TACO Run
Chapter 1
Naomasa watched through the window of the interview room as their guest rubbed a gloved hand over the polished wooden table. He was a big man, just under two meters at Naomasa's guess, and weighing at least a hundred and twenty kilos, all of it muscle. Grey-streaked dark hair was swept roughly back from a broad, square face with strong brows and cheekbones, and from his overall appearance Naomasa would judge him to be in his mid-forties.
Naomasa had just come back from lunch when the man walked into the department's lobby, sheathed sword at his left hip, two badly bruised young men slung over his left shoulder, and started talking to him in what sounded vaguely like German.
After a brief flurry of activity, wherein uniformed officers had taken the foreign man's burden— Friends? Victims? Former assailants? —to a holding cell while they received medical attention, the big foreigner had been escorted as politely as possible to the public interview room. It had taken some time, because the few members of the department who spoke appreciable German said that whatever he spoke, it wasn't that, but they did manage to convince him to hand over his sword.
Not a Japanese-style sword, either, which made it unlikely he was a Japanophile tourist who'd picked up an expensive and illegal souvenir. It was a western-style sword, straight-bladed and double-edged. Almost one and a half meters long—not counting the hilt—and eight centimeters wide, it was a heavy thing, almost three kilos of high-quality steel. Oddly enough, it didn't have the sharp, triangular tip he'd seen on most depictions of western swords. Instead, the tip was squared off and left unsharpened, making thrusting attacks impossible.
It was also well-used.
Oh, not on the two men he'd brought in. The worst they'd had was mild concussions. But both sword and sheath were well-worn, nicked and scratched through time and regular use. They were just as obviously well-maintained, with an edge on the blade sharp enough that one of the officers nicked himself by accident while handling it.
A dangerous man. Or one who could be dangerous, if he wanted to be.
As if sensing the observation, the foreigner looked over at Naomasa through the window, dark-eyed gaze openly assessing.
Assessing, but not hostile, Naomasa decided, as the man's eyes flicked from him to detective Tanuma as he strolled past. Curious and cautious in equal measure, with the kind of quiet interest of someone who didn't feel at all threatened by their surroundings, no matter how strange.
"Sorry for my late arrival."
Naomasa turned a grateful smile on the rumpled, sweating man hurrying his way. "No, no, thank you for being willing to come in so early," he reassured him. Kikuchi Hanasu was attached to the Records department night shift because of Quirk-induced anxiety disorder that didn't allow him to stay in a room with more than three other people for very long. So long as he only shared a space with two or three, he was perfectly calm, but more than that, and he'd start sweating, hyperventilating, and eventually work himself up into an anxiety attack. He always took a cab because he couldn't handle even the late-night train, and at two in the afternoon he should still have been in bed.
He also had a Quirk called omniglot, which allowed him to understand and speak the language of anyone within three meters.
"I'm sorry to have woken you," Naomasa continued, holding out a hand to shepherd the shorter man into the interview room, away from the public space of the lobby. "I know this isn't in your job description, exactly, but we didn't have any other way of communicating with him…"
Their guest looked up when they entered, dark eyes intelligent and searching, left hand resting on his belt not far from where his sword had hung before.
Threat assessment, Naomasa realized, closing the door behind him as Kikuchi relaxed a little now that he'd put a bit of distance between himself and the rest of the department. He just sized us up and checked for weapons.
Whatever he'd seen made him relax, just a little, though his roughly handsome face was still pulled down in a worried frown. He asked something, left hand rising from his belt to rub the area between neck and shoulder.
Kikuchi started talking, strange words rolling off of his tongue as easily as he would have greeted a stranger on the street.
The look of relief on their guest's face was profound, and he stepped forward immediately, gripping Kikuchi's extended hand and returning the greeting in a deep, rich voice only a little roughened by age.
Olberic felt the tightness in his shoulders loosen when someone finally, finally spoke words he could understand. "Thank the gods!" he said profusely, gripping the hand offered to him as though it were a lifeline. "I had thought I would never find a soul with whom I could communicate again. Good sir, it truly is a pleasure."
Kikuchi—for so he had called himself—hid a faint wince, and Olberic eased his grip, embarrassed. The man had soft hands, their only calluses those gained from holding a quill—he was surely a clerk of some kind, or perhaps a diplomat. "This is one of our division's keiji," the man said, stepping to one side and gesturing at the man whom Olberic had first encountered in this building's great hall. "Keiji Tsukauchi Naomasa, who will be interviewing you with my translation."
