him decide whether he wishes to hear us out?”
The first man asked again, in a less aggressive inflection than before, “You’re not here on behalf of a clan?”
“Not at this time,” Daken agreed.
The men exchanged another glance, and then the second man retreated a few meters, pulling a phone out of his pocket and making a call, while the first man sayed where he was, chin held high, attempting to convince them he wasn’t nervous. “And who are you?” he asked Daken.
“I don’t have a name,” Daken said. “I’m just the boy’s inugami.”
The man rankled at the non-answer, but kept it to himself and stayed quiet. After a few minutes, his companion came back over. “The chief advisor would like to speak with you as soon as he is able,” he announced, pressing the controls on the inside of the wall to make the gate roll back. “Please follow me.”
“Thank you for welcoming us,” Daken murmured.
Tomi could feel the first man’s anxious irritation rising as they stepped through the gate into the compound, and Tomi silently turned his face in his direction; he felt the man’s psyche recoil with a spike of fear and heard him gasp very slightly, taking half a step back. Daken’s psyche reflected satisfaction at the response, and, as he’d been advised, Tomi said nothing to the guards while he and Daken followed the one who had made the call toward the main building, the more bellicose one remaining at his post.
“... He... talks, right?” he heard the man leading them ask Daken quietly, unnerved, as predicted, by Tomi’s silence.
“When he deems it worthwhile,” Daken replied.
What seemed to be the main entrance turned out to be a vestibule into a large central courtyard that the building had been built like a frame around. The man lead them on a path of wide, flat stones through a classical garden to the southern side of the yard, before stepping up onto the veranda and sliding a door open, then turning back to bow to Daken and Tomi.
“Please wait here,” he said. Daken paused before the veranda’s step and stood slightly to the side with his face turned toward Tomi. Taking the cue, Tomi proceeded him up and slipped out of his shoes, then stepped through the door; Daken followed him into the room. “The chief advisor will be with you as soon as possible,” the man assured them, before sliding the door shut behind them and retreating.
“... This is cute,” Daken said, and tapped his fingernails softly against the door they’d just come through. “Not paper. Well, it looks like maybe they’ve laminated paper into it to look the part.”
“Something bulletproof?” Tomi suggested.
“Possible. It’s too thin to be polycarbonate, though... It could be titanium-glass,” Daken noted. “Or maybe just something weatherproof and easy to clean. Make the building more energy efficient. An enemy would have to get past the security gate and the courtyard gate to start shooting in here.”
“Redundant security isn’t the worst idea,” Tomi said with a shrug, drifting across the tatamis toward a traditional table in the center of the room.
“No, but it does get expensive,” Daken replied. “They have to weigh what they realistically need against what they can afford.”
Tomi hummed acknowledgement, kneeling at the table as Daken drifted around the perimeter of the room, examining the aesthetic details. Tomi turned his head as he felt movement in the hallway. A pair of young women opened a door on the interior side of the room from kneeling positions, like in period movies. They weren’t dressed traditionally though, but in feminine business suits with very high hemlines. “Good morning, gentlemen,” they said in unison, kowtowing, before they stood back up. One walked into the room carrying a tray while the other knelt down again inside to close the door behind them before coming over.
“Good morning, ladies,” Daken replied pleasantly, abandoning his inspection of the room to settle at the table next to Tomi. He shrugged out of the jacket of his suit and laid it neatly beside him on the tatami.
Tomi nodded silently to them as the girl with the tray came over, kneeling at the corner of the table by Tomi, and started moving the tray’s contents to the table: a teapot and cups, small trays of mochi and biscuits. “I am Yui. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, pouring a cup of tea and setting it in front of him. She bowed her head graciously before pouring another cup for Daken.
“I am Sana. The chief advisor is in a meeting right now, but he will come to speak with you soon,” the other girl said, walking daintily over and sitting herself at the corner next to Daken, her knee barely touching his. Tomi bit the inside of his cheek as he swallowed back a sting of irritation.
“We appreciate that. Thank you,” Daken said, picking up his tea and sipping it, even as Yui poured a third cup and gave it to Sana, very much suggesting their intention to stay. Hostesses provided to entertain the clan’s guests; it wasn’t odd, it shouldn’t be unexpected, but Tomi felt annoyed by it anyway. Particularly as Yui shifted slightly closer once she’d finished serving everyone.
“You’re a great musical prodigy, aren’t you, Mister Shishido?” she asked softly, her head demured but Tomi had a feeling she was looking up through her eyelashes at him. “They used to say that you must be the greatest pianist of our time.”
“They started saying that when I was six,” Tomi said quietly, and took a sip of his tea. “They say different things about me now.”
