by Nikita Thorn
Even the houshi was teasing him, and Seiki was about to say something, when he got interrupted by a pleasant female voice.
“It’s really not nice to keep a girl waiting.”
He knew the voice. He looked up and found Fuyu of Ichikeya [Level 15] in her light green inn maid costume, with her usual rosy cheeks, bright red lips and a mysterious smile. Seiki had gone to see her once to try to find out what these clans wanted from him, but he could not get her to say anything.
“Hello, gentlemen,” she said. “Ippei-san. Kentaro-san.” She addressed them politely, beaming as if she had been waiting to see them for a long time.
“Do we know each other?” asked Ippei. Then he noticed her clan tag and his eyes widened, before glancing at Seiki to confirm his suspicion about who she was. Seiki had told his friends briefly about the incident at Ichikeya, but they had never met in person.
Fuyu giggled, her voice ringing pleasantly. “You might not know me, samurai-san. But Fuyu-chan knows all about you.”
“Oh?” Ippei raised an eyebrow.
She smiled and continued, “For example, by the Shogun’s order, Master Teshima recently fashioned a nice Jade Steel sword for you.”
Ippei’s letter had not been at all difficult to figure out. Master Teshima turned out to be no other than the Blacksmithing Master, located in his workshop just a lane down from Ichikeya in West City. All Ippei had to do was hand him the letter he had gotten from the Shogun to claim his sword, which was an unnamed Jade Steel one with better stats than the Hikari—at least for now, until the Hikari eventually outscaled it.
Now that Seiki thought about it, it was perfectly sensible to handle it this way, considering how ridiculous it would be to on one hand prohibit weapons in the Shogun’s Reception Hall, while on the other dole out swords directly to people. The mysterious bottle of liquid that Seiki had received, though, they had not been able to figure out. Even Kentaro, who knew a fair bit about potions, did not know.
Ippei was looking at Fuyu. “Anyone could check the loot records for that,” he said.
That seemed to be exactly what she had been expecting, and a knowing smile appeared on her lips. “I also happen to know that you’ve been trying to find a new scabbard for that sword, since its original shade of brown doesn’t really match, and it is most unfortunate that the simple black stock one at the woodcraft shop was a bit over your budget.” She paused, perhaps for effect. “So Fuyu-chan has kindly brought a small gift for you.”
She carefully placed a polished black wooden scabbard with dark red trimmings on the table. “Red and black. Shinshioka’s colors.”
It was rare that Ippei was left speechless. He opened his mouth as if to say something, as his mind probably raced to figure out how she had gotten hold of that piece of information. But he seemed to come up empty, and could only stare.
Fuyu left the samurai to his bewilderment and turned to the houshi, “And Kentaro-san, you’ve been working on an Imperial Hat, and you’ve been trying to procure more purple dye, which is scarce in the market at the moment. So, I’ve brought a small vial for you.”
She placed a medium-sized ceramic bottle on the table, which Kentaro immediately grabbed, opened, and looked in. He gasped. “This is a lot.”
“How—” was all Ippei could manage.
Fuyu smiled. “At Ichikeya, it’s our business to know things, Ippei-san.” She leaned playfully over the table and giggled, her chin resting easily on her hand. “Everything has a price. Everyone has a price.”
Ippei glanced at the scabbard on the table, which he had not touched, and looked at her. “And to what do we owe this seemingly random act of generosity?”
“These are gifts from Mimura-sama of Ichikeya,” she announced. “In exchange, I would like to borrow your friend Seiki-san here for a moment.”
“Oh, take him,” said Kentaro, immediately, clutching the bottle of dye. “Shoo. Off you go.”
Seiki almost coughed. “That easy?” He glanced at Ippei, who still had his eyes fixed on the black scabbard.
Without taking his eyes off the gift, Ippei patted Seiki on the shoulder. “Take one for the team,” he said, grimly, as he reached for the scabbard, before looking up at Fuyu. “Lady, he’s all yours.”
Seiki stared at both his friends in disbelief, and Ippei started to laugh.