Division. So the city guard were numerous enough to have more than one guardhouse, and perhaps integrated with the military in some fashion, if they used its terminology. I should have expected as much. A city so large, with great towers of glass and steel and stone, dwarfing even the spires of Atlasdam's academy or the grand manses of Noblecourt… there is no way its laws could be enforced or its citizens protected with any less than a small army. "It is an honor," Olberic said, holding out his hand in greeting once more. "Olberic Eisenberg. May I assume you are the captain of the guard?" Keiji as a word was unfamiliar to him. The way Kikuchi used it made it sound like a rank, but it could also be a noble title of some kind. This Tsukauchi had the manner of one comfortable with their blood and certain of their status, but none of the deep-set pride Olberic so often saw in nobility. Even fair Primrose, for all the hardships she had lived through, still walked with a noble's proud bearing. A common man, then, who rose to his rank through dedication and the recognition of his worth, and has naught to prove.
The handgrip he received in return was warm, the wry smile on the officer's face equally so, and Olberic felt himself put somewhat at ease. "No, I'm just a keiji, not a guard captain," he replied via Kikuchi. "I technically rank above the guardsmen, but I'm not some high-level official, if that worried you."
"Then may I ask what a keiji is?" Olberic frowned. "I'm not familiar with the term."
There followed a brief exchange between Kikuchi and Tsukauchi, as they perhaps attempted to come up with a translation for him.
"Keiji is…" Kikuchi hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "A keiji's duties are primarily the investigation of crimes whose perpetrators are not immediately apparent, including the questioning of witnesses and the collection of evidence."
"So it refers to one who seeks out the truth of criminal matters," Olberic concluded, nodding his understanding. "Would that all cities had such individuals readily available—I think there would be far fewer innocents falsely imprisoned, and far fewer scoundrels walking free." A flicker of a smile, despite the circumstances. Cyrus would have been delighted by the notion, and likely sung its praises to the notables of every town they visited. Though hopefully not literally. "Would the word 'Truthseeker' be an acceptable equivalent?" It would make explaining the concept to his companions much simpler, once he found his way back to them.
At Kikuchi's translation, Tsukauchi gave a startled, pleased smile. "That's… definitely appropriate," he agreed, dark eyes holding faint humor in their depths. "Now, if you don't mind, we can sit down and get this interview underway."
"Indeed." Olberic waited for the Truthseeker to select his chair, before returning to the seat he'd been utilizing whilst they waited for the translator to arrive. Then the translator sat as well, placing an odd, flattened rectangular device on the table's edge and prodding it a few times as if in preparation. As he did so, Olberic removed his gloves, tucking the old, durable leather through his belt. "I apologize for entering your guardhouse armed," he said to the Truthseeker, wondering what it was Kikuchi fiddled with. "I had not realized it was forbidden to do so."
"I'm sorry we had to confiscate your sword," Tsukauchi replied through Kikuchi's translation. "Carrying live weapons in public requires a permit in Nihon, though, so we couldn't just allow you to leave with it."
Nihon. Was that, then, the name of this city? Or the nation as a whole? "And how does one obtain such a permit?" He could not leave this place unarmed, not when he knew so little about this land.
Again, the wry smile, as Tsukauchi gestured towards the table. "Well, before we deal with that, we have a few questions for you…"
With Kikuchi to translate, it wasn't difficult to get answers out of Olberic. He seemed to be a very straightforward man.
He'd been lost in a back alley when two young men had approached him, one wielding a knife and the other producing little bursts of light from one hand. Olberic had—correctly—interpreted their intention to relieve him of his possessions, and responded with a minimum of necessary force.
"I, too, was young and foolish once," he said via Kikuchi. "Though never so foolish as to accost an armed and experienced warrior. It seemed to me they were flush with the surety of youth, overconfident on their first foray into the realm of ruffian-hood. When I failed to give in to their demands, they carelessly came within reach in an attempt to intimidate me." He mimed cracking two idiots' skulls together, a faint smile curving his mouth briefly upwards. "I had thought to turn them over to the appropriate authorities, that a night in the cells nursing headaches might give them cause to rethink their choice of pastimes. This stronghold had men in uniform entering and leaving, so I assumed it was the guardhouse."
Naomasa nodded his understanding. True, all of it—and it matched the story Sansa had pulled from the two very embarrassed young men currently recovering from the encounter in the drunk tank, once they'd woken back up. That was important, because while Naomasa's Quirk Human Lie Detector was a matter of record, procedure still required evidence and corroboration. "Thank you for your patience and understanding," he said. "I know it must have been unsettling, being surrounded by people you couldn't understand."