“I don’t believe when the broadcast media says such things,” Yui said with a dismissive tilt of her head. “The police and the government forces reporters to tell lies about anyone they hold a grudge against. They make news anchors call the chivalrous clans ‘violence syndicates’, using the power of government to turn people against them. It’s shameful.” Tomi could feel a bloom of amusement in Daken’s psyche as he huffed softly.
“And you, sir?” Sana asked Daken sweetly. “What is your name?”
“I was never given one,” Daken said, spurring disbelief in both girls’ psyches. “My mother was killed, and my father couldn’t be bothered with me. So I was called ‘Wretch’, ‘Cur’, ‘Mongrel’ and ‘Pitbull’.”
“Oh dear, that’s so terrible!” Sana exclaimed, laying a hand on his thigh; Tomi gritted his teeth. Daken didn’t acknowledge the touch in any way, and his psyche remained perfectly placid as the hostesses continued flirting and attempting to cajole any grain of information from them through small-talk. Tomi stopped responding to their prompts at all, devoting all concentration to managing his temper as Daken had so adamantly instructed.
Finally, the door to the hall opened again, and two men in suits and another girl with a tray came into the room. “I am Toratoraeru. You asked to speak to me,” the smaller of the men announced. “Who are you?” he demanded as Yui gathered her cup and Sana’s, as well as the spent teapot, back onto her tray.
The two girls retreated quickly and silently out of the room as Daken replied calmly, “This is Shishido Tomi.” The newly arrived girl knelt down where Yui had been, picking up Tomi’s cup and refilling it from a fresh teapot.
“And who are you?” Toratoraeru demanded again, sitting down on the opposite side of the table, glaring at Daken.
“An inugami,” Daken said as the girl refilled his cup. “I have no true name, but if one is required, then I will be Keisei* Daken.”
“You don’t have a name,” Toratoraeru snarled, psyche displaying plain disbelief, while the girl filled one of the new cups she’d brought with her and set it in front of him.
“My mother was killed. I’ve been told a story of how it happened, however the story was told by a creature that I know to be a liar, and so I really have no idea about the circumstances,” Daken said, voice perfectly even, psyche shifting into a bland, radio static feel. “But I am sure that she was killed, and I know that my father abandoned us, though not whether this occurred before or after her death… I believe that my father is the reason she died, and I know for certain that he is the reason I spent my entire life until a few months ago being tortured.”
Suspicion and uncertainty colored Toratoraeru’s psyche as the girl finished filling the last cup and set it in front of the very large man on the chief advisor’s right, and then picked up her tray and left the room. “And nobody else ever gave you a name?” Toratoraeru asked, tone hard and skeptical.
“Could a name given by anyone other than my parents truly be considered valid?” Daken countered softly, tilting his head. “But that’s only rhetoric, because the creature that raised me, a creature neither human nor mutant, called me only ‘Daken’ or ‘Boy’.”
“I see. And what is the proposal the two of you wished to make?” Toratoraeru asked.
“Your clan was decapitated a few years ago,” Daken said calmly, and outrage flared in Toratoraeru’s psyche, but he kept himself quiet. “Your great patriarch had ruled this organization for quite some time, turning it from a paltry street gang to a recognized clan, and then to one of Japan’s strongest.”
“And what proposal have you come to make?” Toratoraeru growled.
“Before you came in, we were having a conversation with the girls about the way broadcast media blackens the names of any citizens considered undesirable, at the behest of a government that, not satisfied only to govern the lawfulness of its people, seeks even to control how they think,” Daken said, tone leisurely and conveying a lack of concern at Toratoraeru’s impatience. “The same as they do to noble clans such as yours, they did to Mister Shishido after his status as a mutant was revealed. They claimed that the tragic, accidental deaths of his family were cold-blooded murder, when in reality, it was simply a tragic consequence of his uncontrolled manifestation,” he explained. “You must understand, Mister Shishido’s parents knew he was a mutant from the time he was an infant and hid it from him out of denial and unjustified shame. They hoped that his mutation would never develop past the remarkable intellect and physiology that he was born with. They gambled and lost. They lost their own lives in that gamble, and they also killed their younger sons and traumatized their eldest.”
Tomi gritted his teeth and dipped his head slightly, discomforted by the way Daken was casting his parents into the shadow of blame. He was more discomforted still by being unable to cite anything factually wrong with Daken’s description. Tomi picked up his cup and took a slow drink of his tea, trying to settle himself.