Fuyu’s giggles had most likely been part of her act, but she seemed really amused this time. “Nice friends you’ve got, Seiki-san.”
“Yeah,” Seiki said.
“Come on,” she said, nodding toward the exit.
Seiki sighed as he grabbed his Hikari and got up from the stool.
Ippei stifled his laughter. “I’m doing this for you,” he said with a straight face. “Would you rather be stuck here selling charms or would you rather go do whatever secret business with your lady friend?” He then turned to Masaji, the poor Level 4 who had been observing the whole situation in a sort of spellbound awe, and said seriously, “There’s a lesson to be learned here, my friend. In this game, with the tiniest bit of incentive, your friends will sell you out faster than you can blink.”
Kentaro was laughing, and Ippei shouted after Seiki as he followed Fuyu out the shop. “Hey, be back for the Tuesday mission reset, all right?” Seiki raised his hand to acknowledge it without turning around. He hated to admit it, but Ippei was right about one thing: anything else was probably better than selling charms.
“You heard that, Fuyu-chan?” Ippei yelled. “We want him back in one piece before Tuesday.”
“Oh, don’t worry, samurai-san,” said Fuyu, suddenly throwing herself on Seiki’s arm. She hid a giggle as he jumped, before she turned around and gave Ippei a wink. “I’ll take really good care of him.”
Seiki tried to protest, but he did not know how or even if he wanted to.
“Yes, Seiki-san?” Fuyu tilted her head to look up at him, her eyes wide and innocent. She was practically hanging on his arm now, so close he could smell the light fragrance from her perfume. Until then, he had ignored perfumes even existed here.
“Never mind,” Seiki muttered, and he dragged her out of the shop before they could become more of a spectacle.
The moment they were out on Market Street, Fuyu immediately let go of him and pouted. “Seiki-san!” she said. “Why have you been ignoring me?”
Seiki only now remembered that Fuyu had sent him a message a while ago about having something he might be interested in. But he had completely forgotten about it ever since Mumei started spamming him with appointments. “Oh, uh, I wasn’t.”
Fuyu cocked her head and folded her arms. “Why would you do that to me?”
Seiki recognized RP scenes now when he saw one. In the past weeks, he had observed many public break-ups and teary family reunions, as well as a long revenge monologue that eventually turned into a full-scale brawl—all of which was quite entertaining to watch, as long as you were not an unwilling part of it.
This was all an act, but Fuyu managed to sound genuinely hurt, and that caused a few people to turn and look at them. Miyuki of the Social Guild [Level 13] and Misaki of the Social Guild [Level 12] stopped and frowned.
“Didn’t you promise me you would?” Fuyu said. “And Fuyu-chan had been waiting all this time!”
Heads were turning, and Seiki noticed that Yuri of the Red Dawn Clan [Level 8] with a pile of cloth in her arms was now giving him a disapproving look.
“Uh, can we not do this here?” said Seiki.
Fuyu finally decided she had had her fun and whistled to her black horse, and Seiki breathed a sigh of relief.
“Fubuki,” said Fuyu, thoughtfully, taking notice of the label as Seiki called in his snowstepper. Seiki made no comment. He had picked the name from Kentaro’s book of mount names, which the houshi claimed kept being passed around in the Social Guild, among all the other useless items they seemed to possess.
Market Street was too crowded for them to gallop and too noi
sy for conversation, and they slowly made their way toward Ichikeya. It had seemed like forever since Seiki first headed toward this inn after leaving Kakura Village. He still remembered how he had felt seeing Shinshioka for the first time: a mixture of wonder, disbelief and utter confusion.
At the beginning, he had been so overwhelmed by the novelty of the whole thing that he had not really stopped to reflect on what was happening. Now, especially during his time alone in the woods, and perhaps as temporary relief from the much darker things he constantly mulled over, he had been trying to understand all that had transpired since he had met that ninja beside Manji’s cottage. And that had left him with all sorts of questions.
