(A big thank you to Siatru, and to Daemon, BlueBezerk, and Grig9700 on the Tanya Writers Discord for beta reading this chapter.)
Two weeks of forced inactivity left me considerably more agitated than I had been expecting. The old medic who'd patched me up in his basement 'clinic' after my confrontation with the gangsters at the Rising Sun's building had said I was welcome to come back in three weeks time to pay him to take the stitches out, provided I kept the wound clean and babied my arm and my side until then. At the time, I had been eager for the opportunities presented by almost a month of medically required downtime. Now, I could only blame the blood loss for my foolish thoughts at the time – the silver lining of sustaining a grazing bullet wound had proven remarkably transient.
The initial joy at escaping death and shock at having avoided major injury, customary after many near death experiences, faded before the medic had even finished stitching up my arm. After so many brushes with death in both this life and the last, the emotional reaction to survival felt somewhat muted. The secondary joy at having a cast-iron reason to excuse myself from active operations in favor of more managerial tasks, which would not only benefit the Kozuki Organization and Rising Sun, but would also further showcase my talents as a non-combat asset, took longer to fade. Indeed, it hadn't faded, in that I was still happy for the time and opportunities presented by my injury, but that the joy at the opening on my schedule had been eclipsed by two sources of unexpected frustration: My need for physical activity, and Ohgi's inspired impression of a mother hen.
Years of constant hard work on the streets of Shinjuku, and months of training to try and prepare my scrawny body for the fighting sure to come, had accustomed me to near constant physical activity. Admittedly, it had also accustomed me to hanging on the ragged edge of starved exhaustion as well, but the point stood. Between the increased caloric intake of my shared meals with Ohgi, plus the snacks that everybody just seemed to happen to have on hand whenever they visited me in the apartment, and the enforced rest so I could recuperate, I felt energized to the point of bursting. My hands twitched, and I found myself taking every excuse that came my way to stand up and pace around the studio's single room. I could feel Ohgi's smirk as I paced, and my cheeks burnt as I imagined the easy comparisons he was making between my current behavior and that of a lazy student trying to evade her homework, but at least he was kind enough to not twist the knife by vocalizing such comparisons. Instead, he confined himself to constantly asking if I was hungry, if my wounds were itching, or if I needed anything.
The overly-solicitous behavior was a bit much, but in line with what I had come to expect from the man. Irritating as it was, I found I couldn't quite get angry with Ohgi about his concern. It was... touching, I suppose, that he was so obviously worried about me. That said, I'd been injured far worse in my previous life multiple times, most notably in the skies over Norden, and while I lacked the magical advantages that had made it so easy to block out pain before, a grazing wound was nothing compared to the injuries sustained in that little dust-up. I couldn't exactly convey that to him, however, not without either telling him about my past life or lying about some fictitious injury sustained before I'd met him. In the end I resolved to simply enjoy the novel experience of being fussed over. After all, trust was difficult to build and easy to lose, and Ohgi had quite clearly decided to trust in me – it would have been a remarkably unfair trade if I'd decided to repay that trust with lies, especially over something so petty.
Plus, I lacked any scars to back up a story of a past injury.
Fortunately, the minor inconveniences of my injuries aside, the last two weeks had brought nothing but good news for the Rising Sun, and for the Kozuki Organization. Apparently, the way I had handled the gangster incursion had overly impressed the Shinjuku citizens attending the dinner. I suppose I could understand; I had managed to deal with the gangsters relatively easily, and displays of strength, no matter how minor, always drew the desperate like moths to the flame. To my pleasant surprise, my attempt to salvage and preserve perfectly usable human resources from the situation appeared to have been equally if not more impressive – although, it had been at least partially misunderstood.
The Rising Sun Benevolent Association was suddenly awash with volunteers, old and young, all eager to help the Shinjuku community while happily spouting off about my mercy and compassion for all suffering Japanese. It was somewhat alarming how quickly my hasty words, "All are welcome under the light of the Rising Sun", had taken on something of a life of their own. According to gossip passed on by Naoto and Ohgi, red circles with the kanji for "light" superimposed had begun to appear on walls across Shinjuku the night after the community dinner.
While I was not a fan of graffiti personally, only a fool ignored it in Shinjuku. From gang tags splashed across walls to calls to murder Britannians to more earthy expressions, graffiti was the anonymous expression of sentiment in the meager public spaces. In a very real way, graffiti truly was the "heartbeat of the city", and provided an insight into the minds of the inhabitants of the ghetto. If Naoto and Ohgi were correct about how widespread and spontaneous the signs of support were, the spectacle must have been far more impressive than I had imagined.
Beyond rising suns sprayed on concrete and the sudden willingness of Shinjuku citizens to help each other, the Rising Sun had also received a slightly more official vote of confidence in the form of recognition from what passed for local government.
The functional anarchy of Shinjuku was a product of grassroots organizations that had sprung up in the post-Conquest chaos to try and provide a basic level of social organization and services. Some of those organizations were, admittedly, gangs trying to exert their dominance over the territory they controlled and clamping down on any crime not committed by themselves, but the majority were ad hoc 'Public Safety Committees'. These groups of self-organized citizens generally held sway over a block, a street, or a tenement, and organized things such as child care and rubble and trash clearing in their area. These committees had been my primary employers during my years of working for my dinner, and ranged from petty tyrannies to remarkably well-organized attempts at self-governance.
Now, in the wake of the events at the Rising Sun building two weeks ago, several of the Safety Committees had sent representatives to meet with Ohgi and myself, asking for alliances to share resources and to provide mutual aid. Typically, these appeals were dressed up in language about helping the collective good of Shinjuku and the like, and in some cases the representatives actually seemed sincere about seeking the best for their constituents, but I could easily read between the lines of their requests for alliance.
The Committees had seen the rising threat of the spiraling gang war, and had recognized the need to reassert order on the ghetto. When I had publicly defied the attempt by a gang to usurp control over the Rising Sun's resources, I had unintentionally thrown down a public gauntlet, something that the Committees had been waiting for someone to do. Now they were rallying behind the Rising Sun as silent partners – if the gangs decided to respond in force, the Committees would undoubtedly hastily disassociate from our efforts, but if we could take the initiative, they would provide us with resources and manpower.
Fortunately for the forces of order in Shinjuku, Naoto had already begun to move against the gangs before the first Committee had sent a representative to ask for a meeting with me. Correctly deducing that no gang would allow such a public slap in the face to go unanswered, Naoto had masterfully utilized newly acquired human resources and milked the new recruits for every detail he could about the operations of their former gang. Apparently, it had been a fairly small operation, centered around a core of former Kokuryu-kai members and an under-boss from the now-defunct gang, and only in control of a small amount of territory close to the Rising Sun building. This splinter gang operated a minor amphetamine production and distribution operation, as well as a pair of decidedly low-class brothels, and Hojo in particular had been happy to give Naoto the locations of every gang asset he'd known about.