"Indeed." Olberic's smile faded into concern, and he rubbed a thumb over the thin, faded scar on his jaw. "I did fear that, being the one who brought two injured men to you, I might be assumed to be their attacker." His hand fell to the table again. "I am glad to see that was not the case. I have never met a city guard as polite and professional as those under your command."
"We try not to jump to conclusions if we can help it," Naomasa agreed. "Have you had many run-ins with the police?" From his general attitude, he'd expected that Olberic was a very upright member of society, wherever he came from.
"More than I would like," Olberic admitted. "I cannot know the law in every city, and some guardsmen are, perhaps, a bit over-zealous in their duties, and assume a stranger must be the cause of all their woes."
"So you travel a lot?" Olberic's word choice and way of phrasing himself was odd. Sophisticated, and not quite archaic, but even through Kikuchi's translation it felt foreign.
"Not so much now as in the past. I have a duty to my village, and an apprentice to care for. But even so, when good friends send one an invitation, it is only right to visit them."
"Your village…" Naomasa glanced upwards in thought, before meeting Olberic's eyes again. "Where exactly are you from?"
"I call the village of Cobbleston my home, and serve as its master-at-arms," Olberic replied easily enough. A fond smile graced his face for a moment. "Young Philip grows so quickly…"
"Your son?"
A blink, and a faintly flustered cough. "Ah, no. My apprentice. I have no relatives still living, only the villagers who treat me as well as family." He scratched the longer scar tracing his left temple, smiling faintly. "Had I a son, though, I would wish he were so good a boy as Philip."
Ah. "You said you were visiting a friend; how did you end up in Tokyo?" 'Cobbleston' sounded vaguely English, though he didn't speak English, so maybe Naomasa was overthinking it.
Olberic frowned. "Is that the name of this land? I have never seen so great a city, all towers of glass and steel. Even Atlasdam, for all its splendor, does not boast such heights as these."
Atlasdam. Another name they could cross-check later. "Tokyo is the metropolis, of which Hosu City is one part. The country is called Japan." Where was he from, that he didn't know what skyscrapers were? Even the most backwoods villages at least knew the concept. "If you didn't know where you were, do you at least know how you got here?"
Olberic shook his head. "Some might call it a quirk of fate," he rumbled softly, not seeming to notice how Naomasa twitched at the word quirk. "I would call it an accident, a… humorous convergence of ill fortune and poor choice, perhaps."
That wasn't cryptic at all… Naomasa felt a frown pull at his mouth again, and resisted the urge to rub his forehead. "Could you start from the beginning?"
Olberic's frown deepened slightly. "As you wish."
It had started as a party. A celebration, to congratulate Cyrus for his promotion to assistant headmaster of the Academy. H'aanit had brought several of the jam-filled sweet rolls she made, and that the scholar so loved. Tressa had brought him books from far-off lands that she had purchased in the great markets of Grandport. Primrose had gifted him with gems to augment his spells, and Ophilia had brought copies of the Church of the Sacred Flame's most ancient records. Therion's gift was a very expensive cloak which none of them asked how he acquired, and Alfyn's gift was a rich-smelling packet of ground beans that came from even further south than the Sunlands, which he'd obtained in Marsalim and which, when brewed into a bitter drink, was supposed to aid scholars in late-night studies.
Olberic's own gift had been far more prosaic. A kilderkin of good stout ale, of the type he knew the scholar liked.
In retrospect, perhaps he should have chosen differently. None of them wished a rematch of their last drinking contest and its slightly embarrassing results, but neither could any of them miss the opportunity for a bit of revelry, not on so auspicious an occasion. The women had retired for the night after the first few pints—Tressa still couldn't stand the taste, nor even the smell, and H'aanit's experiences with her master's habits meant she was reluctant to indulge for long. Primrose had cheerfully served the drinks until Cyrus' first demurral, and then had linked arms with Ophilia and sashayed off, joking that the other men could serve themselves if they wanted more, and at least they had an apothecary to handle their hangovers in the morning.
Therion had snorted, and muttered into his drink that the apothecary was the one most likely to have a hangover in the morning. Olberic had taken the teasing to heart, though, as well as the lesson he'd learned the last time, and paced his drinks. The comfortable loosening and relaxation that came a few pints before inebriation was all he allowed himself.
