With time to kill before reaching the capital, the group set about studying Daishou's diary and making a plan. The diary was much as Tsukishima had described in his own journal. Most of it was accounted recordings of every goings-on in the palace, no matter the political importance. There were detailed dossiers on each royal, lord, knight, healer, and advisor; each including several plans to sway their opinion or murder them. As the pages went on, Daishou became more and more focused on the younger Tsukishima and how to win his favour. Daishou indeed seemed to think Tsukishima loved him and that he was desperate for a seat upon the throne. He detailed plans of courtship and proposal, all to be done before murdering the rest of the empirical family. Daishou wrote with no emotion, all factual and precise, and Yamaguchi found it rather disturbing to read such an indifferent murder diary. The snake, of course, felt nothing for Tsukishima, just wanted his throne and his premonitions, of which he learned from the king himself. The journal, as it seemed, only detailed the last three years of Daishou's time in the palace, the first year either being unrecorded or in a different journal. It was unnerving to read all the same.
The journal provided no insight into the motivations of the Slithering Isles, nor the progress of their attack plans and ally gathering, but it did at least provide enough information to prove treason and espionage. When done with the thing, Tsukishima locked it away in the box with his dream journal, as both possessions had been removed from Yamaguchi's care and returned to their owner. Technically, Yamaguchi and Kageyama could leave and go home. They had done what they set out to do; the Firefly box was back with its rightful keeper, but their journey still felt unfinished. Yamaguchi didn't like leaving loose ends out in the open, and people were still in danger. To be honest, Yamaguchi wasn't even sure he wanted to go back to 16-B. He had nothing there anyways, nothing but the Kageyamas. Tobio seemed like he wanted to stay on the train with Hinata after they were done with this political conundrum, and Yamaguchi didn't blame him. In the two months they had spent on the train, they had found someplace far closer to home than the little scrapping town ever provided. He had even overheard Kageyama talking with Kuroo and Akaashi about maybe finding Miwa a job on the Nekarasi. The thought sent Yamaguchi into a spiral of idealized futures, ones where he worked as an engineer with Kenma on the train or where he ran a quaint little repair shop in some city center. None of that would be possible, though, if Daishou got his way.
The new plan, of course, rode almost entirely on Tsukishima, seeing as he held the most power. It was, all things considered, a fairly simple operation. Getting into the palace with a prince in tow would be a lot easier than breaking one out, which left a lot of room for improvisation. Yachi, Kageyama, and Yamaguchi would escort the prince to the castle in the dead of night and request an audience with the empress. The empress bit was important; not only was she more likely to believe Tsukishima, but she also had a much softer spot for her second-born son and would grant everyone involved a larger reward. After Tsukishima provided evidence the royal family would, of course, jail Daishou and purge the invading snakes. Tsukishima would insist on providing a reward to the crew of the Nekarasi and the others, on account of their escort of both him and his journal box, which would likely be delivered without much objection. Then, everyone else could return to the train and be on their merry way. Tsukishima didn't specify the amount of coin, but Yamaguchi really didn't care; anything would likely be more than he ever had in his life.
There was still some time before they reached the capital yet, and the Firefly car was becoming rather crowded. It was really only built to fit two people, four was a stretch, especially when three of those four people were absurdly tall young men. Moreover, Tsukishima staunchly refused to sleep on the floor like Yachi had been doing, so Yamauchi had to give up his comfortable bed to the familiar feeling of hard ground. This started the first of many arguments between Kageyama and Tsukishima. The two just seemed to get on each other's nerves, and Tsukishima took great delight in insulting both Kageyama and Hinata. Both Yachi and Yamaguchi had tried to make peace between the two, to little avail. Yachi was instantly brushed off, by both Kageyama and Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi made minimal progress on his lonesome. With enough coaxing, Yamaguchi could usually get Kageyama to back down, but that only worked if Tsukishima did too. The prince seemed more inclined to listen to Yamaguchi than anyone else, he at least reacted with less snark, but clearly preferred to mess with Kageyama. Eventually, Yamaguchi and Yachi gave up, resigning themselves to their fates of hearing arguments as background noise.
Thankfully, Kageyama took the high road and moved out of the firefly car. It wasn't much of a surprise; he had been spending more and more time in Hinata's quarters, it probably would've happened without even Tsukishima's quarreling. Yachi too changed locations. Akaashi had one day offered to give her her own car so she didn't have to room with a bunch of men, and she jumped on the opportunity. Which left Yamaguchi with Tsukishima in the firefly car. At least, he had his bed back. Tsukishima was standoffish and rich in the worst way, but he wasn't an awful person to share a room with. He was clean, far cleaner than Kageyama, and never bothered Yamaguchi while he was tinkering, so it could've been worse. On his part, Tsukishima seemed to spend most of his time reading and occasionally scribbling things down in his dream journal. That part got Yamaguchi interested, he knew by reading the journal that Tsukishima couldn't control his future visions, that they just came to him, but Yamaguchi wondered if the blond knew anything important that might help their plan.