As a result of this wealth of intelligence, Naoto's opening salvo had been remarkably effective. Leaving Tamaki in charge of handling the recruits' training, Naoto had taken Chihiro and Souichiro and had begun a decapitating assassination campaign. With Hojo's information about the locations of all of the gang's safe houses and operational facilities in hand, hunting down the gang's leadership had been relatively easy. Naoto took the opportunity to finally put those Britannian assault rifles I'd acquired during my truck hijacking months ago to use, and had successfully ambushed the gang's boss and three of his inner circle as they'd left the gang's hidden meth lab the afternoon following the incident at the Rising Sun. The resulting hail of gunfire had wiped out all four of the targets present, plus their bodyguards, and Naoto had personally confirmed their deaths by shooting each corpse in the head afterwards.
After that, Naoto had led Souichiro and Chihiro to the gang's brothels and freed the captive women inside, and had let Chihiro and the newly freed slaves handle whichever guards had survived the initial assaults. Apparently, the resulting reprisal of the knife- and hammer-wielding women had been extremely passionate, and Naoto had still been splattered with blood when he'd returned to the apartment to update Ohgi and I on his progress. While the execution of captives was deplorable, as was the waste of human resources, I could only applaud Naoto's decision to hand vengeance over to those most brutally oppressed by the gang. It had been an excellent decision, from the point of view of realpolitick. Unless Naoto had planned to defend his prisoners' lives by force, after what Chihiro at the very least had seen inside the squalid rooms of the brothel, those men were already dead. By deliberately handing them over to Chihiro and the formerly enslaved women, he had successfully changed the narrative from 'uncontrollable soldiers mutiny against their officer to lynch prisoners' to 'outraged officer gives victims a chance for justice against their rapists', making himself appear to be the gracious and caring leader the Japanese hungered for.
Besides, if I'd been there myself, I'd have made sure they'd died slowly.
As a result of Naoto's aggressive campaign, the gang that had first menaced the Rising Sun was dispersed, their assets and territory now ours by the right of conquest, and our pool of recruits and supplies expanded. I didn't delude myself into thinking that this early success indicated that rolling over the rest of the gangs that riddled Shinjuku would be equally easy. We'd had the advantage of insider intelligence on our side, and thanks to Naoto's efforts to ensure the first trio of gangsters had completely disappeared, the element of surprise as well. Either would have been a luxury, but both had practically paved the road to victory for Naoto. Still, it had been an early and obvious success, and probably more than my minor victory in the Rising Sun building proved our strength to the Committees. When they came to build alliances with us, they did so both because of our sudden public appeal and because of the row of bloodied yellow scarfs Naoto had nailed to the wall of one of the former brothels. While we had not, of course, publicly claimed responsibility for the sudden disintegration of the gang, since no simple charity and community building organization would involve itself in such violence, the affiliation of the masked gunmen who had assassinated the gang's leader was obvious to everybody in our corner of Shinjuku.
Naoto hadn't stopped to rest on his laurels after the initial wave of success. Gangsters affiliated with multiple other gangs had vanished at night while out singly or in pairs, and no identifiable corpses had been found, though the alleys of Shinjuku contained slightly more grisly bundles than normal. Several of the more obvious gang hideouts in areas of Shinjuku further away from the Rising Sun had been molotov'ed, and in the one operation Tamaki had been allowed to participate in, one of the rocket-propelled grenades Naoto had somehow gotten his hands on had been fired through the door of a garage-turned-meth lab. The resulting fireball had immolated the entire structure and everybody inside, but fortunately had represented such an escalation in violence that nobody had blamed us for it, and instead the gangs had doubled down on their internecine conflict.
Overall, I couldn't have been more proud of Naoto. When I had first realized how green the Kozuki Organization was, I had been afraid that I'd hooked my wagon to a doomed star, and that Naoto's lack of real-world leadership experience would doom us all. Fortunately, when push had come to shove, he'd rapidly proven to have the intelligence, insight, and ruthless streak necessary to lead.
Ohgi had really stepped up his leadership ability too, in the recent weeks. His efforts to reach out to every member of the Organization after the station mission had begun to crystallize his role as the human resources chief in the organization, and he'd continued to operate splendidly in that role as more recruits had filtered in. After Naoto had freed the captives of the gang brothels, several of the newly freed women had asked to join the Organization for one reason or another, and of course thanks to the "all are welcome under the light of the Rising Sun" motto, they'd been welcomed with open arms. That had almost led to an unfortunate incident when they'd been introduced to our other new recruits, but happily none of the four had been directly involved in the brothel operations, and so Ohgi had managed to talk everybody down. Once the knives had been put away and the guns holstered, Ohgi had managed to work out an understanding between the former gangsters, and the former victims. One of the former slaves had been unable to continence working alongside the former gangsters, and so Ohgi had shifted her to the Rising Sun side of the operation, tasking her with helping Inoue keep things running.
I couldn't have handled that whole situation any better myself, and I'd told Ohgi so after he'd returned. He'd looked pleasantly surprised by that, which was gratifying – it was always important to reinforce success with encouragement, and the fact that he looked so pleased emphasized that he considered my judgment important. Quite a difference from so many superiors I'd had in my first two lives.
It had been mildly discouraging when I realized that I was perhaps not as necessary to the Kozuki Organization as I had been before the attack on the weapon's market in the subway station. Naoto was doing a splendid job directing combat operations, and Ohgi was managing complex and touchy personnel issues with aplomb. It felt good to see them start to grow into their potential – after all, the goal of any good human resources manager was always to develop and nurture talent – but I had begun to worry that my value to the group was diminishing. I'd tried to assist Tamaki with the training program, reasoning that a larger pool of recruits necessitated more instructors to maximize the efficacy of the training, but I'd been roundly rebuffed by both Tamaki and Ohgi and all but ordered by Naoto to continue resting. So, I'd instead turned to Inoue, and helped her efforts to both coordinate the many humanitarian projects of the Rising Sun and to determine targets for Naoto to strike. It wasn't as direct of a way of demonstrating my continuing worth as joining Naoto on the nighttime streets in a balaclava, but sifting through intelligence and planning out attack strategies was unarguably a greater service to the cause than just being another soldier. Safer, too.
Just a pity that sitting down and calmly planning out the next move didn't do anything to reduce my restlessness.
A week after the dinner at the Rising Sun, Nagata and Ohgi successfully negotiated an introduction to the Six Houses of Kyoto from Mister Asahara. The shrewd old bastard had negotiated a generous "administrative fee" for his services as a middleman, but had allegedly given a "virtuous customer" discount to us in light of the events at the Rising Sun, which he had of course heard about from someone or another. He'd also, apparently, been very impressed with the use we'd put his products to in the station mission, and had extended both his compliments and a discount on the purchase of future explosive devices, contingent on the continued use of his work for "virtuous purposes". I had my doubts about his sincerity, since to my eyes Mister Asahara appeared to be a consummate survivor and a professional at being on the winning side, but if he was willing to give us a discount on future bomb purchases that in itself was another vote of confidence. If the wily old engineer thought we were on the right path, I'd hoped that he would pass that impression on to the Six Houses.
