The Complication
"Pardon my inquiry, Lord Sesshomaru, but what is Nintojo supposed to be looking for? Is our rendezvous point meant to be blanketed by yoki?" Jaken asked.
"It should be hidden away to protect the villagers in the woodlands if the situation was as tense as before," Sesshomaru replied. "There had to be a reason for Norihisa to have two meeting points other than relaying information to me. Shinju o Tateru has no political relevance to our situation and shouldn't have involved humans unless it was meant to be a place of refuge."
"Well... the ambassador did seem to like the luxury of the village," Jaken offered, looking to the sky as though the clouds had answers. "I wonder if that's a clue. When we saw him, he acquired a vacant manor as a camp and not tents. The wine and meat he ate was of fine quality unlike the foods the soldiers brought. He even offered it to you, but it didn't seem like he was trying to please you. It looked more like he was just sharing."
Jaken had a fairly good point. Enough to make the western lord stop walking for a moment. A lone dandelion seed caught Sesshomaru's attention and made his eyes follow it as it landed in the grass. They had been walking for a few days now, trying to find this other meeting place, but it felt like they were going in circles at this rate. He had to think. Shinju o Tateru, he now knew, was rebuilt into the village they saw as part of an agreement Meioshi had with the village masters. The masters were a danna and a house mother, who allowed Meioshi to take the children and young adults away to summer school if she helped the village maintain a certain amount of annual profit, and they too enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle for some years before the doctor burned everything to the ground. Meioshi had to have been involved with foreign tradesmen at one point because the wine Norihisa drank was not a locally made product. Wines of this land were not red in color. While the meat he ate was of local origin, Norihisa ate raw beef instead of enjoying it cooked to perfection. Flesh and blood seemed to be to Norihisa's tastes, or should he call the blood wine spirits?
What of the manor, though? They've been looking for some type of building this whole time already and came up short. Something must be off in their approach here. Was Norihisa trying to make him comfortable before? Speaking of which, the black wall demon that possessed Ichi made the halfling call Sesshomaru a brother. That's how Norihisa behaved at the manor. Like he knew him in an intimate space or that it was okay to indulge a little in his presence. The soldiers mentioned to him that the village wasn't a place that they knew but he knew. The ambassador was coaxing them into something. What would be the clue then? Strictly luxury? No. What about...? Wait...
"Jaken," Sesshomaru called, earning the imp's attention.
"Yes, me lord?" the imp responded, turning to him.
"Where would you go to for safety?" Sesshomaru asked.
"Your side, of course," Jaken answered, earning a smug huff sound that seemed to be a laugh getting cut off. This fool!
"If you didn't know your enemy and you were being chased, where would you go to properly assess your situation?" Sesshomaru asked again with more specifics.
"I'm not sure I understand your inquiry," Jaken started, putting a finger under his chin, "but I suppose it depends on where I am. If I'm being chased in a forest, I could hide behind a tree or inside of a tree. Maybe there's - oh! Some kind of hole! Badgers burrow in the ground! The Anaguma clan are badger demons that burrow! Our rendezvous point might be underground or surrounded by trees blocking the entrance!"
Well, shit... the little imp caught on fast. Sesshomaru was almost proud of him. Almost. Jaken hurried to climb onto a boulder and took a deep breath to connect with Nintojo. The staff rattled once it knew what to find and shifted to the right.
"It's saying this way, me lord!" Jaken said, hopping off the boulder and leading the way again.
"Only a snake would choose to meet his prey underground," Sesshomaru whispered to himself.
"Right then," Meioshi replied, sighing. "How am I supposed to find this Numa-o gent? And how does he even know who I am?"
"All Oni know when their kind is born, in trouble, or dead," Shanwang replied, grinning. "We can inhabit the living world and hell quite easily. If an Oni has potential in power, the commanders choose whether or not to train a young Oni in their ways. When you transformed into Young Oni form to fight that inu - whatever the hell his name is - and used Baohu qi Voluptatis simultaneously, your control of the ice caught the attention of the commanders and some Oni of the living world. Numa-o, being a commander of the waters, sensed you first."
"Flipping splendid," Meioshi said, closing her eyes to roll them behind her lids. "So, do they think I'm a baby or in trouble?"
"Looks like neither. You're just new to them. Think of it as Numa-o's just curious," Shanwang answered, using a pair of arms to point at the doctor. "Unfortunately, with my island split in fuck knows how many pieces, you'll have to try to find the waters of the island."
"Isn't the commander of the waters in charge of them?" Meioshi asked, folding her arms. "Why don't I just find him? Or convince him to put the waters back?"
"The commanders are supplementary to each other. In order for one to do his job, you need another to do his and so on and so forth. The most you can do is try to contain the waters until the next guy agrees to do right," Shanwang replied, earning some grunts from the doctor. "Yeah, same. Numa-o is one of the ones who didn't do his job right even when I was in power. He, more than likely, isn't trying to take you under his wing. The only way you can find him is through his riddles. Each commander has at least one."
"Right then, let's hear it," Meioshi said, unfolding her arms and simply complying with her new challenger. This was going to be a long mission.
"I have seas without water, coast without sand, towns without people, mountains without land. I have no feet, no hands, no wings, but I climb to the sky. Apart, we are invisible. Together, we are direction. In your hands, I will never be. Where is the commander?" Shanwang asked, completing the riddle.
"You must be joking," Meioshi replied with a chuckle but not a smile on her face. "All of the commanders have a riddle like that?"
"Yup," the king ogre said, lifting and dropping his brow.