Heh. This took a while, but I think I'm happy with it. Certainly, there's a bit of a plot twist.
Have at you.
*timestamp - grainy picture of Jipang delegation arriving in Windbloom, with 'And if they believe that's Tokiha, their intelligence services suck so badly that their using ours so often is actually justified. Vey.' on the side, in black marker.*
***
to remain chronologically accurate, a scene posted earlier in the thread should go here - the one with Ren and Katz and the crates from Aries. (would have linked it, but last I did that the whole damn post got _deleted_ and I was afraid I'd need to rewrite the whole of the scene below. Luckily, hitting *back* repeatedly managed to recover this much for me. Else I would have posted a much longer rant)
***
'It's been a busy few weeks,' i thought as I closed the door behind me.
Yes, I had an office-slash-living space again. Or rather, Kobayakawa had nearly moved into the workshop and had monopolized almost every flat surface available, forcing me to find another place to bunk and work in.
I wasn't even attempting to imagine how it'd look now that the shipment from Aries was here. I'd been keeping those crates on hand then because it had been more practical than having to make and hide a trip out to the Foundation to get them when I did need them.
I don't think I'd ever been quite that enthusiastic about working with new gadgets and whatnot, which, I suppose, is one of the reasons I'd never been much beyond average where tinkering technology was concerned.
This is why you subcontract.
Speaking of whom ...
"Parallel worlds. Meddling bastards who might as well be gods and like to play with peoples' fates. Whatever the hell it is you're pretending to be. Do you honestly expect me to believe that?" the redhead asked, sneering slightly.
Finding someone in the maze that the backstreets and alleys of Windbloom's capital made up wasn't easy, especially if that person didn't want to be found.
Fortunately enough, through Black's work with her, I knew at least one place and one time where Juliet-ane-san could be found.
I'd still owed her an explanation, if only because she'd done right by us ever since we'd established a working relationship. Also, because she'd conceded that the fact of Fujino-san's appearance wasn't something that needed to be brought to Garderobe's attention there and then.
So, after settling things with the Graceful Amethyst's younger counterpart and scribbling down a dispatch to be delivered to the Aries office, I'd made my way to meet with her.
The walk wasn't a long one, though it was enjoyable, if only because I didn't have to wear the damn suit for it. Rough cloth pants, a pair of runner boots, and a tan shirt with a hooded vest thrown over the top of it made sure I didn't draw too much attention.
As for the talk itself? For most of it, it had been a monologue of mine, and she'd been looking at me like I was somebody who'd just lost his mind.
"Just that? No," I shrugged. I turned my head to look over one shoulder.
The alley we'd been talking in was secluded enough, though empty wooden crates lined one of the walls. The warehouse said alley ran behind being the likely source.
The sound of shattering wood filled the air, a flash of amber predating it by an instant or two, before a cloud of shavings swept out behind me.
"Okay, you're not just a loon, you're a dangerous loon," Juliet-ane-san said after a moment, though her sneer had melted into a more thoughtful expression. Then she snickered. "Or you've got a really bad flatulence problem."
"Believe what you will," was my reply. "I just figured you deserved to know this much. There's something big in the works, and Schwarz is being unusualy quiet, recent events aside. Or careful. Which is never good. You and yours shouldn't let your guard down."
"Awww, how cute ... I didn't know you cared," she snarked, but I got the feeling that she was being sincere underneath all that, and willing to at least consider what I've told her. "It's not as if we usually do."
On the whole, the conversation with Juliet-ane-san had been both smoother and more rocky than the one I'd have with Ren regarding same.
Not because he didn't trust me as much as she did, because that was't the case at all.
I doubt Juliet-ane-san really trusted anyone but herself, in full.
It was simply because, while he certainly knew me better than the redhead did, his ties of loyalty were more binding. And more tangled.
Everything else aside, Ren was possibly one of the most responsible people I'd ever met, and he took his obligations very seriously.
With having Black on one end, and his cousin on the other, it really wouldn't have been much of a choice. But my little revelation didn't directly affect either Aries or his cousin.
Or I didn't think it did, at least.
Still, he'd decided to wait and see. That was the best I could have hoped for, really.
Because, let me tell you, finding someone else to take care of the more tedious administrative duties would have been a real chore this late in the game.
In the weeks since both those conversations had taken place, though, Schwarz had been less obvious about what they were doing than they usually were, which set me on edge. As, it seemed, it had done to Juliet-ane-san.
Yamada was due back soon enough, though, what with his business in Windbloom's capital, so maybe I'd get some extra input from that angle.