“A traumatized child, having lost everything he had, ran to the highest authorities he knew to demand an answer to the terrible things that were happening to him. It was just as some might pray to a god, but Mister Shishido, being really quite practical, chose to air his grievances to an entity that might actually answer back,” Daken said. “However, their answer was to brutalize him before and after he was taken into custody, flouting the constitution and his human rights. All the while compelling the broadcast media to claim that a traumatized child had gone on a ‘killing spree’ and ‘terrorist rampage’... You know these to be lies, Mister Toratoraeru, just like the lies they tell about the chivalrous clans.”
“... So you have told me your tragic tales, but you still have yet to tell me why you are here,” Toratoraeru said, his voice having a tense undercurrent as his psyche was like a turbulent ocean. “Please get to the point.”
“It was necessary to tell you these things, because the point would seem quite meaningless and insincere if you did not understand how we arrived at it,” Daken replied softly. “Shishido Tomi is now a fugitive, however unjustly, because the government simultaneously fears him for how he was born, and yet still sees him as a soft target due to having no ties to an honored institution.” He paused for a moment to take a small sip of his tea. “He needs the legitimacy of a clan. And Ogun-Rengo needs power, not only in fact, but also in brazen appearance, to convince the other clans that you are not to be trifled with. There is an arrangement to be made here that would be mutually beneficial.”
Toratoraeru was quiet for a moment; he was intrigued but also dubious. “... You wish to join Ogun-Rengo?”
“As mere ‘children’ to the clan? No,” Daken said, shaking his head. “Mister Shishido will be lieutenant.”
Outrage flared up in Toratoraeru’s psyche again. “You are too bold,” he spat. “Shumai is our co-patriarchs’ lieutenant, as he was Lord Ogun’s.”
“Oh? Mister Shumai’s patriarch was murdered and he remains the lieutenant despite that failure?” Daken retorted, lifting his chin haughtily.
“How dare you,” Toratoraeru snapped, even as shame flooded through the psyche of the large man. Tomi subtly moved a hand to the hilt of his sword.
“I dare because your lack of conviction speaks of weakness and rot,” Daken snarled back. “How many fingers do you have, Mister Shumai?”
“I--” the large man started quietly.
“You think to speak of strength and honor while you come in here as ignorant outsiders?” Toratoraeru roared over him as he reached into his jacket. Daken didn’t move. Tomi tightened his hand around the grip of his sword. Toratoraero moved quickly, though not so quickly that they couldn’t have stopped him if they’d wanted to; he drew a handgun from his jacket and shot Daken dead-center in the chest.
As Daken fell backward, Tomi leapt to his feet and slashed his sword through Toratoraeru’s gun in one fluid motion, cutting it in half easily, then brought the tip back to point at the center of the man’s throat before Shumai had time to draw his own weapon or do anything else. “Put your gun on the table, Mister Shumai,” Tomi said in a quiet but sharp voice. The man faltered, staring up at him uncertainly for a moment, and then set the gun he’d been pulling out down on the table. “Thank you… Your actions were quite rash, Mister Toratoraeru.”
“... And you seem quite unbothered by your inugami’s death,” Toratoraeru hissed back. “So then I suppose you really are the cold-blooded creature that the broadcast media paints you as after all.”
“It’s quite presumptuous of you to assume he is dead,” Tomi replied coolly.
Daken coughed wetly, and then pushed himself back into a sitting position. He put his hand to his mouth and gave two more harsh, forceful coughs, then he set a bullet, slick with blood and mucus, down on the table. “You have ruined a rather expensive shirt, Mister Toratoraeru,” he said calmly.
Tomi sheathed his sword and knelt back down as the two men on the other side of the table stared at Daken.
“I have explained to you why it is in the mutual interest of both parties that Shishido Tomi should be made an officer of Ogun-Rengo,” Daken said, picking up his cup. He took a sip of tea, gave another small cough, and set the cup down again. “You and your subordinates have asked me several times who I am. While I cannot give you a name that I do not have, I can give you a reason that I myself may have some interests in common with Ogun-Rengo.”
Tomi frowned slightly, unsure what Daken meant.
“I told you of the man who allowed my mother’s murder and abandoned me to a lifetime of torture at the hands of a monster with no relation to anything human,” Daken said quietly, reaching up, taking off his sunglasses, carefully folding them, and putting them on the table as he stared across it into Toratoraeru’s eyes. He then held his arm out over the table, raised to chest level but relaxed, and slowly extended the two claws on the back of his hand. “Now tell me of the man who murdered your patriarch.”
Toratoraeru and Shumai stared at his claws, their psyche’s painted with shock, and Tomi had the uncomfortable feeling that he was missing some deeper significance. “... The Wolverine is your father?” Toratoraeru whispered.