Finally, after a week of anxiously waiting on word from the enigmatic cabal of plutocrats, a meeting had been scheduled with a representative from Kyoto. The representative had opted to meet with us well outside of our territory in Shinjuku, and had given an address of a restaurant in one of the Honorary Britannian districts as the meeting location. I couldn't fault the abundance of caution displayed by the group – in their line of business, discretion was undoubtedly the better part of valour – and so soon Ohgi and I found ourselves in one of the seedier parts of the Concession, not too far from Shinjuku itself. I wonder if the zoning is purely to remind the Honorary Britannians of their place, or if it's just that the proximity to the ghetto brings down property values enough to be affordable to Honorary Britannians?
Ohgi was dressed as a servant, in a moderately nice suit with his usual pompadour combed flat, while I wore a nice blouse and jacket combination I'd allowed Kallen to bully me into letting her buy for me once she'd gotten wind of this meeting. Together, we hopefully looked like a precocious middle-class Britannian girl having a bit of an adventure by visiting the Honorary Britannian district, with a long-suffering Honorary Britannian servant forced into acting as my minder. Unfortunately, Ohgi spoke almost no Britannian, which would have made the whole charade untenable, but thanks to the many trips to the Tokyo Settlement I'd taken with Kallen over the last month, my Britannian had significantly improved. While traces of my Germanian accent still lingered, they weren't enough to immediately make me sound like a foreigner. In addition, my insistence that Kallen only speak to me in Britannian during our trips through the Settlement had considerably expanded my vocabulary, not only in terms of the proper expressions but also in the all-important field of slang. If anybody tried to talk to Ohgi, I could just play the part of the pain in the ass Britannian kid and force my way into the conversation.
The restaurant was an example of "Britannian style dining", according to the sign on the door, and to my eyes appeared like a cross between the family-style restaurants of the Japan of my first life, and an English pub I had visited once at the insistence of my boss. The Britannian flag and the imperial coat of arms were everywhere, from the flags draped over the counter to the numerous framed photographs of Britannian and Honorary Britannian soldiers in triumphant poses. Apparently, this establishment catered to soldiers, as a small sign by the register promised a 20% discount to any uniformed service personnel. Fortunately, the restaurant was nearly empty at two in the afternoon, a group of street cleaners in overalls clustered in a booth being the only customers aside from a tired looking young man in a worn yet clean and neatly pressed suit.
As we entered the restaurant, the tired man slowly looked up from his plate of fried fish and potatoes and nodded at us, before returning his attention to his cod. I gestured for Ohgi to join the man at the table before making my way to the counter and ordering for both of us. I was disheartened but not surprised that the menu completely lacked any sort of Japanese cuisine, and resigned myself to another temporary return to the Western-style food of my second life. After ordering a meat pie for Ohgi and a serving of 'bangers and mash' for myself, purposefully ignoring the host's offer of a children's menu, I made my way over to the table where Ohgi and the representative sat in uneasy silence.
As I dropped down into my seat, I weighed my options. I could follow in Ohgi's steps and simply sit silently until the representative spoke first, making him start the conversation and thus take the position of the supplicant. Alternatively, since Ohgi showed no signs of speaking and since the conversation would probably have to be carried out in Britannian lest we draw attention for speaking in a taboo language in an Honorary Britannian establishment, I could start the conversation, thus seizing the initiative.
I'd played chess occasionally, never enough to be particularly good at it, but enough to understand the basics of the game. It was, after all, one of the most commonly used visual metaphors when it came to negotiation or strategy of any kind, so it would have been foolish to attend the War College of a major European power without at least basic familiarity with the game. I understood the argument that black has an inherent advantage by dint of conceding the first move to white, and thus having the luxury of reacting instead of acting. That said, one of the many lessons I'd learned both climbing the corporate ladder and trying to survive the largest war to ever blemish the face of that world was that taking the initiative was the key to success. If I hadn't taken the initiative to enlist in the Army and had instead waited to be drafted, I doubted I would have enjoyed such a rapid trip up the table of ranks. If I hadn't taken the initiative and pushed Ugar towards the Logistics Corps, he might have proven to be serious competition for my advancement – instead, we'd both profited, as I'd gained a valuable ally and he'd gained a respectable career in a safe detachment. If I hadn't taken the initiative and presented myself as a serious and intelligent recruit to Ohgi and Naoto within the first day of knowing them, I would have had a hard time convincing them to take me seriously later on.
I always played white.
"How was the trip in from Kyoto? I've heard plenty of wonderful things about the new maglev line – such an example of the many improvements brought to Area 11, hmm?" It was always tricky, initiating a new business relationship, especially when the person on the other side of the table is a complete stranger. A little small talk to break the ice and get the conversation rolling seemed like the safest option.
To his credit, the man from Kyoto seemed entirely unsurprised for the younger of his conversational partners to be taking the lead on the conversation. Not even a momentary flicker of surprise was evident on his face as he carefully nodded, daubing a bit of grease from his fish away from his mouth. Either he's naturally phlegmatic, or somebody briefed him in advance. "Yes, quite. I'm sure it will make the transportation of merchandise to the Kanto region far simpler in the coming months." He gave me a bland, empty smile that meant nothing at all. "You come quite highly recommended, Miss Hawthorne. According to our contact, you have proven yourself to be quite the dynamo of late. I'm happy you were able to take time out of your busy schedule to meet with me."
"Hawthorne"? ...I suppose using 'Hajime' would be a bad move here. Wonder if he came up with it himself, or was it Mister Asahara's doing?
"It's no problem." I smiled back, equally blandly, and idly gestured at Ohgi. "I'm lucky to have quite a few well-trained and intelligent subordinates – and you know how hard it is to find good help these days." It's always important to share credit where it's due, even if the recipient can't understand what you're currently saying. Plus, no need to come off as some kind of primadonna. I needed to appear to be a good and reliable partner. "Besides, I would hate to make you or your home office feel slighted. I'm quite eager to expand our operations, and your help would be instrumental in accelerating that process."
The meaningless smile returned, just as empty as ever. "Regrettably, there is a slight... issue, with your application. While your ability to inspire confidence and handle domestic competition has been superb thus far, your organization has shown a distinctly lackluster degree of... enthusiasm, when it comes to reaching out into foreign markets." The professional smile beneath the representative's weary eyes appeared to gain a degree of smugness, but it was impossible to nail down the exact micro-expression that conveyed the implied message of superiority and thus take offense; nonetheless, it was clear this smug collaborator was looking down at me. "Until you manage to shore up that portion of your portfolio and display concrete achievements when it comes to the Britannian market, I'm afraid we cannot provide material support, much less investment."
Fucking damn it! In an instant, the meeting had gone from promising to horrible. I should've known just focusing on the gangs would come back to bite me! It was suddenly clear to me: The Six Houses backed anti-Britannian groups, not just armed groups in general! By focusing my initial efforts on cleaning up Shinjuku, I'd inadvertently signaled that our group was purely focused on internal matters! Damn it, don't these old men understand how important it is to build up a power base before picking a fight with a global empire?! Even as I fumed, I knew it didn't matter. The oligarchs in Kyoto had all the power in this exchange, and the price for access to their resources and support was dead Britannians, and I didn't even bring a single Britannian casualty to the table. Fuck, Mister Asahara must have really talked me up for them to have met with me at all.
