Chapter Text
Ritsu yawned. He was definitely not paying attention to what his advisor was saying right now.
“Ritsu-chan? Are you listening?” Arashi asked. After a moment, she seemed to give up, letting out a long sigh. “You’re not, huh?”
Ritsu looked up at her, blinking a couple of times. “Huh? Oh, yes, of course.”
She leaned forward to flick him on the forehead. “No need to pretend, Prince. I know you’re not listening.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Ritsu replied. Belatedly, he lifted a hand to his forehead as he looked down at the papers in front of him. Arashi had put them there, advising him to get the work done sometime soon- it was his duty as the second prince of the Sakuma Kingdom, after all- but once she had started explaining what the reports were actually about, he had begun to zone out. Or he had fallen asleep, he wasn’t too sure. And now it was noon, with the sun high in the sky, making him all the more tired.
“One day, you need to start actually doing your work, you know? The few times you actually do it, I can see just how capable you are, and yet…” she trailed off, an air of disappointment floating around her. “I do get it, Ritsu-chan. I know it’s really hard for you with the illness and Shadow work. But can’t you try?”
Ritsu took a moment to observe her purple eyes, filled to the brim with sincerity. He, too, often thought to himself that he should try to be better. But like she had said, it was difficult. Really difficult. Even a ray of sunlight peeking through a window was enough to drain all of his energy, so working during the day was a laborious task. Not to mention he was always active at night. Well, so was she, so perhaps that wasn’t a valid excuse.
“I’ll try, don’t worry Nacchan,” he said, even as he fought to keep his eyelids from shutting. He picked up his pen, quickly scanning the document. “Hmm… requests for more supplies down north? Didn’t we already send some?”
“They were intercepted by bandits. The roads down north get quite perilous,” Arashi explained, crossing her arms. “We had guards as well, but it seems they were drastically outnumbered. Only one knight survived, the one who reported the incident.”
Ritsu hummed in thought. It was true that violence and crime were on the rise, with tensions rising between his kingdom and their eastbound neighbor, the Tenshouin Kingdom. Not to mention that their westbound neighbor, the Isara Kingdom, had a centuries-old truce with them. If war were to start, the possibility of them being surrounded by fighting was quite possible. Hence why the crown prince was currently in the Tenshouin Kingdom on a diplomatic mission. Well, the king was also having talks with the Isara royal family asking for possible alliances.
But anyway, if the north was getting too dangerous, he would have to do something to change that.
“Perhaps we’ll have to send a full unit to the north to clear out the bandits first,” Ritsu mused, looking over the report once more. “I will speak with the head of knights first, then…”
“Who, Izumi-chan? I think he’s already aware of the issue. Actually, I think he’s been wanting to send people down there for a while, so it would be wise to speak with him on the matter.”
“Then that’s settled. I’ll speak with Secchan tomorrow. Or maybe tonight? Whichever is fine…” Ritsu said, setting the paper aside. He took a new paper off the stack. The words were blurry, to the point where he could barely read. He grunted in pain as a headache suddenly pierced his skull, making his vision swim even further.
“Okay, that’s enough for today, then,” Arashi said immediately. She took the papers from his desk, filing them away somewhere. “You get some rest. I’ll see you again tonight.”
“Thanks, Nacchan…” he replied, massaging his temple. The advisor soon left with a flourish of her floor-length robes, leaving Ritsu alone at the desk. He let out another yawn, then stood. After a moment, he began making his way over to his bedroom, which was right across the hall. He managed to close the door behind him at least before stumbling across the wood floors and flopping down onto the bed. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he fell asleep.
He opened his eyes again to see beams of moonlight filtering through the silk curtains. Finally, it was night once more. He breathed a sigh of relief, standing and walking barefoot over to the window.
It was a beautiful night. The sky was full of stars, unblocked by clouds. A perfect night to go out and get some things done. Which, of course, was precisely what he planned to do. He quickly got dressed, fastening his sword at his waist and throwing a simple dark cloak over the outfit. Double checking he had everything he needed and quickly combing through his hair with his hand, he took off.
The hallways were always eerily empty at night, especially compared to how busy they were during the day with staff and nobles passing through at any given moment. But he was more used to it this way. Nobody to bother him as he ran, the heels of his boots clicking against the floor. There were a few guards stationed at important places in the castle, but they were all aware of him. Most didn’t know that it was the prince who always ran through the halls at night; instead, they were told that it was one of the kingdom’s Shadows, and it was left at that.
He made his way over to the small door that opened up into a staircase leading to the basement. It required a key to open, which he provided. He quickly bounded down the steps until he reached his destination.
There were several rooms in the basement, all of which served a different function and all of which were reserved solely for use by the Shadows, a small circle of elite knights who worked under the cover of night to investigate important matters and forward the king’s agenda, whatever that may be. Ritsu had taken over as leader of the Shadows when he was very young. His father had told him it was in preparation for when Rei became king and he began working for him. Ritsu suspected it was just because the slot had opened up.