They soon arrived at Ichikeya, and he found the ground floor packed as usual. Seiki now knew the reason why, and it had nothing to do with sweets and tea. Being so close to the West Gate, the inn was the perfect location to sit down and wait to get a group going for the weekly military mission, which was always against the Demonic Clan, and which was always out the West Gate. Momiji Inn near the East Gate served the same purpose as a gathering point for civil missions, but that one never drew such lively crowds. And perhaps that was all because it did not have a Fuyu.
As the ninja girl led Seiki through the sea of tables toward the staircase at the back, she was greeted with nods, winks, waves and whistles, all of which she acknowledged with a rather innocent smile. From a table nearby, Souta of the Red Dawn Clan [Level 17] called out. “Now, when are you going to invite me up, Fuyu-chan?”
“Maybe soon, Souta-san,” replied Fuyu with a wink, before inviting Seiki to a group and up the staircase.
You have entered the Ichikeya private territory. Custom combat rules apply. PVP status: disabled.
The second floor of Ichikeya was as Seiki had remembered, with a wooden corridor and rooms closed off by sliding partitions. It seemed empty this evening. Seiki also noticed that the combat condition was also different from the first time, and he looked at Fuyu questioningly.
“The City charges a month’s rent for extra protection for seventy-two hours,” said Fuyu.
Seiki could only guess that it meant you had to pay much more to disable PVP in your territory.
“But we need it, since neither Mimura-sama or Junbei are in right now,” she continued. “Come in, Seiki-san.”
She slid open one of the doors and hopped gently in. This was a different room than the one at the end of the corridor where he had first met Mimura. This one was smaller, and was lined with shelves, cabinets and chests of different sizes. Against the near wall, between even more cabinets, was a medium-sized European-style floor clock, and Seiki noted that underneath its two normal hands, was a third hand, painted bright red, that presumably told time in the real world.
If a simple coin box cost nearly a thousand gold, Seiki did not even want to imagine what a true clock like this would be worth. And suddenly, he was no longer surprised why Mimura would have to deal with assassination attempts on a regular basis.
In the middle of the room was a low rectangular black floor desk, flanked by two dark purple sitting cushions with golden embroideries. A few smokeless floor lamps were placed at regular intervals around the room, lighting the place up in a nice cozy shade of orange.
“What is this about?” Seiki finally asked, sitting down on one of the cushions as Fuyu had gestured, while the Ichikeya girl dropped herself down casually on the other side of the desk.
Fuyu laughed. “Come on, you can probably guess. Of course, Mimura-sama has a job for you.”
“Another one of those offers I can’t refuse?” said Seiki. The gift stunt she had pulled earlier at the kakigouri shop was to impress him as much as his friends, and that was just the prelude to her real show.
Fuyu’s eyes narrowed. “What’s your favorite ronin move, Seiki-san?” she asked.
“Slide,” said Seiki, without having to think. He loved the move. It was the last thing Master Tsujihara had taught him, and the whole thing was tinged with the bitter-sweetness of the ronin-defining moment, not to mention the inexplicable sense of freedom he felt every time he used it.
That did not seem to surprise Fuyu, and Seiki wondered if every ronin felt the same way and whether this was entirely predictable.
“Expensive move, though, don’t you think?” she asked.
Seiki looked at her warily, trying not to hope where she was going with this.
Fuyu grabbed a long box from one of the shelves beside her and slid it over the surface of the desk toward him. “What percentage would be a good energy reduction for that move?” she asked, her hand still resting on the lid.
Judging from the size of it, it could only be some kind of a scroll. The other day, Seiki had seen a Calligrapher selling a scroll that gave five percent energy reduction for Slide for two hundred and fifty gold, and he had been thinking about getting that when his first Enhancement Slot unlocked at Level 11. Of course, ten would be even better. “Twenty,” he said.
The impenetrable smile had not left Fuyu’s lips and, slowly, she lifted her hand from the box as if revealing a magic trick. “Go on,” she said, almost in a whisper.
Seiki removed the lid and found in it a dark blue scroll with delicate grayish patterns, neatly tied with yellow strings around a dark wood roller. He glanced at Fuyu, whose expression was still unreadable, and he pulled it open.
