Chapter 3 – Izumo


Beta'd by A.O. Talmidge


Most of the city was late to stir this morning. Typical of humans to kick off a week-long celebration one night early. Kaden had always noticed that it seemed to happen more often in the capital city of Izumo. Was it because of how peaceful it was, or was it something in the air?

Kaden took a deep breath and cringed, fox-like ears twitching underneath a bandanna hiding golden brown head fur. Could be. He rubbed his nose and shook off the distasteful scent, ignoring the odd look a passerby gave him and focused. After his morning grooming, and double checking his immaculate appearance, Kaden was more than ready to face the streets of Izumo's capital. And after this, today was going to be perfect.

Hands locking lazily behind his head, he hummed the tune of a tavern song he'd heard last night, tail unintentionally twitching to the rhythm under the cloak hiding it. Of course, even with his cheery outlook, he wasn't naive. Bright as Izumo was, there was always a dark underside to every city, a fact he knew all too well.

As he turned into one of the main market streets, he spotted the stall of his target.

Time to get to work.


A distant loud bang jolted Anna from her sleep. The following racket from animals and the far off sounds of people screaming however, she ignored.

Probably just a cart crash or something. Never a dull moment in the Izumite capital after all. The level of noise was already encroaching on the noise she had entered to the night before.

In other words, she felt right at home.

Thankfully, she didn't need to get up just yet, as she arrived in the capital a day earlier than expected because of-

Oh.

Everything, the fear, the uncertainty, all of it came rushing back. The sooner she dealt with this the better.

She groaned, rubbing sleep out of her eyes as she made to get ready.


Unfortunately, the op went wrong.

The escape went smoothly enough, and Kaden was already in an alleyway well out of sight of the fallout before anyone could react. However, if the screams and angry shouting he heard was anything to go by, he might need to pick up the pace, just in case something else had gone wrong.

Winding his way erratically through the backstreets, he shed the cloak and bandanna that covered the ears and tail that marked him as a kitsune - no one would be looking for one, after all - he eventually made his way to a small park where the sakura trees were in full bloom. The rendezvous spot. Since it was still relatively early in the morning, barely anyone was there. He spotted a familiar man on a bench in an out of the way corner wave him over.

"You weren't followed?" the young man, Seto, in slightly ratty Hoshidan styled clothes asked expectantly. Kaden sat down, making sure not to get too close to him. Surprisingly, there was no blood on him.

"No." Kaden frowned. "The look on that man's face when he realized what was happening was..." Terrifying. "Needless to say, it'll draw attention to his operation like you wanted."

Seto nodded, a satisfied looking smirk on his face. "With the evidence I nicked in the confusion, the city guard should have no choice but to crack down on their smuggling operation soon. No amount of bribery can stop cold hard evidence." His gaze shifted to Kaden. "You're pretty good at playing the innocent bystander, kitsune. You make a good distraction. If you wanted, you could easily join up with-"

Kaden cut him off, waving his hand dismissively. "Nah, I was only repaying a favor." Kaden owed the boss of this particular vigilante group for saving his life once; however, it wouldn't do for the man sitting here to know that. Not to mention, after that display, he was less than impressed with this guy's methods, even if the outcome was mostly good.

"You say that every time!" Seto laughed easily, reaching over with a hand grimy with something he didn't want to think about and slapped Kaden on the back before he could flinch away. Kaden glanced about, but no one else in the park payed them any mind. "You've done enough 'favors' for us that you're practically part of the group already." Kaden caught the jibe, but chose to ignore it for the time being.

His ears twitched. "Maybe, but I'm not going to be here much longer. Don't worry though; I won't ever say anything to anyone about you guys." He really didn't have the time to join up with anything as he was planning to leave Izumo as soon as the festival was over. He'd been here far too long. Favors owed or no, he itched to get away from the city.

Kaden stood, giving the young man a slight bow. "Pleasure doing business with you."

If Seto was miffed at the abrupt end to the conversation, he didn't show it. Instead, he stood. "We'll contact you again if we need you." He returned the bow, and left Kaden where he stood. Silently, Kaden hoped he would never see the young man again. With the stunt he pulled, he wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what happened.

