The Fine Line
Chapter 2: Search the Shadows
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She made it to work with a few minutes to spare after stopping to change into a blue and white yukata. It was late morning, but her boss liked to start things early in his neighborhood. Her funds had been running low the moment she arrived in Kyoto. To subsidize her small stash, Misao put her family knowledge of restaurants to good use and managed to get a part time job at a locally favored ramen shop.
Misao gave the shopkeeper a quick smile. The gruff man hardly ever said more than a few sentences a day to her, but gave her free lunch and no questions. The pay was minimalist, but enough to keep her going. When she entered the kitchen, she immediately washed her hands and checked the state of the fire with its already rolling pot of soup stock. She shifted the pot to the side, letting it simmer and wait for the first order. With a quick look over her shoulder, she pulled a few leeks from her sleeve and quickly diced them into the liquid. There was the standard miso base of every soup, but it never hurt to improve on things.
While she set into the rhythm of preparation, she let her mind stew over her situation. No new information was forthcoming. For as long as she had been in the city, she'd figured that either the Oniwaban were on a long-term mission, or simply not here. But other signs pointed to Kyoto being their base of operation. Drugs usually came from China, so it was by all means possible that Kannryu had sent them all overseas, which could be a task that would take months to a year. Could she hold out so long?
The cry for attention at the entrance of the shop interrupted her thinking and had her resetting the pot. Putting on her serving smile, she took the orders from a sulky looking young man and from two boys. They appeared to be family in the way the older one kept barking at the duo when they kept pushing one another out from under the hanging straw ropes in the doorway. Misao bowed, hiding a real smile behind her bangs, and returned to the kitchen.
Quickly tossing the ramen into boiling water, she set out bowls of the broth on a tray, accompanied with glasses of cool barley tea. Hunting under the counter for a moment, she set out a small pot of red pepper. A few moments later, she deftly dropped the ramen into the bowls and topped them with thin pieces of sliced pork. She passed the shop owner, who gave her work a brief glance and nod. He was in the process of stringing bits of chicken on bamboo skewers, seasoned with soy sauce and miso paste. The heat of the small charcoal burner was enough to send small rivers down his face. She was going to have to refill his teacup quite frequently today.
The day passed fairly quietly as the shadows on the street slowly crawled across the gutters. People drifted in and out, hardly giving her a second glance. Slowly, more orders of chicken balanced the orders of noodles as evening fell.
The shop owner opened the first bottle of sake for the night, signaling the shift to the evening menu prices. Misao put on fresh hot water for tea and wiped her forehead. Pushing through the divider curtain with an armload of small dishes filled with pickles and servings of rice, she smiled for the hundredth time. When someone called out an order for tea, the hairs on the back of her neck tingled.
Keeping her serving smile in place, she turned to the front of the shop. In the corner sat a man in a dark green yukata, one arm slipped from the sleeve and tucked into his belt. A tattoo was easily visible on his bare shoulder. Misao grit her teeth. Yakuza.
He smiled as she bowed to take his order. "May I help you, sir?"
"A word and some yakitori." He answered, letting his sharp black eyes casually drift over her and then back to scanning the shop. His stance seemed relaxed, almost uncareing, but she could sense that he was coiled and ready for any sudden action. She could just make out the shape of a knife, tucked away under the folds of his yukata and within easy reach of his resting hand. This was not a man to take lightly under any circumstance. To her surprise and shame, he caught her evaluating glance with his own smirk.
Misao tried to cover her slip with a simpering giggle. "Sir, I am working. If my employer sees me giving special attention--"
He interrupted, "Your employer would have nothing to say except to please me. Now, some food and a word."
She meekly bowed and returned to the steamy kitchen. Inwardly she was snarling. A plate of the shop's best chicken was thrust into her hands, along with a bottle of sake. With a short jerk of his head, the usually impassive owner and cook gave her a slightly worried frown and muttered, "Be nice. He can close me down."
Mentally, Misao sighed. The last thing she needed was a gangster suitor. Balancing the tray with the chicken, a pot of tea, and the bottle of sake, she shuffled black to the front of the shop. The man sat, arms crossed, looking out into the street. When she set her load down, he watched her out of the corner of his eye. After she laid out the food, he picked up a skewer of the chicken and tore off a piece with his teeth.
"What's your affiliation?"
The abrupt question caught her off guard. Affiliation? Had he somehow uncovered her roots? Before she could throw together an answer, he provided her with one.
"You have old marks on your hands that could have only been made by a small-bladed weapon. You've lived in this area for some months, but keep moving. You've clearly had some kind of training. I want to know if you're attached to any particular organization." He turned sharp black eyes on her. "And don't lie. I've been watching you."
Unexpectedly, the image of the stranger from the night before flashed through her mind. She lowered her voice to deter any possible eavesdroppers, "I'm a bit of a freelancer. I work here, but take on other," she smiled sweetly, "side work."
"What manner of side work?"
"Depends on the pay." She carefully refilled his cup of green tea since he hadn't made any gesture toward the alcohol.
"I am not looking for a prostitute."
Misao had to seriously fight the blush that tried to crawl up her face. Instead, she drew back, hands fisted in her lap. "I should hope not, for if you are, then I suggest you look further down the street."
The stranger gave a strange 'huff' of a laugh. "Then I have a proposition for you."
He finished the chicken with a bit of loud chewing. "We are looking for information on a certain man and his organization. We'll pay on any account, if the outcome and information are to our satisfaction."
Misao gave a noncommittal shrug. "How am I to know if what I'm doing is worth what you are wanting to pay?"
"Oh, you'll know, that is if you worth anything at all. You realize that you'll have to prove yourself first."
"Of course." She smoothly answered.
He gulped his tea and shifted as if preparing to leave. "Once that is settled, we'll make arrangements for future exchanges. My name is Ito. That is all you need to know for now." He stood, revealing himself to be actually quite tall. "You have a contact in the fishing district. You'll both do some scouting. He has the information. Meet him tomorrow night at sunset."
The mystery contact was probably also under orders to give an evaluation of her abilities. Misao didn't plan on disappointing. She stood as well and gave a polite bow, falling back into the shop's server role. "Thank you for your service, sir."
Ito shifted his yukata's arrangement around his waist and flexed the tattoo on his shoulder. She memorized the elaborate inking of a peony before he turned and ducked outside.
The remainder of the night passed uneventfully. The shop owner only gave her a questioning frown, which she answered with a fabricated smile. It seemed to be all the reassurance he needed before returning to the hissing chicken on the charcoal grill.
An hour before midnight, she helped her boss clear out the last drunk man out the door and found a place for him to stay. The final hour was spent wiping down tables, washing dishes, and cleaning floors. The shopkeeper, whose name she had never been told, gave her a paper envelope with her night's pay and set out the last two bowls of ramen. They ate in silence.
The way home was full of twists and doubling back before she returned to her tiny apartment. The fact that the gangster, Ito, had managed to track her whereabouts did not sit comfortably in her mind. Someone had been watching her.
When she found opened her door, she took a cautious look around her room. Nothing looked disturbed. Her bedding was still unmade in the corner, candle on a tiny table, and the corner of the tatami mat where she had pried it up was untouched. Nevertheless, Misao ignored the tired aches in her feet and immediately collected all her things. Tucking the wrapped bundle of cloths, weapons, and writing utensils under the straw cloak, she left a few coins on the table for the landlord before she slid the door shut.
There would be no way to find a new room this late at night. Instead, she cautiously crept through black allies and the small spaces between houses to make her way to the nearest shrine. With a quick glance and final check with all her ninja senses, she jumped the wall and landed in a rock garden with a loud crunch that made her wince - so much for stealth.
She crouched, holding her breath and listening for any cries of alarm or barking dogs. A small shed at the back of the shrine provided enough cover for her to catch some sleep until morning. Arranging the bamboo brooms and a wooden cart to make a small, hidden space on the hard ground, Misao pillowed her head on her worldly goods and drifted off.
The next morning, she slipped out of the shrine before the first grounds keeper arrived. After negotiating for another room, this one even smaller and dirtier than the last, she sat on the grimy tatami and began sharpening her weapons.
She couldn't help but smile. Some god had a strange sense of humor. She'd been running all over the city looking for any trace of her family, and then the opportunity dropped into her lap. Holding up a kunai to the morning light, she took a fresh grip on her resolve. The sharp blade hissed through the air and cleanly sliced a fly in half that had rested for a moment on her window frame.
"I will find them."
She tried to ignore how dead those words sounded in her newly rented home.
The afternoon was spent with light training, warming up for whatever challenge awaited with her new lead. She couldn't help arriving an hour before the appointed meeting time and sat on the eves of on of the thatched market buildings and watching the sun slide behind the rooftops.
She sensed him before he appeared. When his head did pop up over the peak of the roof, she snapped,
"You lied."
The stranger from the night before only hesitated for an instant before calmly sitting down next to her. She could see his short sword peaking out from behind his right shoulder. Black eyes had the nerve to laugh at her over his mask. "No I didn't – I actually never answered your question."
To her complete horror, Misao felt a blush rise to her face. "You knew what I was asking."
"Ask better questions next time."
She leapt to her feet, weapon in hand. "Freelancer, my foot! You work for that gangster, Ito."
The man only shrugged. "Seems to me that you're doing the same. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to earn my pay."
She gave him a final, pointed glare, and then gave a short bow. "My name is Misao."
He blinked, but didn't return the gesture. "I'm Yoshi." He pulled out a folded piece of paper from his belt. "We've been given an address. I'm assuming we're looking for any kind of information about the owners. If they wanted arson or burglary, they would have told us."
The dismissal in his voice made Misao want to drive her fist into his ear. Instead, she swore silently to herself to upstage her arrogant counterpart as soon as possible.