Even as I internally panicked, I maintained my calm exterior, smile and all. When negotiating, no matter how dire your situation, you must never show weakness, after all. "I understand your organization's concern, though I am very sorry to hear it. Are there any specific export quotas we must meet, or priority targets you wish us to achieve, before I can convince you to reconsider your stance on my group?" I was foolish – I didn't ask Asahara what the Six Houses would specifically want before asking him to contact them! Best to just get their demands straight from the horse's mouth while the representative is here.
To my irritation, the tired man seated across the cheap Formica table simply shrugged, that galling smile still smeared across his baggy face. "Nothing in particular comes to mind. Just... show some results, make it nice and public, and make sure it's in the... foreign sector. Use your imagination – according to our contact, you've got plenty of that, Miss Hawthorne. If you actually manage to achieve anything, well..." That damned smile seemed to grow another inch, and the lips rotated in slightly, baring his teeth at me in a condescending gesture of amusement. "Don't call us, we'll call you. Maybe we'll decide to invest in your little... company after all."
And with that, he popped the last bite of his fried fish in his mouth, stood up, dropped his napkin on the plate, and left. The entire meeting had been, start to finish, just under five minutes.
Ohgi and I hadn't even gotten our meals yet.
Ohgi watched the man from Kyoto leave, and then turned to me and summed up the entire situation in one of the few Britannian phrases he'd picked up from Naoto.
"Well, fuck."
Naoto was irritated, but unsurprised, to hear the outcome of our meeting with the Kyoto House representative. "They're supposed to be pretty choosy." He shrugged as he took the kettle off the hotplate and poured hot water into three cups, drowning the teabags contained within. "It's annoying, but it's their money, so... guess it's up to us to meet their demands."
"I suppose you are correct," I sighed, and accepted a cup from Naoto. "I guess the armed insurrectionist market is just like every other part of a free economy, in that the customer is always right." It was galling to admit, but there was no point in trying to deny the obvious. We lacked any leverage over the Six Houses to compel them to commit resources to our organization, which meant we'd have to concede a degree of autonomy and give them a stake in our decision making process to secure backing. "That said, I think all of us were expecting something along these lines. Rich men, after all, don't stay rich by just giving money away without getting something in exchange."
Ohgi nodded, his acceptance laced with frustration. "True enough. Wish they'd just told us that this would be an issue before wasting our time with that meeting, though." Completely understandable. Beyond wasting our time, the restaurant the Kyoto representative had met us in had been appalling. The sausage, an unwanted but very tangible memory of my previous life, swam uneasily in my stomach, and judging by Ohgi's slight hunch, the meat pie was resisting all digestive efforts with equal vigor.
While it was tempting to continue the gripe session, our time would be better spent planning for the future instead of bemoaning the past. "The meeting wasn't entirely fruitless; at least we know what the Six Houses want in exchange for their support – namely, dead Britannians." I looked down at my tea, and pulled the teabag out before it began to over-steep. "This is not an... unreasonable demand, especially not from where they're sitting in Kyoto, but it's a thorny issue here in Shinjuku."
I didn't need to say why that was the case – both Naoto and Ohgi were already nodding. Ohgi probably remembered the collective punishments from years past just as well as I did – a hundred Elevens for every Britannian knifed in a back alley or hit by a lucky potshot – and Naoto had been in Shinjuku long enough to hear the stories, to see the walls with the neat lines of bullet holes. The Britannian counter-insurgency methods had been brutally effective in the years immediately following the Conquest, and I had little doubt that our occupiers would return to the same bag of tricks if they learned rebellion was blooming in Shinjuku.
"As far as I can tell," Ohgi began, speaking slowly, deliberately, "and correct me if I'm wrong, but the Kyoto man only said that the Britannians had to die publicly, right? There was no requirement that we specifically had to publicly claim credit for their deaths, yeah?"
I carefully replayed the representative's words in my head. Show some results, make it nice and public... "No, he never said we had to claim the attacks. He seemed certain that they'd know if we were responsible." I thought about where Ohgi was going with this, and thought I saw what he was implying.
When I had reoriented the Kozuki Cell, I had framed the decision to target the criminal gangs of Shinjuku in lieu of Britannians as a way of building a power base in Shinjuku and securing a monopoly on potential recruits, but if I was being honest, that decision had also been informed by my experiences as a child. I'd come within a hair's breadth of being part of the hundred put up against a wall once, and I remembered the helpless terror at the prospect, the sick relief when the apartment my mother and I were living in wasn't chosen, and the disgust as I'd been forced to walk past the bloody wall and the heaped bodies of the unlucky hundred. I hadn't wanted to inflict that kind of suffering on others in my former situation, not without a significant and definable gain at least. I also didn't want to be hated by the people of Shinjuku for getting their family slaughtered by vengeful Britannians, the way I had despised the rebel groups of yesteryear for endangering my life.
At the same time, I had always known that at some point, I wouldn't be able to put off directly striking at the Britannians any longer. People were going to die, Japanese that I wanted to preserve for the future prosperity of Area 11 included. That was unfortunately the price tag of a better life; that said, I would do everything in my power to drive the number of Japanese that had to die for the future of people down as low as I could manage. If the men from Kyoto, comfortably warm in mid-December and absolutely sure of their next meals, wanted to force my hand on the issue and move the time table up, I couldn't stop them – but I could mitigate the risk to my people, to the people who would rebuild Area 11 into a prosperous province once again.
"We need to get Kyoto on our side. We need the weapons they can provide, and the money they can funnel into our accounts. Agreed? " When pitching a plan, start on common ground, and get the buy-in of stakeholders.
Naoto and Ohgi nodded in agreement, eyes fixed on mine. Effortlessly, I quashed the first stirrings of mild anxiety. There's no need to fear – we're comrades in this endeavor.
"So we need to kill Britannians. But as Ohgi just pointed out, we don't need to kill Britannians as a rebel group, or even as Japanese. Naoto," I turned my attention fully on the redheaded half-noble as I took a quick sip from my cup. "you've already got your merry little band of assassins in training – what if we smuggled them into the Britannian Concession, and simply had them waylay and knife random Britannians out late at night? If we do it right, perhaps we can dupe the authorities into thinking there's a serial murderer on the loose?"
Naoto looked thoughtful, but Ohgi was shaking his head. "I like the idea, Tanya, but the idea of just murdering random people in the street... I mean, they're Britannians, but how does that help us?" Ohgi had a point there – knifing random civilians wouldn't do much to advance our goals, beyond fulfilling the minimum requirement imposed by Kyoto House.
"That's a fair point, Ohgi." Always acknowledge useful input. "We still need some Britannian blood on our hands to attract outside investment from Kyoto, though. Do you have any suggestions?"
Ohgi leaned forward slightly. "Instead of knifing random Britannian civilians, how about we target someone who actually deserves it? The Purists, for example?" I winced at the overconfidence on display. We just managed to take down one piddly gang, and you think we're ready for political assassinations, Ohgi? Dammit, man!
I tried to think of a way to let Ohgi down gently, to try and find a way to phrase my opinion of his... ambitious idea in a polite and inoffensive way, but before I could say anything, Naoto was already shaking his head at Ohgi. "Ohgi, bro, look... All of the big time Purists are nobles, so they're gonna have security. We're not ready to try and kill nobles in their manors, not while getting away with it."
