Engineering, Magic, and Kitsune

John walked into the room and turned on the lights, his face kept carefully neutral even though his mind swirled, Kaito immediately quieting in his presence and freezing like a deer in headlights. John had a chair under either of his arms, and he set them up across from the captive tax collector. Perhaps three feet distant, John sat, crossing his legs and pulling out his book of notes that he began to review.

Tension hung in the air, and neither party said anything. Silently, John flipped a page. This idea of Yuki's was strange, but he did have to admit it had merit. Kaito expected to be grilled for everything he knew by whoever captured him, and had plenty of time to steel himself for that. Perhaps he had even figured out who he had been captured by in the time he was left alone. However, the silent, seemingly uncaring presence of the man he was already piss-scared of? That was something new. Unexpected.

From the corner of his eye, John watched Kaito shift uncomfortably in his seat. All he needed to do was to play his part for a few minutes, not reacting to anything he did.

It left him plenty of time to think about that worrying letter Yuki brought back with her findings.

While nice to finally have a name to go with the leader of these tax collectors, even if they weren't present as far as they knew… The implications were worrying.

Who the hell was K?

They knew of him and Yuki to some degree, and they seemed to be confident enough that they'd face no major retaliation for nine days, so that meant that they felt it was possible to predict the pair's actions to some degree. In addition, the whole situation only developed over the last few days. That meant they had to be somewhere nearby, as John doubted they had any magical way of passing letters. From what he could gather, although they were gathering non-trivial amounts of wealth, anything to speed communication would probably be far too expensive to justify.

His impression was that basic magical items were merely relatively uncommon rather than crushingly rare, so he couldn't entirely discard it. After all, the first tool that started everything he had here was a magical knife he used to carve his first crystal, and it never seemed like some amazingly scarce thing, given how he found it on the ground under a table. Without it, he would still be stuck clambering around the mud at best. As kind as the kitsune was most of the time, he doubted he would have held the same interest for Yuki, were he just a regular, unpowered mortal.

Still, they didn't know when the tax collectors received the letter, so they might have less time than they'd prefer. At least they'd lose perhaps a day or two at most. Still plenty of time, he hoped.

There was always the chance the group would be leaving sooner than expected, too, and while in theory a good thing for the people of the town, it might bode poorly for the Nameless situation if they headed to fresher hunting grounds where John and Yuki couldn't reach as easily.

He was getting distracted again.

This mysterious "K" was almost certainly nearby. Had he seen them in person before? The mere thought made John uncomfortable. It was one thing to face down an enemy, and another to know they could be anywhere. It was a small mercy that the local yokai had never particularly tried subterfuge on him over all his years in the woods.

Kaito started to say something, but John raised his gaze to glare at him, and the man immediately quieted. Shortly after, John returned to the book he was "reading" with a quick harumph.

It still felt meaner than he'd like to, but he definitely trusted Yuki more than he had sympathy for one of the tax collectors, who had been bleeding people dry and threatening them with maimings.

Hmm. Despite being somewhere nearby, this mysterious "K" likely wasn't anywhere in town, at least openly. Otherwise, he doubted that there would be any written orders like this. No, they'd just tell Baisho Fuma when to move out personally, and they wouldn't have had a paper trail to follow. Perhaps they were already in the "Breezetown" that the group was destined to move to.

Or… they were here, just not publicly. After all, the whole "nine days" figure spoke of familiarity with their actions. Perhaps they recognized Yuki somehow, or at least mistook her for another kitsune they had a good grasp of. Could they be shapeshifting as well? Surely not. If the Nameless puppets could do that, it would decrease the need for puppets heavily, and he'd at least expect to see some more effective camouflage amongst the lesser ones at the bare minimum. Yet, some sort of disguise made sense. Perhaps it was a disguise of a more mundane type, with makeup and staying well clear of Yuki so she didn't smell them.

But to what end? None of this made sense, like he was trying to assemble a puzzle without all the pieces.

The door opened, and Yuki walked into the room. John turned to her and smiled, giving her what he hoped looked like a short, deferential bow.

Silently, she settled in the chair next to him, which he had taken the liberty of reinforcing after he heard it creak under her sheer mass last time. It'd ruin the effect if she sat on one of the uncomfortable, foreign chairs and exploded it into shrapnel.

Silence hung over the room, with none speaking, tension thick enough to cut with a knife.

"Onada Kaito," Yuki began, the man jolting. "Your group defies both the Mortal and Celestial Courts. How do you plead?"

The man paled like a ghost, struggling to find his words, sputtering, "W-what? I'm just collecting the wartime taxes under orders, that's all!" John wasn't sure if he actually believed that or not.

The kitsune glared at the man, and she flexed her Presence. John suddenly felt like he was under the oppressive, judging gaze of the sun on a dry, cracked floodplain from being in the penumbra of the effect alone. Kaito squirmed like a slug with salt dumped on it, writhing in place and breaking out in a cold sweat.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Yuki gently asked, her sweet tone in harsh contrast to her bared fangs. "Look at my tails. I've been alive for over two hundred years, young man. I've met and torn apart more liars than you know people. At best, you've been willfully ignorant. Look at what you've been doing. Did you not wonder how you've only been bleeding little villages with no way of resisting you dry?"

