Sugawara's first memory, first clear memory, is of dark shadows, of an iron tang in his mouth. He'd been led into a line that stood before a figure seated in a large chair, shivering in his night clothes as he stared at their clan leader. His bare feet shuffled back when he thought the leader was going to look at him, nearly stumbling into another four year old. They pushed him back up, so that he stood in line again, in wait, in the relative silence. The leader was a black shadow that moved to the side of the room to the first in line, working down the room until he was to his direct right, holding a crystal ball expectantly to the boy on his right, a nameless cousin. His cousin held his breath as he put his hand on the ball.
The room was so cold, and underneath his bare feet he felt the crustiness of dried blood. One part of himself cringed, but he couldn't shuffle away because the leader was right there, his navy eyes a shadow of pressure as he appraised his cousin before breathing heavily, impatient and annoyed.
"Say spitha," the leader ordered, and his cousin did. There was no response from the crystal, not even the smallest of sparks. The leader frowned, and even though it wasn't even directed at him Sugawara hunched into his yukata, feeling small and hunted.
"Say othis," the leader ordered next. His cousin took a trembling breath, and did.
No response. His cousin didn't even have a chance to pale, to look up, before his neck was slashed by the leader's other hand, holding the crystal high as he did so to protect it from any spray from the blood. The corpse crumpled sideways and his hand landed on Sugawara's foot, still warm. His fingers were twitching on his skin before they lay still, and even though Sugawara wanted to scream and kick the hand away, he forced himself to look up. The leader still looked slightly bored and annoyed, as he grimaced at the blood that had splattered his sleeve. Stepping over his cousin's leg, the leader looked at Sugawara next, blue eyes hooded, sleeves dripping red. He offered the crystal. Sugawara breathed in another lungful of metal air that only made him sick, and put his hand on the crystal.
"Say spitha," the leader ordered.
"Spitha," Sugawara echoed. The crystal gave a tiny spark in the middle, a dim red flicker that died as quickly as it lit. The leader frowned.
"Say othis."
Heart thundering in his chest, Sugawara trembled it out. "Othis."
The crystal burnt a bright scarlet red, a swelling of light that nearly lit up the entire room with its glow. Underneath it, Sugawara felt burning relief because he passed whatever this was, and he could see the whole room stir as all the boys on his left shuffled to stare at him. He could hear people on the balconies spectating whispering in a roar, and Sugawara inexplicably felt a rush of pride even, at doing something so well.
And then he looked up, and all his pride died. The leader was smiling, his bored expression gone as a grin twisted his face from ear to ear. His eyes glinted underneath heavy brows. "A talent, I see," the leader purred. "Good, good. I expect much from you in the future."
The hand that caressed his cheek left bloodstains that Sugawara secretly sneaked away to scrub clean later that night. Bending over the small basin from the well, he stared at his wide-eyed reflection and bit his lip hard to not to think of the cartful of small bodies he'd passed when he was led out of the building.
"Othis," Sugawara muttered, feeling the qi burn through his veins in response to his command, energy thrumming in his body as he glanced at his target, a man in his middle-twenties who was clumsily arranging the flowers he'd brought for his wife into a vase. During the week that Sugawara had watched the mark, his mark had been preparing for his first wedding anniversary by memorising a book of traditional poetry that he mumbled underneath his breath even now.
Prolonging it any longer would be dangerous, and so with a sigh Sugawara flickered through the window and into the room, registering the pleasant scent of the expensive candles that the target had bought. It was the wife's favourite, an expensive scent of slight chrysanthemum honey wafted through the air. The nobleman was humming idly, having thoughtlessly strangled a few flowers in his attempts at making his gift look beautiful.
He noticed Sugawara's shadow behind him too late, only letting a small gasp through his lips before Sugawara drove his tantō from the back of the neck into his brain. Immediate death, a clean slice. When Sugawara checked his pulse, he assured himself that the target felt no pain. He'd done it perfectly. He quickly did a few slash marks on the body before flickering away.
When Sugawara presented the chopped ear to his master, she nodded in acknowledgement and slid the ear into a box for preservation. Then she smiled at him.
"Dependable as always. Did you prolong the death of the target as our Emperor wished?"
"Yes," Sugawara replied, head down. His long hair hid his face from his master as she gave him a genteel, distant hug. The door wasn't shut after all.
"Good job. Get your dinner from the mess hall, you deserve it."
"Yes," Sugawara replied.
A week later, Sugawara visited the nobleman's house in funeral robes and attended his honorary walk, eyes trained on the noblewoman inside the carriage. In her hands was the copy of the poetry book her husband had been planning to recite to her, a few withered chrysanthemums in a white hand. At the end of the procession, Sugawara made his way to the noblewoman and gave her a small bunch of peonies that he'd foraged around the mountains for that morning. Although the guards stopped him at first, the noblewoman smiled down at his small offering through the screen.
"Bravery?" She smiled at him as she reached out and accepted the flowers, small and weary. "What a sweet boy you are. You're very young to know hanakotoba. Thank you."
Sugawara didn't return her smile, but bowed deeply before walking away to guard the procession from afar.
"We only serve the Emperor!" The leader shouted at the front of the room, his face twisted into an ferocious snarl as he continued to yell. "We serve where other factions can't, to help Wu become the great country it once was!"
Sugawara watched from the side as all the members of their clan roared in approval, before silently leaving when the leader started his impassioned speech again. As much as it was supposed to be inspiring, all Sugawara felt was a faint feeling of annoyance at how loud all of these gatherings were. Why did they have to yell all the time?
The corridor outside the meeting room was suitably warmer and sunnier, with a hint of fresh brine from the sea nearby freshening the air. At how refreshed he felt just be breathing in some sunnier air, Sugawara wondered why the leader always liked his rooms all cold and musty. Not to mention the unhygienic bloodstains that the leader sometimes liked to leave around the room for 'atmospheric purposes'. Really. He was eight and even he'd learnt all the icky stuff that was in blood and other bodily fluids.
(He couldn't help but think the leader was kind of stupid).
Halfway to the kitchens for a sneaky snack, Sugawara was stopped by a hand to his shoulder.
"Not listening to the leader's speech?" Asked his master's smooth voice. "Why?"
"He says the same thing all the time," Sugawara answered, turning fast enough to catch his master smother a small flicker of amusement.
"True that," she answered. "He likes the attention, if you really want my opinion." His master brushed her hair behind her shoulder, one of the only things he'd seen her care about really. With a twinkle in her eye, she gave him a rare, honest grin. "Don't worry, I won't tell him about you ditching his speech, so you owe me, okay?"
Sugawara smiled at her in thanks. "Well, you're ditching too," he pointed out. His master wrinkled her nose.
"True," she answered, before gave him a side-eye, the tilt of her mouth sly. "Then I won't tell him that you visited your last target's grave with flowers." Sugawara's open-mouthed look of surprise made her laugh. "Of course I know, you're my junior apprentice. I don't just handle your cases, I handle you. But you know," she raised an eyebrow. "Daffodils? Really?"
Sugawara shrugged her hand off his shoulder and grumbled. "He deserves it, he was a good man. Also," Sugawara thought of the flower field that he usually found his flowers from, "they're in season and easy to get."
His master looked at him, her face ever in a smile. This time though… Her brown eyes were clouded, as if she was staring at something behind him instead of at him. His master was, in his opinion, one of the smarter (if not smartest) mid-level apprentices in their whole clan. She never let her guard down, something she always hammered into Sugawara too.
"What's wrong?" Sugawara asked, tilting his head in thought, slightly concerned.
"How old are you again, Sugawara?" His master asked, as if she didn't have to know all his personal details by heart. "Eight?" He nodded, wondering where this was going. "Eight, and you still ask me what's wrong like you care. What a stupid nugget you are," she mused, patting him on the head. "Go, the kitchen has some mochi today. They made two extra, so nab them both and give me one later, yeah?"
After shooting back a "you're the nugget," at his master, Sugawara obediently trotted off, confused as to what all that was about. His master never had that look on when she wasn't plotting something.
Another week, another target. Sugawara tied his grey hair back, and dropped down. His fingers found soft skin. The bright, colourful robes of the child were made of soft silk, something he noted as he arranged the corpse into a dignified position to be found.
Sugawara had found a chance when the child, curious and playful, had wandered too far into the gardens and most importantly, out of sight of his caretaker. It was easy enough then, to wrap a hand over his mouth, an arm around his neck and twist. A series of soft pops, then a crack. Sugawara held on for a few more seconds, before wiping the spit off his hand on the child's shoulder and laying him down, avoiding the frozen blue eyes in the kid's face. Using his tantō, he cut off an ear as their clan's official signature and wiped the blood off on the child's shoulder.
He took a moment to lay the child down, untwisting the neck and closing his eyes. Although he didn't know if this feeling was called sadness, he did know tired. His master had called it compassion, once, said it was a good thing but he should hide it from the other apprentices. So when he felt it again staring at this little boy's face, he tucked it into the place behind his heart. It wasn't this little boy's fault his father was plotting against the emperor after all.
In the distance, he heard the boy's caretaker calling his name. "Shouta," the caretaker called, unworried but getting closer.
Sugawara swallowed, and with a murmur of othis, he jumped over the wall and was gone.
"Your master is calling for you," called a voice from the door and Sugawara swung his feet off his bunk with a groan. His fellow apprentice grimaced in sympathy but didn't stick around, trotting off to deliver more messages probably.
His muscles sore from yesterday's training, Sugawara wound his way down to his master's room and didn't wait to knock before walking in. Sunlight immediately blinded him, stepping out from the dim decor of the majority of the fortress into a brightly lit room. His master's room he'd always personally thought was more tasteful than many of the others – she had a window that faced the sea, for one, that faced the sunset, a few pot plants that she'd dug from random missions that she liked to keep and a wall tapestry depicting a crow flying over an artsy depiction of a twisted tower.
(Much better than bloodstains, stupid leader).
His master raised an eyebrow at his lack of manners when Sugawara didn't announce himself but shrugged it off. Part of what he loved about her, really. Any other master would've had him punished.
"Sugawara," she called, waving him over with a distracted hand. "I know you just finished your last mission a few days ago and you're due a rest, but I specially nabbed this mission for you."
When Sugawara approached, she pointed to a scroll on her desk which he picked up and read. "An important dignitary from Chou?" Sugawara read out loud. Chou was Wu's western neighbour, but also much, much smaller than their own country. Also, their clan usually dealt with internal affairs. He'd never left Wu before. "What's so special about this?"
