NYE SPY
Nekaru and Ayre had asked her to do a little investigating and, sure, investigating wasn't really her thing anymore, but Nye couldn't see a reason not to help them out. She trusted Dekker and Velfire and if they trusted Nekaru and Ayre it would show her solidarity and friendship to help them out. And the investigating for and of the Tenshodo that she'd done in the past had been both fun and profitable, so a little side job couldn't hurt, right? At the very least, it was the loyal thing to do for Dawn.
She quietly slipped into the doors of the warehouse in Port Bastok and as soon as she clicked the door gently shut behind her, she whirled and screamed, "I'm back!" at the top of her lungs, then proceeded to giggle into her hand.
The hume man standing in the corner was not even slightly fazed. "What are you doing here, Nye?" Kagetora asked, looking over his shoulder at the giggling Taru. "It's been a long time since we've seen you 'round these parts. We've been hearing strange things 'bout ya, you know."
"Is that so?" Nyellili responded, instantly straightening and crossing her arms seriously over her chest. "Well, I suggest you not listen to whatever it is you're hearing. I'm here at the request of... a friend."
"I'm not so sure your taste in friends is what it used to be, buddy," he said, copying her arm-crossing motion.
"And I'm not so sure you should be asking questions, pal. If you knew what was good for you, you'd tell me what I need to know."
He smirked. "You sure don't seem to have changed much. Who says I know anything?"
The hume narrowed his gaze at her and she glared right back up at him. The tension rose as neither one of them wanted to give way, but Nyellili's connections were in Norg and in the end Kagetora had to remember where his orders came from.
"Fine, fine. I may have heard a thing or two."
Nyellili beamed. "Yay!" And suddenly looked serious again, at least as serious as a pudgy brown-eyed Taru can look. It was her ability to be both Tarutaru and Tenshodo both separately and simultaneously that endeared her to some and annoyed others. "And you've heard what?"
Kagetora's eyes lowered. He tapped his fingers on his elbow. His doubts were strong enough that Nyellili's hard-earned rank and respect could not seem to overcome them.
Nyellili sighed and let her arms drop to her sides. "I'm not a tenderfoot anymore. I might not be the greatest Ninja, but I've got some skills and I know the ropes. I know how our business works. I also know when something's not working, and if I have to fix this problem myself, I will. It would be easier just to let me look into it than to have whatever this mess is come down on your head from Gilgy. Consider it a... delegation of responsibility."
Kagetora, however, could not relax. His brows came together in frustration. "All right, I'll tell you what I can, but don't take it to Norg until I give the say so." He proceeded to explain the predicament, leaving out a lot of specifics, but enough to give Nyellili a sense that there were problems he'd rather sort out for himself as quietly as possible. But Nye wasn't there for Tenshodo as much as she was there for Dawn, so she wanted to get beyond the politicking.
"Names?" the Taru asked, getting straight to the point.
"What?"
"Names. Do you have any names?"
"But, I--"
"I'm not here to get you in trouble. I'm here to look into the matter. If I can help sort it out quietly at all, I will. I'm on your side, Kagetora-wora."
Kagetora looked uncertain. Nye's slips into Taru-speak were well-recognized as a sign of either jocularity or intense stress, and since Nyellili was rarely stressed but did not seem to be joking, her slip worried him. She did not seem to have noticed it herself, but was looking up at him seriously, tiny hands on tiny hips, waiting for her names.
"We're looking into a guy... name of William." Kagetora looked as though it pained him to say the words.
"Great," Nyellili grinned. "Where can I find him?"
"Oh no, that's not--"
"I won't hurt him. I won't tell him who sent me." Ninjas were known for their little white lies and it wasn't like Kagetora himself knew who sent her. "I'm not stupid. I know how to ask questions and get answers. I've gotten answers out of you before. There's no harm in it. I just want to talk to him. Better me than someone bigger out here, trust me."
Kagetora didn't trust her, especially now that he had suspicions she was worried about something he wasn't completely in on, but he didn't see how avoiding telling her could possibly cause him less trouble. And he wanted her out of his warehouse before she did anything too unexpected.