The man remained silent, looking away but still writhing in place. "We were just doing what we were assigned to do. Someone else with more forces is handling the cities."

"You don't believe that," Yuki simply stated as if she were saying the sky was blue. "Your little unit of bandits has been causing immense damage, and, even worse, has been feeding the wealth to a group of yokai on an extermination list. Under ordinary circumstances, I'd have torn your soul out of your body on the spot."

The man sweated, but said nothing, too terrified to speak as she eyed him up and down like a particularly juicy cut of steak.

Now, for John's part in this whole mess.

"Lady Yuki, I think that may be a bit premature. I'm sure he can tell us plenty. He just needs his memory jogged, that's all," John said, repeating the line they planned out earlier. John probably sounded too robotic, but his accent was probably pretty impenetrable and the fact that the kidnapped man was clearly on the edge of wetting himself probably disguised most of that. "You are going to tell us everything, right?"

The idea of good cop-bad cop routines existing in this world was a bit of a shock to him, but he could deal with it.

Kaito looked at him, conflict warring in his eyes as he probably tried to disentangle what John had done in the past from his current, more laid-back attitude. Given what Yuki explained to him on the way over, the man probably thought of him as a wordless, cruel lord, burning anyone who opposed him… which he didn't feel as bad about as he might normally, given who it was.

Was that him growing callous, perhaps? It was hard to imagine how he would have felt about this a few years prior, before the whole other world thing. If he was being honest, he wagered that he just wouldn't have processed it properly, perhaps knowing what it meant academically but not really knowing what it meant.

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"I'm just a lowly guard, I don't know much. They don't tell me much beyond what to do and where to go daily," he muttered.

"So, you don't know anything about how you were due to move to Breezetown in less than nine days?" Yuki pulled out the orders, and the man flinched. "Ah, so you do know something, then."

The man let the silence hang.

"I'm sorry to inform you, but there will be no rescue coming," John gently informed him. "They think you're a traitor. The only thing that awaits you outside these walls is death. Acquiring our mercy is preferable." His words held a grim finality that brooked no argument. John hardly looked up from his book, creating an air of casual indifference about whether the man lived or died, even if he was being the "good" one. Of course, he had no way of knowing that John had a good few notes from Yuki about what to say jotted down in the pages.

"Why wouldn't they… Lord John?" And there it was, the cracks began to show. The man was tense, clearly on guard, even to someone with John's lacking social acumen.

"People say mon can't buy loyalty," Yuki mused, cutting in, a coin seemingly materializing between her fingers, which she flipped into the man's lap, causing him to flinch. "They're right. But missing coin certainly leaves an impression. When your building was infiltrated, the one who did so took that nice chest of mon behind that door you were guarding, too. Tell me, who do you think they're going to assume took it?"

The only way the man could pale more was for him to be a corpse. It was a clever idea, on Yuki's part. By not revealing her involvement, they could masquerade as a bigger force than they were, making their foes even more cautious if Kaito somehow made it back to them without being killed.

Or perhaps if he made it back to them and got killed anyway, just not before they extracted the information from him.

The man should really stay in place, in John's personal opinion.

"Allow me to lay this out for you," John began. "Even if you escape us, you have nowhere to go. Your comrades will not welcome you back. The town is filled with enemies who know your face. The yokai of the woods would happily tear you apart. " He let the silence hang for a beat. "However, if you work with us, I can personally ensure your relocation away from this region… with a bit of spending money for yourself." Per the kitsune's instructions, he gave him a way out, with a metaphorical carrot as lure.

The man hesitantly looked up at John, almost pleadingly, and opened his mouth to speak. "I—"

"I'm telling you, he knows nothing," Yuki sighed, interrupting him. "I humoured this, but we have better things to do. Perhaps next time we'll have to steal an officer." And there was the stick.

"Please! Allow this one to help you!" the man shouted, trying to bow but finding himself too restricted by his binds to budge. "Just tell me what you need to know and I'll tell you!"

John smiled, albeit perhaps a bit too genuinely. He wouldn't be surprised if Kaito could read relief in his face, but he might take it as not wanting to deal with kidnapping another.

"See, Lady Yuki?" he asked, gesturing to the shivering man, and feeling worse by the second. Without waiting for a response, he continued, "Let's begin! How long, exactly, will it be until your group moves?"

"I don't know, but… we got orders yesterday that we're to hurry up yesterday afternoon!" Kaito quickly sputtered.

John noted that down. It seemed they didn't trust the rank and file with their movements until that info became relevant, but the timing… He had no doubt that the orders only came in yesterday afternoon. Whoever wrote that letter seemed the type to have their orders followed promptly.

They had eight days, then. That was… doable. John had done projects on far tighter deadlines.

"And where do you store your 'taxed' goods?" Yuki cut in before the man could get his footing, setting Kaito back off guard again.

"I haven't been there myself, but there's a depot!" the man replied, squirming. "I've seen them head there in the carts! The last time they visited, they were only gone for a day and a half! Apparently, the people who guard there aren't much for conversation. They mostly only give us orders and stand guard."