His master carefully stopped writing, putting down her pencil. Then, with a mutter of kinis and a wave of her hand, the door shut loudly behind him, making the secrecy wards slide out of the walls and automatically lock in place. The room was immediately silent except for their breathing, as Sugawara grew even more concerned. He was basically fodder - he'd never gotten a mission that ever needed the wards before.
Under his worried fretting, his master breathed out a sigh before steepling her fingers under her chin, eyes boring into his.
"The leader and the higher ups don't know who Chou is sending as a dignitary because Chou is keeping it secret," his master told him, frankly. "They just know that for the Emperor's Coming of Age, they have to send someone of great political value or it'll be an insult. The Emperor used this logic to decide that he wanted to kill the dignitary before he even comes over to our borders. This'll deal a blow to Chou without having to bother with any political mess after they arrive and we're tasked to protect the dignitary instead. Since apparently every other division is busy, the Emperor gave his mission to us. Since everyone thinks Chou is going to send some squishy dignitary over and all the higher ups are busy with the Coming of Age, this mission is ranked quite low. So I grabbed it for you."
Sugawara blinked, not used to all this information being sent his way. Usually it was just 'here's the dude you have to kill today,' and he'd leave.
"Uh... Okay. But why me?" Sugawara asked, thinking longingly of the three days of rest he was supposed to get after every mission. His bed. It was calling.
His master rolled her eyes, obviously knowing what he was thinking. "As I said, the higher-ups don't know who the dignitary is yet, so they just let whoever picked it up first have it," his master said patiently. "Unlike them though, I know who the target is."
Sugawara stilled. He'd long suspected his master had ulterior contacts, but having this blatantly confirmed was... surprising at best. No-one should put their guard down, and his master knew it best.
How do you know? Was Sugawara's first question. Second, why are you telling me this?
"Your target is a very powerful person," she continued. "When you inevitably fail and he arrives in Wu, they'll presume you dead because no-one like us can defeat this man. That's why I took it for you."
His master smiled at him after she said all that, as if she didn't just blatantly say she was sending him to his death. And here he thought she liked him.
And he couldn't refuse. If he did, he'd get culled.
"Who is it?" He asked, paling, as she just kept smiling.
"Chou is sending their Great Sage, the Sage Nekomata, blessed by Prithvi," she replied simply.
Sugawara's mind took a moment to process what his master just said, because sage? Those legends, who were blessed by the gods, walked in their name, and wielded their power? They were so powerful that most books referred to them as another species. Although sages were seen as humans, the older they grew, the more power they held. Nekomata was widely known to be more than a hundred years old.
Sugawara gulped. "You want me to die?"
"No, I don't," his master immediately shook her head. "I want you to escape from here. Only the leader and I know your name, and the leader doesn't remember anyone's names anyway," she said light-heartedly, as if what she was saying wasn't the most treasonous thing ever. "This one of the few missions you'll get to leave Wu. So leave, do this mission, and once you meet the Great Sage ask him one thing. Tell him to change your divine name. After that, never come back to Wu. Never cross the borders. Don't look back." She paused, and stared expectantly at Sugawara as if he'd be able to process this all at once. Could process an offer of (freedom, dare he think it?) just like... that.
His master though, was having none of his dawdling. "Do you understand?" She demanded, tone sharpening.
Sugawara had learnt the clan's techniques like a duck to water – all those lessons told him that she wasn't lying.
Why him though? Why now?
(But Sugawara had learnt early to never look at a gift-horse's mouth)
"What about you?" Sugawara managed to ask, his brain whispering treason this is treason report her disloyalty needs to be culled even as hope bloomed in his chest. His master's eyes gentled from her hard smile, reaching out a hand to pat Sugawara's head, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'stupid nugget' under her breath.
"You're the nugget," he whispered back as he clutched the mission scroll closer to his chest. And of course his master didn't miss that, having always been sharper, kinder, and better than the rest.
He...he worried. They were all each other had.
"Hey, I'll tell you a secret," his master suddenly interrupted his thinking. "My name. It's Michimiya."
Sugawara's eyes flew up. "What are you doing? If you give me your name, you'll—"
"I trust you. It's what friends do, I've heard," she cut him off, smile wry.
Friend? He's heard the term used before, between fellow apprentices before they got inevitably backstabbed for the leader's favour. It didn't seem like that was what Michimiya was offering here. Her smile reminded him of all the descriptions within the books he sneakily read when he was out on missions, books he read and chucked into the sea so no-one knew, of friendships that grew from loyalty.
How old was she? Sugawara wondered for the first time. She looked at most like she was fifteen. Soon, she would be fully initiated. She wouldn't be able to…
"Go," Michimiya nodded, as another mutter of kinis opened the door and Sugawara felt all the secrecy wards fade back into the walls. "Good luck," she continued, sounding disinterested and distant again, picking up her pencil.
Sugawara stared at her, indecision in his steps before one long silent glare from Michimiya made him leave her behind, scratching another report at her desk. He dared to glance back before he left the room, one small self-indulgent look.
If all succeeded, he wouldn't ever see her again. And in that moment, that early morning, she had a small dark ponytail slung low on her neck, heart-shaped face looking down at her stack of reports with determination. Like everyone within their clan, she wore black but gave herself distinction with a small red flower pin in her hair. Behind her, the smiley faces she drew on her flower-pots mocked him as the words he wanted to say got stuck in his throat. Come with me, he didn't say. Goodbye he couldn't say.
Without the wards, he couldn't even say any sort of thank you.
Sugawara went back to his locker to change, wrapping his arms and legs tight and tucking the ends neatly in. His hood went up next, and as he tucked the mission scroll into his pouch along with his supplies, he engraved the memory of her deep into his heart.
The window that he preferred leaving their fortress from had the best view of the sweeping coastline that their fortress was built on – the sea's gleam at the edge of the horizon, curving around the island that their base of operations worked off, built into a mess of sea crags and cliffs. The mainland was connected to their island by a secret tunnel whose entrance was hidden behind a booby-trapped cave. Chou, he knew, was a land-locked country. The sea was something he wouldn't see for a long time.
"…Othis."
Then he left, flickering out and landing heavily onto the ground with two rolls, before leaping forward, not daring to look behind.
Chou was known for its position as a hub of commerce and culture, its wide, well-maintained roads and technological revolution that integrated magic into machinery had created a new era of prosperity for the country. It was also known for its stability through the risings of two Demon Kings, having sustained no major damage despite both calamities. Because of this, Chou's economy was one of the strongest and most developed within the continent, while its non-aggression policy led the country to rarely be attacked by other nations.
But the main reason, the largest reason for Chou's peace was the choice of the Great Sage Nekomata, decades back, to settle within the country as his home. His presence alone made all countries hesitate to attack Chou, or even offend it, and as such his presence was rightly exalted within the country.
Sages could move countries with words alone, a gesture could calm the seas, and a single judgment could doom a person to either the highest of heavens, or to the twelfth circle of hells. In fact, if talking about Nekomata, someone had recorded Nekomata single-handedly quelling a huge earthquake within Chou from one of the Demon King's tantrums ten years ago, leaving Chou unscathed in the midst of an age of turmoil and destruction.
So yeah, the half-baked info from his clan was right – if anyone ever succeeded in killing Nekomata, Chou would be dealt a nearly irreparable blow. Emphasis on the if though. As if any assassin could stand against him. He'd probably twitch an eyebrow, and the assassin would be dead and buried under the ground.
All this information ran through Sugawara's mind as he picked his way across the border, sticking to the dodgier mountain roads, mind-map in his eye. In the nervous running commentary in his mind, Sugawara went through all the scenarios of his death if his appeal didn't succeed, or if Michimiya had been too optimistic about Nekomata's kindness.
Maybe it was because of this nervousness, but it took him a week to find Nekomata after entering Chou. Not in any fancy, bourgeois hotels along the roads as befitting his status or anything though.
No, Sugawara found Nekomata meditating in the middle of a forest clearing comfortably far from civilisation, rich clothes dirtied from sitting on the ground. He looked like a wrinkled old man, unremarkable to the eye if not for some grass and plants in his hair. Skin darkened from a tan and smile lines deepset, there was something homey about him, even if the slant of his eyes suggested something a little slyer. Comforting. It took Sugawara by surprise, because besides his master, he'd never felt any sort of liking for anybody.
When Sugawara gathered his qi into his eyes, the power Nekomata held inside his frame blazed so brightly he had to immediately let his qi go. If their leader was considered powerful with two torch's worth of power, Nekomata was like looking at the sun during the hottest summer afternoon. Sugawara felt a chill right to his very bones.
The books weren't joking. Sages were monsters. If Nekomata turned hostile, he'd never escape.
Sugawara paused, fingers tightening on the tree-branch as he made to drop, stopping him in the last second. His mind whirred. Can this person really free him? Despite his power and the weird comforting feeling (Sugawara suspected mind-influencing qi arts), Nekomata didn't look especially charitable or kind. His face was a little too angular and gaunt for that. On second look, the smile lines on his face looked more like smirk lines than smile lines.
But Michimiya had never been wrong, and he… he trusted her. Trusts her. She went out on a limb for him, gave him this chance that she could've used for herself. At that, he stopped short, and forced his thoughts to stop thinking, and imagined her face when she handed the mission to him – honest, straight-forward. Hopeful, for him.
(Why, Michimiya?)
("I heard that's what friends do.")
He dropped down from his tree on faith alone. Perfectly silent, he approached. Not even a blade of grass bent underneath his approach.
"Hmm," Nekomata hummed, eyes still closed. "Assassin? That foot technique gives you away, you know."
Sugawara froze at the edge of the clearing.
"Strange though," Nekomata mused, slowly opening a pair of surprisingly shrewd, beady eyes. "I don't sense any bloodlust from you."
Looking into Nekomata's eyes was like looking into the universe in the deepest part of night, overwhelming and unknowable. Sugawara grit his teeth though, and stepped forward into the afternoon light against all of his training. He twisted his wrists – his poisoned blades were still in his sleeve. If his appeal failed, he could still attack as a distraction for his escape.
"Great Sage!" He didn't wait, dropping onto both knees and laying his forehead on the back of his fingers. "Allow me to make a request!" At the silence that followed, Sugawara ploughed on. "Please change my divine name!"
