Hi readers! After posting the last chapter, I've reached 10,000 story views, which is a fantastic accomplishment in my opinion, especially for a first fanfiction! So thank you all so much for reading, and hopefully enjoying! You're all fantastic. And those of you who also took the time to review/favorite/follow, you get super extra thanks.
In less great news, this chapter officially marks the end of my buffer. This isn't to say that I haven't written anything else, it's just that there's not really any chapters I've fully completed after this one. On the other hand, I have a fairly large amount written for most of the next chapters, all I've got to do is finish them up, which I think I can do. (As a side note: to anyone planning to start writing fanfiction, I'd recommend starting with something that doesn't involve 10 different plot threads and having to weave them together unless you've put a lot of thinking into it. There ends up being a lot to keep track of and the temptation to jump around as you get ideas means you end up not having complete chapters a lot of the time. On the other hand, this is still a lot of fun, so it's up to you really).
Anyway, I'd just like to say once again: thank you all so much for reading and reviewing! It means a lot to me. Now, on with the show!
Previously on The Nine RED Men Incident: Spy Chapters:
The Spy, after crash landing in Gensokyou, awoke to find himself in an unknown bed. Believing himself to have been captured by an enemy faction, he stayed silent to gain information, until he learned that his face mask had been removed by those who had captured him (members of the Myouren temple), and immediately took one of them (Byakuren) as a hostage, in order to get it back. Not wanting to kill all those who had seen his face, he instead decided to enrage one of the other members (Shou) into attacking him, triggering his dead ringer and making them think he was dead. After succeeding in this, he quickly disguised himself as a monk and attempted to walk out, only to be stopped by a young girl with a sickle, who, after the Spy accepted her request to help with a festival, believes him to be a spy.
We now return you to: The Nine RED Men Incident: Spy Chapters.
The Spy made a confused expression. "Huh? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just a worshipper here."
The girl laughed at him. "No, don't try that on me. You can't trick a trickster, mister. There's no festival happening now."
The Spy frowned, sighing. "Oh? I must have gotten it confused with the one we had earlier," he said, readying his knife behind his back.
"What, the one that we had, oh, two months ago now?" she said, leaning closer. "No, you're definitely spying for someone," she said, turning around. The Spy started to lunge for her, before she spoke again. "The Taoists, right? They're probably the only ones who would care enough to spy on us." The Spy drew back, realizing that as long as she thought he was with these "Taoists," (presumably the code name for some rival group of private interrogators) she probably wouldn't connect him with the person who'd just escaped. Still, even if she already thought he was with them, he'd still have to sell it.
"I-I don't know what you're talking about," he said, with his practiced stutter.
She turned back towards him, still smiling. "Oh? My mistake then. Where was it you were planning to go again? Just out for a breath of fresh air? I think I'll join you then, if you don't mind."
"Well, I, uh, I, no! No, of course I don't mind," he said, doing his best to mimic a panicked rookie agent.
"Great," she said, grabbing his arm. "Out we go then," she yelled, seemingly effortlessly pulling him along after her. As he winced in her grip, the Spy wished he could dead ringer his way out of this one too, but unless his fake body was deployed in such a way that it would be destroyed, there was too large a risk that this woman would talk to the others and piece together that they were both fake, and he wasn't really dead. So he let himself get dragged out of the temple, which from the outside, he could see had a strange structure looking like a large wooden ship featuring prominently in the center. "So, where were you planning on going for this 'breath of fresh air,' then? The forest? The village? There's plenty of options."
"The v-village," the Spy replied, quickly. A large space with lots of people gave him the best chance of finding some place to disguise and get away.
"Alrighty then, off we go," the girl said, turning towards an inhabited looking point on the horizon. "Y'know," she said, "I wonder if there was anyone in particular you were going to meet there? Nah, that's silly of me, isn't it. No way you'd have anyone in mind, you just wanted to take a walk, right?"
"Y-yeah," he said, continuing to play the role of nervous discovered spy. "Look, I-I'm really not-" he began, before the woman put her finger to his lips.
"Ah ah ah! Don't ruin this lovely moment," she said, gesturing with her other arm. "Isn't the scenery beautiful?" she asked. Looking around, the Spy could see wide fields of (surprisingly, considering it was October last he knew) green grass and plants, and, in the distance, a large patch of green trees under a nice blue sky. He wasn't entirely sure whether she was calling it beautiful out of an honest appreciation for the scenery, or just to try and throw him off balance. "And you get to view it with a lovely lady, as well!" the woman said, winking at him. "Isn't that wonderful?" The Spy decided she was definitely just trying to throw him off balance.
