"Your presence really is unnecessary, Mr Akechi," said Inquisitor Wakaba, for the fifth or sixth time in the last hour.

"It's no trouble," said Akechi Goro, putting on a servile smile that both he and Wakaba knew was entirely fake. "I'm happy to represent the City Council during this investigation."

"I assure you, Medjed will share all findings with the council. There's really no need to waste your time."

"I thank you for your concern," said Akechi, his smile growing even broader. "But I'm happy to help."

Wakaba and her nameless bodyguard glowered at him. They'd been glowering at him for the last hour or so because he had invited himself along on the Inquisitor's exploration of the Madarame Mansion. Their obvious displeasure was initially amusing, but now it was becoming a bit tiresome. Akechi rolled his eyes as Wakaba looked away from her latest attempt to dissuade him.

Just lay back and accept it, woman. Fuck.

Wakaba obviously wanted Akechi and all of his men gone, but she couldn't quite do anything if Akechi and just one of his soldiers remained: a full squad was interference with Church business; but Captain Akechi Goro, son of 'Shido' Masayoshi, and a single bodyguard? Well, that was a symbol of the city administration's partnership with the Church, wasn't it? Wakaba couldn't exactly order her paladins to manhandle Akechi away. That would create a political crisis that she probably had standing orders to avoid. Something akin to Akechi's own standing orders: The Church and the Council played nice these days.

So down the darkened corridors they went, Wakaba and her bodyguard poking into a room along the hallway, Akechi and his subordinate crowding in after, all of them looking around at nothing but a dusty guest suite full of entirely mundane items while the smoke of two lanterns clouded the tight air; then, all of them bumping into each other as they returned to the hallway. Akechi thought it was hilarious the first few times, but now it was getting very old very fast. And this mansion was huge.

Akechi was sure the rest of Wakaba's men were busily exploring the rest of the building, and Akechi worried that Wakaba was leading him around to the stuff she knew would be boring while her paladins rifled through the good stuff outside of Akechi's sight. But he couldn't follow them all, and he bet that any truly valuable find would necessitate direct command from Wakaba. The Church didn't favor free thought in their underlings.

So Akechi followed and watched and began to worry that maybe he'd been wrong and somewhere black-leathered men were gathering all the vampire treasures and squirreling them away, never to be seen by lay people again.

Had Wakaba outmaneuvered him? That bitch!

But then they came upon an open door, and it was immediately clear that this room was different. It was rectangular, and all the walls were covered in large paintings, but the tentative light of their lanterns didn't seem to reveal their images. On the far wall, there was the vague outline of a desk and a podium. This was some sort of office or sitting room. This might be their first real find!

"Light the sconces," said Wakaba, and her man used a stick to light the room's lights with the flame of his held lantern. The walls here lacked the oily black stains which wall sconces inevitably created when they were used, the flame's smoke slowly staining. Which meant these sconces were almost never used and that the person who used this room, did so entirely in the dark. Vampire house, indeed. And no electricity this far from the city center.

The room slowly illuminated as each wall sconces was ignited. Oddly, none of the paintings seemed to be paintings at all. Their canvases were all a monochrome black- as if someone had decided to paint what closed eyes saw at night. Except for one painting, halfway in the room, wherein a thin young man in white clothing stood in profile on the black background. Its singular nature attracted Akechi, and he moved towards it for a closer look.

It was the portrait of a handsome person with fine angular features under blue-black hair. He looked kind of like the boys who worked in the private host clubs in Tock-Yo- the ones which catered to rich older women and other types who favored young men instead of young women. Maybe vampires rolled the same way, or maybe this was a family member. Who knows? Akechi realized he didn't care and began to turn away to examine the rest of the room.

A movement caught the corner of Akechi's eye and his head snapped back to the painting. It looked as it had before, a too-handsome young man looking off vaguely with his bluish-grey eyes. But what had Akechi seen? A bug? A tick of the flickering lantern light? Nothing seemed to be moving now.

Thump.

Akechi's attention turned to the sound. Wakaba was excitedly rifling through the desk at the end of the room. Clearly she thought she'd found something she'd wanted to find. Akechi forgot the painting entirely and walked over to see if the inquisitor was actually finding anything. She wasn't.

"This has been cleared out," said Wakaba, her frustrated eyes glaring at Akechi as he walked over. "And the dead vampire had no documents on its body."

"We never made it past the atrium," said Akechi to the unspoken accusation. She was looking for… documents? Was she investigating an unholy vampire or a crooked bureaucrat? An office desk was not the sort of thing Akechi had imagined Medjed to rifle through. He was expecting, you know, bloody dungeons or macabre kill rooms where devils harvested blood from screaming human girls. But here stood an Inquisitor, silently accusing him of cleaning out an office desk ahead of her.

What the fuck?