Either way, all the old Shadows had retired, meaning the current circle was handpicked by Ritsu. He had been a bit lazy with his choices, really just going for people he already knew, but it had worked out surprisingly well. As a team, their chemistry was amazing, and each individual was talented in their own right. If anybody asked, Ritsu would respond that he had put a lot of thought and care into selecting each person.
He passed through the library and entered the meeting room, seeing that everyone else had already gathered. They were all wearing dark cloaks just as he was, with their hoods down and their weapons sheathed either at their waists, next to them on the floor, or leaning against the wall. Leo, of course, had his bow slung over his shoulder, though his quiver was leaning against the wall next to Izumi’s rapier.
“Ritsu-chan! There you are. I thought perhaps that headache from earlier today had rendered you bedridden,” Arashi said as he entered.
He took a seat at the head of the table. “No, I’m alright,” he said. “I guess I overslept a little.”
“A little?” Izumi scoffed. “You’re half an hour late.”
“And yet you all waited for me~” Ritsu teased.
“Right, then shall we get started?” Tsukasa asked from the other side of the table. “We have much to get done today.”
“Yes, go ahead, Suu-chan,” Ritsu told him. While Ritsu was technically the head of the Shadows, he tended to leave the leadership role to Tsukasa. Leading wasn’t really his style, and the Suou dukedom’s heir was much better at it than he was. Tsukasa had been a relatively late addition to the group, so at first Leo had been their leader, but they ended up changing that once their youngest member joined.
Tsukasa turned behind him and grabbed a stack of papers off the side table. Ritsu expected him to leaf through it, summarizing each one, like he usually did, but instead, he watched as the redhead tossed the stack onto the table. The sheets spread out unevenly over the table. Ritsu picked up the closest one, scanning over it as Tsukasa spoke.
“These are all death threats that have been sent anonymously to the PALACE through several different means. I’ve been asking that they all be sent to me for SAFETY reasons,” he explained.
True enough, the page in Ritsu’s hand simply said that Rei was going to die soon in scratchy handwriting over and over again.
“And their target is Anija?” he asked.
“CORRECT. I did have some people analyze the handwriting, and it appears several different people wrote them. Other than that, though, I haven’t had time to properly look over them all,” Tsukasa answered.
“So this is an organization that’s targeting the prince,” Izumi stated, a hand up to his chin in thought. “How annoying.”
“Ahaha! You think everything is annoying,” Leo pointed out. He picked up a piece of paper only to throw it across the table. “These threats are useless though! How are we supposed to find the ones who sent them? You have any ideas, Sena?”
“As if, idiot,” Izumi grumbled back. “To my knowledge, we don’t have any leads.”
Tsukasa crossed his arms. “That is precisely what I wanted to do first today, finding leads. I figured you might find some CLUES in the letters.”
Ritsu scanned over the papers. “Ah. I found one.”
Arashi looked over at him in surprise. “Already? What is it?”
He lifted one off the stack. This paper had patterns on the border: simple floral designs that were barely noticeable as they were only a few shades lighter than the rest of the paper.
“If I recall correctly…” his mind flashed back to a particular outing he had taken to the capital. Busy streets blurred past in his mind’s eye. He was there on his first-ever outing to the capital with Rei. It would also be his last official visit since after that day his condition kept declining without an end in sight. That day, he had stayed in the carriage for most of the trip with the curtains drawn, curled up into a ball in hopes that making himself small would somehow make the pain go away. He vaguely recalled Rei speaking to a salesman. It was…
“Specialized paper. They only sell this particular paper at one shop. And if I’m remembering properly, this shop is relatively far from the palace. No promises that that means it isn’t popular, but we could narrow it down at least somewhat. And look.”
The others watched as Ritsu began picking more and more papers out of the stack until he had five with different patterns in his hand. “They have quite a few of these. Perhaps if we show the shopkeep, they’ll remember something. Or perhaps the person who stops by is a regular. After all, the handwriting on these ones are all the same.”
“You’re right. As expected of Ritsu-chan, you pick up on things fast,” Arashi said. She then sighed, resting her chin on her hand. “If only you were this quick at doing your paperwork…”
Ritsu chose to ignore the second part of her statement. “Well, chances are the shop isn’t open at night. So I will not be joining you for that.”
“Understood. Anything else?” Tsukasa asked. Even now, all five members were holding up papers and looking at them with varying degrees of scrutinizing expressions.
“Why is this one so thick?” Leo asked, holding up the paper he was holding to the light. “Woah! Sena, look!”
Izumi obliged, albeit with a slightly annoyed expression, but after a moment, the annoyance faded and he narrowed his eyes to look closer.
“There’s another smaller piece of paper stuck to it,” he said. “I can kind of see the words from here.”
“Do you think we could… unstick it?” Arashi asked.