"I don't know. But our contact at the Lion Springs has a description."
"Thanks, Tora-wora!" That time he knew she was joking. She suddenly scrambled up the bookshelf and leaned over to give him a peck on the cheek. Kagetora flinched. "Just keep it quiet, Nye," he hissed.
"Yeahyeah, quiet-wiet," she sang happily and rather loudly as she skipped out of the warehouse. "Seeya, Tora!"
It took her a while to find a chance to get to San d'Oria and back, and if this 'William' had ins with other Tenshodo members who had been in or near the warehouse that day, he'd probably already felt the repercussions. There was plenty about Ninja that was knowing which doors would open in the dark and finding out who could tell you when. Nyellili tended to keep her contacts among the unexpected, a small trustworthy portion of the Bastokan Tarutaru population and a number of children with photographic memories and a taste for candy that would keep them quiet. With a description in hand, she managed to corner William while playing hide-and-seek one dusk behind the Steaming sheep.
As the young man came out the back entrance of the restaurant, he conscientiously looked over both shoulders and, confident there was no one around, set off at a quick place.
The nice thing about being a Tarutaru is that even when someone the height of a Hume looks over their shoulders, chances are good they're not going to see you standing right next to them.
"You should probably slow down or you'll find future walking veeery difficult," an unbearably cute voice from the ground next to him said cheerfully.
William froze mid-step, a look of utter panic crossing his features. With the appropriate metal on metal sound of a knife being removed from a sheath designed to keep it sharp, he felt a sharp itch at his ankle. Very slowly, he looked down to see a smiling Taru female dressed in bright red with a red bow in her black hair, applying a blade to his Achilles' tendon, hard enough to bite through his boot but not enough to cut him... yet.
"We need to talk. Upstairs. You'll find a nice empty table out of the crowd. I'll be righty-wight behind you." There was no mistaking the gleeful malice in the cheery voice at the last sentence.
Shaking, he walked back into the restaurant, shuffling his feet to avoid tripping himself with his shaking legs as he entered the door. The Taru entered behind him and ordered some water from the counter, apparently not paying any attention to him, her blade having mysteriously vanished. He stood in the middle of the restaurant for a moment, eyeing the door behind him over his shoulder, but when he took a step backwards the Taru turned and shook head at him and pointed to the balcony above her head. The steps up to it, usually blocked off, were empty and there was no one above. William swallowed hard and walked up the stairs. Nyellili got her water and made her way up the stairs behind him. She sat down across from him and began playing with a pile of ice crystals and salt chunks in her glass of water, constructing a stack of what looked like little rounded crystalline stakes. He swallowed again, his fear increasing as he recognized what it was she was making.
"Ahem, erm, what's--what's going on? Is there something I can help you with, Miss?" William asked, trying his best to put on a calm face as if he suspected nothing beyond her threats.
"Oh yes, you can help me. I'm in the market for names, and I think you can get me some excellent quality names," Nyellili said with a grin, twirling another ice crystal with some water and salt between her hands.
William frowned. The Taru was on to some part of the operations, but he wasn't sure how much she knew and how much he could hide from her without risking serious injury. "Who-who do you work for?" he said as bravely as he could, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Me? Oh, I'm just in this for my own curiosity-wosity," she grinned even wider. "I do so love hearing pretty names. I think you'll share some with me." She pushed her empty glass aside and begin to build a tower with her stack of icicles.
"You're a Ninja. I know it. I know what those are," he said, pointing at her tower. "You're from the Tenshodo, aren't you?"
"These things?" Nyellili laughed. "Oh, this is simple alchemy. Anybody can make these."
William blinked. "You're not a ninja?"
"Did I say that?" She lifted one of the icicles and paid all her attention to it as she spoke. "Anybody can make them, but they're not hard to use either. I don't really want to break them, they're so pretty."
"I'm-I'm confused. What do you want with me? Are you with the Tenshodo?"
"I told you, SillyWilly. I want names. I think you should give me some. Like, for instance, who's doing the actual work. Not you. Their name would be much harder to find than yours, but-- I think you know their name."