As for Fujino-san? She'd agreed to keep her hair short and dye it so that it was a slightly darker shade, and the blue-tinted contact lenses that Ren had gotten his hands on were being put to good use. That, along with her tendency to dress in clothes that most Windbloom residents considered Jipangese, made almost sure that whatever resemblance to Shizuru Viola she had was not all that obvious.
And two days after my talk with Juliet-ane-san, I found she'd wormed her way into and subverted nearly the whole analyst division of the Windbloom office. With positive results. Whereupon I gave up trying to find something for her to do lest she die of boredom - or decide to strike out on her own, like she had back in Aries - and simply put her on the payroll.
Whereupon I was summarily presented with a petition to get rid of most of the tea stores we had - some liked it better than they did coffee - and import some proper Jipangese leaves.
Three guesses who the instigator behind that was.
Other than that, it was mostly business as usual, with the Garderobe students who'd gone off to Aries coming back right around that time, and events starting once again to simply roll past with inevitable inertia.
Until about a week ago, when I'd found that there was a delegation from Jipang coming here.
Fujino-san, with whom I'd been going over some recent data there and then, had taken on an expression between puzzlement and disbelief upon coming across the name of the noble who was heading said delegation.
Now the delegation was in town, and Shizuru had, ostensibly, taken a day off.
I wasn't as much worried as I was concerned, but I'd managed to hold some of that in for most of the day.
Now, though, I knew I wouldn't be able to get any sort of work done unless I cleared that bit of uncertainty regarding my newest and perhaps most unusual employee up.
So I dropped by Ren's 'den' - nicknamed so by almost everybody in the office, because he was stuck there so often nowadays. Yes, he'd done well enough with managing most of the kipple that were our operations in Windbloom that I'd settled for letting him take over at least part of them again once I'd come back from my leave of absence - and told him I'd be out for a bit. It was met with grumbles, meaning he was neck deep in going through reports - something that usually happened at this time of the month.
It didn't take long to find Fujino-san ... or rather, for her to run across me while I was crossing one of bridges over the canal which ran through the city.
And she wasn't alone.
And I really wished I hadn't recognized, from the few - really few - times a message was to be delivered to Jipang and the runner had taken the time to do some light recon when there, the boy's face. It was certainly characteristic enough that I was able to piece together who he was, even though the few images that we had of him were grainy at best.
"Ara, Schrdinger-san. This is certainly unexpected," she said, tilting her head to the side. It made her look harmlessly cute. She had that down to an artform, and a more erronous conclusion you'd be hard pressed to reach. Her artificially blue eyes were amused, though.
"Mm. It's such a nice day out today, the office seemed a little ... cramped," I shrugged and inclined my head. "Who's your date?"
"Ano, it's not like that at all! Fujino-san was merely kind enough to show me a bit of the city," the boy blushed almost as red as his hair.
"Well, it was the polite thing to do," Shizuru said. "After all, it isn't every day I get to talk to someone about home."
"Oh, you came with the delegation, then ...? I'm sorry, I didn't catch the name," I asked.
"Tate. Tate Yuuichi," the boy bowed. If I hadn't spent some time on conversation with Fujino-san almost daily since her arrival, I wouldn't have known she was on the verge of bursting out in laughter. "I just, how do you say it, tagged along? I've heard such impressive things about this city, and I'd gotten a chance to come here ... it seemed the thing to do at the time. Now, though, I admit to having been nearly completely lost without Fujino-san's gracious assistance."
"Well, then. Nice to meet you, Tate-san," I said, in somewhat choppy Japanese, considered for a moment, and returned the bow. "Katz Schrdinger, or, you would say Schrdinger Katz, I suppose. Fujino-san is my coworker, and I've learned some of the language and a bit about your country from her. It has been a while since I've taken the time to merely walk through the city, though, so I wonder if it I could, perhaps, join the two of you?"
And so it was that a broken angel and a dimensional displacee ended up playing tour guides to the incognito highest standing member of Jipangese royalty, Tokiha Takumi.
It ended up being ... an interesting excursion, to say the least.
I'm running through the various tracks on the OST collection for MaiHiME, and I've only just noticed how much I like Natsuki's voice. Weird.
And Ensei just plain rocks.
Also, Mikoto's ramen monologues are hilarious ... even though they're in Nihongo and I can't make heads nor tails of them. Maa ...
-Griever
now off to watch the new Karin episode
ETA: Edited for various reasons, like the fact that the damn forum kept _eating_ my _work_ which I'd put several _hours_ into _damnit_ just because of some bit of ... *sigh* Okay. I'm done. It's good. Carry on.