“I doubt it would come off cleanly. It might become even harder to read,” Izumi replied. “We can just hold it up to the light. Who has the best eyesight here?”
“Give me that,” Ritsu said. He took the paper, then got up and turned off the light.
“Oi, what was that for?” Izumi protested.
“I see better in the dark,” Ritsu replied. He took a few moments to read the enclosed message. “It seems like this got stuck by mistake. You can hardly see it from the back since it lines up almost perfectly… so they must have had it stacked neatly. How it managed to get glued down in that state, I don’t know. Let’s see, what does it say… ‘Mom, I recently moved house. If you are planning to visit, here’s a map showing you the way. I’m sorry I left so suddenly…’ blah, blah blah. We know where one of the people sending death threats lives. Isn’t that convenient~?”
“Well then, what are we waiting for?” Arashi asked. “Let’s go.”
In a moment, Ritsu had turned all the lights on and everyone gathered up their belongings before the five headed out of the basement.
It appeared they had a busy night ahead.
They peered through the window. It was a small house relatively near the palace. A light was on, illuminating a figure that was sitting at their desk.
“What do we do now?” Arashi asked.
“We can’t just burst in and demand answers, unfortunately,” Izumi said. “We could just knock on the door.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Yes,” Izumi replied somewhat impatiently. “Clearly they’re awake.”
“Actually, that isn’t a bad idea,” Ritsu said with a mischievous grin. “Well. Izumi, you can go knock on the front door, and the rest of us will wait by the other exits.”
“Roger!” Leo said, “I’ll go with you, Sena! We have enough people.”
“Ugh, fine. Whatever. Don’t scare the person away with your nonsense.”
The pair headed to the door, with Ritsu motioning for each of the remaining members to take one of the other three cardinal directions. Ritsu found himself behind the house. The back door led into a narrow alleyway. It seemed like it was mostly used to dispose of trash, but if anything, that made it a better escape route.
He could hear Izumi knocking on the door. A firm three knocks, just like whenever he knocked on the door of Ritsu’s room. Some sort of bickering between Izumi and Leo ensued until the door opened. From here, Ritsu had no idea what was being said, but the door suddenly slammed. The lights in the house went out in a flash, and just as Ritsu had suspected, the back door swung open as a figure took off into the night.
He immediately took to chasing the figure. But he also heard noises in every direction. There hadn’t been just one person in the house, but a fair few. Each of the Shadows took off in their respective directions. For now, Ritsu was alone.
He ran along the rooftops as the figure ran in the alley below. He couldn’t be certain whether the person had sensed his presence yet, though. They reached the exit of the alley, and the figure turned left. Ritsu jumped down from the rooftops to continue chasing. As much as people tended to call Ritsu slow and lazy, when he was in his element, he could be shockingly fast.
Soon enough, he had closed the distance, and he drew his sword.
However, the fleeing individual reacted quicker than he had anticipated, turning around and ducking beneath his blade. They then reached up, hitting him hard in the wrist. His weapon went spinning out of his grasp. He gasped as the figure rushed forward, drawing a dagger from their sleeve. Details of the figure’s face came into his vision.
He quickly memorized the details of their face. Great. Now all he needed to do was quickly dodge, kick the criminal’s legs so they lose their balance, and tie them up with the rope he had stored under his cloak. He began to grin as he envisioned the moves and began to execute them.
Or not.
Another figure suddenly appeared, jumping from the rooftop and quickly parrying the criminal’s surprised strike with a sword. Soon, the dagger skidded against the concrete, out of the suspect’s reach.
Ritsu almost began to clap in his surprise, until he realized that the suspect had gotten away. He turned to his mysterious savior with a hint of annoyance.
“Why, hello. Thank you kindly for your assistance, but I had that situation under control before you arrived.” He dusted off his clothes, then stood straight to look at the person in front of him. Now that he was looking closer, he could see wine-red locks of hair and shining emerald eyes underneath their hood. “Thanks to you, the suspect escaped, so I hope you have something to say for yourself.”
“Ahaha…” the figure laughed a bit awkwardly. “I’m sorry about that. You looked like you were in danger so I had to jump in and help. I didn’t mean to get in your way.”
Ritsu felt his shoulders and expression relax a bit. “No, sorry. I shouldn’t have been so hostile towards you. Thank you for your help, really. Mind if I ask who you are and what you’re doing out so late at night?”
“I’m Mao,” he said with a smile. “I, uh. I just like taking moonlit strolls?” He sounded uncertain, as if he were asking a question.
“With your sword?” Ritsu asked, crossing his arms and lifting an eyebrow. He was more amused than suspicious.
“... Yeah. What about you, then? What’s your name?” Mao asked.
“I’m Ritsu. Nice to meet you. Although I doubt we’ll meet again.”
“Yeah, that’s true…” He paused before awkwardly adding, “Have a good night then, Ritsu.”
Ritsu smiled. “You too, Maa-kun.”