Will chuckled abruptly. "I don't have anything to give you."
"Oh yes you do." She twirled the icicle around her mittened thumb. "These work up close and at a distance you know."
Will's eyes widened. "I--I-- No!" A few heads turned in his direction from below. He contemplated calling for aid, but he was very directly ordered not to call attention to himself and this kind of fight was exactly what he needed to stay away from. "I have nothing for you, and I've done nothing to deserve this," he grumbled at her, quickly lowering his voice. He moved to stand.
"That creates a certain problem," the Taru said with surprising force for such a sweet voice. Once she caught his attention, she lowered her voice to civil levels again. "See, you're not important to me, but I think getting you out of the way will make whoever might think you're important kinda annoyed. Possibly annoyed enough to slip up and bring themselves to some attention. So either you're going to give me the names I want, or I'll just take them from you." She raised the hand holding the icicle in front of her face and with a swift motion of her arm the ice shattered against his shoulder with a soft tinkling.
The Hume hissed at the sudden sensation of frost bite that ran through his shoulder as though it had been subjected to hours of icy Xarcabard winds in that short moment.
"Sit down," she said, no longer smiling.
He sat back down, but scowled across the table. "I told you, I have nothing to say to you," he hissed, rubbing his shoulder trying to put some warmth back into it.
"Smile, you're attracting attention," Nyellili said.
He glanced down at the couple of faces still watching them. He managed a smile and pretended to nod politely until the faces turned back to their own business.
"I'm giving you a few options. You can give me a name. We can stay here all night. I can injure you permanently. Or I can just make you disappear so that whoever you're working for comes looking for you."
"If I give you a name, I'll be killed anyway."
"If you don't give me a name, you won't have time to run," the Tarutaru stated with a smirk.
William looked at the Taru. Then he looked down at the people enjoying their late meals. Then he looked down at the exit. It was a long way to run. He didn't think he'd make it, but he couldn't afford Takkui angry at him again. He chanced that the Ninja wouldn't dare to make a scene. If she was with the Tenshodo, she couldn't afford to be noticed any more than he could.
He sighed. "I'm sorry. I can't help you," he said. His voice was firm, but his legs were shaking with the uncertainty of his escape plan. He stood up from the table and got as far as the staircase before feeling a sharp pain in his left cheek. There was a sharp ping sound as a shuriken suddenly embedded itself in the stone wall in front of him.
He reached his hand to his cheek and it came away with blood, but he didn't turn around.
"I'm not playing games," said the Taru's cute but now extremely serious voice behind him. "The next one's going to hit organs I think you need." She was counting on the fact that he couldn't call too much attention to himself and was staying in line as best she could using her arsenal of quiet but sharp methods of applying... persuasion.
William could feel his face contorting with the different emotions, the fear of this little ninja and the fear of Takkui battling in him for his next course of action.
He felt the bite of another icicle on his leg and the Taru's voice came suddenly up from right next to him. "Just lean down and whisper it to me. Maybe you can convince them you didn't tell me. I can hurt you more and make it look like you put up a real fight."
He finally broke. "Her name's Takkui," he hissed out of the corner of his mouth and then stumbled the rest of the way down the stairs. He wasn't sure where he could run to or how long it would take Takkui to discover his betrayal, but he was going to need to make some plans and fast. He'd given the Taru a name and hopefully that would be enough. As he dashed out into the evening, he gave a quick glance over his shoulder, but saw no Tarutaru dressed in red, but he didn't stop running until he had reached his house and locked the door behind him.
Nyellili stood on the steps smiling for a while. That had been a little more difficult than she'd anticipated, and she'd have preferred more information, but she had a name to give to Nekaru and that was more than she'd had before. She gathered up her pile of icicles off the table and put them in their proper pouch. Something was nagging at the back of her mind. Something about that name, Takkui. It sounded... familiar, somehow. She decided to contact Nekaru as quickly as possible, rather than taking the vacation detour through Rabao she'd been planning. After all, it was the Mithra who were involved in this. She was just out looking for some details for them.