Luckily, it didn't take much to coax the prince into a conversation about synergy, Tsukishima actually brought it up himself. "Why do you even bother with that mechanical nonsense if you can make it do whatever you want?" asked the boy, after watching Yamaguchi fiddle with a trinket for a few minutes.
Yamaguchi paused his tinkering and looked up to his roommate, "Well, why do you ever make plans if you can just look into the future and see what happens?"
"My premonitions don't work like that, moron, I can't control them."
Yamaguchi suppressed the urge to roll his eyes as his point failed to hit its mark, "Alright then, how about this one? I like to tinker and fix things. It's like a puzzle, using my synergy just isn't as satisfying."
Tsukishima paused for a moment, and his usual haughty expression slipped off his face, without it, he was almost handsome, "How does yours even work?"
Yamaguchi smiled; this was the furthest anyone had gotten in a civil conversation with Tsukishima. He gladly explained the limits of his synergy, how draining it was, and how he used it. In turn, without any prompting, Tsukishima offered up information on his own premonitions, about how sometimes, if he tried hard enough, he could choose to seek a specific choice to see the outcome of. It was the closest to companionry anyone on the Nekarasi had managed to achieve with the blond boy, and Yamaguchi couldn't help but feel special because of it. Perhaps there was a reason he was the resident tamer of tall and grouchy people. Yamaguchi even managed to get Tsukishima to get along with the other members of the Nekarasi. Bokuto and Kuroo seemed a bit much for the prince, but he tolerated them well enough, and it appeared that he actively enjoyed the quiet company of Akaashi and Kenma. Tsukishima had, of course, some kind of history with Akaashi and Bokuto that bordered between hostile and friendly. Yamaguchi desperately wanted to ask about it but figured no one would like it if he pried.
There was, however, one thing he could ask about, no matter how old the topic: his father. "Say, Tsukki," Yamaguchi had let the nickname slip a day or so before, and while Tsukishima hated it from anyone else, he tolerated it from Yamaguchi.
"What?" was the disinterested response from the blond as the two lay in their respective beds.
"Did you ever hear of a Yamaguchi Fumihito?"
"Once or twice, but only in passing. He was meant to have been an exceptional engineer, I believe. Why?"
"He was my father."
"Oh. He- yes, I suppose I should have made that connection."
"Is he really dead? I mean, when your family requested his services, he left for the empire. You sent a letter some months later saying he was murdered before he reached the palace. Was… Is he really?"
"Yes, and no. He made it to the palace, I think. I ran into him once while he was talking with my brother. But he died barely two weeks into his service to us. It was a point of... contention... shall we say between my parents and I."
Yamaguchi shot up from his reclined position and tried to not gape at the blond, "My father's death was a point of contention? Why?"
"You mean you weren't made aware? You should have been sent a letter about the circumstances of his death, financial compensation as well!" Tsukishima looked aghast at Yamaguchi's apparent cluelessness.
"I never received anything, Tsukishima. Just a letter that told me my father died on the way to the palace. You mean to tell me that's wrong?"
The blond sighed and held his book in a death grip, "Your father was killed by his predecessor, our old engineer. I foresaw it, and warned my parents. They-" here he paused, "they have a habit of only listening when they want to."
Yamaguchi sat, stock still and silent, at Tsukishima's words. Murdered. His father had been murdered in the palace walls, and the royals had known it would happen. Or, more accurately, Tsukishima had known and everyone had ignored him.
Yamaguchi felt Tsukishima sit down next to him on the bed and tentatively place a hand on his shoulder. "I- Yamaguchi, I am truly sorry for your loss. If it's any consolation, I did what I could to stop it but well..." he trailed off.
"Did they at least arrest the man who did it?"
A slow head shake from Tsukishima. "My parents are good rulers, Yamaguchi, but they are not good people. They take great effort to make life pleasant for our citizens, but they have little care for those outside our nation's borders. If there's anything I can do, anything at all..."
