Author's Notes: On to Utsuho's side of the story! Please review, I don't want to sound desperate, but I really would like someone to read.


Chapter 9. Utsuho - How Shameless!

They wasted no time in pursuing the escaped bandits. Nao was very helpful, using his nose to pick up traces of Neya's scent. Their main concern was how long would the scent trail remain before it became overridden with others, and then tracking them would become nigh impossible.

If only they had Pochi! Pochi, like many tanuki seemed to, had acute hearing and would be able to pick up people's voices while Nao sniffed them out. Minamo would have also been ideal for the situation since she did not need any of that physical evidence to find out where they went.

Too bad she was with Neya.

The search was slower than he would have liked, and Nao was starting to have trouble smelling anything leaving them to speculate on where they might have gone.

"The villagers had noted quite a few of their women missing, some even seeing bandits intentionally grabbed and kidnapped them," said Yakuma. "So, either they took them for their own pleasure—"

"But Minamo is a small girl!" shouted Uzume. "They didn't grab little girls for their measure too, right!?"

"That's pleasure, and no, they did not go through all that trouble to get women to pleasure themselves," said Chouza.

"Which means they're likely being sold as prostitutes for other men," concluded Hika, his arms crossed behind his head once again. "They stand to make a lot of money selling women into prostitution."

"Aran. How dirty and not beautiful," said Iwashi.

"Why are you saying that so easily, Hika!?" yelled Utsuho, followed by a punch to Yakuma's face.

"Why are you hitting me!?"

"Okaan*, where'd they go!?"

"Do you really think now's the time to be joking around Utsuho!?"

"Always!" Another punch.

"Hey, hey. Focus, we have to focus," reminded Chouza. "Not only are they in danger of being sold, but both of them holds a kokonotsu treasure. We want to get to them before someone figures that out. Though I'm not too worried about Minamo losing hers since it won't come off and it protects her, but Ane-chan*…"

"That would be a problem for Nee-yan," Iwashi said.

"Where would they be headed then?" Hika asked, bringing the discussion back on point.

"The major red-districts would be our best bet," deduced Yakuma. "At those places, women would be sold highest. In Kyoto, there's Shimabara, Edo's Yoshiwara, and Osaka's Shinmachi."

"You know all the names for such places, Okaan!? How shameless!" said Utsuho, hitting Yakuma again.

"It's not like I've ever been to any of those places!"

Nonetheless, Utsuho was already no longer listening.

"Osaka is out of the question since it's so far away, and Kyoto is also unlikely given that we've been following them southeast, not southwest. They seem to be heading toward Edo."

"Then to Edo we go."

xXx

In concern for Nee-chan and Minamo's safety safety, the six travelers kept a steady pace of jogging, walking, jogging, break, jogging, walking, jogging, and so on. Nao's leg as much better according to Yakuma, enabling the fox to run with them. The fox cub kept at the front of the group, at times trying to run ahead when they walked or stopped to eat. He began to get used to taking breaks quickly, though, because at those times he would be fed or given water. In place of Neya's absence, Nao would stick by Yakuma mostly, whom took care of him very well in Nee-chan's absence.

Day after day passed by in such a rushed manor. The first day saw most of them run ragged (even Iwashi) except the muscle-headed Uzume. Fortunately, with each passing day, the soreness became second nature and their pace even increased with longer running time and shorter walks.

Utsuho was glad to run until he was exhausted by the time night came. He worried what he would have thought if he was lying awake and restless; mores, he feared what his dreams would show him if he had not been consistently falling sleep like a rock and waking up the next morning as if only seconds had passed. He recalled the night he saw Nee-chan and Yakuma embracing was filled with dreams of her blatantly kissing the doctor in front of him, leaving him extremely uncomfortable. The night he had been staring at her without her knowledge, the same night he had come to…appreciate some of her features more caused him to be teased by her little slips of her kimono, each time showing a bit more skin.