Then it was Ohgi's turn to furiously shake his head in negation. "No, I don't mean the officers – I mean just the normal soldiers! I already said that I liked Tanya's idea of bringing your unit into the Tokyo Settlement, Naoto, I just objected to killing random civilians!" Ohgi turned towards me, teased pompadour bobbing slightly as he enthusiastically gesticulated. "Remember what Kallen said, about the divide between the Purists and the rest of the military in the Area? What if there's a street fight outside one of the bars where the soldiers go to drink, and a few Purists happen to get stabbed by men in Britannian uniform, eh? That's going to drive that rift wide open!"
Ohgi turned back to Naoto, eyes shining as he elaborated on his idea. "Plus, if we steal the right uniforms, the men will be able to blend in as Honorary Britannians. If Purists suddenly start dying at the hands of Honorary Britannian soldiers, that will definitely enrage the Purists!"
"Ohgi, that's an excellent idea!" I'd been infected by Ohgi's enthusiasm, but the idea was too brilliant to resist. "The Britannians already have a tradition of government by assassination, don't they? So this wouldn't even be too far out of character!" But what about the Honorary Britannians? I didn't want to start a pogrom against the Honorary Britannians – after all, given the opportunity I would have happily accepted the offer of second-class citizenship if it had actually been a path to a better life, or to some measure of safety. They might be collaborators, especially the Honorary Britannians who had chosen to serve in the Britannian army, but they were still Japanese human resources that could potentially be won back. Plus, Kallen might call me out for my hypocrisy if I suddenly announced that Honorary Britannians were the enemy. Hmm... How to redirect the anger away from the obvious target...?
"We need a Britannian to lead the hit squad." I saw Naoto and Ohgi's puzzled expressions, and hastily explained. "The Britannians would never believe that their pet Elevens decided to get up to the business of murdering Purists themselves – they'd think it was some rebel movement infiltrating the Honorary Britannian ranks, and start an investigation. But, if the 'Honorary Britannians' were directed by a Britannian..." I let the idea hang in the air for a moment, before continuing. "Plus, Honorary Britannian units are usually led by Britannians anyway, and usually nobles at that. Fortunately, we've got a noble of military age and build right here at this table." I nodded at Naoto. "If a group of Honorary Britannians tasked with following a young drunk junior officer around for a night on the town to keep him out of trouble happen to bump into some Purists, well... who knows what sparks might fly between a loudmouth and a group of arrogant idiots?"
Judging by the eager smile spreading over Naoto's face, the prospect of getting his hands dirty didn't trouble him in the least.
After that, the rest of the plan fell in line.
The best way to get uniforms, we decided, would be to steal a load of laundry from one of the Honorary Britannian barracks. We would need to find out when they sent the laundry out to be washed, and how the workers who collected the laundry dressed, and Naoto brought up Kallen's new role as a student reporter as a potential information gathering source. If a young noble lady pitched the idea of a patriotic article about barracks life to the commander of an Honorary Britannian unit, who likely would be desperate for recognition so he'd be promoted to command of a Britannian unit instead, getting an authorized tour of the barracks was entirely possible. We wouldn't be able to secure helmets or armor, but full battle rattle wouldn't be necessary if the unit of "soldiers" was just keeping an eye on an officer deep into his cups. We'd need at least one uniform from a junior officer, and ideally at least one soldier's uniform with a NCO's rank tabs to really pull off the idea of a nursemaiding detachment complete with an orderly.
Once we had the uniforms secured, the infiltrating party could wear them under the overalls typically worn by Eleven workers in the Settlement. Securing work permits would require a few bribes, but would be eminently doable, and once in the Settlement the team could hang around pretending to sweep streets or something similar until nightfall, when they could pull off the overalls and put on whatever bits of the Britannian uniforms that they hadn't been able to openly wear earlier.
In terms of scoping out potential locations, the districts catering to entertaining soldiers were already well-known to us, since those districts employed plenty of Eleven labor for a variety of tasks. Still, Kallen and I could visit one or more of those areas in the next few days to survey the lay of the land and identify bars and brothels that looked like they catered to the Purists' sensibilities – hiring low-class Britannians as entertainers, for example, instead of the cheaper Elevens. Perhaps we'd even be able to pitch that as another potential article for Kallen's budding career as a reporter, though that might draw a bit too much suspicion to her. Ohgi had winked and suggested that nobody would disturb a pair of cute girls out on a nice dinner date before Naoto smacked him, but I had to conclude that his joking idea had some merit, much to Naoto's visible irritation.
Once Naoto and his group found potential targets, they would do everything they could to start a fight, ideally dragging in other soldiers in the area into the fight as well. Considering how public the divide between the main officer corps and the Purist leadership under Lord Kewell was, it was highly probable the feelings of animosity had filtered down to the lower ranks, so hopefully provoking a brawl between the Britannian factions would be fairly easy. Either way, as soon as the fighting began in earnest, the "Honorary Britannians" backing Naoto would move in on the Purists, ideally with at least one man to pin the target's limbs and another to wield the knife. As soon as the blood hit the street, Naoto's unit would break contact and disappear into the night, discarding any clothing with visible splatter marks and pulling their overalls back on. They'd find a place to lay low throughout the rest of the night, and join the ranks of weary Elevens slouching back into the ghetto early the next morning.
Ohgi was somewhat dissatisfied with the plan, citing both the number of moving parts involved and the amount of luck we were relying on, particularly when it came to the assassins escaping pursuit and returning to Shinjuku without being detected. He also pointed out that, even if everything went off as planned, there was no guarantee that Kyoto would recognize the deaths of a handful of Purist soldiers presumably at the hands of their erstwhile comrades as our work. I had to concede his last point, but I pointed out that the strike on the station market had a similar number of variables, and that every plan relied on good luck to a degree. "The Kyoto representative said they'd contact us if they changed their mind," I pointed out. "If that's the case, let them gather their own intelligence – either they'll recognize our worth and they'll help us out, or they won't. Either way, the chance to turn the Britannians against each other is far too good to pass up. If they're busy fighting each other, they likely won't notice their pet gangs being rolled up in Shinjuku until it's too late." Besides, if the Britannians really do decide to take their anger out on their collaborators, that will surely undermine faith in the Honorary Britannian system. Who knows, perhaps the Britannians will do our work for us, and provoke an outright mutiny among their slave soldiers?
And so, the plan to dip our daggers into the Britannian back was tentatively agreed upon, and I texted Kallen to arrange our next trip into the Settlement.
A week before Christmas, the streets of the Tokyo Settlement thrummed with the frantic energy of consumerism as consumers darted their way from store to store, engaging in an orgy of purchasing. Bundled in my still-new black jacket and a purple knit cap topped with a large bobble purchased on my behalf by Kallen, I wondered at the existence of Christmas in this universe, and at its enthusiastic if capitalistic celebration by the Britannians. It was frankly baffling that Christianity, much less the Christmas holiday, had survived in this universe, which had departed from the history of my original world in the days of Julius Caesar, if not earlier. I had known that Britannia was officially a Holy Empire, and I vaguely remembered from my lessons at the Shinjuku School for Elevens that the imperial family lived on Saint Darwin's Street, but I hadn't thought about the implications of those bits of trivia before – I'd been more concerned with making it through the day. Now, though, as I walked and talked with my friend through the streets of the Tokyo Settlement, I could only shake my head at the number of Santa caps I could see bobbing through the crowd.
