TACO Run
Chapter 8
Olberic rose from his nap in the early evening, and once again stretched tension from his shoulders. When Kikuchi had explained that first afternoon that he worked almost exclusively at night, Olberic had at first been surprised. Why would a translator work when the vast majority of humanity slept?
But Kikuchi had explained that, despite his abilities, he was not a translator by profession, but a clerk. One who kept the records for this guardhouse, and assisted the guardsmen and Truthseekers it employed in searching those records if need be. Further, while he was skilled at his duties, he had an unfortunate weakness—his soul could not handle the presence of too many other individuals, causing him fear and anxiety when more than three shared a space with him. Thus, he worked when the fewest people would be out and about, and avoided the more populated areas such as the dining hall when possible.
Olberic had met a few with similar weaknesses in the past, even some who could barely bring themselves to speak to others at all. He lauded Kikuchi's ability to find a method of coping with his troubles while still fulfilling his duties.
So, as Kikuchi was only available in the evening and night, and was the only man with whom Olberic could truly communicate, Olberic thought it only right to match his own waking hours to the clerk's, at least somewhat. He was by nature an early riser, but a few hours' rest in the early afternoon had left him refreshed for an evening of discourse.
As he left his borrowed cell, Olberic rubbed the area beneath his chin again. Fah. I doubt Kikuchi will mind an evening shadow. He'd left his shaving kit, along with his gloves and brassards, in the locker Truthseeker Tsukauchi had assigned for his use, and felt little desire to dig them back out this night.
Removing the armored sleeves had eased his discomfort at being unarmed somewhat. Though he had spent the majority of his life dressed for battle, there were some few occasions where he had doffed the gear of a warrior, save for his weapon, and doing so now reminded his heart that this was a safe place, where he need not be constantly on guard.
He still did not like it.
Rapping his knuckles against the heavy steel door that was the exit to the cells, Olberic waited for the crackling noise that would herald the guardsman on the opposite side speaking. While he could not understand the words, their meaning was simple enough to comprehend—an acknowledgement of his presence, and of his desire to exit with the guardsman's permission.
A buzz and a heavy click indicated that the door had been unbarred, and Olberic pulled it open, closing it as quietly as possible behind him, to be polite. Bending his head to the guardsman on duty—not the elderly man who'd been on watch this morning—Olberic moved off towards the far end of the building, and the small room that Kikuchi had offered to meet him in again, so that they might speak while he worked.
This guard house was utterly unlike any Olberic had seen before. Larger, of course, as it would need to be to serve such a city as this one. But although it had cells enough for at least a dozen inmates, the majority of the guardhouse was given over to offices and storage rooms. Even with clerks to handle the majority of evidence and records-keeping, every guardsman had a certain amount of desk-work to do, and the higher their rank, the more written work their job entailed.
Olberic was not a stranger to desk-work, though thankfully he had been one of King Alfred's champions, rather than a commander of the army, and thus had been spared the brunt of it. And as a hedge-knight in the years since, he had done little more writing than necessary for letters to his companions, as they went about their lives.
"Mister Eisenberg!" Kikuchi's smile when he opened the door to their meeting-room was warm, if slightly distracted. "I'm glad to see you're still doing well."
"Well enough," Olberic replied, nodding his own greeting and closing the door behind him. "Though you need not call me by my family name; Olberic will suffice."
"Oh, I couldn't possibly be so familiar," Kikuchi demurred.
"Truth be told, I would prefer it," Olberic admitted. "Eisenberg is a habitational name; I have no great attachment to it. I simply hail from a hamlet on the slope of a great mountain, from which good iron could be mined." A hamlet which no longer existed, though its fall had preceded that of Hornburg by some dozen years.
"I see. Mister Olberic, then." Kikuchi seemed hesitant still, but determined to address him as he wished.
"Just Olberic, if you like," Olberic assured him, gingerly sitting in the odd, swiveling chair not far from Kikuchi's own seat. He had been reassured that it would hold his weight easily, but it felt… unsteady. "Your age is likely none too different from mine. If you feel a need for a title, Sir Olberic will do." He did not consider it necessary; he was a hedge-knight after all, and no longer in service to a king. But as he had been a knight once, the title could still be used easily enough.
Kikuchi blinked at him, discomfort fading to confusion. "I'm in my thirties."
Olberic nodded his understanding. "As am I. Thirty-eight, as of this past winter."
Kikuchi blinked again. "Thirty-eight?"
Olberic frowned slightly at the disbelieving tone. "Aye. Is it so surprising?"
Kikuchi coughed, obviously flustered. "Well, um… I thought you were a good five years older, at least." He looked away, one hand fiddling with the writing implement in the breast pocket of his shirt. "I'll, ah, I'll have to change the reports." Another cough, and he straightened. "Anyway, it's good that this came up now, I suppose. Truthseeker Tsukauchi made a suggestion that might help resolve our current situation somewhat, and accurate personal information is necessary for that."
"Oh?" Olberic leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. "I don't see how my presence could be mitigated… unless there is a person with one of these 'Quirks' who might help?" He tried not to hope too hard. And he was correct to do so, because Kikuchi shook his head, giving Olberic an apologetic look.
"I'm sorry," the clerk said regretfully. "If there was a Quirk for dimensional travel, I'm sure we'd have heard about it by now."
Olberic sighed, deliberately forcing his shoulders to loosen. "I thought as much," he said softly, eyes closing briefly. Had they a way to return him home, they would have done so as soon as they were able, rather than wait and waste time conversing. "How then do you propose to improve upon our current arrangement?"