He did not want to start dreaming about her in the prospect of becoming a prostitute. Straight, plain sleep was good.

xXx

Two weeks passed from the incident in town. All of them stood at the gates of the red-light district slightly separated from Edo-proper. On any normal day, any one of them would be thrilled to run into Edo and explore the chatty, but that day was not normal. This much was an obvious fact with two of their companions absent from their company.

"Hime-san, stay out here with Hika," Utsuho said. Bringing in such a pretty, and erotic, girl like Iwashi would be asking for more trouble than he would like.

"Yes, Utsuho-sama~."

"I'll take care of her, Utsuho-kun."

"The rest of us going in, Thread Eyes?" asked Chouza.

"Yeah, the four of us will go in and look for Nee-chan and Chibikko. If you find them, return near the front gate, out of general site and wait for the others. If you don't find them, head to the same spot in three hours."

Chouza, Uzume, and Yakuma nodded. Surely that was simple enough of a plan even for Uzume.

Each of them went separate ways once they passed the gate. Utsuho immediately concentrated on scanning through the wooden bar windows and crowd, just in case, searching for that pale sakura-colored hair.

The women hanging near the bars of the windows would coo and beckon to him, promising a wonderful night he'd never forget, sensation he's never felt, and so on.

Whoever came up with the idea of those front windows and forcing women to attract men for money was uncool. He knew at a least that an unprofitable prostitute would likely be punished for wasting the owner's money—the women, in fear of this, grew accustomed to attracting and bedding men with all their might.

Utsuho could not really see Nee-chan going quietly. No matter how useless she was sometimes, she was still an itsuwaribito. Only other itsuwaribito got the better of an itsuwaribito…he was convinced she would not allow herself to be taken advantage of.

It would be nice if he was absolutely sure of that, but Minamo was also there, which may make it harder for Nee-chan because she would do anything to protect her.

The search was proving fruitless on his end, no matter how many of the numerous brothels he searched. What if she was already with a customer? Oh, he did not even want to finish that thought or he would hurl up what little lunch he had eaten earlier. His eyes were getting weary straining them for so long, and the designated three hours was nearly up. Somewhat disappointedly, he headed back to the entrance of Yoshiwara.

"Thread Eyes."

Utsuho looked over to the side, where Chouza relaxed behind a wooden post near a teashop. He did not look back at him, coming off as nonchalant. Inconspicuously, Utsuho settled at a table and asked for two teas. Chouza slid into the bench across from him.

"Find anything?" Utsuho asked first.

"Yeah. Found where Ane-chan is."

Relief unfurled the knot in his stomach.

"Oh, look," said Chouza, glancing over Utsuho to someone in the street. "Uzume, Doc."

Yakuma managed to find them, likely with the help of Nao heading toward them without any prompting. Uzume waved wildly to Utsuho's dismay, although it seemed to have been generally ignored by passersby.

"I crossed paths with Uzume, so we explored a little together."

"So useless, Okaan. Chouza actually found something while you were babysitting Bird Brain."

"You did, Chouza!?" asked Uzume excitedly.

"I saw Ane-chan in the window at one of the more high-end brothels. I only saw her from afar, but that was definitely her hair."

"Why didn't you go closer and talk to her?" Uzume questioned naively.

"Because, Bird Brain, if he had, they would have known she has people here looking for her and it would raise their guard."

"Be that as it may…" Chouza started cautiously, "pretty soon after I saw her, a guy came and picked her."

Utsuho froze. Beside him, Yakuma also ceased fussing over a snack he was feeding to Nao.

"…"

"I've got a plan."


Author's After-note: Utsuho's apparently ranked number one in intelligence in a character poll done by the author, so I shall exercise that to my advantage. Quick plan-making and execution.

Okaan: This is the equivalent of "Okaa-san" in Utsuho's dialect, which means "Mother." He calls Yakuma this from time to time when fooling around.

Ane-chan: A more formal way of saying "Nee-chan", which means "Big sister."

Shimabara/Shinmachi: Actual former major red-light districts of Kyoto and Osaka respectively.

Also, if anyone looks at a map, Osaka is practically directly south of Kyoto, and Edo is east of Kyoto. The town they were heading from initially was in the mountain areas northwest of Edo.