"-so it shouldn't be too difficult." I forced my attention away from the bizarre commonalities across the multiverse, and focused back on Kallen's observations about the Honorary Britannian barracks. "I mean, based on what I saw, the staff at the barracks all just wear blue boiler suits, and I know that Nagata's got a whole pile of those things stashed away somewhere for plumbing work and the like. Anyway, as long as the team's out of the complex by thirteen-hundred, before the normal crew shows up, nobody's going to know the difference."
"We're going to need to rent a truck." I noted as I squeezed through a gap between two groups of slow-moving pedestrians, Kallen close behind. "If the team is just hauling big sacks of laundry through the Concession, it's going to draw attention."
"And one without the usual rental markers." Kallen agreed, capturing my hand in hers and gently but firmly tugging me onto a municipal bus, swiping her card twice over the reader. "The usual group just used a white panel one, I think. They were pulling around the back just as I was leaving. We're getting off in five stops, by the way."
I nodded in response and stopped looking for a seat, grabbing one of the support poles instead as the bus lurched into motion. Beside me, Kallen easily swayed with the motion, ignoring the jostling crowd around us as she looked down at the writing scrawled across her miniature notepad. She truly looked the part of the young reporter, diligently hunting the next scoop under her black and gray checked billed cap, the soft brown leather of her fitted jacket contrasting nicely with both her shoulder length red hair and the green silk blouse she wore underneath the jacket and a tailored black vest. The black slacks and low-heeled boots completed the look, and I felt a familiar surge of envy at how easily Kallen moved and balanced in heels. I had no desire to wear the silly things, of course, but I was almost certain that I'd have fallen over when the bus started moving if I'd been wearing those shoes, support pole or not.
Focus, dammit! I shook my head, trying to clear my mind and get back on track. "So, how was it visiting an Honorary Britannian unit's base? Was it frightening?" I carefully pitched my Britannian to have the right notes of curiosity, awe, and concern. Now that I'd become fully conversational in the language of the invader, I had been working with Kallen to refine my delivery to fit my apparent age and appearance. A middle-class Britannian girl still two months shy of her twelfth birthday was going to be sheltered, I decided, and amazed at the daring of her older friend to brave the den of the barbarian horde of mildly-civilized Elevens. Never mind that they aren't even trusted to carry weapons, I sneered internally at the thought, and never mind that they've accepted that insult with just as much resistance as they have the thousand that came before it either.
Kallen looked up from her notebook and smirked down at me, eyes dancing with amusement at my piping and worshipful tones, and I cursed her roundly from the safety of my head. "It wasn't scary at all, Tanya! They're just infantry, you know, not Knightmare devicers or anything like that. Plus, there was a whole battalion of Britannians keeping me busy, so it's not like I was lacking for chaperones!" Her smirk transmuted into a mocking smile. "Just had to fawn over their uniforms and say how brave and strong they all were, and they couldn't wait to tell me anything I wanted to know!" Kallen flipped to another page in her notepad before handing it over. "Including all the locations where they and other soldiers drink, and where the Purists usually make nuisances of themselves. Apparently, there's already been several fights – one of the lieutenants even spent a few nights in the brig until the major had him let out."
I nodded appreciatively as I ran my eyes down the list of names and addresses of entertainment facilities patronized by soldiers, all jolted down in lilac ink in Kallen's fine handwriting. I noticed about a third of the addresses had hearts beside them, and asked about that as I handed the notepad over.
"Brothels." Kallen replied, as she flipped the pad closed and tucked it back into her purse.
"Ah, brothels." I'd never patronized sex workers when I'd been a man, I'd died before I'd ever had the first inclination to engage one of the camp followers that always seemed to lurk around the back lines, and of course in this life I'd never had any interest to go anywhere near the "entertainment districts" near the checkpoints into Shinjuku closest to the Britannian barracks. That said, I doubted any man, Purist or otherwise, could be more vulnerable than when they were freshly... spent, and in all probability drunk to boot. "I'm surprised they mentioned them to you."
Kallen shook her head with an expression of mingled disgust and pity. "One of the Britannnian privates I spoke to while waiting for the Captain to be available for an interview was seventeen, and very eager to let me know how worldly he was." I'd rarely felt so in tune with the feminine as I did in that moment as I exchanged a scornful look with Kallen that just said Boys! loud enough to nearly be audible.
We continued to chat as the bus slowly rolled its way down the packed streets of the Britannian Concession. This was the third time Kallen had invited me to accompany her into the Settlement since the memorable night of the first communal dinner, and each time I'd left the ghetto the streets had grown increasingly congested. By the time Kallen had rescued me from the apartment after a week of enforced bed rest and light chores, the Christmas lights had been up for days and the commercial feeding frenzy had well and truly begun. I'd mulled over the possibility of smuggling one of Mister Asahara's finest toys out of the ghetto and into one of the many crowded stores, the results of which would have no doubt fulfilled Kyoto House's stipulation, but ultimately I had decided against taking advantage of the dense throngs of shoppers. The deaths of any Britannian shoppers would undoubtedly be hung around the necks of the Honorary Britannians and the Elevens that worked menial jobs in the glittering shopping centers.
Which brought me back to the night's itinerary. Kallen had found a small bistro in the nearby entertainment district located only two streets away from a brothel that specialized in Britannian working girls, imported straight from the homeland for Britannia's native sons in far off Area 11.
The brothel, the 'Lacy Garter', was apparently owned through a holding company, to preserve respectability, by a Sir George Carew, whose son was a member of the Purist branch in the area of the world I had known as Argentina. I had found it fascinating that apparently Britannian brothel culture was just as strictly stratified as the rest of Britannian society, with the institutions run in the ghetto itself reserved for Honorary Britannians, Britannians engaged in "manual trades", or soldiers under the rank of Corporal. So Ohgi probably was right about what happened to her. A crowd of drunken soldiers, having fun raising hell in the ghetto because they weren't good enough to visit a bordello in the Settlement... Interestingly, Kallen had found a whole guide about this very topic, which she had been kind enough to allow me to read off her phone as I pressed up against her side. I noted that there was no mention of the underground fleshpits that Inoue had told me about. Even the underworld has a sordid, undesirable side in Britannia...
Between the ethnicity of the prostitutes available at the 'Lacy Garter', and the fact that the owner was likely a Purist sympathizer at the very least, Naoto and Kallen believed that it was the most likely place to find obvious Purists after nightfall. So, under the guise of two friends enjoying a slightly risque trip to the seedier side of town, Kallen and I would use the excuse of dinner to keep an eye on the foot traffic in the area to see if the Kozuki siblings' guess had proven correct. If not, there were several other similar locations scattered around the Tokyo Settlement for us to survey, which would give me the excuse to enjoy more food that I didn't have to cook myself.