"Um, well, I guess, yeah," he said.
"Jeez, that's it? 'Um, well, I guess so, yeah,'" she said, in the most stupid-sounding voice she could. "You really know how to make a woman feel appreciated." She sighed. "And here I was trying to cheer you up, too. Oh well," she said, shrugging. "I guess you need some etiquette lessons, but we don't have time for that right now. Any woman who tries going out with you is going to have a terrible time." The Spy's eye twitched, and he bit back a retort.
"My apologies," he said, dipping his head.
"Heh, yeah, whatever," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "But for future reference, if a woman asks you if you're enjoying spending time with her, say 'yes,' alirght?"
"I'll keep it in mind," the Spy said, barely keeping his irritation in check at being lectured in seduction techniques by some young girl. She smiled.
"Looks like that got rid of your stutter," she said. "Good. I'd hate it if you felt uncomfortable," she said, stretching the last word out as long as she could.
The Spy cursed under his breath, realizing he'd partially broke character. "Heh, I guess I did, huh?" he said, scratching the back of his head. "It just seemed like a friendly argument, so it helped relax me a bit."
"Did it?" the girl said, examining the sickle. "That's great." As he began to walk forward, she held it up to his neck. "Does this look sharp enough to you?"
The Spy mentally rolled his eyes. "T-the b-b-blade's too close to my throat for me to really tell h-how sharp it is," he said.
"Oh, is it?" the girl said, moving it back a bit. "My bad. And your stutter came back." She shook her head. "Such a shame. Oh well," she said, shrugging. "Let's hurry this up, shall we?" She began to jog towards the village, dragging the Spy along, letting out a light laugh along the way.
Eventually, they reached the outskirts of the village, and the girl stopped. The Spy took this opportunity to roll his shoulder, which had started to feel pretty damn sore by this point. "Right," she said, lowering her voice. "You are going to go to whatever meeting place you had and take me to your contact, acting completely natural, or you're going to start having some problems. Understood?"
The Spy nodded.
She smiled. "Excellent. Well, you lead the way now!" The Spy began walking, thinking. He was going to have to find some way to pacify this girl, either by taking her out or by sending her on a wild goose chase. Considering he was in completely unfamiliar territory, he didn't much like his chances.
He smiled. It was just like old times.
He began walking as nonchalantly as he could towards the gate, which he saw was guarded by a man and a woman, both holding spears. As they approached, the female guard broke off from a conversation with the male guard and waved at them. "Hello! To what do we owe the pleasure of a visit from Myouren temple monks?" The male guard looked away, blushing slightly.
For a second, the Spy considered acting as if the girl was insane and after him, but, as he saw the lazy attitude with which the guards were holding their spears, he guessed they wouldn't actually be able to do much to help him. He felt the girl prod him in the back, sending him stumbling forward and into the guard, who caught him with her free hand. "Whoa, whoa, are you ok there?" she asked, sounding worried.
"Y-yes," he said, pulling back. "I'm sorry, I tripped on a stone. I'm can be a bit accident-prone," he said, despite how much it pained him to even pretend to be clumsy. He put a lot of effort into always appearing cool and suave, so having to act like a clumsy, blithering fool was a humiliation, one that he'd get the damn girl behind him back for.
"Ah, it's fine, it's fine," the woman said, patting him on the shoulder, while the male guard stared at him in envy. "My little sister's like that too. In any case, what can we help you with?"
"W-well," the Spy said, nervously glancing back and forth between the guard and the girl (he had to act his role, after all), "we just thought we'd drop by the village to uh, um-" he managed before the girl interrupted, rolling her eyes.
"I just wanted to stop by the gardening supply store and see if there's a new sickle for sale," she said, hefting hers up with fake difficulty. "He," she said, pointing to the Spy, "is tagging along so that he can't mess things up back at the temple too much."
"H-hey," the Spy said, putting on his best dejected expression. "That hurts, you know."
"Alright then," the female guard said. "Seems like a good enough reason to me. How 'bout you, Kei?" She nudged the guard next to her, who jumped up slightly, then mumbled something neither the Spy nor the girl could hear. "Ah, you worry to much Kei," the woman said, having apparently understood what he said. "Though he does bring up a good point," she said, putting her free hand on her chin. "Are you two new? I don't think we've seen you here before."
The Spy looked at the girl, who was frowning and biting her thumb, as if annoyed at something. He didn't want to get caught at a gate, of all things, so he spoke up. "O-oh, yeah, we're p-pretty new. We've only been at the temple for a c-couple of months, so we've only visited the town once or twice before, I don't think you were on duty."