Alfyn was a bit less restrained, and with his zest for life and heartening cheer, soon had all of them reminiscing over past adventures. Even the worst of those memories, the ones that still woke Olberic up shouting and shaking some nights, seemed far less fearsome when spoken of openly among friends with whom the experiences had been shared. Indeed, within the warm, flickering light of Cyrus' candle-lit study, the memories seemed near-harmless, and they could appreciate the greatness of those tales from the perspective of the hard-won future.
Therion had been mostly quiet, as he usually was when drinking, but had chipped in to ask if Cyrus had learned anything from all of the tomes they'd recovered from Lucia's foul lair—and if not, were there any valuable ones he wasn't particularly attached to?
Cyrus had grown truly enthusiastic then, perhaps spurred on by drink, perhaps simply by the joy he took in imparting knowledge to others. He had expounded upon a series of journals he'd found; not truly tomes, but the personal works of some ancient scholar from before the war of the gods, who had been working to create spells that would transport goods or people great distances instantaneously. The impact on trade, he'd said, would be astronomical.
Olberic knew little of trade, though he could see the applications Cyrus spoke so volubly about. Instead, to him the impact on battle was most clear—supply trains would be unassailable, because they wouldn't exist, and opposing forces could maneuver more freely. Terrain would be less of a hindrance to a charge or retreat, and scouts could be sent deep into enemy territory with less risk of discovery.
Therion must have grown bored of the lecture quite quickly, however, because when Cyrus set aside his ale to show them the most recent journal he'd been studying, they discovered that the thief was already glancing through it, Alfyn jokingly pretending to read over his shoulder.
When Cyrus had rolled his eyes and indulgently asked if he might have his book back, please, the two younger men had just grinned at him.
"Aw, c'mon Professor!" Alfyn had teased. "Isn't the best way to learn from the primary source?"
"It would be if you could read the ancient tongues," Cyrus had replied, amused. "Or have your studies of herbalism led you to linguistic lessons as well? I have always admired your dedication to your craft." His interest had been genuine, rather than sarcastic as Therion's would have been, and Alfyn had scratched his backside, chuckling in embarrassment at the praise.
"Aw, shucks, I've got enough on my plate just learnin' what I can about medicine," he'd demurred. "It'd be nice being able to visit Ellen and Flynn in Goldshore without all that walking, though." He'd reached forward and tugged the book out of Therion's hands, earning a huff and a sidelong look of annoyance from the thief. "So the idea's that a scholar like you says a few words and 'poof!' you're where you want to be?"
"Too easy," Therion had commented skeptically.
"Therion is quite correct," Cyrus had agreed. "While the writings are rather disorganized and muddled, the author is quite clear on the need for a ritual—a somewhat complicated one, from what I gather, though hopefully not so horrid as those required for the creation of blood crystals."
All of them had collectively shuddered at the memories.
"That sucks," Alfyn had said, making a face. "It'd be a heck of a lot easier if you could just say—" A scowl at the book, as he'd tried to make heads or tails of its writings. "—hink deflag 'monia interval?"
Olberic had very nearly laughed aloud at that, and the look of almost offended consternation on Cyrus' face. Therion had laughed, a startled, incredulous thing that made him sound far closer to his score and a hand of years than his usual cynicism allowed.
"While you could say such, I doubt it would have any effect," Cyrus had sighed at last, seemingly caught somewhere between amusement and the teacher's imperative to correct mistakes. "And Alfyn, I am well aware that you know more Scholar's Tongue than that, even if only in a medical capacity."
"Well, maybe, but only specific words, not sentence structure or anything. And I'm better at reading it than saying it out loud. So what's it supposed to sound like?" Alfyn had asked curiously, setting the closed journal back in the scholar's waiting hand.
"Well, it's generally ill-advised to read spells aloud if one is capable of raising power," Cyrus had frowned, stroking his chin, "but the notes within did say that a full ritual is required for the proper execution of such a spell…" He'd picked up his tankard, taking a sip of good ale to wet his throat, before setting it aside again and flipping to the appropriate page. "The proper pronunciation would be dehinc, dēflagrā moenia intervalia—"
And then the world had vanished in a flash of heatless fire, and Olberic found himself somewhere else entirely.
A/N: The characters from Octopath Traveler unilaterally use the word 'prentice' instead of 'apprentice', but modern viewpoints will use 'apprentice'. And while Japan's name for itself is 'Nihon/Nippon', in English it is rendered 'Japan' and so will be shown as such in the minds of anyone to whom 'Nihon' is not a foreign word.