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Have at you.
*timestamp - grainy picture of Jipang delegation arriving in Windbloom, with 'And if they believe that's Tokiha, their intelligence services suck so badly that their using ours so often is actually justified. Vey.' on the side, in black marker.*
***
to remain chronologically accurate, a scene posted earlier in the thread should go here - the one with Ren and Katz and the crates from Aries. (would have linked it, but last I did that the whole damn post got _deleted_ and I was afraid I'd need to rewrite the whole of the scene below. Luckily, hitting *back* repeatedly managed to recover this much for me. Else I would have posted a much longer rant)
***
'It's been a busy few weeks,' i thought as I closed the door behind me.
Yes, I had an office-slash-living space again. Or rather, Kobayakawa had nearly moved into the workshop and had monopolized almost every flat surface available, forcing me to find another place to bunk and work in.
I wasn't even attempting to imagine how it'd look now that the shipment from Aries was here. I'd been keeping those crates on hand then because it had been more practical than having to make and hide a trip out to the Foundation to get them when I did need them.
I don't think I'd ever been quite that enthusiastic about working with new gadgets and whatnot, which, I suppose, is one of the reasons I'd never been much beyond average where tinkering technology was concerned.
This is why you subcontract.
Speaking of whom ...
"Parallel worlds. Meddling bastards who might as well be gods and like to play with peoples' fates. Whatever the hell it is you're pretending to be. Do you honestly expect me to believe that?" the redhead asked, sneering slightly.
Finding someone in the maze that the backstreets and alleys of Windbloom's capital made up wasn't easy, especially if that person didn't want to be found.
Fortunately enough, through Black's work with her, I knew at least one place and one time where Juliet-ane-san could be found.
I'd still owed her an explanation, if only because she'd done right by us ever since we'd established a working relationship. Also, because she'd conceded that the fact of Fujino-san's appearance wasn't something that needed to be brought to Garderobe's attention there and then.
So, after settling things with the Graceful Amethyst's younger counterpart and scribbling down a dispatch to be delivered to the Aries office, I'd made my way to meet with her.
The walk wasn't a long one, though it was enjoyable, if only because I didn't have to wear the damn suit for it. Rough cloth pants, a pair of runner boots, and a tan shirt with a hooded vest thrown over the top of it made sure I didn't draw too much attention.
As for the talk itself? For most of it, it had been a monologue of mine, and she'd been looking at me like I was somebody who'd just lost his mind.
"Just that? No," I shrugged. I turned my head to look over one shoulder.
The alley we'd been talking in was secluded enough, though empty wooden crates lined one of the walls. The warehouse said alley ran behind being the likely source.
The sound of shattering wood filled the air, a flash of amber predating it by an instant or two, before a cloud of shavings swept out behind me.
"Okay, you're not just a loon, you're a dangerous loon," Juliet-ane-san said after a moment, though her sneer had melted into a more thoughtful expression. Then she snickered. "Or you've got a really bad flatulence problem."
"Believe what you will," was my reply. "I just figured you deserved to know this much. There's something big in the works, and Schwarz is being unusualy quiet, recent events aside. Or careful. Which is never good. You and yours shouldn't let your guard down."
"Awww, how cute ... I didn't know you cared," she snarked, but I got the feeling that she was being sincere underneath all that, and willing to at least consider what I've told her. "It's not as if we usually do."
On the whole, the conversation with Juliet-ane-san had been both smoother and more rocky than the one I'd have with Ren regarding same.
Not because he didn't trust me as much as she did, because that was't the case at all.
I doubt Juliet-ane-san really trusted anyone but herself, in full.
It was simply because, while he certainly knew me better than the redhead did, his ties of loyalty were more binding. And more tangled.
Everything else aside, Ren was possibly one of the most responsible people I'd ever met, and he took his obligations very seriously.
With having Black on one end, and his cousin on the other, it really wouldn't have been much of a choice. But my little revelation didn't directly affect either Aries or his cousin.
Or I didn't think it did, at least.
Still, he'd decided to wait and see. That was the best I could have hoped for, really.
Because, let me tell you, finding someone else to take care of the more tedious administrative duties would have been a real chore this late in the game.
In the weeks since both those conversations had taken place, though, Schwarz had been less obvious about what they were doing than they usually were, which set me on edge. As, it seemed, it had done to Juliet-ane-san.
Yamada was due back soon enough, though, what with his business in Windbloom's capital, so maybe I'd get some extra input from that angle.