Granted that Sugawara had directed most of his qi to his ears to perceive any sounds since his posture was so compromised, the undetected hand that gently pulled his shoulders up nearly made him stab the man from reflex. Whoops. He gently slid his blades back into his sleeves.
"You… where do you come from?" Nekomata asked, squinting at his face.
Sugawara opened his mouth to reply, but the restrictions choked him before he could give any details at all. Nekomata narrowed his eyes as Sugawara gasped for air, choking on the spells that constricted his throat.
"What's your name?" Nekomata tried again.
Again, Sugawara forced his jaws to open without making a noise.
"Whoever they are, they're controlling you by your divine title?" Nekomata asked, voice deep and patient. "Well, easily fixed." With that, Nekomata focused on something above Sugawara's head that he couldn't see and reached out with a glowing green hand. With a few casual scribbles, the green faded into the air and the words bubbled out of his throat.
"-name is Sugawara, I come from Wu, the nineteenth faction of military dealing with internal politics..." Sugawara stopped in surprise, touching his throat with a puzzled frown. He'd expected more... flash. "You did it already?"
"I got rid of all the pesky tracking and suicide curses too, if you want to know," Nekomata replied, sinking back into sitting cross-legged in front of him, squinting eyes still fixed on his face as if he was searching for something. "That you come from Wu isn't that surprising. Only fifteen divisions of military my ass."
Nekomata's withered face looked annoyed after his comment, and Sugawara didn't quite know what to say. His life was saved just like… that. A literal swipe of a finger.
Weren't sages a little… too powerful?
"Thank you," he started, hesitantly, already wondering what to do in the future. What was he supposed to do now?
"Do you have a personal name, Sugawara?" Nekomata asked randomly, beady eyes intent.
"Not one I know of," Sugawara replied.
"Do you have anywhere to go?" was the next question.
Where was this leading?
"No, I have made no plans," Sugawara replied.
Nekomata narrowed his eyes, before tutting his tongue. "Well, I'll go on to Wu and I can pretend that I killed an assassin that came for my life. That was your plan, right?" Nekomata chuckled at Sugawara's surprise (and slight panic) for being so easily read. "It's alright, I'm a good actor. While I do that, go to Chou's capital city with this pass."
Sugawara accepted the pass with both hands, curious. "What do want in exchange for your generosity?" Sugawara asked, subtly tracing qi over the piece of paper that he'd been given for traps, trackers… Nothing.
"I'm going to take you in as my apprentice. You're a smart kid, and I'm getting old anyway. Taking in one of little Ukai's kids is just a bonus, really."
...Who was Ukai?
Also, "Apprentice?" Sugawara gaped. "But I am an assassin, sent to kill you. From Wu. Even I know no one likes Wu, and I'm from Wu!"
"Once you're my apprentice, you'll be officially recognised as a Chou citizen," Nekomata answered simply, scratching his neck with a yawn. "You'll need a name though. What about Koushi? Sugawara Koushi seems like it'll suit you."
Nekomata placidly blinked then, stilling to wait for his answer while Sugawara grappled with the understanding that he'd been offered an official identity, a name, a citizenship and a place to live all at once. What was the catch? Where was it?
"Aren't you afraid that someone will track me down?" Sugawara asked to stall his answer, still trying to find the catch. There must be a catch somewhere.
"Does anyone know your name?" Nekomata asked back. Michimiya's smiling face filled his mind, but she would never tell. The leader well... (he was stupid). "And will anyone from your old division go to Chou and recognise you?"
"No-one that can't be trusted knows my name," Sugawara replied, "and our nineteenth faction mostly deals with the internal affairs."
Sugawara stopped short. Huh. His eyes drew back down to look at the black turtle crest of Chou on the paper pass. There... wasn't much reason not to accept.
"That answers it. It's not as if I can't deal with anyone they send after you anyway, so. Are you going to accept?" Nekomata asked again, pointing at the pass in Sugawara's hand. "I mean, you can keep it to enter the city and not be my apprentice, but it'll be hard for a kid like you to fit in if you do. I can protect you while teaching you cool stuff."
Opportunities were just dropping into his lap, but Sugawara had always learnt not to look at the gift-horse in the mouth (or you'll get burned). He had nothing to lose. If this was a trap, then it wouldn't be any worse than where he came from anyway.
"I accept."
Nekomata smiled. "Good, good. Now, my first request for you, my new apprentice, is to cut all that hair off." Sugawara blinked, before pointing at the grey hair that had been neatly tied back into a ponytail as per Wu standards. It reached his elbows at his longest. "Yeah, that hair. I'm not used to your face with long hair, it's weird. Cut it short and fluffy."
Uh…
Sugawara shuffled off to cut his hair, and when he came back Nekomata nodded approvingly, the plants in his hair bobbing with the movement. With a closer look, Sugawara was surprised to notice that it wasn't that the plants were in his hair because the wind had blown them there or anything, but because the plants were growing out of his scalp. Woah.
"Undeniable now, yeah," Nekomata said as he put his hand on his chin. "Very Sugawara," he continued with atrocious grammar. "Koushi, how old are you?"
"Eight, nearly nine," Sugawara replied with his eyes still trained on Nekomata's hair, fascinated.
"Ugh, Wu. Child soldiers are bad enough, but child assassins? Well, don't worry, Koushi," Nekomata patted Sugawara's shoulder. "I'm going to let you act your age when we get back to Chou!" Then the old man started a wheezy loud laugh, and Sugawara stoically bore the sudden laughing fit with his rapidly acquired skill to put up with the absurd.
If the old man wanted to play saviour, who was he to complain?
Sugawara made the trip to Chou alone, still vaguely paranoid about pursuers even after spending a week around Nekomata who kept eyeing his twitchy behaviour with increasing annoyance until he ultimately gave Sugawara a protective pendant that 'removes tracking stuff and never let anyone put any spell you don't want on you ever again now calm down you're giving me the heeby jeebies dagnabbit.'
After presenting the pass Nekomata gave him at the gates of Chou's capital along with a letter, the guards took one look at it and grinned.
"Old man Nekomata finally accepted an apprentice guys!" One of the guards yelled backwards, and suddenly all the windows around the gate was filled with curious eyes and faces, staring at him, yelling curious questions, whispering among themselves. The guard he was talking to also grinned back at him, handing him back the pass and the letter. "Where did Nekomata dig you up from? With that getup, you must be a ninja of sorts, right?"
Ninja – on missions, Sugawara had stolen a few hours here and there before going back to their hideout to struggle through children's books in a few bookstores in Wu. Ninja threw kunai, wore black, and in the books, killed for justice.
"Yeah. Kind of," Sugawara replied with a shrug. "Are you going to question my origins now?"
He mentally pulled up the fabricated backstory he'd created while coming here in preparation, but was surprised out of it when a friendly hand patted his head. The guard gave him a blinding grin.
"Kid, stop being so serious! Anyway, if old man Nekomata accepted you, we trust him enough not to ask questions. I mean, he even says in his letter not to ask questions and that he just 'liked you' so," the guard shrugged. "He does that a lot. I mean, he did that to me and helped me get my job too, you know? He's a nice guy. Anyway, I'm being rude! What's your name?"
"Sugawara… Koushi," Sugawara carefully replied, and the guard grinned enthusiastically.
"I'm Inuoka Sou! Nice to meet you!" Taking off his helmet, Inuoka shook free his spiky brown hair with relief, before gesturing at him in a friendly enough fashion, Sugawara supposed, smile blinding.
"Yeah. Me too."
Inuoka's smile did not dim at all from Sugawara's less than enthused greeting, and simply just wheeled around and yelled, "I'm ditching you guys to lead this guy to the palace okay?" up to the gate's other guards. They all booed him when they passed, jokingly telling him he was abusing his 'captain privileges'.
Conversely, they gave Sugawara smiles and waves and wishes for him to 'check by' later, and their curious eyes followed them until they turned the corner.
Sugawara was overwhelmed.
"They're a handful," Inuoka said pretty cheerily as he led Sugawara through a loud, bustling bazaar with merchants yelling about their limited, be careful not to miss sales! "But Nekomata likes personally checking how everyone's doing around the city so you'll meet them all soon enough!"
"They seemed nice," Sugawara replied when Inuoka paused, expectant. The guard beamed at his comment, before laughing.
"Yeah, we're all friends!" Inuoka then continued to chatter about the other guards as he skilfully led Sugawara through the streets, sticking to less crowded areas when he noticed that Sugawara was uncomfortable with the crush of people.
With the exception of Nekomata and maybe his training instructors, he'd never been talked at so much before. Not even by Michimiya.
"Here's the palace! Wait a sec, gimme back the pass and letter for a bit? I need to show this to the palace guards. Don't worry, I'm pals with them so it'll be quick." Inuoka jogged forward, pass and letter in hand and greeted the guards standing outside the palace gate warmly, gesturing excitedly at Sugawara while the other guards read the letter. Sugawara approached when they all smiled at him, gripping his pendant.
"Hello, it's nice to meet you. My name is Sugawara Koushi. Please take care of me," Sugawara greeted formally with a small bow that was similar enough to Wu custom thankfully. But all Inuoka did was laugh, as Sugawara was quickly learning that he seemed to do that all the time.
"See?" Laugh. "The kid talks like an old guy!" Laugh. "Anyway, take care of him for me. Maybe lead him to the old man's cottage so that he can set things up and wait for Nekomata to come back?" Laugh.
Why did he laugh so much?
"Sure thing, Inuoka," the palace guard replied with an easy shrug, before eyeing Sugawara and tilting his head. "Come on, short stuff. Let's get going."
Wu and Chou couldn't have been more different. Sugawara had reported to Wu's capital more than a few times, but there the atmosphere had been more formal, more distant as people hurried from place to place to do their daily things. Even though Chou was just as large and busy, the people were just so insistently… nosy.
Sugawara was undecided if he liked this or not. He did, however, decidedly like his new living quarters.
Back in Wu, all the apprentices lived in metal bunks, ten people per room until they levelled up, so to speak. Nekomata's cottage however, was a surprisingly small and humble affair right next to the entrance to the biggest of the palace's royal gardens, as well as the servant's entrance to the kitchens. The maids, in the time it took for him to walk from the gate to the cottage when he'd first arrived, had already miraculously set up a small room inside the cottage, with a small bed and extra clothes for him to wear in an acceptable size. The room, although small, was neatly furnished with everything he'd ever need. The mattress, he found when he bounced on it, was also surprisingly soft compared to his lifetime of one centimeter thick cotton mats.