“Is the man who abandons his child really a father?” Daken asked. “I think you can easily enough understand the advantage of having Shishido Tomi displayed prominently in your clan, his mere presence will cow most would-be rivals, and he could easily put down the ones who would think to be more feisty... And the advantage to having me is knowing that this arrangement is not simply convenient, but that we have an enemy in common.”
“And what would your role be then?” Toratoraeru asked, a note of challenge coming back into his voice, but it was now much quieter, grim rather than angry. “Are you hoping to snatch the position of overboss from us as well?”
“No. Deputy lieutenant is where I belong.” Daken shook his head. “Mister Shishido is a highly capable prodigy, but he lacks experience and needs an assistant he won’t be embarrassed to request clarification from. Besides that, I think it’s a role I’m better suited to.” He paused, taking a deeper breath and sighing it out, then giving a small shake of his head. “If there is to be a clan at all for your young patriarchs to truly inherit in more than name when they are old enough to understand their duties, I think you know very well that changes do need to be made,” he said quietly. “You’ve lost territory on your borders. The other clans have begun to see you as injured prey, but if they knew the infamous Shishido Tomi to be of Ogun-Rengo, most of them would slink back to their proper places without needing any demonstration of his strength.”
“That is true,” Toratoraeru murmured, his psyche was now wavering, equal parts intrigued and concerned. “But would his presence not draw the attention of the defense force as well?”
“The government was shocked and frightened by Mister Shishido’s scene at the National Diet not only because of the power he displayed, but also because it was sudden, unprecipitated, committed in nobody’s name and with nobody’s permission,” Daken countered. “They may continue to call the clans criminal by nature and any other slander, but the fact of the matter is the clans are an institution. They understand the clans, they don’t understand terrorists. While they surely wouldn’t admit it openly, many will be relieved that a publicly maligned but culturally rooted institution is civilizing Mister Shishido.”
“... None the less, you’ve already asked too much,” Toratoraeru said. “We can’t simply--”
“Pardon, chief advisor,” Shumai cut in, and the other man quieted, glancing up at him. “... Shishido Tomi, before the press turned on you, they used to say that you were a genius.”
“That’s true,” Tomi agreed.
“Your inugami seems fairly savvy and prepared to supply what you in your youth lack for practical knowledge,” Shumai noted. “And… as he noted, I should not be lieutenant. I failed in that role as badly as was ever possible. If you are indeed a genius, and you are indeed as strong as they say, it perhaps would be both advantageous and appropriate that I should step down in favor of yourself.” He pursed his lips for a moment, psyche wavering uncertainly. “My concern though is one of loyalty. I have been of Ogun-Rengo for many years. My life belongs to the young patriarchs… What do we know of your loyalties?”
Tomi frowned and tilted his head slightly. “The question of loyalty is the one of greater difficulty, because at this moment I can hold no particular emotion for people whom I do not know at all. I have come here out of trust for Daken’s judgment. Rather than being built on sentiment, our decisions thus far have been built upon logic,” he said carefully. “If your concern is that I could develop ambitions for a higher title, then I can counter that with logic. The reasoning that spurred us to attach ourselves to an established clan was so that I might acquire the insulation of legitimacy against the aggressions of the government. However, if I were at the head of that clan, rather than insulation it would cause the government to become more determined to capture or kill me.” He took a deep breath as he wet his lip, and then continued, “And apart from the practical reasons of allying myself with a clan, there is also a very practical reason that it should be this one, and that is the patriarchs themselves. They’re mutants, as are Daken and myself. I was persecuted by the government because they do not consider mutants entitled to human rights. To support the ascendancy of two mutants to a position of power benefits the future standing of all mutants… So I suppose all that is to say that even devoid of an emotional attachment, loyalty to the Ogun-Rengo is an all-around survival strategy.”
“Yashida-kai is headed by a mutant,” Toratoraeru pointed out, but the colors of his psyche indicated it wasn’t a serious rebuttal.
“Harada has ties to that man that, while perhaps not exactly warm, are not quite cold enough for my liking,” Daken growled.
“And I don’t have as much to offer Yashida-kai. It is because of the weakened state of Ogun-Rengo that I have so much strength to add,” Tomi said calmly. “Rather than an asset, Ginjishi might instead see me as a threat to his own prestige, believing that I would make him appear less special in the eyes of his underlings.”
Toratoraeru nodded slowly but didn’t answer out loud for a minute, taking his time in quiet contemplation, before he drew a deep breath and shook his head. “We must have time to consider this proposal,” he said.
“Of course. We never intended to force an immediate answer,” Daken agreed with a respectful nod as he pulled a card out of his pocket, which Tomi had observed him write on with a pen earlier, and handed it across the table. “This is my burner. And I will be needing a clean shirt, if we are to leave without attracting undue attention.”