Interlude: (IN)CONSISTENCE

"It is unusual, but very well. Besides, it may do you good to have someone watching you."
"I… don't understand, chief."
"There can be no justice without accountability."

It turned out that the entire apartment building Raikou-san lived in was owned by the Iga Village, so Gau was set up in the apartment directly above Raikou-san's. It was much too big for him. Even after a runner was sent back to his old place to collect his things, the walls seemed too far away and the furniture too sparsely utilized. Gau didn't have much to his name and the size of the apartment only made his possessions seem more meager.

Staring at the empty stretches of his new home, Gau couldn't help but recall the cramped 1LDK he'd lived in with his mother: the business ledgers with Braille-labeled spines crammed on their shelves, the sparse furniture pressed against the walls, the six tatami mat room where futons were laid out each evening and then folded up and put away every morning. The flat above his mother's shop didn't have a lot of space so what room existed was taken up with great care. Nothing was left lying around; messes piled quickly in such tight quarters and Gau's mother had no patience for tripping over dirty laundry or school bags.

After his mother was killed and Gau was forced to find a new apartment, he spent the first few weeks unable to sleep without the sound of her breathing beside him at night. Eventually he learned to be soothed by the creaks and moans the worn-down building made once the noises of the day weren't around to stifle them. He missed his mother and he missed his old life. It had been a small life, but a full one.

However, now Gau's life seemed to be expanding day-by-day. A whole new world, the hidden world, was open to him with its own history and important figures and Gau spent a great deal of time with his nose in a book loaned out to him from the Iga library, diligently writing down notes.

He usually read in Raikou-san's apartment. Sitting alone in his new apartment with all its empty spaces was somewhat intimidating and Raikou-san didn't seem bothered by the company. He was also, surprisingly, a fountain of knowledge concerning the hidden world and so Gau would ask him questions whenever he came across something in his reading that he didn't understand.

"Why do you know all this?" Gau finally asked one evening. Raikou-san was lying across the floor sketching something. He glanced up at Gau on the couch, long hair falling back.

"What?"

"Sorry. I mean, whenever I ask about something in these books you always know what I am talking about and can answer. But I thought you said you weren't a ninja."

"I'm not." Raikou-san returned to his drawing, crossing it out and beginning to scrawl something else. "I was born into a samurai clan that existed separate from the ninja villages, but I learned all of the hidden world history."

"Oh. Alright." Gau hesitated, smoothing one of the book's old pages with the palm of his hand. "But you joined one of the villages. Was your family okay with that?"

Raikou-san didn't answer, apparently too intent on his drawing. However, Gau couldn't help but the notice the way Raikou-san's shoulders had tensed at the question. He decided it wasn't his place to ask such a thing anyway and went back to his reading until Raikou-san finally sat up half an hour later and held out the sketch to Gau.

"Do you think this would look good tattooed on my arm?"

"Pardon?"
"Well, you said you're a samurai. I thought samurai carried two swords. But you only have one."
"Ah. Actually, samurai use an assortment of weapons. The daisho is just the most iconic. This sword does have a companion, but... it's not with me."

"I apologize that it took so long, but you are now officially registered."
"Thank you for going through the trouble, Ichiki-san. I didn't think I'd be able to go back at all."
"Well, perhaps the timing is auspicious; a new school year is starting."

The separation between Gau's apartment and Raikou-san's was thin and some nights Gau would wake up to the sound of Raikou-san moving around restlessly downstairs. Sometimes it was Raikou-san tossing in bed. Other times it was the sound of pacing footsteps. On more than one occasion, Gau heard a violent smash of an object being thrown or a fist crashing into a wall. These occasions always concluded with Raikou-san slinking out the door into the dead of night. When this happened, Gau would crawl over to the window and watch his retreating back until Raikou-san finally turned at the street corner and vanished from sight. Gau didn't know where Raikou-san went on these nights but he always came back with armfuls of red flowers that lay scattered across the apartment until they wilted so much that Raikou-san finally allowed Gau to throw them away.

Gau was used to such nighttime movements. His mother had had trouble sleeping the whole night through and Gau would often wake briefly to the gentle clicks of his mother working on her soroban. He'd asked her about it once and she explained that doing calculations into the early hours of the morning was the only thing that could get her back to sleep. She would apologize for waking him but he told her he didn't mind. It was inevitable in such a small living space and besides the sound of the sliding beads had become as soothing to him as the math was for her.

He hadn't realized that he missed those sleep interruptions until Raikou-san's restlessness first woke him up. It was a strange thing to miss, but the strange sense of nostalgia that swept over him when he first blinked awake in the dark was unmistakable.

"Where do all these flowers come from?"
"They're spider lilies."
"But where-sorry. Never mind."

"I have to admit, it looks a lot better on your arm than it did on paper."
"Most likely thanks to your always beautiful work, Hitomi-chan."
"It doesn't matter how much you try to flatter me, I won't give you a discount."