And those were almost certainly some of the Nameless puppets. It was a pretty slick operation. By pretending their drop-off location was a depot, likely in some shack, they could excuse why everything they had there disappeared; it was sent further along to the warfront. Of course, John didn't doubt there were people among them who had no delusions about their banditry, but the appearance of legitimacy was important.

"How useless," Yuki growled.

"Don't worry," John interjected. "I'm sure he knows where it is, even though he's never been there, right?"

The man frantically nodded. "Yeah! Yeah. Lady Yuki, Lord John, I— It's to the north! I don't recall much, but Gin mentioned fishing on his break! That means it has to be near the river, right?" He didn't sound the most sure, but it was likely the best they would get.

And thus, in reach of their kappa friend. They could work with that. Within three quarters of a day's ride, roughly north, near a body of water. Unless there was a second, disconnected river… they had an angle. Assuming, of course, this was all true.

John glanced at Yuki, and she flicked her left ear, a pre-determined sign confirming that nothing their captive had said was a lie so far. Interesting.

"How many do you number?" Yuki harshly cut in.

The man froze and seemed to contemplate things for a moment. John didn't know if he was trying to come up with a lie or genuinely didn't know. "Forty, fifty? Somewhere in that range… but we're not everyone; there are more of us all around the region. We're under Baisho Fuma, who gets his orders from Nomura Shinji, the commander overseeing collections in this region—" Yuki glared at him, and he quieted.

"He is the bandit overseeing extortion in this region. Do not mistake him for having legitimacy," Yuki ordered, and the man quickly nodded.

And neither of those people would sign their letters K. Who the hell was K? Was it the Greater Nameless? It had to be, right? Even if this Shinji was the nominal leader of this operation, perhaps "K" felt the need to make sure he didn't claim too much power by occasionally bypassing him. The other option was that the evacuation order was regarded as too time sensitive to risk passing through an intermediary, but that didn't make sense to him. At the very least, it pointed to Baisho Fuma knowing the secrets at play to some degree, given he followed those orders without a second thought.

There was always the option that Nomura Shinji didn't know of their actions, but John doubted that. Even if these groups were independent and hardly talked, they'd have to hunker down somewhere for the winter eventually, and John would bet it would be all in roughly the same place, away from the people they'd been exploiting. People would talk, eventually, and the truth would get out to the other groups not in on it. Discipline was likely a problem even before people started getting a few drinks in them.

"And this Baisho Fuma… is he around right now?" John asked.

"No, Lord John. He left earlier today… yesterday? A bit before the last dinner break," came a quick reply.

John frowned and made a few more notes. Troubling. He shared a look with Yuki, and once their eyes met, he tapped a question he had written earlier. After taking a short glance at it, she nodded.

"You say Nomura Shinji commands your group. Does he have any officers between him and Mr. Baisho?" John asked.

Genuine confusion painted the man's face. "No, my Lord. If there is, I've never heard of anything like that."

John leaned forward. "Does he know anyone who would sign their letters K?" he asked.

Blank incomprehension was all that greeted his question. "No, no…" he trailed off. "Oh! He mentioned something about a Kenji who owed him a lot of money back home!" he eagerly supplied, glancing towards the still rather annoyed-looking Yuki.

That was a no, then.

"You've earned your life, for now," Yuki sighed, rising from her seat.

"Thank you, thank you!" Kaito cried out in relief, slumping in his chair.

John also stood, picking up both the chairs and following Yuki out. "I'll be back to put you in a more comfortable position soon," he said, before closing the door behind him. He put the two chairs by the door in case they were needed later, and hurried to catch up to Yuki. She looked lost deep in thought, a frown on her muzzle. "That was a lot," he groaned. "I have some ideas on what to do, but…"

She placed a finger to his lips, silencing him. "John. You took good notes, correct?"

Hesitantly, he nodded. "Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?" he asked.

"Go sleep, please," she ordered.

"What? There's still so much to do! I have to start planning, I have to make good on my promise to be back—I know he's our enemy, but I still don't want to have him sleeping the night away strapped to a chair, I promised to—"

A wave of black-gold fire washed over Yuki, and he was staring at his own reflection. "I'll handle that," his own voice echoed back, "and all the planning can wait until tomorrow, when you're rested. It's well into the night. Go to sleep. You'll need it."

Staring at your own face was strange.

Maybe she had a point; it was time to use one of his old hyper-focus-related tricks to check. Turning to the side, he opened a window and stared out. The night was deep, dark, and moonless, the clouds suffocating the sky. While John couldn't tell how far it was along, he certainly felt tired just looking outside, now that he wasn't thinking about all the things he had to do as much. It was so easy to lose yourself in things, sometimes.

"Right. Perhaps I should take a bit of a sleep," John mused.

"Goodnight, John," Yuki said, giving him a bit of a push in the direction of his room. "Don't stay up, I'll hear!"

"Fine, fine!" he playfully griped, walking away to some well-deserved rest. Wait. The letter was a copy… Did Yuki copy the way the brush strokes were, too? Whatever. He could ponder why she went so above and beyond on that tomorrow.