As we got off the bus, I noticed the general mood of the street had changed. The holiday decorations had thinned out, and the demographics of the crowd had shifted from mostly female and middle aged to predominantly male and young. Groups of out of uniform enlisted soldiers and sailors, still obviously military from their body language, milled in the cold air and drank openly from cans, bottles, and flasks. Interestingly, Britannian soldiers didn't appear to be under any requirement to keep their hair short, as soldiers had been in my first life. All of the obviously military young men around me had hair at least to ear level, and a few even had shoulder-length hair. The young women drinking and laughing with the men who were not dressed in skimpy dresses and tiny bolero jackets also had long hair, with one notable blonde sporting a nearly waist-length braid.
It was very strange, seeing the young soldiers of Britannia out of uniform for the first time. The soldiers manning the checkpoints of the ghetto wore helmets with face-plates and built-in gas masks; when the Britannians conducted raids and operations in the ghetto, the only men not wearing the standard full face concealing mask were officers, who foolishly wore uniform caps even in active combat zones. Guess they think they don't need to worry about snipers while lining people up against the nearest wall. Due to their role as the ground-level face of the occupation, not to mention their masks, it was easy to forget that the men and women inside those uniforms were just as human and varied as any other group of people. After spending so much time around Westerners in my second life, many of the faces I saw around me looked eerily familiar. That man downing a can of cheap light beer in a single long draft had the same hairstyle as Weiss, and the man next to him cheering his efforts could have been... Well, not Grantz's brother, but maybe a cousin. He's got the same nose.
It was strange, seeing the features of my long lost... subordinates... in the faces of my enemies. I almost wondered if I approached the now spluttering man and yelled "Weiss!" at his back if he would instinctively snap to attention, the way the man himself always had when surprised... I wonder if any of these men have beaten a whore before? The thought bubbled up from deep inside, like filthy bubbles of captured gas stirred up from the muck of a riverbed. Immediately, the vague warmness of nostalgia fled, and I remembered that murmured conversation I'd overheard between Ohgi and Naoto, both well into their cups, only a week after I'd moved into their apartment. "Just another Eleven whore, beaten to death in the slum. Nobody's going to care, Naoto, especially since she usually worked near the barracks. Probably ran into a crowd of drunk soldiers, you know how that story goes."
I didn't resist when Kallen took my hand and pulled me along into the crowd, following her phone's directions to the bistro she'd picked out for tonight's dinner, and I duly kept up my side of the inane chatter that was a key part of our "disguise". I carefully made sure to smile, to laugh, and to not look too long into the dark alleyways between the brick facades. I even ate my dinner, every last bite mechanically deposited into my mouth and chewed without an instant of taste. But for the rest of the evening, all I could picture were bruises upon bruises, gone yellow in the center and ringed with purple, and all I could hear was weeping, the dull sound of thrusting not quite muffled by a thin pillow.
I'll never be able to find the ones who killed her, but that just means that every single one of them could have been there... And a good worker never leaves a job half-finished. I laughed at Kallen's joke, sipping on my coffee as she jotted down her observations on the bistro for the other part of our cover, a review of the cafe for the Ashford student newspaper, and wondered what the woman who I'd barely known would have said if she knew what her daughter was planning. I hoped she would be pleased, as I had an unsettled debt I owed her, but unless Being X was feeling particularly cruel I would never really know. Fitting, since I never really knew her in life either.
Several days later, Naoto and Nagata arrived at the hideout, hauling several bags of freshly stolen laundry down the two flights of stairs into the sub-basement. I sat idly at the table, munching on a baloney and lettuce sandwich as the two staggered over to the storage section of the hideout and dropped their heavy burdens at the foot of the shelves, secure in my excuse of not wanting to endanger my stitches to the point where I felt no need to hurl myself headfirst into any available work. The four recruits who had been blazing away at paper targets with Britannian Army-issue coilgun pistols, however, weren't so lucky.
"Cease fire! Safe your weapons! Are you tryin' tah kill me, you idiots?!" Tamaki's bellow effortlessly overwhelmed the sounds of electromagnetically accelerated firearms, and within seconds all four pistols were safe'd and on the range's table in a neat row. "You lot are getting sloppy! Take a five minute break from shooting - and help Naoto haul that fucking garbage inside! Go, go, go!"
It had been a surprise, watching Tamaki in action as a trainer. Despite the way he was swaggering around and barking at them, the recruits all grinned back at Tamaki as he bossed them around, and Hojo even gave him a mocking salute. I would have stepped in to discourage the disrespectful response, but all four immediately hustled over to Naoto and Nagata, helping them move the bags out of the way and following the pair back up stairs to haul down the next load. I'd initially encouraged Ohgi, and through him Naoto, to put Tamaki in charge of training at least partially to give Tamaki some experience with responsibility and with leadership, but I'd harbored admittedly mixed expectations of his performance. I'd hoped he'd be able to teach them the basics of obedience, of whatever physical training program he did to get so lean and muscular, and the basics of firearm use and maintenance, but I hadn't expected him to handle the first batch of recruits entrusted to him half as well as he had. Frankly, it wasn't the way I would have trained them, and it was certainly a far cry from either the methods or the philosophy I had used when training my beautiful 203rd, but the situation was far different as well. It had been made clear to me by events over the last eight months that an irregular group like our own ran not on obedience to a hierarchy, but influence from personal bonds and from the reputation garnered by one's actions and capabilities. Tamaki was well on his way to developing both with his trainees.
The former gangsters obviously had a familiarity with violence, but that was almost more of a hindrance than anything else, from what Tamaki told me. They had never been trained to fight, picking up everything as they went, and apparently they were full of bad habits. One of the men hadn't taken kindly to Tamaki saying as much during the first days of their training, and it hadn't been until Tamaki had slammed him to the ground and pinned him three times in a "best three of five" set of free-form brawls that he'd finally started listening. The ex-gangsters were clearly accustomed to taking orders from people they perceived as strong, which was a good thing both for their training and for the process of weaning Hojo off the painkiller addiction he'd confessed at the Rising Sun building. Despite the man's nausea, anxiety, and the pain radiating from his scarred limb, Hojo was still holding strong and listening to Tamaki's commands, with Naoto's occasional support. Tamaki had proven remarkably sympathetic, according to Naoto, and the two of them apparently were already friends despite Tamaki's status as Hojo's teacher and supervisor. Reputation and personal influence, both artless in their sincerity. Tamaki was indeed proving his worth as a training officer.
Unfortunately, in recovery or not, Hojo would not be accompanying Tamaki and Naoto into Tokyo. He and his fellow ex-gangster recruit, Hina, the sole female of the cohort, wouldn't fit the role of "Honorary Britannian soldiers", since as far as Kallen had discovered in her information gathering the only units of Honorary Britannian soldiers in the area were entirely male. That said, the other two male recruits were apparently coming along splendidly, according to Tamaki's reports. They would be more than capable of playing the silent Honorary Britannian muscle, following a slacking officer around and keeping the muggers away from his wallet, up until it came time to play the part of the sicarii.