(For some reason everything was patterned in green plaid. Why plaid? Even the window sill was painted in that pattern. Nekomata must really love that pattern).
After changing into a green plaid shirt and loose grey pants, Sugawara had planned to scout the premises for escape routes before he'd been caught by a loitering Inuoka and dragged back to the outer guard houses to… uncomfortably sit while everyone tried to get him to open up. Inuoka was surprisingly sly - knowing Sugawara was trying his best to be polite, he'd twist Sugawara into staying longer by playing the 'haha, its custom to finish drinks before leaving in Chou, Sugawara!' cue laughter here and similar cards.
Sugawara was so onto that manipulation that he vowed to memorise all the weird rules Inuoka plied him with and parrot them back to him one day.
This happened every day – one day he saw a few of the maids and gardeners peeking at him with curiosity and giggling and waving at him. The next, one of the palace servants politely chided him for trying to do his own laundry. He became a steady fixture at the palace kitchens, where one of the small tables there had a small blanket for Sugawara because he kept falling asleep to the warm smell of baking bread and roast.
The guards were always especially friendly, always willing to drag an unwilling Sugawara to various activities throughout the day (they never took him to training again though, because he'd humiliatingly trounced them all that one time).
He got used to the older aunties tutting over him surprisingly quickly. Every morning, he woke up to a large plate of breakfast on Nekomata's dining table. At lunch, a good-willed servant would somehow reliably find wherever he'd wandered to and give him lunch in a basket. Dinner varied – sometimes with people, sometimes in the kitchen, and sometimes by himself as he processed another new fact of life he'd never known.
Nekomata came back from Wu a month later, and smiled in satisfaction when he saw that Sugawara had made himself at home with only one or two grumbles about 'cohabitation mess ugh'.
"How do you like Chou?" Nekomata asked that night, as Sugawara stumbled his way through reporting his experiences in a way that didn't sound like a military report, as per Nekomata's request. Sugawara stopped his faltering description of Inuoka's mother (who kept handing him too many jam-breads but had a smile that reminded him of Michimiya, hard and caring and protective).
"Different," Sugawara admitted to the crackling fireplace. "But I like it. I think."
"That's good," Nekomata said as he drifted off, plant-hair drooping with his eyes as he nodded off. Sugawara watched, before going to fetch a blanket and tucking it around him.
His apprenticeship with Nekomata didn't change much of his daily routine. Sugawara, having rested for a whole month, felt extremely rusty when he trained his skills again, and it took more than a few months to get back into shape. During that time, Nekomata would either check on random things around the city just like Inuoka said, or watch him train as he did his own sagey meditations and experiments, most of which he seemed to do in the royal gardens with no seeming conscience as he blew up some bush or other. Sugawara watched with growing amusement through the months as he realised that yes, Nekomata did smirk more than smile, and he did have a surprisingly an intimidating competitive analytical streak, but he was also genuinely kind.
He also liked to butt into Sugawara's business as much as possible. Nekomata couldn't say much about his assassin's techniques, but when he saw his qi arts and poison skills, he was full of complaints and judgey raised eyebrows.
"Your magic is so primitive!" Nekomata complained from his rocking chair, where he'd gone to rest after gardening. He aggressively rocked back and forth as he stewed in obvious annoyance at Sugawara's feats of assassin-ry. "Who even needs to mutter othis to activate anything related to enhancement anyway? Babies, that's who!"
"Magic?" Sugawara echoed, having bounded over to Nekomata's side within half a breath. "You mean qi?"
"Qi, magic, chi, mana, whatever, it's all the same," Nekomata waved off. "Now, tell my why you mumble othis every time you need to do magic."
"It's how I was taught," Sugawara answered. "It's how our… magic was found in the first place."
Nekomata made a disgusted face. "You mean, that rubbish spitha othis crystal test that no-one uses anymore?"
Sugawara didn't want to think back on it, but "Yeah."
Nekomata sighed. "We have a long way to go then," Nekomata grumbled, before slowly getting up, waving one irritated hand for Sugawara to follow. "Okay, Koushi. Listen up. There are two main types of magic – spitha, which affects and enhances the world around you and othis, which enhances your own body to go beyond its limits…"
Nekomata was surprisingly knowledgeable.
A week later, with Nekomata's words in mind, Sugawara focused.
"Spitha is the type of magic that requires all the chanting and learning new words," Nekomata lectured, "But othis, when learned, you should be able to theoretically activate and focus without chants at all. It's your own magic, used in your own body. There's no leakage, no waste. The limits are your own."
Just like Nekomata said, without the chant in front, othis was harder to control because it felt more slippery without an active word to control it, but it was also more… limitless in its potential. It was just the manipulation of qi within his body - usually qi was intertwined with the life-force of blood, and to pull it away and use was the sacrifice that was needed to affect the world. Nekomata however just waved that away as spitha magic, which Sugawara had no talent for anyway. Bodily othis magic however, required no sacrifice - it was just manipulation, Sugawara realised.
He learnt to push the qi around his body in a week, as he separated qi from the flow of his blood and soul. Welling it around his ears and his brain led him to have better hearing, stretching it along the stretch of his core and legs let him jump, and pooling it on his skin made it more waterproof and somewhat resistant to blunt physical attacks. And activating it without othis was... freeing.
When he showed it off to Nekomata later, Nekomata hummed in surprise. "Good job," Nekomata praised after Sugawara flickered from the end of the palace gardens to land without a whisper of gravity in front of Nekomata's chair. "But damn you caught on quickly. Inuoka took half a year to learn that. Are you sure you don't remember a place called Japan?" He prodded.
"I already said no," Sugawara replied, exasperated, gradually letting go of his inner qi to roll his shoulders. "I've checked maps before, and a place like that doesn't exist. Are you going to show me how to mix that miracle antidote you told me about before or not? I'll go back to training if you don't."
"Ugh, kids," Nekomata complained, even as he stood up with Sugawara's steady arm to help. "Already lipping back. Well, genius, let's see you try learning one of my most famous neutralisers! It'll bring the one you know to shame!"
It did bring the one Sugawara knew to shame, but he also did learn it on the first try. Nekomata was miffed throughout the rest of the day, only ending his childish silent treatment when Sugawara came back from the kitchens with a few choice bottles of sake.
Four years passed this way without incident – Sugawara learnt all the guard's names, friendliest to Inuoka's unit, of which Nekomata seemed absurdly pleased to hear. He kept his assassin's skills sharp even when there wasn't much of a point, and the first time he laughed was cooed over, in his opinion, much too obsessively by everyone around him.
The first time he met King Naoi was when the King himself visited Nekomata's cottage while he and Nekomata had been enjoying a quiet dinner. The King's strong jaw and lively face had been overshadowed by his dismay when all Nekomata reacted to his presence was to grunt, 'yeah, that's Naoi. I mentored him for a while so he keeps coming back for advice like a dependent puppy,' of which Sugawara nodded seriously.
"Nekomata!" The king complained, "That's too savage even for you! Right when I dug out time out of my busy schedule to visit your official apprentice that you didn't introduce me to."
"What's the point?" Nekomata grinned, having got up to get a few bottles of sake he always kept stocked within a cupboard. "Oh yeah, Koushi, that's the King by the way."
Sugawara blinked at the new information, looked at how Nekomata was acting before he ducked a quick bow and continued to eat dinner like nothing had happened.
Naoi was suitably exasperated. "Like apprentice, like master," the king had groaned humorously, before engaging in a drinking match with Nekomata (of which Nekomata lost miserably). Sugawara had to help Naoi sneak back into his rooms because 'people can't catch me drunk, help me!'
But by then, Sugawara had expected such things from Chou already. So all he did was laugh and maybe used some secret assassin skills to deliver the King back to his room. It wasn't the worst application of his skills really. It was ultimately funny to see Naoi collapse in the room with relief only to be greeted with his unimpressed butler.
It was the summer of his twelfth year when something new happened, when he met someone that once again, changed his life.
"Koushi," Nekomata's voice called from downstairs, and Sugawara quickly stopped his evening katas on the roof and slung himself through the kitchen window. Nekomata had long given up trying to make him go through doors like everyone else and usually left a window or two open.
Besides, Nekomata was getting on in the years, and sometimes (to his utterly grumpy consternation), he had to get help in reaching for the higher shelves and windows was just Sugawara's fastest way of travel. So he went feet first through the window and landed with a lazy stretch, before walking to creaking overloaded bookshelf underneath the stairs.
"Do you need the book on the effects of different pollens on bees, or that one about the benefits of nature magic on plant cells?" Sugawara asked, already eyeing the two books that Nekomata had wanted to pull out the most the past month for his nightly reading.
"No, it's not about books," Nekomata grimaced at the reminder of his age, before waving a hand at the table where dinner had already been laid out. "By the way, dinner. It'll be good to… eat first. Probably."
Sugawara sat down and finished dinner warily. In all the years he'd been here, Nekomata had never been so out of ease. The old man always liked to 'go with the flow' in his somewhat playful, light-hearted fashion. It probably helped that he was one of the most powerful creatures in existence, but still.
Nekomata coughed. "Well, I first wanted to call you down because I thought that this news would be interesting to you – the Lord Azumane is sending his son and his personal guard to study and live at the palace for reasons, and as they're the same age as you I thought it was a good time for you to have friends your own age. Inuoka doesn't count," Nekomata cut off Sugawara's protest that he had friends. "He's seven years older than you, and already past all the bonding experiences that you can only have with people you go through teenage angst with."
"Okay, so?" Sugawara asked after he digested the information. "Where are these new friends?"
"That's the thing," Nekomata's face settled into a scowl (and Sugawara worried a little, because weren't his cheeks growing a little too hollow?). "They were supposed to arrive this morning. Communications have been cut off from where they were staying last night too, so I'm getting a little concerned. I was just going to ask you to race down Nishi road and check if they got into trouble or something?"
Sugawara looked at Nekomata, before tilting his head. "You don't think it's that simple."
"Nope. I don't want to wake bad memories in you or anything, but would you…"
Sugawara smiled. "No worries, I got it. Your apprentice is pretty capable now, you know?" His grin made Nekomata relax a little, and Sugawara counted that as a win before heading upstairs.