"Oh? Where're you from then?" the guard asked, seeming genuinely curious.
The Spy cursed under his breath. He didn't know the area, so he didn't have a good option here. Luckily, the girl spoke up. "We're from the underground," she said, acting somewhat embarrassed.
"Wow, really?" the guard said, impressed. "I didn't think anyone from down there would join up with the temple! That's pretty amazing," she said, shaking her head. "Well, welcome to the village then," she said, smiling. "Just don't break anything or hurt anyone, and you'll be just fine."
"Thanks," the girl said. "We'll do our best."
"Y-yes," the Spy said. "Thanks very much." They walked past the guards and into the village, leaving the guards to their earlier conversation.
"Yeesh, that was close," the girl said. "She didn't even recognize you, huh? That's a bit suspicious," she said, narrowing her eyes. "Is this really where you were meeting your contact?"
"Yes, I swear!" the Spy said, acting worried.
"Huh. Alright then," she said. "But I'm watching you," she said. She looked around. "But this is weird. Where is everybody?" Looking around, the Spy saw that despite looking like a marketplace, the area they were in was completely deserted. "The hell happened?"
"I d-don't know," the Spy said. "Is t-there some kind of event?"
"No, I don't think so," the girl said, shaking her head. "We would have heard about it."
Listening closely, the Spy heard a low mumbling sound. "Do you hear that?" he asked.
The girl frowned, then her face brightened up. "I do! Sounds like there's a crowd around somewhere. Let's go check it out," she said, grabbing his arm and running towards the noise before he had a chance to protest.
As they ran down the alleyways, the mumbling noise grew somewhat louder, and eventually they walked into a street just in front of a pair of people being followed by a crowd. One of the pair seemed to be hovering via a pair of wings, while the other simply walked along, towering over everyone. The Spy recognized the Heavy, and breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, the Spy realized he couldn't just go over and talk to him, seeing as he was currently the center of attention, and that would probably make the sickle girl suspicious. Still, he couldn't just let this opportunity go. The girl seemed distracted by the sight of the Heavy, mouthing the word "big" over and over again. The Spy used this opportunity to scrawl a message onto one of the many pieces of paper he kept in his pockets using a fingertip pen (a small pen with a band such that it could be put around one's fingertip and written with). In this way, he could write messages without anyone being able to see the paper or pen. Admittedly, writing a coherent and understandable message like this had taken days of practice, but he felt it had been worth it, in the end. Once he'd finished writing the message, he turned towards the girl. "Who do you think they are?" he asked, buying some time.
She turned towards him, "I dunno," she said, shaking her head. "I mean, one of them's a fairy, but the other one looks like an Oni, maybe? Though there's no horns on his head, but he's certainly big enough to be one."
The Spy was slightly thrown by the words "fairy" and "Oni," and filed those away as things to ask someone else about later. "That seems like a strange combination," he said, as the two approached.
"Yeah, it's definitely not one I would have expected to see," the girl said, shaking her head. Out of the corner of his eye, the Spy saw the Heavy approaching, deep in conversation with the 'fairy' by his side. "I mean, I didn't even think the Oni had any contact with the fairies out here, it's super weird." The Heavy was only a few steps away now. "I guess we should get out of their way," she said, beginning to turn around. The Spy didn't move, pretending to be frozen in shock by the sheer size of the Heavy. "Get out of their-" she began, before the Heavy walked into them, still distracted by talking to Dai. In the chaos of the collision, the Spy slipped his note into one of the Heavy's pockets. The Heavy scowled at them.
"Sorry, sorry about that," the blond girl said, quickly yanking the Spy back to his feet. "My friend here was just distracted, we're so sorry," she said, pulling the Spy into a bow. For a tense moment, the Heavy's scowl remained, but eventually he sighed and waved them off.
"Is ok," he said, shrugging his shoulders. Then he turned back towards the fairy, and they walked off.
"What the hell was that!" the girl yelled, once they were out of earshot. "Why didn't you get out of the way?"
"I-I'm sorry," the Spy said, slipping back into his persona. "He was just s-so much b-bigger up close," he said, shaking.
"That's it? God, you scare so easily for a spy. Those Taoists must be really desperate if they're using you," the girl said, shaking her head. The Spy put on an ashamed expression, while inside he was relieved. "Oh, don't give me that," she said. "You're not going to get any pity from me. Now come on, let's get to your contact." She prodded him in the back, and he began walking off, shoulders slumped forward. Internally, he smiled.
Now, all he had to do was hope the Heavy read his note in time.