Gau consulted the map Raikou-san had drawn and took a left. He'd never been in this part of the city before, but then again up until he joined Iga and the Kairoushu Gau had rarely ventured outside his immediate neighborhood. His sense of direction was only marginally better than Raikou-san's (which was to say not very good) so he'd been wary of agreeing with Raikou-san's request until the man pulled out a pen and started scrawling a surprisingly detailed map. The paper was clutched in Gau's hand and he couldn't help but to check it every block or so. He didn't want to be late, but he especially didn't want to get lost.

He found the right place eventually and was greeted by an elderly woman. "Sorry, son," she apologized. "We don't have visitors on weekdays."

"Oh. Um, Shimizu Raikou told me to come."

She cracked a large smile. "Oh, you're a friend of Raikou-kun? He should be getting off soon, but go ahead and go on in." She lifted up the countertop door and ushered him through. "The paper he makes is so lovely; it will be a treat to watch."

Gau thanked her and stepped into the workshop. Raikou-san was bent over a large wooden vat filled with a murky grey liquid. He glanced up at the noise Gau made (Gau was supposed to be learning how to lighten his footfalls, but he wasn't very good) and said, "You made it. Let me finish this sheet and I'll be done."

"All right," Gau answered, stepping closer to satisfy his curiosity but no so close that he might get splashed. Raikou-san was rocking a frame over the vat so that the liquid sifted out. "Is this really how they make paper?" he asked. It seemed awfully time consuming.

"Not so much anymore. Most paper you see now is made from wood pulp in big factories. The paper we make goes to specialty stationary stores. And on the weekends, tourists come to watch." He paused his work to roll up his sleeves that had slipped down, revealing white bandages wrapped around his right forearm.

"What happened to your arm?!" Gau exclaimed. Raikou-san wasn't supposed to be arresting or eliminating any ninja that day. When Gau had left for school, he'd only said he'd be stopping by one of the Iga offices.

Raikou-san chuckled. "Relax, it's just a tattoo. It doesn't really even hurt." He opened the frame removed the bamboo screen from it. He laid it face down on the table behind him and pulled the mat away from what Gau assumed was the wet paper. Gau want to ask about that, but there was another question he needed to get out. The samurai had mentioned getting a tattoo a while ago, but Gau had figured he's been jesting. "You had that done today?"

"Yeah, Hitomi-chan did it. She did the one that's on my shoulder too." He touched his left shoulder, though it was covered by his sleeve.

Gau blinked. "Takeuchi Hitomi? The woman that's been teaching me ninjutsu?"

"That's her. She's a tattoo artist in the surface world… though she mostly does work for yakuza, so maybe that's not really the surface world."

Gau had been learning more and more that appearances were deceiving, but when he tried to picture the petite bubbly woman that gleefully demonstrated how to swing a kusarigama bent over the backs of hulking gangsters, he just couldn't do it.

"You know, when I first met you I thought you might be a yakuza."

"What? In what way do I resemble a yakuza? Hmm, though something like a big peacock on my back would be cool."

Gau wasn't so sure that "cool" was the word. "Where did you learn to make paper?" he asked, partly out of curiosity and partly to divert Raikou-san from getting any more tattoo aspirations.

Raikou-san grinned. "You didn't know? Paper making is one of the great traditional arts learned by samurai."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's right up there with flower arranging and soap making. But recently the popularity of making balloon animals is pushing it into obscurity..."

He was joking. At least, Gau was pretty sure he was; Raikou-san's sense of humor was somewhat odd. The strap of his messenger bag was started to slip off of Gau's shoulder, so he set it down on the ground. "Raikou-san, what did you want me to come out here for?"

"Oh, I almost forgot." He slid the bamboo mat back into the frame, then ducked underneath the table that held the vat. He emerged with a small paper bag. "This was ready for you when I stopped by the office this morning." He handed the bag over. "I was going to give it to you when I got back, but then I remembered I was supposed to be leaving town for the Akiyama case this afternoon. I figured I should give it to you before I lost it."

Gau opened the bag. Inside was a bracelet that Gau immediately recognized as a copy of the black and white one Raikou-san usually wore. He drew it from the bag. "This is..."

"It marks you as part of the Wakachi. As of today, you are officially my partner."

Gau grasped the bracelet tightly, but didn't put it on. "I'm still training though. I can't go into the field yet and-"

"You've already been helping me."

"That was just paperwork and stuff."

"There are plenty of ways to help that don't involve weaponry or fighting." He spoke gently enough, but Gau had already learned to recognize the tone Raikou-san used when he would accept no arguments. He removed his apron and began folding it. "That is yours now."

Gau still had his doubts, but he slipped the bracelet on. It was heavier than it looked. "...Thank you, Raikou-san," he murmured.

Raikou-san didn't acknowledge his thanks. Instead, he laid a hand on Gau's back and pushed him forward. "C'mon. I have to catch a train, but I can walk you home until we reach the station."

Gau let himself be led forward.

"It's... it's typed."
"Gau did it for me. He's good at this sort of thing."
"Well, no offense Shimizu-san, but anybody would be better at it than you."