As for Fujino-san? She'd agreed to keep her hair short and dye it so that it was a slightly darker shade, and the blue-tinted contact lenses that Ren had gotten his hands on were being put to good use. That, along with her tendency to dress in clothes that most Windbloom residents considered Jipangese, made almost sure that whatever resemblance to Shizuru Viola she had was not all that obvious.
And two days after my talk with Juliet-ane-san, I found she'd wormed her way into and subverted nearly the whole analyst division of the Windbloom office. With positive results. Whereupon I gave up trying to find something for her to do lest she die of boredom - or decide to strike out on her own, like she had back in Aries - and simply put her on the payroll.
Whereupon I was summarily presented with a petition to get rid of most of the tea stores we had - some liked it better than they did coffee - and import some proper Jipangese leaves.
Three guesses who the instigator behind that was.
Other than that, it was mostly business as usual, with the Garderobe students who'd gone off to Aries coming back right around that time, and events starting once again to simply roll past with inevitable inertia.
Until about a week ago, when I'd found that there was a delegation from Jipang coming here.
Fujino-san, with whom I'd been going over some recent data there and then, had taken on an expression between puzzlement and disbelief upon coming across the name of the noble who was heading said delegation.
Now the delegation was in town, and Shizuru had, ostensibly, taken a day off.
I wasn't as much worried as I was concerned, but I'd managed to hold some of that in for most of the day.
Now, though, I knew I wouldn't be able to get any sort of work done unless I cleared that bit of uncertainty regarding my newest and perhaps most unusual employee up.
So I dropped by Ren's 'den' - nicknamed so by almost everybody in the office, because he was stuck there so often nowadays. Yes, he'd done well enough with managing most of the kipple that were our operations in Windbloom that I'd settled for letting him take over at least part of them again once I'd come back from my leave of absence - and told him I'd be out for a bit. It was met with grumbles, meaning he was neck deep in going through reports - something that usually happened at this time of the month.
It didn't take long to find Fujino-san ... or rather, for her to run across me while I was crossing one of bridges over the canal which ran through the city.
And she wasn't alone.
And I really wished I hadn't recognized, from the few - really few - times a message was to be delivered to Jipang and the runner had taken the time to do some light recon when there, the boy's face. It was certainly characteristic enough that I was able to piece together who he was, even though the few images that we had of him were grainy at best.
"Ara, Schrdinger-san. This is certainly unexpected," she said, tilting her head to the side. It made her look harmlessly cute. She had that down to an artform, and a more erronous conclusion you'd be hard pressed to reach. Her artificially blue eyes were amused, though.
"Mm. It's such a nice day out today, the office seemed a little ... cramped," I shrugged and inclined my head. "Who's your date?"
"Ano, it's not like that at all! Fujino-san was merely kind enough to show me a bit of the city," the boy blushed almost as red as his hair.
"Well, it was the polite thing to do," Shizuru said. "After all, it isn't every day I get to talk to someone about home."
"Oh, you came with the delegation, then ...? I'm sorry, I didn't catch the name," I asked.
"Tate. Tate Yuuichi," the boy bowed. If I hadn't spent some time on conversation with Fujino-san almost daily since her arrival, I wouldn't have known she was on the verge of bursting out in laughter. "I just, how do you say it, tagged along? I've heard such impressive things about this city, and I'd gotten a chance to come here ... it seemed the thing to do at the time. Now, though, I admit to having been nearly completely lost without Fujino-san's gracious assistance."
"Well, then. Nice to meet you, Tate-san," I said, in somewhat choppy Japanese, considered for a moment, and returned the bow. "Katz Schrdinger, or, you would say Schrdinger Katz, I suppose. Fujino-san is my coworker, and I've learned some of the language and a bit about your country from her. It has been a while since I've taken the time to merely walk through the city, though, so I wonder if it I could, perhaps, join the two of you?"
And so it was that a broken angel and a dimensional displacee ended up playing tour guides to the incognito highest standing member of Jipangese royalty, Tokiha Takumi.
It ended up being ... an interesting excursion, to say the least.
I'm running through the various tracks on the OST collection for MaiHiME, and I've only just noticed how much I like Natsuki's voice. Weird.
And Ensei just plain rocks.
Also, Mikoto's ramen monologues are hilarious ... even though they're in Nihongo and I can't make heads nor tails of them. Maa ...
-Griever
now off to watch the new Karin episode
ETA: Edited for various reasons, like the fact that the damn forum kept _eating_ my _work_ which I'd put several _hours_ into _damnit_ just because of some bit of ... *sigh* Okay. I'm done. It's good. Carry on.
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm