Only an hour later the doctor had confirmed the death of the blonde Italian. They had called the funeral director and he had taken care of the corpse and prepared it for the nightwatch. Therefore his body was washed and dressed in the traditional white garment and his body was laid out inside the house, his head pointing to north. Some flowers were also placed nearby however Giotto's wife didn't ask for a Buddhist monk since her husband hadn't been that much into their religion still believing in his own weird god.
She actually would have done the funeral without more traditions if possible, but people would have talked if she wouldn't have done the ceremony correctly and so she had decided to at least fulfill some of the expectations.
The woman hadn't really many relatives besides her own mother left and since her son was still too young she asked the funeral director to take care of the nightswatch. In the morning some friends and neighbours came by in order to give the woman some money gifts and to bid farewell to the blonde, although all of them just did that because of politeness. None of them actually had really cared about the stranger from the west and so the ceremony was rather emotionless. In the end Giotto was put in the coffin in which he should be brought to the crematory.
Once the carriage stopped in front of the crematory four man came and took the coffin from the loading space. They carried it inside the house and while the woman, her son and her mother waited in the first room the four man brought the coffin to another one and placed it there on top of a large open fireplace in the middle of the room.
The funeral director came inside and adressed one of the four man.
"You know what to do right? Please let me know as soon as it's finish. Then I'll bring the family in order to take the bones from the ash."
"Of course, as you wish." The black haired man said while the other three left again.
"You know, it's such a pity this is your last day here. You've been a very good man, thank you very much for the good work."
"The pleasure was all mine. Thank you for giving me the chance to work."
The funeral director just nodded and then went back to the small family in order to stay with them.
As soon as he had left the room the black haired man shifted his icy blue eyes towards the coffin. He examined it for a second then he took a deep breath and went over to a small door which he opened. Inside the room a couple of different tools and things were stored. He shoved some tools aside until he found a bag which he quickly took from the small room. He went over to the coffin and opened the back, revealing a larger empty bag, two smaller boxes and a prybar. Although the bag didn't seem to be empty yet he put it aside and took the prybar which he used to open coffin.
Alaude took a second in order to examine the blonde man who was laying inside, looking as if he was really dead, but he knew he was not. He took Giotto's wrist in order to check the pulse and when he was sure he felt the heartbeat he finally took the blonde out of the coffin and placed him on the floor.
The French quickly undressed the blonde and put the white clothes inside the coffin. Then he took some cheap brown cotton clothes from the bag and carefully dressed Giotto with those. Afterwards he took the still full bag and emptied it inside the coffin so it was filled with a lot of different bones. These were pig bones Alaude had bought from the butcher since he knew that in the Japanese culture it was tradition to take the bones of the dead from the ashes in order to put them in an urn. This urn then was placed inside the house during the followed time of mourning.
Of course Alaude felt sorry and a little bit guilty for tricking these people with mere pig bones but he just didn't now how to fake this part in another way. He quickly closed the coffin again and prepared it to be burnt as he had learned it during the last month. At first it had been hard work to convince the funeral director to give him a job since his Japanese wasn't that good after all, but he had told the man he was a traveler looking for work in order to continue his travels and after a while the funeral director had accepted to give him a job. This job would actually end today together with Giotto's life in this land and by tomorrow they both should already be on a ship. But for now Alaude still had some work to do.
He again turned towards Giotto and checked the man's pulse once more. Then he opened one of the small boxes and took an injection and a very small bottle alcohol from it. First he used the alcohol in order to disinfect Giotto's arm then he gave him the injection. This would strengthen his body a bit and keep him down for another little while since Alaude thought it would be better if Giotto first woke up when they already had left Japan.
After giving the blonde the injection Alaude opened the second small box in which a black powder was. Quickly but thoroughly he started to dye Giotto's blonde her black by using the coal he had also used for his own hair. If someone would stop them now the chance would at least be a bit lower that someone recognized Giotto at first sight.
When he also finished dying Giotto's hair Alaude quickly put everything back into the bag except for the bigger one which he know took. He carefully started to put the sleeping man inside this large bag and then closed it with a short piece of rope.
"This is only for a little while. Everything will be over soon, I promise." he said with a low voice and looked at the already burning coffin. However another tricky part already awaited him, since he had to hide Giotto somewhere until the evening.
Carefully he picked up the man inside the bag and went over to the storage room in which he placed the bag with the man inside. He also left the small bag with the empty boxes and the prybar inside there. Then he closed the door. For now he would have to do his job here and he had to hope that the funeral director would not come here to get any necessary tools by himself though during the last week Alaude always had to do all these things for him. Hopefully there wouldn't be a change at his last day.
It was already night when Alaude returned to the crematory. Just about two hours ago he had said goodbye to the funeral director, but there was still something he had to do. Giotto was still laying in the storage room inside the crematory and Alaude had to hurry up when he wanted to get to the harbor in time.
He quickly took the picklock from his pocket and opened the lock from the front door. Luckily it was already so dark that it probably was hard to see him since he was wearing black clothes and a black hat.
Once the lock was open he entered the small crematory and made his way through the rooms to the storage room. He opened it and immediately saw the large bag with the Italian inside. He carefully took him out of the storage room and placed him on the floor in order to open the bag so he could check Giotto's pulse and the breath. Luckily the man was still asleep and it didn't seem like he'd wake up any time soon, so Alaude closed the bag again and placed the rather light body on his shoulder in order to carry him outside.
Once he was outside he closed the door and then quickly went away and disappeared in the next alley, carrying the unconscious Giotto on his shoulder.
When he finally arrived at the harbor it was already almost early morning. After all the city in which Giotto had lived in didn't have a harbor and so Alaude had to carry Giotto to the next town which took him quite a while. However as Alaude had planned it was still dark when he arrived there and he directly went towards the ship where two man were standing smoking cigarettes.
"Ah, it's you. You are late." One of them greeted Alaude and threw away the rest of his cigarette.
The French stopped in front of the two men and simply nodded.
"I am sorry. It took me a little bit longer than I thought. May I go on board?" He asked and watched the two men who examined the bag over his shoulder warily.
"I think you will not tell us what you brought with you." The man wondered, scratching his beard.
"Our deal was no questions." Alaude simply returned. "You'll get the rest of your money once we arrive at our destination."
"Sure thing. And we'll also keep our promise not to enter your room. Fair enough. After all you've given us enough money." The man chuckled. "You must be crazy to pay that much for a passage. Or you've done something illegal. Whatever it is I don't wanna know, the price is fair and that's the only thing I need to know." He waved the French through and Alaude quickly entered the ship, carrying Giotto inside the bag.
In about an hour the ship would leave the harbor and Alaude would have succeeded in the most difficult parts. The rest would be easy compared to the last 24 hours and yet Alaude probably wouldn't be able to get any rest after all.