Pulling on some loose black pants and shirts, he wrapped them tight to his legs and arms like old days. His pouch and holster were filled with poisoned weapons once again, and his trusty tantō now hung from his belt. Forgoing any sort of hood or mask, Sugawara activated his qi and leapt out the window from old habit, speeding towards the west road.
Sugawara was glad that it was hard to slip back into his assassin mindset, and when it did the fit was like an old, stretched glove, thin and easy to break. Good.
Completely silent in his passing except the occasional rustle of leaves, he headed along Nishi road with a keen eye, but even his eyes boosted with qi didn't see any overturned carriages or bandit attacks.
When Sugawara reached the end of Nishi road, he tapped chin in thought. Lord Azumane, Nekomata had said, and any lord's son wouldn't live in any drab inns or anything. Since there weren't any high class places anywhere near Nishi, the Azumane's son must have stayed at a neighbouring lord's castle as a guest. The castle for the Nishi fief was… Sugawara looked at the moon and calculated, before he started sprinting back the way he came.
Sugawara smelt the fire before he saw the red glow beyond the farmland, bright against darkness. The fire must've been recent, since Sugawara hadn't noticed it when he passed it before. He quickened his pace, and flashed through the village to land in front of the burning castle, where harried servants were already trying their best to put out the bits of fire they could see.
Quickly, he pulled at one of the panicking servants outside who was watching the fire.
"What happened?" He asked a crying maid, flashing Nekomata's crest.
"The sage's…" she breathed, before sniffing and trying to compose herself. "Reinforcements from the capital?" When Sugawara nodded, the maid coughed but didn't question his age, thank goodness. "Our Lord welcomed Azumane-sama and his retinue yesterday, but because of a bandit attack Azumane-sama was injured and was welcome to stay one more day. We were planning to send a missive this morning to the capital, but the bandits that attacked Azumane-sama proved not to be so simple and demanded his removal from our Lord's grounds. Our Lord refused, of course, but they had prepared a ward beforehand, and no-one could leave the village grounds."
The fire was probably the attackers growing impatient with their siege and attacking. Sugawara was slightly late.
"What does Azumane look like?"
"A tall, rough-looking boy," the maid answered quickly. "But he's very gentle, very kind. He wears loose, red robes, with his family crest on them. Brown eyed…"
"That's enough, thank you" Sugawara smiled at the maid, before drawing his mask over his mouth and nose. Quickly dipping himself into a decorative fountain, he plunged inside the castle.
The attackers had clearly spread oil as they invaded, as the heavy sharp stink tinged the smoke that lit up the flames that trailed up in one slick black line up the corridors. His leather zori didn't stand much of a chance a few minutes inside as they spontaneously combusted from the trapped heat, but his skin was only barely licked when Sugawara raced forward, barely feeling the flames.
To find the little Azumane lord, all Sugawara had to do was follow his ears. Underneath the crackle of flames, beyond the struggles of still trapped servants, there was the clash of guards and bandits, and the vague ripples of magic that indicated the more adept, personal guards. Up two floors, on the right.
Sugawara changed his course and went through his favourite way of travel – out the window and up the walls outside. He swung straight through the window up into the corridor of the conflict, and immediately saw an ornate door at the end that two uniformed guards were protecting, while a highly armed group was throwing fire at the guards using some lit up lamps and surrounding fire.
Aah, two fire qi users. No wonder they were so careless with their use of fire.
He reached the back of the attacking group in an instant, and a few quick punches and a kick later, four out of seven were down. Although Sugawara had targeted the qi users first, one of them had noticed him and escaped behind a red barrier.
Well, no worries.
Sugawara breathed deep and concentrated his own qi into his fist, knocking away one of the attackers left with his right elbow while he let his fist fly after a full-body rotation. In the moment before his fist touched the barrier, his own fist glowed a dull red.
'Internal qi, integrated into bone, is always solid. External qi depends on the will-power of those who wield it.' That was one of the first lessons that he'd been taught by Michimiya, back when he was still learning the perfect fist, her fingers gently guiding his own for the most efficient way to force a punch.
A fire qi user who couldn't even generate his own flame couldn't possibly match up to him.
The barrier shattered, and the fire qi user with it, flying into the wall with the strength of his fist. The remaining two that he'd neglected had been taken down by the castle guards in the meantime, and they stood in rest in front of him now, sweating and wary, but on less of a guard. After a deep breath through his mask, Sugawara retracted his qi back into his core and smiled, taking a leaf out of Inuoka's book and laughing.
"It wasn't very nice of them to gang up on you guys like that," Sugawara said cheerily, as he pulled out Nekomata's crest. "I'm the Sage's apprentice, Sugawara Koushi. The Sage got worried when Azumane's retinue didn't arrive?"
The castle guards visibly slumped when they saw Nekomata's crest.
"Thank you for saving us," one of the men bowed to him while the other started leading them down the corridor. "The door is barricaded from the inside, so we have to take a secret passage into the Lady's room…"
"Is it just that room?" Sugawara asked, pointing backwards towards the fancy barricaded door. "Does it have a window?"
"The room has a small balcony on the other side of the building…"
"Okay," Sugawara shrugged, before slinging one of the guards beneath his arm and told the other to 'wait there please'. He slammed one of the corridor windows open and jumped outside, his fingers finding a ledge to swing them around the corner and onto aforementioned small balcony. He gently set the guard down amidst the surprised cries from within the room before quickly going back and doing the same to the second guard.
As he left the second guard to recover, the first guard had already quickly reached an old, finely dressed man and was reporting the incident. "…and then the Sage's apprentice appeared as reinforcements and delivered us here," the guard concluded, and the old man nodded, stroking his beard as he stood tall and dignified. "We owe you our thanks," the Lord smiled at Sugawara, who smiled.
"I'm only glad I reached you on time! Nekomata got worried when Azumane didn't arrive," Sugawara waved off the thanks. "Speaking of which, do you want me to transfer you outside to safety before continuing this conversation?" Sugawara nodded to all the occupants in the room, the Lord, Lady, one rough-looking well-dressed boy (as the maid described), and a few personal servants before gesturing at the burning building at large. Because well, burning building. Why were they talking in here?
"Please," the Lord answered for them all, and Sugawara took that as permission to ask the Lord to cling onto his back. "It might be a little undignified," Sugawara apologised, but the Lord just shook his head and somehow made being piggy-backed by a twelve year old somewhat stately and graceful. His powers of accepting the absurd was even higher than Sugawara's, he'd reckon. Impressive, really.
"Please, proceed," the Lord continued, and Sugawara did, jumping out the window down to a tree he'd eyed with good strong branches. The branch creaked, the Lord may have given a small, dignified girlish scream (how? Sugawara wondered), but a few more hops later, Sugawara unloaded the Lord from his back to a group of servants and village soldiers.
"My Lord!" They all greeted, and it didn't take the Lord two seconds before he was already composed and taking charge of the chaos. Impressive. Sugawara nodded in approval and jumped back up.
Making the trip eight times was a little bit of a chore, but when it came to gathering the last one, the Azumane's son, the boy refused to climb on his back.
Sugawara stared at the reason why he was here stutter through a thoroughly weak excuse as to not escape a burning building.
"I c-can't," the boy stuttered, clenching his sleeves. "Daichi's still here, he was leading a diversion!"
For a boy looking like he was on the verge of hyperventilation, Sugawara thought that Azumane was surprisingly articulate. Maybe he was a little addled from smoke inhalation?
"He said he'll come back to this room, and someone has to let him in!" Azumane continued blathering, and Sugawara felt sympathy, honestly, but the room was going to combust soon from heat alone and he was running out of patience.
"Who is Daichi?" He asked conversationally, debating whether he should just haul the boy up and go. Ah, but Nekomata said that he wanted them to become friends. First impressions, got to think about first impressions...
"My best friend," the gangly boy replied as he wrung his hands. "He's my personal guard, but he just started the job because he only became our official vassal two weeks ago. Oh, I shouldn't have made my father let him come with me…"
"Okay, Azumane," Sugawara said with patience. "Let me get you out of here, and I will save this Daichi after this."
"B-but you're the same age as me!"
"I've been ferrying all the people out of this third storey room through jumping alone," Sugawara dead-panned. "Believe me when I say I can do more than that. Also, please answer quickly, the building just might be on fire?"
Azumane blinked, before looking around the smoking room as if he'd honestly not noticed that the room was empty, before light lit in his eyes. "Oh, yes, yes! Please save Daichi! He should be on the other side of the castle, near the kitchens!"
Finally. It took less than half a minute to settle Azumane to safety, before with a put-upon sigh, he raced around the side of the mansion to fulfil his promise. He did know the general layout of castles however, and veered towards where kitchens generally were.
He noticed a few dead guards and randomly dressed attackers near the back of the castle fighting some survivors. He let the guards to it, since they seemed to be winning. Further in, within a random corridor sounded a clang of metal and a few yells of pain accompanied by victorious evil laughs that didn't sound particularly good, so Sugawara veered in and attacked the first unhelmeted head he saw. In a flash of limbs and the sing of qi in his veins, Sugawara made short work of the other opponents before kneeling down in front of an exhausted guard, who had given him a smile of thanks.
"Do you know a Daichi, Azumane's guard?"
The guard coughed from the smoke, but pointed further into the castle. "Sawamura led most of the group into believing he was fleeing towards Azumane's location. They followed him past the kitchen, I don't know where he went. Thanks for the save."
Patting the guard on the back and hauling him outside into clearer air, Sugawara nodded and continued racing down the corridor until he saw a flicker of blue light, clearly magic. It was bright enough that it silhouetted the group of fifteen that was attacking it.
Well, well, his brain mused in interest. No wonder such a young boy (he'd gotten the impression from Azumane that Sawamura Daichi must not be an old, grizzled man) was chosen to be the personal guard of a Lord's son. Such an advanced barrier user huh...
When he drew near, he realised that the blue light was a repulsion ward etched onto a large shield, planted in front of a small door. A glance told him it was impressive work for an emergency.
Behind the shield was a tuft of black hair, where a person was clearly holding the shield steady.
Most likely Sawamura Daichi, Sugawara concluded even as he dove in to double-neck chop down two people, quickly followed by a leg sweep and solar plexus stomp to immobilise another two. Punching an armored man's armpit before quickly snapping a kick between the legs, Sugawara barely dodged a launched fireball from a shout of 'Look out!' from behind the shield. A fire qi user had backed up out of his reach, and was already generating another fireball from the surrounding smoke and flame.