Ability Enhancement Scroll – Sliding Spree. Every last charge of Slide now costs 60% less energy. Read the scroll aloud in the Swordsman’s Shrine to apply the enhancement.
Seiki’s breath cut short.
He had tried to call her bluff, but this was beyond anything he had hoped for. After the initial second of trying to control himself, he simply let her have the satisfaction of seeing him completely awe-struck. Every last charge of Slide meant that his second Slide, and also subsequent ones as long as he did not wait for both charges to fill up, were now much cheaper to use. Even if he used only two Slides, this would still give him an overall 30% energy discount. It was, indeed, an offer he could not refuse.
Everyone had a price.
“No.” Seiki forced himself to put the scroll back in the box and slide it back to her, feeling something almost like physical pain as he did so. “I can’t do this.” He drew a deep breath. For a gift like this, the price was most likely going to be something he would eventually regret doing, and he could not sell his soul to Ichikeya.
Fuyu studied him for a moment and giggled. “You’re not even going to ask me what the job is, Seiki-san?”
“No,” said Seiki. “I’ve gotten myself and my friends into enough trouble already.” He had no idea what these people were doing and how exactly he was tangled in it but, since Ippei’s only concern was to get to war games, he doubted getting himself caught in clan politics right now was the best idea.
Fuyu shrugged. “Worth a try. You can have the scroll, by the way,” she said, casually. “Now why are you looking at me like that, Seiki-san? Mimura-sama said that if you said no then just give it to you.”
That was even further beyond expectation. “I can’t,” said Seiki. “This is just… not right.”
Fuyu seemed amused. “Someone is giving you something you obviously want for free and you’re saying no?”
This was a slightly different Fuyu.
“I can’t,” Seiki said again.
“Oh, but you can, Seiki-san,” said Fuyu. “How about this? I’ll answer three questions honestly. Then, after that, I’ll explain to you the nature of the job, and you can still say no.”
She had held up three delicate fingers and was wriggling them gracefully, if that was even possible. Seiki took a deep breath. This might be his only chance to get answers to what was going on around him.
He gave in. “What was in that box I delivered for Kage?” That was the bit that had started the whole thing. It must have been valuable enough to cause Taka of the Shadow Manor to lose his head trying to get it back.
; Fuyu smiled. “A True Lock key.”
Seiki was somehow surprised she answered him so directly, as he almost expected more cryptic and avoidant messages. He thought about it as he tried to frame his second question.
“At first, I couldn’t understand why Kage would trust a stranger with such an important item,” he began. “But then, after I learned how blood locks worked, I realized it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the Shadow Manor didn’t find the box on him, or they would have been able to force him to open it. And if I didn’t deliver the box, Kage would have been able to recall it from the Bureau anyway.”
“Wow.” Fuyu lifted her brows. “You’ve obviously been thinking about this, Seiki-san.”
“Yes.” Seiki continued, “And since it’s the Shadow Manor who were after him, and since they called him a traitor, and taking into account how the Shadow Manor operates, I can only guess that this key was looted from an assassination victim.”
He checked Fuyu’s expression to see if he was close, but her smile never changed.
“So, who was it?” Seiki asked.
“Ah,” said Fuyu. “Very good, Seiki-san. The answer to that is: I don’t know. Maybe Mimura-sama does, but I don’t.”
That answer at least confirmed his theory.
“And what did you do with the key?” asked Seiki.
“We sold it, of course,” said Fuyu. “To the highest bidder. Like I’ve told you before, Seiki-san. Ichikeya deals in rare goods.”
All this was starting to make sense. Considering how expensive True Lock boxes were, what was in there must have been extremely valuable.
“Was it ultimately for a unique?”
Fuyu smiled. “You’ve run out of questions, Seiki-san, but I’ll answer this one anyway. I don’t know, and for this one, Mimura-sama doesn’t know either. We’ve never seen the box. We don’t know where the box is. And to add to the mystery, we don’t even know who the buyer was. The transaction was done through an agent, and the pay…” She giggled. “The pay was… obscene.”