As the recruits came back down the stairs with more bulging canvas sacks slung over their shoulders, I decided to be mildly productive and diverted two of the laundry bags over to my table, bolting down the last of my sandwich as Hojo staggered over, sweating from the exertion of rushing up and down stairs with a load and presumably, also from his ongoing withdrawal pains. I thanked him around a mouthful of lunch meat, earning a wan smile that was half a painful grimace, before he staggered off to rejoin his cohort over at the range. For a criminal, he has a commendable work ethic.
Doing my best to ignore the stench of sweat and filth, I dumped the first sack onto the table, and started going through the heap of clothing. Naoto soon joined me, and we sifted through the heap of unwashed fatigues, finally separating out three complete sets of fatigues, including the real prize, a uniform shirt and jacket with a first sergeant's rank tabs. We set those aside, along with three undershirts, to be washed and dried for the upcoming mission. Finding an officer's uniform took a surprisingly short time, since unlike the enlisted and NCOs whose individual laundry sacks were crammed into larger formation-level bags, the officers' laundry was bagged separately. The challenging part was finding a uniform that fit Naoto's tall frame and broad shoulders, since it seemed like the three lieutenants were all shorter and than he was. Ultimately, Naoto ended up with a captain's uniform with sewn-on lieutenant tabs. In the unlikely event that anybody noticed, hopefully they'd chalk the minor discrepancy up to a recent demotion, which might help to explain why he was drunkenly wandering around and picking fights.
"Whew! Glad that's over." Naoto stood up from the couch and stretched, before knuckling his back, sighing with satisfaction at something popped under the kneading motion. "Never thought I'd end up pawing through other men's dirty laundry for the cause – or at least, not this literally! Eh?" He smiled down at me, moving his eyebrows up and down like a stereotypical dirty old man.
I gave his weak attempt at humor the pity laugh obligated by the mores of society, and the fool dramatically groaned his misery at the response, palming his face and sinking back to the couch. "Misery! Oh misery! I have given so much, sacrificed so much for Japan, and yet I'm still mocked by the youth! What will become of us old folk, subject to the whims of evil children?"
"Cry the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end." I replied in Britannian, quoting a book I was certain had never been written in this universe, and certainly would not have been allowed to see the light of day if it were. "After all, you've still got to wash your laundry so you don't drive the Purists with your stench before you can put a knife between their ribs. Also, you should probably wash all the other uniforms too – we might need them later." I considered volunteering to take a few of the recruits and get started on the task, but then I remembered Naoto's pathetic joke and reconsidered. "I would, of course, help you out, oh Glorious Leader, but my wound sadly leaves me incapable of scrubbing clothes enough to get the stench of traitors out – so I guess it's up to you."
Naoto let out a second, more elaborate, groan of anguish and collapsed back onto the couch. I patted his knee with feigned sympathy and got to my feet, scooping up the backpack Kallen had given me months back and swinging it onto my back as I rose. "By the way," I began, dropping the mockingly obsequious tone, "Tomorrow's going to be Christmas Eve, and two weeks to the day from the meeting with Kyoto House. I'm sure they're impatiently waiting to see what we'll do to earn their good graces and support – and I'm also sure that there will be plenty of drunken soldiers wandering around." I turned back to Naoto, who'd straightened up on the couch, and smiled at him. "Why don't you and your boys join the festivities, and go get the old men in Kyoto a nice Christmas present tomorrow night?"
Naoto paused for a moment, turning the idea over in his head, and nodded. "I'll tell Kallen to get four work passes arranged for tomorrow." He stood up, and pulled out his phone, following me to the door of the hideout. Behind us Tamaki yelled something indistinct, and the sounds of coilguns began to echo through the subterranean concrete box once more. "There'll definitely be lots of need for street cleaners tomorrow, so I expect there will be more passes issued to handle all the holiday bullshit than normal. We've already got the overalls and such for each man, so once the uniforms are clean we'll be ready."
I nodded my satisfaction and almost turned to go when I saw a somewhat shifty expression cross the other half-Britannian's face. "Out with it."
Naoto coughed, and started to blush, visibly embarrassed. "I, uhh... I can't sew. I'm going to need some, umm... help to get the rank tabs onto the uniform." Being significantly taller than my four and a quarter feet, Naoto of course always looked down at me in the literal sense, but in that moment he somehow seemed shorter than I was. It's probably the puppy-dog eyes. "Could you help me get them on please, Tanya? I don't want to ask Kallen... The last time I got her to sew a patch onto my jeans, she said she'd start charging if I ever asked again."
I felt the desire to leave him to whatever market price Kallen could extort from his lazy body. Why the hell can't he just learn to sew himself? Unfortunately, as someone else had discovered in a different life, my tolerance to the "sad puppy look" was intolerably low. I felt an irritated groan rise in my throat, and stifled it only with determined effort. Why do I keep agreeing to help people? I'm supposed to be a ruthless guerrilla, a rebel fighting a shadow war, dammit! "Wash the fucking uniform first. I'm not going to let my nostrils be polluted with the stink of Britannia any longer!"
As Naoto boomed out an overly enthusiastic "Thank you!", I turned on my heel and stormed off, jealous that the redheaded louse would soon have the opportunity to blow off some steam in the Britannian Concession, complete with a work related excuse to stagger around the entertainment areas of town feigning public intoxication and the opportunity to engage in some highly unprofessional conduct. Meanwhile, I'm still benched at home thanks to my already all-but healed flesh wound, left to do the domestic work and helping out with the Rising Sun's paperwork while my leader gets to knife whoremongering Purists!
I suddenly realized what I had been thinking and came to a stop in the street outside the ruined tenement that cloaked the entrance to the hideout, replaying the last few points of my internal monologue. I'm... upset... that I have to stay back and do the rear echelon work... instead of going out and picking fights with Britannians...? That couldn't be right. I'd always wanted rear echelon work, and suddenly I'd had a perfect reason to stay safely away from combat dumped in my lap. My work was well respected, and everybody acknowledged my planning and support roles as valuable and necessary. I had a "salary" of food, funds and shelter, an outrageous degree of luxury in the slums, and I had a meaningful job with pleasant coworkers and the respect of my peers. By all logic, I had it made. So why am I so jealous of Naoto and the rest of his team? I paused, and then shook my head. It was just a foolish impulse, that's all.
But... The memory of laughing Britannians, drunk on cheap beer and the invincibility of youth, scantily clad women with mostly Japanese features with a few halfbreeds thrown in fawning over them in the street, trying not to shiver in the near-midwinter cold... "I wonder if any of these men have beaten a whore before?" Something still burned in me, as I imagined the bacchanalia of the entertainment district turning to horror as the sting of war intruded on the Britannian sector for a night, the way it always hung over Shinjuku like a choking shroud. I hoped lots of Britannians ended up blamed for the fight and the deaths sure to come, quixotic as the hope might be. It would be nice if the Britannians ended up beating each other to death in the streets for once, instead of some unlucky Eleven sister or daughter, wife or mother.
Forcing the fantasy away and the emotional lump in my throat back down, I ignored the feverish heat radiating from my belly and started walking again. I might not be on call to fight tomorrow night, but I could eat plenty and get lots of sleep before Naoto left for the Settlement. If any sign that something had gone wrong came through, I'd be ready to go with every bit of my pitiful magic available to bail them out. And hopefully leave a few empty places at the old Christmas dinner table myself.