Sugawara narrowed his eyes.
Ah, how unsightly. Maybe fifteen to one was a bit too much for hand-to-hand combat. Back to his forte then, fingers dipping into his weapon's pouch.
A few well thrown kunai and poisoned needles later, Sugawara picked himself up and kicked a few groaning enemies in the back of the head to make sure they were knocked out before walking towards the shield that a boy his age had hunched protectively over a small door. The blue bubble of a repulsion ward flickered and disintegrated into the air as he approached, letting Sugawara near to crouch near the black tuft of hair peeking over the shield.
"Hello, are you Sawamura Daichi?" Sugawara asked conversationally, friendly smile on his face. "I'm here on the tearful demand of Azumane, who was very worried about you!"
A weak cough greeted his answer, as the shield was pushed away, revealing a pleasant enough face.
"Hi. The way you took out those people was…" Daichi coughed. "Was really cool. You said Asahi was worried for me?"
Sugawara nodded. "Practically crying," he shared. "Now, lemme get you out of here." Sugawara tugged at a limp arm, and frowned when the other boy didn't lift. Daichi just… flopped sideways. "Hey. Get up." When Sugawara heaved, Daichi's body surprisingly didn't move at all.
That… wasn't right. Sugawara was quite confident on his strength – strength shouldn't be an issue. He'd once lifted an obnoxious golden statue that King Naoi hadn't liked that was three times his size without sweat. Daichi was way less than that.
"I tricked them into thinking this door was the secret passage to the Lord's room," Daichi said in answer to his confusion. "Then I sank myself into the rock, so I didn't need as much strength to steady my shield and wards. But," Daichi grinned, "I don't think I have enough magic to get myself out again."
Indeed, now that he noticed, Daichi was in a sitting position, legs sank into the stone floor of the castle. Sugawara could only see the top slant of his thighs before his legs disappeared into stone. Impressive use of magic again. Daichi was just as impressive as he'd thought he was, if he could draw wards and manipulate stone in an emergency without harming himself. Maybe Nekomata's friend recommendations weren't that strange after all?
But the next thing that came out of Daichi's mouth made Sugawara's opinion of him plummet.
"It was an honour anyway, to die protecting Asahi, I guess," Daichi murmured, smoke clearly getting to him now that there was no need to fight to stay awake. "Kinda dumb though. This is just my first mission. Asahi the type who needs someone to kick him into gear, totally useless…"
Sugawara stared down at this face (what was he looking so peaceful for?), before feeling irritated. Really irritated. He slapped Daichi on the face, hard enough for a sting and a bruise (hah!), enough for Daichi to startle awake.
"Huh?" Daichi said, comically confused as he jerked back into dazed consciousness.
Sugawara's eyes were intentionally blank as he leaned down closer to this Sawamura Daichi, who seemed to be under some brainwashed delusion that Sugawara had to clear right now.
"I've seen enough death," Sugawara replied quietly. "The only honour in death will be your own. Everyone else you know will grieve, and the satisfaction in dying for your honour is a lie to make you feel better as you die. There isn't even glory here, since you're so young. You're my age, aren't you? Twelve? No-one important will remember you."
"Wha-what? No, I'm thirteen! Wait no, that's not the point!" Daichi spluttered. "What type of words is that to someone near death?"
"You're not near death," Sugawara dismissed, eyes still boring into the wide stare that Daichi had on his face. "You're suffering from smoke inhalation. Your qi is low, but there's still enough that you can get yourself out of the rock. The smoke inhalation I can fix slightly." Sugawara unhooked his mask then, grimacing with the full force of the smoke hit his nose, before covering Daichi's face with it. "This mask is one I use when mixing poison – it filters anything near perfectly. There, you can breathe."
"You…" Daichi tried to reply after gulping down large coughs of filtered air, eyes round on Sugawara's face.
"Now you have a choice," Sugawara replied simply, his own qi rapidly expending as he tried to keep the smoke damaging his body. He might have to grudgingly give a few redeeming kudos to this Daichi if he withstood this smoke for so long. "You either guarantee a miserable death here, or you gamble and use all your remaining qi to get your legs out of the stone. Trust me when I say if you do so, I'll get you to the healers quick enough to fix the qi deprivation."
Silence. Daichi's eyes searched Sugawara's face.
Sugawara leaned back to give Daichi some space, but also give himself a chance to center himself because he was nearing his limits with stupid, stubborn people for the day. Scratch Daichi being maybe being a good friend. Nekomata expected him to be friends with these two idiots?
"Choose," Sugawara snapped, finally. Did he think they were made of time when the castle was burning down around them? "Or are you one to simply accept death when something gets slightly hard?"
Daichi's next reaction baffled him. He laughed, and not even hysterically either. When he stopped there was a determined glint entered his eyes.
"No, I'm not," Daichi replied with a smile in his voice, before rapidly paling when he muttered a word 'diafygi' and blue qi started spiralling out of Daichi into the stone trapping his legs. Sugawara immediately hooked his hands underneath Daichi's arms and pulled.
Daichi slid out of the stone with an uncomfortable grimace, but his face was much too pale afterwards as the qi escaped his hold, spiralling from the rock into the air. He was the type to look better with a healthy tan, Sugawara concluded as he immediately hefted him on his shoulder, and raced down the corridor, through the door outside, and streaked past the gardens towards the crowd of people in front of the mansion. He remembered seeing a few healers there.
"Woah," he felt Daichi mumble into his shoulder. "You're fast."
"And you're heavy," Sugawara retorted, before skidding to a stop in front of a line of injured patients with a few emergency healers already at work. "Severe magic deprivation and smoke inhalation," he quickly explained to the healer, who immediately got to work after he set him down.
Azumane, who must've been some sort of psychic, appeared nearly immediately after. "Daichi, you're okay!" He blubbered, tears appearing in his eyes.
"Already in tears, Asahi?" Daichi quipped through a cough. "After all that posturing about being independent and strong just a few days back to your dad?"
"I'm just glad you're okay!" Azumane complained. "Let me have that at least! That was really scary!"
When Sugawara slipped away, he heard Daichi ask, "Who was that?" To which Azumane sniffled back a, "I heard he's the great sage's apprentice or something." Sugawara had had enough however, and he slipped his way to the Lord of the castle (who was looking at his burning castle with a sort of dignified despair) and told him that the wards around his castle had dropped, asking if it was okay to leave now. The Lord promised that Azumane's group will have sufficient protection and made a not-very-subtle hint that he was welcome to head back to the capital to fetch reinforcements and supplies.
Leaving the transport and security of Azumane to the people who had that as their actual jobs, Sugawara heaved a long sigh and started the run back home. He had to report to Nekomata as fast as possible anyway, and the King needed to hear about the attack.
A week later, Sugawara was convinced. Sawamura Daichi was stalking him.
And wherever Sawamura was, Azumane wasn't far behind.
"What?" Sugawara sighed, pulling up his goggles as he sensed two footsteps approaching him from behind. The muted clink of Daichi's armour gave him doubly away as they pushed through the door and walked straight in. "I'm mixing a delicate compound for Nekomata right now."
"Being the Great Sage's apprentice must be so cool!" Daichi laughed, settling down on a stool a few steps away to watch, Asahi settling behind him as a nervous shadow, comical because of how he was taller than Daichi already by half a head. "No, finish what you're doing! I just wanted to ask if you could help me with my training again."
"Again?" Sugawara echoed, already mentally giving up because damn could Sawamura be stubborn. Dripping the liquid he had in his mortar into a small container, he pulled off his goggles and stood up, walking out of the cottage. "I'm done anyway. Also, knock the next time you're entering someone's house!" At his frown, Daichi laughed.
"Sorry, Suga! I just got too excited to see you!"
Sugawara stared at him in disbelief (Sawamura had the annoying habit of shortening people's name the moment they met them), before looking accusingly at Asahi. "Keep him in line! Isn't he your vassal?"
Asahi nervously scratched his head. "Umm, I tried to make him knock on the door first today…" Came the peep out of his delinquent looking face. Then he withered when Sugawara kept looking at him with a judgemental look on his face, hunching his broad shoulders and looking miserable. At that, Sugawara massaged the bridge of his nose.
"That face is wasted on you," he informed Asahi blandly, before leading him to a random training ground. There, he trumped Daichi repeatedly just like all their previous training sessions.
Mid-way, Daichi dragged Asahi into the fray too (since Asahi couldn't depend on Daichi protecting him all the time right?), so Sugawara also gave him a crash-course on how to get thrashed in the most non-fatal way possible.
When he was the only one left standing over a collapsed Daichi and Asahi (he may have been feeling a little smug), he decided doing a small workout before lunch was maybe not the worst thing to do.
"Come on!" Daichi yelled, battered face still with a damnable grimace that he probably thought was an encouraging smile. Sugawara was tempted to take a picture and show him that wasn't the case - his grimace of pure determination was actually making Asahi behind him shrink a little away (which was still quite hilarious to watch). "One more round!"
Sugawara sighed, lazily throwing a few kunai up and down before throwing three backwards at Daichi, who blocked the first one with his sword, the second with a hasty blue flicker of a barrier, but got hit straight in the neck by the third. To hammer it home, Sugawara took the second while Daichi choked in surprise to throw a few blunted wooden shuriken straight past him into Asahi, who bore the hits with a suffering silence.
"A-as amazing as ever, Suga," Asahi complimented, having gotten into the habit of shortening his name without permission as well.
Well, it wasn't as if he minded nowadays, but it was the principle of the thing.
"Why didn't you even try to dodge?" Sugawara replied instead. "No need to compliment me every time, Asahi. Just work on your own instincts more," he replied while glancing up from his book on advanced herbology. "Daichi's getting there at least."
"It's just, y-you're the same age as us, Suga, and you can do so many things..." Asahi fiddled with the hem of his delicately embroidered autumn yukata. Asahi's tutor had told him that Asahi needed to appear at a function or whatever, so Sugawara had stuck to only pummeling Daichi that day.
"Shoot, how?" Daichi collapsed and rolled onto the floor, massaging his throat with a resigned grimace. "I'm the same age as you, and I've trained all my life since I was eight!"
Sugawara shrugged, declining to comment but hopped over to give Daichi a hand up. "Even Inuoka can't beat me," Sugawara offered as some sort of comfort. "And he's captain now, so should that make you feel better?"
