::LIII::

Kagami stepped into the quaint room. Two knocks granted him entrance.

"How're you feelin', killer?"

Kuroko sat on a loveseat positioned cattycorner to a queen-sized bed. Momoi was perched on the plush arm beside him. The small space emulated the atmosphere of a den with sparse but cozy furnishings to satisfy temporary housing. Complete with a full bath, a closet and dresser for storage, and a nook for business or leisure reading. Aomine's guest apartment supplied the same amenities.

Kuroko smiled. "It's good to see you, too, Kagami-kun."

Kagami pocketed his hands. Akashi's earlier ridicule still stung. On the walk over, he'd worked to steady himself. The meeting with his brother and Aomine had not gone at all how he expected and he could not stop himself from puzzling over just how much of the discourse was honest or pure snake oil.

Turbulent thoughts calmed and he determined he would have to shelve the problem for later.

Purporting the best mask of indifference he could, he said, "All things considered, you look good."

"I wish I could say the same for you."

He scowled. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

The shadow's expression remained characteristically passive. "Your face looks troubled."

So, the mask was imperfect. He should have guessed those sharp eyes couldn't be fooled.

Still, he thought he'd try. "It's the scrapes and bruises, isn't it?"

"If you insist, Kagami-kun," Kuroko said with a barely-there smile.

"What brings you here?" Momoi asked.

No malice hinted her tone.

"The warden's prepared exit procedures for you guys back to Goryokaku," he told her.

"Akashi-san wouldn't appreciate hearing you call him that," Kuroko said.

Without censor, Kagami spat, "I don't give a shit what he thinks."

Surprise claimed them. Kagami chewed his cheek.

"Wait," Momoi said, "you said 'you guys.' Does that include Dai-chan? Izuki-san told us he's here."

He suppressed a groan. He was tiring of the Dai-chan rhetoric and in no mood to be berated again for not spoon-feeding them answers he either did not have or would not satisfy them.

"He is."

"Is he not coming home?"

The anger he anticipated was instead replaced with disappointment. Perhaps this encounter would turn out better than his last.

"He and Akashi are discussing that now. His exit strategy isn't as cut-and-dry as yours."

She seemed to understand, saying, "That's right." Solemnity led her eyes downcast. "He's not the same Dai-chan anymore."

"Sure he is," Kagami said. "He's still annoying and obnoxious. Now he can glow in the dark."

Amusement lifted the gloom darkening her face. "You've known him for almost two weeks and that is all you've gleaned of his personality?"

"There's more. I'm just smarter now not to share it in front of you." At the expense of bruised genitals.

She laughed.

Even Kuroko couldn't withhold chuckling at his plight.

She gestured. "I won't apologize for that."

"Don't need to," he said. "Just know that your stay ends tonight. For your sake—if not then hopefully for mine—Aomine will be joining you. And I can hit his ass with the door on his way out."

"Too much foreplay," Kuroko asked.

Kagami groaned. "He's… a handful."

"I thought you got along well."

"That was before he could power an entire city block by himself."

A thoughtful look came to Kuroko's face and he craned to look up at Momoi. "Sounds like something we'll need to be prepared for."

He couldn't help supplying, "Take it from me, you get used to it quickly."

Disbelief widened Momoi's eyes. "Dai-chan electrocuted you?"

"You're looking at a veteran lightning rod."

Two knocks rapped the door. Kagami stepped farther inside as Kuroko admitted the visitor.

Izuki Shun entered.

"What the hell took you?" Kagami asked the spymaster.

"Mibuchi likes to be thorough."

Earlier when he reached out for an update on Kuroko's condition and location, Izuki mentioned a brief meeting with the War Administrator, Mibuchi, and predicted the appointment would be short.

He decided not to press.

"While I was at it, I organized a protection detail to oversee their journey to the temple once they disembark at the border station."

Izuki explained to them all the Lord's deportation arrangement. A contingent of Shadow Apparitions and Bokoku military police would navigate them to Hirosawa Station and board with them on their transit north. Once they reached Nise, a caravan provided by Wakamatsu awaited to complete the convoy homeward. Rail lines that once webbed the country and interconnected with Pervobytnyy Les in the north, Tōketsu Sabaku in the west, and Bokoku in the south had been abandoned since the 1800s. The vigorous tag team onslaught of the Rus-Ainu had smothered the Ice's long-standing international trade and travel agreements. Imayoshi's later-imposed isolationist policy ensured nature would reclaim the lines, burying any evidence hospitable cooperation between the powers.