Sighing, he sat back down on the bench, brushing a bit of dirt off the part of his clothes where the young man had slapped him. His gaze drifted towards the sakura trees, and he leaned back on the bench, drinking in their scent and beauty. For a long moment, he could imagine that the smell belonged to one of the groves of sakura trees outside the old kitsune hamlet.


Weaving her way through the crowds of the marketplace, Anna could tell the festivities were in full swing, even on the first day. Though the rest of the city was still waking up, the market, even in the mornings, was barely controlled chaos during the Festival of Spring.

Throngs of early morning shoppers, both servants and eager tourists alike, moved in waves around carts offloading supplies for the various vendors, creating a cacophony of noise. All the while, said vendors hawked their wares, haggling often devolving into arguing. The rest of the landscape was dotted by the city guard, and if she squinted, the occasional hopeful young pickpocket. Everything moved in a familiar dance that put her nerves at ease.

However, she could appreciate the atmosphere, and of course, all of the business it brought, later. Right now, she had business with Akio, the former monk she had left the injured man with last night. She wouldn't have normally used him, but the situation surrounding how she found the white-haired man felt too suspicious to use any normal clinic.

However, as she was continuing through the main thoroughfare towards the district where the monk was, a large crowd gathered in in front of one of the marketplace stalls caught her eye. Considering that the injured man wasn't going anywhere, Anna let curiosity get the better of her and she meandered towards them, stopping at the edge of the onlookers. She carefully winded her way through the mass of people, catching snippets of conversation as she went.

"-was there when the magic went off-"

"-idea where it came from-"

"-this doesn't happen often here does it?"

"-you don't think it was them do you?"

In the middle Anna was greeted by the charred remains of a fruit stall, its contents splattered all over the street, around and nearby buildings and stalls. Her eyes flicked to a portly middle-aged man arguing with two guards gesturing wildly to a-

She froze. The eyes of a dead man stared blankly back.

"-is he still alive-"

"-had the best peaches-"

"-forever to clean-"

"-is that Spirit Dust?"

"-guards even doing with our taxes-"

She shook her head, ducking back through the crowd and turned into an alley to get away from the commotion. She crouched down, back leaning against the hard, stone alleyway, the scene from the evening before racing through her mind.

It wasn't the same thing. The former stall owner had clearly been stabbed. But the reminder was enough to make her breakfast threaten to show its face. It must have made a bigger impact than she thought.

She paused and took a deep shuddering breath to calm her nerves, trying to regain focus.

Right. Akio.

Straightening, glad that no one had been around to see her freak out, she oriented herself towards her destination and began to run. Choosing a route that would put her far away from the scene, Anna quickly made her way through the backstreets.

Eventually, after a few minutes, she stopped to catch her breath a moment on a bench at a small park where above, the sakura trees were in full bloom.

When Anna regained her composure, she nearly startled when she spotted a kitsune, who appeared to be napping on the bench across from her. While she had encountered a few on her travels before, seeing one out of their homeland further south, especially inside a city was rare, even if it was for a festival.

As if alerted by her stare, the kitsune opened his eyes and stared at her for a moment, before giving her a cheery grin and a small wave. Anna was too tired and dumbfounded by the unusual sight to respond, and before she knew it, he had walked off tossing a small sack that jangled a bit, maybe with coins up and down in his hands.

She shook her head. If she spent too much more time meandering, she would end up wasting hours where she could be setting up shop, and of course making profit. That was the Anna way after all.

She sighed, getting up and dusting off her cloak and proceeded onward.

Unfortunately, a growing headache accompanied Anna as she continued on in the mid-morning sun, the sounds of a city gearing up towards the first full night of true revelry pervading even this quiet area of the city.

She banged on the door of a small nondescript house.

As she waited for a response, Anna rubbed her tired eyes, despite that it would do nothing for how fatigued she felt. The trip to Izumo had taken at least half of the night. Stress had been her companion, keeping her alert, but it had been harrowing for her nerves and taxing on her body.

Almost a minute passed with no response. Groaning, she banged on the door again.

She heard a voice call from within. "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming; no need to be impatient!" Even then, it took another agonizing minute before the door latched open. A harrowed looking young man dressed in bedraggled traditional Hoshidan monk robes answered the door, glaring at her. "What do you…?"