Yamaguchi's blood boiled at those words. The audacity, the flippancy and disregard that the royals treated non-citizens with. What right did the Tsukishimas have to consider his father less than? They had known, Tsuukishima had warned them, and when he was right they didn't even have the decency to take proper action. Part of him, a part that Yamaguchi knew he would have to quash for the greater good, almost wanted to allow the snakes to do some damage, just so the royal family could know true loss. The moral side of him, however, knew better than to allow war for something as petty as revenge, that same moral side reminded him that Tsukishima was a good man, and didn't deserve to experience the loss of a family member. Regardless, Yamaguchi no longer felt the need for conversation, "Oh, sure. I'm tired, I'm going to bed now." Tsukishima conceded and returned to his own bed. Yamaguchi wished he hadn't asked in the first place.
Yamaguchi avoided everyone for some time after that, he slunk around the secret passages of the train, made known only by his synergy, and mulled sullenly over the new information. He found many places to hide in the process, places only accessible to him, places even Bokuto and Hinata weren't aware of. Anything to keep from interacting with other people; he desperately needed to be alone. Yamaguchi almost felt bad for ignoring the others, who had no idea the type of life-shattering news he had just received, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
Yamaguchi was not ashamed to admit that he used his newfound knowledge of secret passages to spy on his friends and fellow passengers alike. He learned many interesting things that way, things like that the couple in the third boxcar were both having an affair with the same person. Or that Kuroo had already promised Kageyama and Miwa a worker's position on the train when the whole mess was over with. Those things were fun and at least somewhat interesting, but others brought more questions than answers.
Without Yamaguchi to converse with, Tsukishima seemed to seek out Akaashi's company, and with him, Bokuto. Those conversations were always solemn, nostalgic at best, and made Yamaguchi feel incredibly guilty, considering that he had eavesdropped on Akaashi's private conversations before. He didn't fully understand the extent of the conversations between the prince and the green-eyed man, but they troubled him. Tsukishima spoke of politics far above Yamaguchi's head, of civil war in Fukoni and power vacuums. His tone was always grave and somehow imploring. Akaashi, in turn, insisted on never returning to his home country, spoke of tyrannical governments and the benefits of political upheaval. Most of it made no sense to Yamaguchi; the only thing that he could gather was that Tsukishima and Akaashi had known each other, which was already a given.
More than curious and more or less ready to once again immerse himself with society, Yamaguchi took it upon himself to show up again and initiate another discussion on synergy. Aside from Kenma, who was never very talkative, Yamaguchi had only Tsukishima to talk to in means of their gifts from the goddess. Maybe Tsukishima had had a vision while Yamaguchi was busy sneaking around the secret passages, or perhaps they could try and figure out if any other people were blessed in the same way. They couldn't account for any common folk, but if there were other royals, or even exceptional people, with synergistic abilities, that could make for some interesting treaties. Really, Yamaguchi was just desperate for a distraction and wanted a new puzzle to figure out.
Tsukishima seemed happy to see Yamaguchi back, as happy as he could get anyway, and welcomed him back to firefly quarters without question. There, without warning or decorum, Tsukishima told Yamaguchi of his visions. The plan was in place, although he did not know if it would work, but they needed to follow through quickly. From what he had seen, the snakes were going to attack on the winter solstice, using the long darkness of night to wipe out all opposition. That was the bad news, but there was a silver lining. Apparently, the soldiers Tsukishima had seen seemed reluctant to fight, cold and weak from lack of food; even the infantry wanted a simple treaty over war. If the Nekarasi could get to the Tsukishima Palace in time, the prince might be able to push and arrange for negotiations. They could avoid the war entirely.
Once Yamaguchi heard that, he made sure it spread to the staff like wildfire. Hinata, Bokuto, and Akaashi, who had been unusually sullen with lost hope, regained their vigor and set about their business with new confidence. Kenma sent ceaseless piles of work Yamaguchi's way, machines the other couldn't fix, and maintenance that hadn't been carried out because only a synergist could follow through with it. The entire crew, stowaways and royals included, were busy with new work to ensure the success of the plan.
In between the shifts and supply runs, each member shared updates and any information they had heard. The metaphorical hive was abuzz in preparation. Still, Yamaguchi had his reserves. As much as everyone else believed the Slithering Isles were fighting a trade war, Yamaguchi thought there were ulterior motives. Even as the train drew nearer to Haibuichi, Yamaguchi couldn't shake the suspicion that Tsukishima was still a target. Maybe the country leaders wanted a trade deal, but Daishou seemed to be a power-hungry megalomaniac. Even if a peace was reached, Yamaguchi didn't think the financial advisor would back down.
Tsukishima insisted their plan would work, however; so Yamaguchi quashed the suspicion, ignored it for the entire trip, and pushed through the nausea as they pulled into the largest train station he had ever seen. Central Haibuichi, capital of the Firefly Empire and largest city in all of Niihon. Goodbye Nekarasi, hello politics.