"No!" Daichi insisted, large frown on his face as he kept massaging his throat even after he got up. "You're the same age as me, so I want to be on the same level as you. I should be able to."
Leading the two back to Nekomata's cottage and up to his room, Sugawara offered some bruise cream that was getting dangerously low these days. Asahi settled on his bed with an awkward shuffle of a boy who didn't know what to do with his height, while Daichi sat on a stool next to his window. Sugawara just stayed standing, patient to wait while Daichi took the time to smear cream all over the bruises he'd have for a week if not for Nekomata's mixing magic.
"I'm a little different," Sugawara pointed out. "I'm a body enhancer, I use othis only. You use a mix of both types of magic, of course you're going to run out of stamina faster than me," he shrugged.
"But you have all those fake ninja skills," Daichi insisted. "I'm not going to pry why you have the assassination specialty, but you've mastered all of those skills!"
Sugawara's attention snapped towards Daichi's disarming smile, who had finished with the cream and was screwing the jar shut.
"What did you just say?" Sugawara asked, heart rabbiting. He'd been pretty successful at pretending his assassination skills were more from covert ops, ninja as they were affectionately called. Even Inuoka hadn't figured it out.
"Don't worry," Daichi insisted. "Me and Asahi figured it out after I described how you took down those attackers the first time we met!" He grinned at Sugawara's expression, before his face fell a little at Sugawara's continued suspicion. "Hey, I'll never betray a friend," Daichi said, calmer and more insisting now.
Asahi, who had busied himself into staring out the window as soon as he felt tension in the room used the pause to bridge the gap of the conversation.
"Ah, Suga! Um, the smiley-faces on your flower pots look really cute!" Asahi smiled as he pointed. "You didn't seem the type to do so!"
Sugawara nodded at Asahi with an absentminded 'thanks', before focussing back on Daichi. "When did we become friends?"
Daichi stood up to hand the cream back to Sugawara, on level with him now. "The moment you saved us," Daichi replied, solid. "And no, nothing you say will change my mind."
And there it was, the glint in his eyes that now Sugawara realised was pure, determined stubbornness.
Ugh. It was hard to deal with these types.
"Well, it's nearly time for Asahi's formal dressing for the fancy thing tonight," Sugawara answered as he ushered them out of his room, dodging any sort of response. "Come on, go away. You can bug me more tomorrow."
Ah. He shouldn't have mentioned tomorrow. Daichi's stubborn smile suddenly turned blinding again, calling back an "it's a promise!" while Sugawara duly reflected that he should not be infected dammit.
Asahi smiled in commiseration over dinner a week later, having been invited by a more-than-welcoming Nekomata. Daichi, having been exhausted by training that day, had fell asleep at the dinner table, leaving Sugawara and Asahi to talk since Nekomata had abandoned them to go drinking with Inuoka's unit.
"He really looks up to you, you know," Asahi said quietly over dishes, having surprised Sugawara when a Lord's son hadn't shied from getting his hands dirty. "Daichi that is. I can't remember the last time he was so determined to befriend someone barring well... me."
Sugawara shot him a curious glance, demanding more of the story as he rinsed and dried a dish, putting it into a neat stack inside a basket that he would take to the palace kitchens later.
"I wasn't the most outgoing kid, and part of it was circumstantial as the Azumane's Lord's son, " Asahi laughed a little self-consciously. "Daichi just stumbled into my life. He was chasing a bird or something, I don't remember what he said, but it led him to falling over the wall into my private garden. He sprained an ankle," Asahi fondly remembered, rubbing soap over a particularly oily patch on a dish. "When he heard I had never met another person my age, Daichi made it his personal mission to 'fix' the situation."
"But why?" Sugawara asked, confused. He was still so confused over... friendship. Most relationships were give and take - but it seemed like his friendships always just gave without him doing anything. Michimiya named him her friend and gave him a life, Daichi had just barged in and demanded it (with Asahi following and insisting softly behind), but all he'd ever done for Michimiya was cracking a few jokes. All he'd ever done to Daichi bar their first meeting was repeatedly thrash him. Asahi was so soft-spoken they'd barely even interacted.
"For me, it was because I spoke against my father for the first time when I defended Daichi for trespassing in my garden," Asahi smiled shyly at him. "For you, you saved his life, and from what I heard, it was really um, impressive? Daichi had always aimed high, and you're just his next target."
Sugawara fell silent at that, thinking hard.
"I'll give you guys a chance," he told Asahi later, as he lugged Daichi's sleeping body back to Asahi's suite of rooms inside the castle. Asahi, surprisingly astute (and unsurprisingly sensitive), didn't ask for clarification of what he meant.
"That's all we ask," he replied with a smile.
The training yards were packed full to the brim for the unofficial 'tournaments' that the guards did for fun every year, and in the under fifteens category, Daichi grinned in decisive victory over a fifteen-year palace guard.
"A good fight!" They agreed as they shook arms, hands gripping each other's elbows as they slowly drained from their adrenaline high. The crowd cheered around them at the make-shift announcer's yelled declaration of Daichi as the winner, as the fifteen-year old gave Daichi a begrudgingly impressed smirk.
"You're going to be a monster one day," he promised Daichi, who gave a wry smile back.
"No, not yet. I still have a ways to go," was Daichi's reply, as his attention shifted to the subject of a fresh wave of cheering. Following his gaze, the fifteen-year old snorted.
"Yeah, here comes the real monster."
The crowd cheered as the announcer gleefully yelled, "And here comes the undefeated! The great! The mighty APPRENTICE OF THE GREAT SAGE, SUGAWARA KOUSHI!"
"Inuoka, shut up!" Came a familiar voice, retorting. "I swear, I don't know how you persuade me to do this every year!"
"Aww, have fun, Koushi!" The announcer replied, before getting back into the job. "Well, here comes the extra match all victors of their bracket get! A fight against our undefeated champion! First will be the winner of the fifteen and under bracket, one of our newer recruits from Azumane fief, Sawamura Daichi!"
Daichi grinned, feral, and Sugawara sighed, slapping his forehead. "Again? I thought this would be the one day I wouldn't need to fight you!"
"Okay!" Inuoka shouted, "Each of you should declare a concession!"
"I won't use weapons," Sugawara replied, used to the drill, while Daichi confidently grinned.
"I will fight while protecting a non-combatant!" Daichi declared, before waving Asahi out from the crowd. Sugawara just sighed while everyone ooooohed at such a difficult concession while fighting Sugawara of all people.
"Well, everyone place your bets! We'll start in a few minutes, so be prepared!"
Sugawara rolled his shoulders as he started rotating his qi, watching Daichi and Asahi's furtive movements with a tired eye. He was up mixing for a grumpy Nekomata most of the night, and he'd been forced to wake up early by Inuoka this morning. This was totally unfair. Probably end it as fast as he could?
Targeting Asahi it was then.
As soon as Inuoka whistled loudly, Sugawara kicked forward in a small whoosh of displaced air, landing behind Asahi to give him a gentle chop to the neck. That was until to his surprise, a blue repulsion ward lit up from under Asahi's hairline, pushing him a few steps away right into-
Sugawara ducked underneath a gleaming fist with wide eyes, sleepiness gone as the gauntlet whistled past mere millimeters from his hair.
"Tch," Daichi cursed, even as he was quickly bringing a knee up, where Sugawara twisted away before being backed up into Asahi with a sword swing. Asahi, losing no chance, thrust out a palm that had another repulsion ward that Daichi had drawn on beforehand, pushing Sugawara forward back towards Daichi's back-swing.
With a rush of hurried qi, Sugawara shot out an arm to intercept Daichi's sword swing, making his fingers as tough as iron as he stopped the swing by trapping the blade between his index and middle finger, before using a twist of his arm to try and disarm Daichi. However, having been used to this trick Daichi had also called upon othis and steeled his grip, forcing it forward so that it was Sugawara's arm being twisted instead of the sword flying across the arena.
That's the problem with repeat opponents, Sugawara thought with annoyance as he let the sword go and leapt sideways so that Asahi couldn't do that repulsion trick again. They got used to you, and as an assassin that was just plain stupid.
Daichi leapt sideways with him, in a burst of speed that was provided by Asahi propelling him with another repulsion seal, and Sugawara grimaced as he was forced to block another one of Daichi's powerful blows, not getting the chance to regroup when Daichi skidded back from the block to launch himself back at him again. When did Daichi's enhancement get so good, Sugawara wondered as he dodged yet again by a narrower degree than normal.
Still, Daichi may be stronger and getting faster, but Sugawara was still faster. Sugawara stopped holding back and circulated qi freely, using it to stop his momentum, hit Daichi's hand sideways so his swing would overextend and race past him to Asahi. As many repulsion wards he may have, Daichi couldn't have them inscribed everywhere. Just hit him in the gut or something.
Asahi's eyes widened at where Sugawara had disappeared in front of Daichi full swing, knowing his eyes wouldn't be fast enough to truly track Sugawara when he turned up the speed. But he knew his cues, so the moment he saw Sugawara disappear in a flicker, Asahi stepped backwards.
Sure enough, Sugawara landed in front of him... right into the trap Asahi had been standing on top of. Asahi activated the seals Daichi had stealthily drawn into the ground early this morning, and on of Sugawara's feet sank into the rock. And before he could pull it out, Asahi ran away from the seal to a safe place in the corner of the field.
"All yours, Daichi!" Asahi yelled, safely far away. Daichi ran over immediately, and pointed his sword at Sugawara's back.
"Yield!" Daichi yelled gleefully while Sugawara experimentally pulled at the foot that was sunk past the slight dirt and into harder rock. "You can't move anymore!"
"That's what you think," Sugawara retorted, twisting around to stare at Daichi. "But I'm impressed that my talks about traps and strategy stuck with you, and I'm tired. So I yield."
The sudden uproar from their audience reminded the two that they weren't in one of their private training sessions. Inuoka was especially braying about how 'THE UNDEFEATED GOT DEFEATED AT LAST, THOUGH I GOTTA ADMIT IT WAS MORE TAG-TEAMING THAN A TRUE ONE-ON-ONE AS RULES STATE YOU KNOW' and Sugawara rolled his eyes again. "Hey, Daichi," Sugawara looked back at the other boy, who was still basking in his win. One win to two hundred and seventy three losses! It was beautiful. "Free me from this rock already."