"Has anyone else been in here besides you and your men? Captain?" Wakaba's voice was acidic. She was pissed. "Was anyone here when you arrived? Besides the vampire, I mean?"

Akechi's mind immediately conjured the image of that bastard dhampir and his pathetically defeated team of half-dead vampire hunters. Oh, fuck! They had been here. Had Akechi let them escape with the really good loot? The good stuff that Medjed seemed to want? Fuck!

"No," said Akechi. The arriving Medjed team must have just passed the dhampir's party on the road. What luck! Now he knew something they didn't know! Ha! Stupid fucks!

Wakaba continued to glare at him for a few seconds, but then returned to her searching. There wasn't any reason to give the bitch any information he didn't have to. And now Akechi knew where something valuable might be and Medjed didn't. That was an amusing thought.

Akechi hovered around while Wakaba searched the desk a second time. She finally gave up with a frustrated snort, then moved to the podium thing and looked inside. It was apparently empty, as she shut the compartment door in its base with a frustrated slam. Meanwhile, Akechi gave the desk his own look-over. It was a large, behemoth affair: the desk of a person who planned to use it for a long time in the same place. All the drawers were indeed empty but what about-

"Let's continue on," said Wakaba.

Akechi looked up to see her and her paladin waiting near the door. They and Akechi's own bodyguard were all looking at him expectantly.

"You go on ahead," said Akechi. "I'm gonna look around here a bit more."

Wakaba's eyes narrowed and her mouth opened to object, but then she stopped. She frowned. Then she gave her bodyguard a communicative look. The man nodded. Wakaba left. Her man stayed.

Fuck. Now if Akechi found anything, Wakaba would be told immediately. That was like Akechi's own plan flipping over and working against him! That really pissed him off.

But there was no helping it, so Akechi turned his attention to the supposedly empty desk. His father, Akechi Masayoshi; the great man; the man the people called 'Shido' for whatever the fuck reason; had always been in politics. Akechi Goro had thus spent a great deal of time in offices and other such places of political power. He'd spent a lot of time around desks and the people who sat in them. And as son to the man near the very core of political power in Tock-Yo, Akechi Goro had spent a lot of time around people who sat at desks but also maybe had things to hide.

He ran his hands along the inside of each drawer, gently probing for anything that didn't quite feel like a solid piece of wood. He pushed experimentally at the corners of drawer bottoms, testing to see if anything wasn't quite as secure as one might expect. And it wasn't until the very bottom drawer that Akechi found something: when he pressed at the corner of the drawer bottom, the opposite corner popped up. Bingo.

Akechi lifted the false bottom. Underneath, there was nothing but a small box with what looked like a button. Akechi pressed the button. A soft click was audible in the floor under the desk, in the place where someone's feet would be as they worked at the desk itself. Akechi crawled down and examined the floor, found the outline of some sort of door or latch, and pulled it open. A small alcove was revealed and in it was a moderately sized box. It looked very obviously like a treasure box to Akechi.

Ha! That dumb dhapmir fucker and that stupid Church bitch both missed this! The real treasure was right here! Waiting to be found by someone with real brains! Fucking morons!

Akechi opened the box. An orb rested inside on velvet padding. It was shiny white except for zigzag lines of black which seemed to dance over its surface.

**Only sheep are satisfied by what is given.**

Akechi jumped in surprise, his head smacked into the underside of the desk.

**Is it time to seize what is rightfully yours?**

He cursed. What the fuck was that voice? What the fuck is this? Akechi picked up the orb and crawled out from under the desk.

**I am thou, thou art I.**

"Shut up!" said Akechi.

"Sir?"

Akechi looked up to see both his subordinate and Wakaba's paladin looking at him. They had come over to the desk, probably when he'd smacked his head on the underside. But then the paladin's eyes drifted to the orb in Akechi's hand. The man's eyes went slightly wider and he immediately turned and headed for the room's exit.

**Kill him.**

Akechi drew his sword and stepped around the desk. The paladin's head turned, perhaps hearing the sound of the blade or maybe one of Akechi's footsteps- so Akechi's sword thrust caught him just behind the ear, the blade peircing through the gap in the skull. The man went limp and fell like a puppet with cut strings. Akechi's blade came out smoothly. There was surprisingly little blood.

Akechi's bodygaurd exclaimed in surprise and stared at the corpse with wide eyes. He looked at Akechi with astonishment. Akechi looked at him- this single witness to Akechi Goro's murder of a Medjed trooper.

"Captain?!"

The sword chopped into the young soldier's neck, and this time, there was a lot of blood. It sprayed out as the man fell with a gurgling sort of surprised shout. He thrashed for a few moments before going still.

"What is-?… God Almighty!"

Akechi turned to see Inquisitor Wakaba in the doorway.

**Kill her.**

Oh, obviously.

Obviously.