Tsutsui did have instincts.
He had just learnt to ignore them, after his time spent at the college.
There was something about wizardy that went against what a regular person considered 'normal'. Amongst those that cared to discuss it, the general consensus was that this was because it really wasn't particularly normal. The deep-rooted animalesque nature that lurks and growls in the back of all humans' minds considers bashing things on the head with a rock (be it an animal or a relative) a normal idea, as with finding some creature that appeals in some way and mating with it. In a general sense of humankind, it is easy to see that humans often succumb to these ideas. As such, there is something about waving a hand and say a few words to create a forest where there once was a city that the animal in everyone doesn't like. In a way, the animal is a conservatist. It still hasn't gotten the memo that events like this are getting more and more frequent. So when a wizard starts playing with these innate abilities of theirs, the compulsion to at first let out a beastial howl, rip off their long robes then jump up and down on them, then finally run outside and eat something raw flares up. Through continuing studies, wizards learn to ignore these. Soon, they're calling large man-eating tigers 'pretty kitties' and continuing to chat blithely as thugs start loosening their swords from their sheathes and wondering just how many ways they'll be forced to make the poor bastards squeal before they'll shut up.
People that still listened to their instincts (those that had never learnt magic) tended to call this 'lack of common sense'.
Tsutsui was not quite at the stage where he would fly a kite during a thunderstorm and call it a smashing good time just yet, but his stoicism towards his innate wants and needs was indeed good enough for him to be able to fall asleep, though his nerves were all screaming for him to chew a hole in the wagon canvas and run like a bat out of one of the more unpleasant, firey planes. Besides, the movement of the wagon and the darkness inside it were oddly comforting. It was almost like being in a rickety, highly explosive womb. Though that might have been his deepening lack of day-to-day sense talking.
Either way, Tsutsui was dead to the world by the time Kaga started talking to himself.
Once again lurking at full strength, Kaga had crawled into the wagon behind Tsutsui and settled opposite him, back to the canvas and a sullenly threatening look on his face. Now that the hostage had fallen asleep (mouth slightly open and head resting against a crate that occasionally hissed over particularly large bumps, which was rather cute, up until the point Tsutsui started drooling), Kaga let his muscles relax, rubbed his face to try and clear the slight cramping around his eyebrows, and let out a sigh. Unbuckling his sword, he lifted it clear of his belt then laid it across his lap. He ran his fingers gently over the large, deliberate scratch through the insignia of a shield bearing a raven and a knight's helmet, lovingly branded into the worn leather of the sheath.
"Still moping, fluffy?"
Kaga snatched his hand away from the sword and scowled up at a large tawny cat draped over a pile of spare blankets.
"It's a habit. What in the name of the Ten Winds are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay at the palace and come back when things started to go right again."
The cat snorted and rolled amber eyes. "You didn't say I couldn't leave if things started to go truly pear-shaped, however."
The red-haired kidnapper sat up slightly. A look crept over his face that seemed rather hesitant to be there – a serious sort of look that didn't quite suit his shock of red hair and crumpled, dark clothing, a look that hadn't been used for a while, and wasn't quite sure it was supposed to be there.
"Pear-shaped in what sense?"
The cat flowed to its feet then leapt from its perch, fading out in mid-air, then settling suddenly around his neck, like a tissue caught in the wind.
"In the sense that the regent isn't talking to the councillors, the councillors are all plotting against each other, the guards are ignoring everyone else, and in general, I'm fairly sure that if someone sneezes at an inappropriate moment, at least three people will declare war, and the entire capital will spontaneously combust."
Kaga grimaced, then nodded. "Ah. That kind of pear-shaped."
In fact, he thought to himself as the cat around his neck started to groom a paw, more like flaming pear-shaped.
Kaga considered few things worthy of the definition 'flaming pear-shaped'. When talks had broken down between theirs and a neighbouring country, almost sparking conflict, he'd called it 'bloody inconvenient'. When a disease had turned into a plague took down half the population of the capital, he's called it 'nasty'. But he felt that when the government, and thereby the entire country, was about to collapse down around their ears, leaving it the proverbial sitting duck to be invaded, it was perhaps a little worse than 'pear-shaped'. Besides, the idea of a flaming pear made for some interesting mental imagery.
He would never admit this out loud though.
He had a reputation to maintain.
Reaching a hand absently up and petting the brushlike, slightly crooked tail of his familiar, Kaga mulled over the idea of flaming pears and his country's government completely breaking down.
"Mitani," he started after a few minutes of relative silence (meaning only the captive snoring gently, Hikaru and Touya arguing up front and the rumbling of the wagon wheels), "I'm changing your orders. This time, I want you to stick around until things start blowing up, then alert me immediately when they do."
Mitani, Kaga's tawny familiar, dug two sets of ethereal claws into his shoulder, then sprang from his perch, taking a goodly amount of flesh with him.
"Slave driver."
With that, he leapt up to perch delicately on Tsutsui's lolling head, prepared to leap again with a movement that reminding Kaga somewhat of a coiling spring, then pounced into mid-air, promptly disappearing.