He stopped as Anna met his gaze a moment. Recognition flashed in his eyes. "Oh, uh, Anna." She knew him, both as an infrequent festal and staff customer, and as a useful contact for getting ahold of some rarer medicines. However, more importantly, he was a healer that you went to when you wanted to be discreet.

"Sorry." He glanced out at the street, and then back at her. "Do you need something? I mean, I know you said you wanted to restock on rare medicines last night, but I don't have-"

She cut him off. "The man I brought in last night, on my cart." Akio's face looked more haggard than usual this morning. Maybe he was just tired. She did bring the injured man in question in the middle of the night after all. "How is he?"

He glanced out at the street, and then back at her again. "Please, come in. We can speak more in a moment after I finish cleaning up." Nodding, Anna made her way into the familiar sitting room and sat down as Akio took off towards a side room. It was a different one than the room she had helped carry the white haired man into last night.

Before long, Akio returned and sat down in a nearby chair, sagging in apparent relief.

"Rough night?"

"That doesn't cover the least of it." There was silence while the man seemed to be trying to regain some sense of composure, but didn't look like he was doing particularly well. "Sorry for the delay. While I can't give out details for obvious reasons, someone else was brought in this morning in a bad state. They actually just left before you came in. Overall, it wouldn't have been too bad if I wasn't already tired from caring for the man you brought in last night."

He ran a hand through his hair. "His superficial wounds have been healed, though there were some complications." The monk glanced at her. "It would seem you used a potent healing medicine while the arrows were still in him."

It wasn't a question and Anna shifted uncomfortably, but the monk looked away and continued on. "It probably saved him from bleeding out, as all of the wounds were knitted together, but the arrowheads were still embedded in his body." The monk rubbed his brow. "All in all it made for far more work. Not untreatable, just more difficult. Honestly, he was lucky none of the arrows hit anything vital. Other than that, he appears to be fine, just unconscious. If you need to, he can be safely moved out of here now; however, I recommend letting him rest for at least a day if you do."

"No, it's fine if he stays here for now."

Akio nodded and a time of silence passed between them. He fidgeted with his fingers before he looked up at her. "I understand if you can't answer, but how do you know him?"

Anna shuffled in her seat. "I don't. Or at least, I don't think I do. I found him barely alive in a dead caravan while travelling here yesterday. After I got him relatively stable, he was briefly conscious, and said my name before he passed out again."

His expression shifted, thoughtful. "Perhaps he thought you were one of your sisters?"

Anna nodded. "That's what I was thinking."

"At least the attack it wasn't in the city." The monk frowned. "Were their deaths the result of dark magic?"

"I…" She hesitated, shuddering slightly as she recalled the grim scene. "If what I found was anything to go by, dark mages had something to do with it, yes."

The healer gave a sigh, a world-weary expression crossing his features. "It wouldn't be the first time Nohrian dark mages abused neutral soil. Let's just hope it wasn't a ritual used to create Faceless. The world has enough violence in it already."

Silently, Anna agreed. Even if war created business opportunity, the cost of it was...well, war. "But wait, what made you think of dark magic being the culprit, instead of something like bandits?"

"Somehow I doubt you could hold off an attack like that on your own." Anna winced at it, even though it was probably true. Akio seemed to hesitate. "The man practically reeked of dark magic. I can't say for certain if it's because something was inflicted upon him, if he is a dark mage himself or something else. I don't have enough of any experience with that field of magic to say anything for sure, really."

A long moment of silence followed, before Akio stood up. "Enough grim talk. There is a festival going on: I for one wish to enjoy what little of it I will be able to. And by that, I mean sleep. No doubt I'll be called upon more than once before long, and I'm sure you have a business to run."

He was right of course. "Before I go, I'd like to see him."

"Sure, go ahead."

Anna stood and made her way to the door of the room, and gently opened it. However, when she looked inside, she stopped, confused. She turned back to Akio, who was outside the line of sight for the room. "I didn't go to the wrong room, did I?"

"No, that's the correct room. You helped carry him in last night, remember?"

Anna swung open the door, gesturing inside. "Then where is he?"

Inside the room, the pallet was empty.

The man was gone.


A/N: In which Kaden enters the scene and Robin 'noped' out of the back-alley doc's place. Never trust those guys, even when they aren't main characters.