"With paperwork, of course," Kikuchi said, attempting to inject some levity into the words. "As a clerk, it's my specialty, and I have a cousin in Immigration—"
There followed a brief explanation of the immigration laws of this land, and how even in so well-regulated a world as this, individuals still slipped between the cracks of society's foundations. Refugees, shipwrecked travelers, victims of human trafficking, all might wind up on Nihon's shores without identification, or any way of proving their origins or residing within the country legally. As such individuals could not be easily deported back to their home countries—either for humanitarian reasons or because their home country was unknown—there were provisions within the law to allow them to seek asylum here, and to become legal residents and, eventually, naturalized citizens.
"No." Olberic spoke the word softly.
Kikuchi, in the process of pulling some papers from a leather case, paused and blinked up at him. "Pardon?"
"No," Olberic repeated, a little louder this time. "No, Kikuchi, I will not be a citizen of this land. I cannot." His voice shook slightly, and he closed his eyes again. Be a tree. Steadfast and calm. "I am a warrior, a hedge-knight, who lives by the sword." His voice still shook, no matter how hard he gripped the unsteady chair's arms. "There is no place in your world for such as I."
Hanasu hesitated to reply, momentarily at a loss for words. The quiet, shaky way in which Olberic had spoken had twinged something inside him, striking a familiar chord. The store's so crowded, too many people, I can't, I can't, I can't—
Hanasu sat the rest of the way up, shuffling his papers together even though he knew they were already in order. It was a way of buying himself time to think. He wasn't a psychologist, but he'd seen enough of them trying to deal with his issues that he thought he might have a handle on Olberic's problem.
Olberic was not from this world. He was from a world where death, while still a tragedy, was commonplace. Where violence generally was a valid answer to one's problems, and lethal weapons were the norm. He'd barely been here two days, but it was obviously enough for him to realize how much gentler their world was, how much more controlled and regulated. He had to have realized that his reflexive responses did not fit, and not only that, but his skill-set, the path he'd spent his whole life pursuing, was exactly the wrong one for a modern society.
There is no place in your world for such as I.
Olberic was likely correct in that assessment. At least at the moment.
Furthermore, he had a home already, a world he'd fought and bled for, that he'd given his whole life to protecting. Devoted friends, and an apprentice who admired him. Filing the paperwork for citizenship here, when he'd barely been absent from his own world for two days, must feel like abandoning all of that. Like giving up on ever returning home.
I cannot.
It wasn't a matter of I don't want to. Sometimes, there were certain things you couldn't do, not without your soul breaking.
"I think," Hanasu said slowly, "that your prentice is a very lucky young man, to have a master as grounded as you."
The startled look that appeared on Olberic's face was a vast improvement over the near-panic and despair it replaced.
"You're absolutely right, Sir Olberic, when you say you don't belong here." Hanasu shuffled his papers again, and then tapped their lower edge on the desk, businesslike. "The fact that you understand that is a point in your favor, and part of the reason Truthseeker Tsukauchi and I want to do this. It isn't that we want to keep you here—quite the contrary!—it's that we want your stay here to be as trouble-free as possible, until we can find a way to return you home. So long as the paperwork is left undone, your presence is technically a crime, whether intended or not. Just filing the paperwork, whether it ever finishes being processed or not, means that an effort is being made to render your presence legal. It also technically makes you a ward of the state, so that the police department has both the right and the responsibility to see that you are provided for and not simply left to fend for yourself. As you've said before, you cannot know the laws in every city. It would be unethical to expect you to obey them all without someone to guide you and make you aware of them before you transgress."
As he spoke, Hanasu watched Olberic carefully, keeping his expression frank and neutral. Olberic was a very straightforward and pragmatic individual. He'd probably appreciate the fact that real, practical problems were being considered and addressed.
And as he spoke, he saw that he was right, as Olberic slowly, slowly unclenched. He didn't relax, exactly, but his quiet death-grip on the swivel chair's arms loosened enough that the plastic stopped creaking.
"If," Hanasu continued levelly, "for some reason you are still here by the time the paperwork for legal residency is finished in, oh, three to nine months, then the paperwork for citizenship application doesn't even need to be started for another few years. And even if it were processed immediately, that doesn't mean we would ever stop trying to get you home, or that you would cease to belong in your own world. It just means you would have legal recourse to live in this one in the meantime."
Olberic slowly unclenched a little more. "I… see," the warrior said at last, blowing out a slow, heavy breath and dragging both hands through his grey-streaked hair. "I'm sorry for reacting so poorly; I am afraid I allowed my fears to overwhelm me briefly."
"Don't worry about it," Kikuchi reassured him. "If I was stuck in your world, I'd probably be curled up in a corner rocking back and forth and trying to convince myself I hadn't gone crazy. And I can talk to anyone I run into."
"Were you in my world, I would hope you had arrived in Atlasdam, where great scholars such as Cyrus could seek to do for you as you have done for me," Olberic said solemnly. "The wilds are no place for a man unused to violence."
"I wouldn't think so, no," Hanasu agreed, suppressing a shiver at the thought of being attacked by some of the creatures Olberic had described. No wonder he'd been so wary of Officer Tamakawa, if he was used to encounters like that.
Setting the horrifying imagery firmly aside, Hanasu cleared his throat. "Alright, so if you are willing, it would be good to get your refugee status application out of the way first—"
A/N: Olberic still knows very little about modern culture, and specifically about Hero culture. His image of the job is very similar to what he did in Cobbleston—act as a hedge-knight beholden to no one ruler, helping those you can when danger strikes and protecting the innocent to your dying breath. Just with a bit more oversight and accountability. He has no idea about the media circus or litigation or popularity contests, and he certainly doesn't imagine the flashy costumes. If he did know, it would freak him out him even more.