"On one condition!" Daichi said brightly. "You have to join me and Asahi for dinner every Friday from now on!"
Sugawara grimaced. Really?
"C'mon, Suga," Daichi laughed. "It's not that bad, being with us two!"
Asahi slowly came back to them, nodding. "Yeah, I have a few games that I brought back from home in my rooms, Suga! It'll be more fun to play with three people!"
Sugawara tugged on his foot and sighed. "Alright," he sighed, as his qi went back to his core and he felt totally drained as a result. "I'll join you for dinner tonight."
"Tonight, and every Friday after!" Daichi insisted, the stubborn glint in his eyes not appeased by Sugawara's half-hearted agreement.
"Yeah, that. Free me already."
Daichi looked entirely too smug for the entire dinner that night, so Sugawara used some sleight of hand to manipulate the card game that Asahi was trying to explain to him (not telling Asahi, of course, that he already knew the game already). So what if they only realised he was cheating after eight spectacular wins in a row? Sugawara laughed at Asahi's rare outraged face and Daichi's silent plotting one. Their outraged cries gave life to his soul.
The next Friday, Sugawara was soundly trounced at a game he actually didn't know how to play. They then proceeded to try sneak to the kitchens for snacks before they got caught taking some fancy preparatory bread for tomorrow. Sugawara's quick-thinking got them out of a potentially hairy mess, while Daichi just stood there smiling and Asahi tried not to look too suspicious and looming (he failed).
And well, at that card game... fair is fair. If the next afternoon Sugawara had thrown a few more blunted kunai than usual, who could say it was from any sort of petty grudge?
Slowly, Sugawara learnt to look forward to the daily mid-afternoon knock on his door, grumbling for Nekomata's sake whenever he opened it to see a scary-determined smiling Daichi and the soft-spoken hellos of Asahi.
Somewhere between Daichi's plans for TRAINING GREATNESS, Asahi's well-meaning bumbling and Sugawara's emergency talk-out-of-bad-situations charm, they became friends.
"What's that weird black box?" Sugawara asked Nekomata one day, a package that he received from a flighty crow that didn't leave after it had delivered the package, instead hopping over to Sugawara's shoulder and preening his hair. It had actually fallen asleep while doing so, and was resting in the corner on a pillow now.
Nekomata grumbled. "Why are you so curious nowadays?"
Sugawara shrugged. "Chou infected me? Come on, tell me."
"It's a recording from an old friend," Nekomata answered. "She's a witch who can see the future. It's…" Nekomata trailed off, before rocking on his wheelchair. It was getting creaky, one of the nails a little loose, and Sugawara counted five creaks before Nekomata started the conversation again. "Koushi…"
"Yeah?" Sugawara stopped sharpening his tantō.
"How old are you this year?"
"…Fourteen. Why?"
"Six years already, huh. How time flies," Nekomata chuckled. "I'll hit one-thirty in another two years! Amazing! Have you been happy here in all these six years, Koushi?"
"I have," Sugawara answered slowly. "What's going to happen, Nekomata?" Sugawara had never involved himself into Chou's politics, but he did know that Nekomata had been looking more and more tired lately. And now this? A prophecy?
Nekomata ignored him though, rustling an aged hand through his plant-hair (clovers this season) with a satisfied smile.
"Good. I've done a good job then." Nekomata sank into his chair even more bonelessly, staring out the window into the indigo sunset. "Koushi, I've left you some things underneath the sink. Open it when the time comes. You'll know. And remember no matter where your destiny goes, we'll always be here for you. And hey, Koushi?"
"Yeah?"
"If I asked you to do something difficult for me... would you do it?"
There was no need to think about the answer.
"I'd do anything."
Nekomata silently continued rocking on the chair then, not unsmiling, but not frowning either. He just nodded, accepted it, before changing the topic to complaining about Naoi's tendency to make him go to formal banquets and parties.
Sugawara wondered what all that was about.
"Where's Asahi?" Sugawara asked Daichi over a late breakfast, who also looked slightly concerned.
"He said that he needed to talk to King Naoi about something, but he didn't mention anything about it taking so long." They sat there for an extra half hour before Asahi stumbled through the door, having somehow grown even ganglier and lanky as a fourteen year old.
"It's unbefitting for a future lord to be late, Asahi," Daichi called out with a grin on his face as he teased Asahi, before his smile faltered. "What's wrong?"
Asahi shook his head. "Daichi…" He glanced around Nekomata's hut before closing the door behind him and flumped onto a chair. "Prepare a carriage for us to leave…now, as soon as possible if you can." His voice was even more timid than normal, and Sugawara and Daichi exchanged a glance.
"What's wrong?"
"I can't explain," Asahi shook his head, but his eyes found Sugawara's. "Suga, join us. Please believe me, you'll… you'll be better off with us! I promise I'll protect you. We're friends, so I can't… I can't. I'm not supposed to, I need to leave immediately but… Suga, you can join us. Please."
As much as Daichi was Asahi's friend as well as his guard, Daichi knew when to act out and when to listen. "I'll arrange a carriage if you say so, Asahi. I don't know what's happening, but it sounds bad, Suga." Daichi looked at Sugawara, brows furrowed. "If Asahi says that something is that dangerous, we'll always have a space for you, Suga," Daichi said, stolid. "It'll help me in protecting this dumbass in any case, so you'll never be dead weight."
Asahi was too upset to even react to Daichi's casual usage of dumbass. Something clicked in Sugawara's mind that this situation was actually serious.
So Sugawara analysed Asahi, his shaky fingers, Daichi's confused concern, and thought back to Nekomata, yesterday night.
"Wait a second," Sugawara said, before heading towards the sink. And written on top of the box, in large letters in Nekomata's handwriting was [DON'T GO WITH THEM]. Pulling the box out, he placed it on the table. "There you go. My answer. Nekomata must know best."
Asahi's face crumpled like the world was ending, staring at the box, before looking back at Sugawara. And okay, maybe Sugawara was growing extremely concerned. Sure Asahi loved being cheesy and sentimental, and got scared of a lot of things (the only worrywart of their group, really), but Asahi had never been so… crushed before. Just when he was about to say something encouraging, Asahi visibly drew himself together, bowing to Sugawara in a way they've... never done, actually.
"May we meet again, Suga," Asahi said, quietly fierce, before striding out the door.
Daichi, clearly torn and as lost as he was, shrugged.
"I'll beat up Asahi later for not telling us what's going on," Daichi promised. "Maybe he's just being dramatic?" He finished, clearly doubting that himself. "But just in case its something serious… here you go," Daichi fished a small metal coin out of his pocket and handed to Sugawara. "It's nothing big, Suga, but if you ever visit Azumane fief, that coin will lead you to me and Asahi. Just show it to someone official looking."
With that, Daichi gave him a clap on the shoulder and left. The whole thing happened in five minutes, and just felt anticlimactic and unsatisfying– Sugawara had no idea what was going on, or why, or when, since Nekomata mentioned the future and clearly the King had told Asahi some part of what was making Nekomata so concerned (but still, why Asahi?). That rest of that day he spent in paranoia, packing all sorts of weapons into the magical bag Nekomata had helped him make, stocking on water and food, and assessed his travelling cloaks and clothes before throwing them all in too. Just in case. It always paid to be prepared.
That night, Nekomata never returned for dinner. Sugawara, who couldn't stand this suspense anymore when everything just seemed so... normal, opened the box.
Inside, tucked into a pocket of space was Nekomata's staff, covered in runes that would only ever let a sage use it as a magic conduit. Sugawara pulled it out, puzzled why Nekomata would leave this for him when he was clearly not a sage, but put it in his own bag anyway.
Next to the pocket was a normal section of box, where there were three small envelopes stacked on top of each other. On top was a letter written in Nekomata's familiar scrawl.
[Koushi, I have an urgent request for you,] was the first line of the letter. [In the three envelopes are three important things that you must give to three people. The white envelope goes to Queen Kiyo, of the Witches' forest. The grey goes to Duke Tsukishima, in Whiteriver, the Capital of the Western continent. The black goes to the High Priest of the great library in Fa.
Head for the Whiteriver first – focus on crossing the desert to the Duke, as it'll help throw off anyone chasing you– don't worry about directions or a map, I've seen destiny guide you to the Whiteriver. The staff I gave to you because I have a hunch you'll meet a person who will need it. Further explanation on what is going on is within the grey envelope, where in the Duke's care it'll be safe for you to learn what's happening, and hopefully gain allies in the process.
I'm sorry I couldn't give you more time to grow up. You're the only one I can trust now. Keep safe, and don't fail.
Cheers! Nekomata]
Sugawara read the letter, traced the small cat picture Nekomata had doodled and sighed. That letter did tell him somewhat of what he had to do, but didn't really say anything. He wasn't about to refuse Nekomata though, so he brushed his hair back and thought of Asahi's stress in needing to get out of Chou as quickly as possible. This was probably related right? He should get a move on then...
He'd barely packed the three envelopes into a small secure pocket in his bag when the door breezed open behind him, and a warm breath tickled his ear.
"Found you."
Extras
Daichi has always been an unfailing optimist. However, just because he's an optimist doesn't mean he's not a realist. One of the most defining and reliable traits that Daichi has (that everyone relies on him for) is his ability to look at everything with a calm eye and still say and believe stuff like 'we can do it!' It's unsurprising that he's held leadership jobs for most of his life from this sort of attitude.
Asahi didn't only research Nishinoya and Tanaka when he was attempting to become more of a 'wild' type. He looked up Youtube videos with beauty gurus and style makeover tutorials. He bought four types of hair combs on suggestion, and posed in front of his mother's mirror for four days straight (his own was too small, and he'd never previously used it until his makeover attempt because even he didn't like his own face - it was scary). He thought of spikes and hair gel, ponytails and hair cuts. He thought of making his eyebrows sharper, or even wearing some cool guyliner. The thing is, in the end he chose a more natural look after he heard that most of those hair products would make him bald one day, and even Kiyoko (when asked for advice) stated the way he was pulling his hair would make his hairline recede.
His. Worst. Nightmare.
When Suga watches his high-school group of friends, sometimes he gets overly sentimental about how amazing it is that he met such a great (dorky) bunch of people early in life. He then covers this up by punching Daichi's shoulder and wise-cracking. Daichi bears the punches in long-suffering stoicness.