Izuki turned to Kagami. "What'd the boss tell you?"

"Everything on his end is ready. Save for one thing."

He guided Izuki out into the hallway. He twisted to peek back inside, to Kuroko and Momoi, and signaled for patience, then closed the door.

"I'm gonna need you to hang back with these two for a bit." His voice was just above a whisper.

"What's the wrinkle?"

He told the spymaster about the funeral pyres.

"Strange that Akashi would be so hospitable."

You're telling me, Kagami thought.

"If that's the case, shouldn't I bring them when you grab Aomine," Izuki asked.

"You'll be bringing them eventually."

Curiosity pinched Izuki's brow. "This have anything to do with the Kaizer's secretary?"

"How do you—"

"I'm loath to admit it," Izuki sighed, clearly bothered, "but I cooperated with Susa Yoshinori to manage security policies and procedures by screening any and all foreign dignitaries entering Bokoku. Now that he's abandoned his station, I'm no longer subordinate to him."

Izuki wrangled his bitterness with a sharp breath. "I only know the secretary's business here concerns Akashi and Aomine."

Kagami peered over his shoulder, at the sealed door. There was no way to know if Kuroko and Momoi were eavesdropping. Eventually the full truth of Aomine's birth would be shared but not by his mouth. It was not his place or responsibility. Besides, it had gotten him in enough trouble already.

He felt confident Kuroko was patient enough not to overstep and pry loose an explanation. After all, he'd been present for the prologue to Aomine's family drama in the fort armory.

However, Izuki was not. And since his greatest rival would swiftly become a principal political interest to the spymaster, Kagami decided it couldn't hurt. "Sakurai Ryou was Imayoshi Nori's midwife. He was there the night Aomine's parents died."

Apprehension registered on Izuki's face.

Then he nodded and said, "Just page me. What will you do in the meantime?"

No question there. Akashi's unprecedented hospitality wasn't the only strange thing about their meeting.

"I need to see Akashi again. Something he said doesn't sit right with me."

Or, more accurately, something he did. The meeting overall had been a disastrous fiasco. He left feeling equal parts ridiculed and incensed and a peculiar aftertaste of suspicion embittered him.

Normally Kagami did not censor his criticisms or complaints about Akashi to Izuki. But he didn't want the old shadow's pathological paternal instincts to kick in and talk him down.

To his relief, Izuki didn't dig for clarity. He just nodded.

Kagami popped the door open.

Neither Kuroko nor Momoi had moved from the loveseat. He jerked his head from where it rested on her thigh. She yanked her hand from his head, as though she'd been stroking his hair.

Kagami wondered about the display of affection between them. And why they felt the need to hide it.

"Is everything okay?" No panic carried Kuroko's voice. As one caught doing something sordid would exhibit.

All the more odd but Kagami deferred his interest.

"Peachy," he said. "I need to visit the warden. You'll stick around here with Izuki until the midget lets me know he's bored jerking chains."

He turned to leave.

"Before you go," Kuroko called.

He stopped and faced the little shadow. Kuroko pushed himself from the sofa and approached.

"If I ever gave you the impression I did not value your help that could not be farther from the truth. However, I would be lying if I said I believed your proximity to Aomine-kun was not a means to your end."

"You were right not to implicitly trust me." Kagami laughed. "You're tiny and practically invisible but you deliver a very believable threat."

Kuroko smiled and raised his right hand. Gauze bandaging wound each finger, the pinky lacking a joint. He formed a makeshift fist.

"Thank you, Kagami-kun."

He lifted a fist and gently tapped the shadow's knuckles. "Since you're feeling grateful, there's something of mine you're holding onto that I'd like back."

Realization brightened Kuroko's eyes. "So you noticed."

"I didn't forget," he huffed, with emphasis. "I was distracted."

Kuroko padded to the dresser and reached into a seemingly empty sack pooled on top. From it he pulled a folded sheet and walked back over.

"I have to ask, though." He waved it. "Why?"

"Peace offering."


*Points of Clarification*

Tōketsu Sabaku, meaning Frozen Desert, is a Fire Apparition exclave that encompasses all of central Mongolia and parts of northwest China full of Fire-Ice hybrids whose genome has evolved to tolerate the steepes and taigas.

Pervobytnyy Les, meaning Primeval Forest, is the large European country of the Lightning Apparitions and the seat of their empire, situated across the southern half of Russia, the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and northern Mongolia.

(I wish I could post a link to the map but ff does not allow that...)