Steel Trim
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Engineering, Magic, and Kitsune Ch. 26
🕑 Added 2025-04-22 21:37:27 +0000 UTCTracking them back to their residence was, honestly, embarrassingly easy. They didn't even try the most basic of tricks to ensure they weren't being followed. Really, Yuki was almost insulted. How did they even get this far without getting hunted down in the street like animals? Were they truly that secure against reprisal? She knew this place was weak, but if the people were determined, that undead monstrosity of theirs wouldn't be a proper shield.
Crush up a few fire-aligned crystals, plant them under the road, and you could detonate them the second it walked over with a trick made to start a campfire, which was well within reach of the populace. From there, it'd be easy to swarm the rest of them and beat them to death with farm tools.
Perhaps they're more scared of reprisal. There were implications that this was a larger operation, after all.
Once they were within a few blocks of their destination, she no longer needed them and didn't linger. She could smell the undead on the wind, after all. Yuki arrived before the returning men, although she kept out of sight as she bumbled into the inn, which was surprisingly lovely. It was a relatively tall three-story building, and pretty wide at that! It was well maintained despite clearly being generations old, with new paint, an attached stable, and tall walls circling around a fairly large back lot… And now that she was thinking about it, the air was a bit more moist than expected, and she could smell sulphur.
Oh, they must have a hot spring in the back lot! Those didn't seem common in this area, though, and she could only imagine the favour with a local kami the owner's ancestors had to have to get one added via the Spirit Realm… Perhaps it was some priest or minister's retirement project that they called in all their debts to get done.
Hmm. That was interesting, given that there's no local path into it. Maybe there was once, and it collapsed due to a lack of maintenance? Still, thoughts for later. She could see the tops of tents just over the edge of the rear courtyard's walls, meaning they had enough men or supplies that the building was beyond capacity in some regard. Yuki could also feel the unquiet grave-esque Presence of the undead, too, and she didn't doubt that it was living out there rather than in the building to avoid disturbing others. Perhaps the tents were for storage? The kitsune couldn't hear any breathing out back as she got closer to the walls, and using it as a guard made sense. It shouldn't need to sleep, so she doubted it was given a tent.
That would make infiltration from the rear troublesome. If the kitsune were stronger, she could simply transform herself into a shadow and slip through a translucent paper window like a ghost, but that ability was lost to her… at least for now.
Bah, elsewhere it was, then. Unfortunately, Yuki could still see scattered candlelights in the translucent windows, which may complicate things. If she knew how military, or up-jumped bandits who believed they were military, types thought as well as she remembered, whoever was in command of this local group would be on the top floor. It only made sense; it'd provide them the most security against an enraged hostile group storming the building and killing them, in addition to providing by far the best view to survey things.
She tweaked the features of her disguise, altering her face to make her seem like a different person, just in case they circled around so they wouldn't recognize the same old man from the bar. Then, Yuki walked around to the far side and slumped against the wall like a drunk who had passed out, putting her well within range to listen in.
Importantly, it let her get close enough to the building to overhear as the men finally made their way back, heading in through the front door, not closing it behind them immediately.
"You're early. What, did they run out of booze?" greeted a man.
"It tasted like piss, Sarge," complained one of the men.
"Did you remember to make them pour it in front of you?" he asked, and silence answered him. "Then they probably did piss into it, you idiots. Get to bed. Kikuchi's group is on watch tonight."
"Anyone else still out?" one of the men asked, and Yuki could almost feel the sergeant roll his eyes.
"How the hell am I supposed to know? You idiots are my responsibility, not them," the man chastised, and the group hurried off to a room somewhere on the first floor. "Hey, you at the back!" he interrupted. "Back here for a moment. I have a job for you…" It was followed by a whispered conversation she didn't catch. She didn't hear the rest of the group heading up any stairs, nor did they head into the back lot, and from there she heard them quietly muttering to one another in some room after they closed the door.
The sergeant sighed, and she heard him leave, heading up to the second floor with the final man. Perhaps the second floor was the Officer Quarters, maybe? It depended on how much space they decided to allocate to them. They could be packed like fish in a barrel below, with only a few scattered up above, but she wouldn't bet on that. After a moment's thought, she decided to investigate the stables first. Circling around and keeping low to the wall, she crept through the night with measured, silent strides.
She tested the thick wooden doors, but they were bolted shut from the inside, although the door wasn't the best sealed, and she could barely see the iron bolt from the outside through the gap.
Ugh, if only she had the device John called a "magi-welder" in his tongue. It would have made it so easy to cut that bolt to enter and repair it once she was done, so nobody would be the wiser. Still, she could hear two horses sleeping in the barn. They can't have too many carts, then. Yuki doubted they'd have more than… perhaps one or two in use by their runners right now. It didn't look like they were planning on hauling a large amount of stuff, then… Or if they were, the trips would be short enough to make the lack of capacity not an issue. There could be a local depot where the Nameless could pick up their ill-gotten wealth.
Perhaps she could poison the horses? She'd prefer to just steal them, but that'd doubtlessly provoke retaliation, and killing them outright would do the same, but if she could make them seem like their hearts gave out… It was either that or make it incredibly bloody and clear that some sort of yokai did it, so the townspeople wouldn't take the blame.
It was not a project for tonight, in any case.
Yuki crept around the exterior of the building, checking the various approaches she could take. The back side was obviously a no-go due to the undead's Presence. Ugh, if it was just a regular person guarding around back, she could easily just used her overwhelming Presence to send them off to dreamland, but anything she could do to disable that thing would be a dead giveaway that someone infiltrated that way.
The front was… decent, although risky. While nobody was too pleased with the presence of the tax collectors, she knew from experience that some people didn't know better and would act against their own interests for maybe being shown a whisper of momentary mercy. It's a shame that mortal lives tend to be so short without intervention. Maybe the world would be a better place if more people learned that appeasement never worked.
The left side was… decent. There weren't any particularly egregious sight lines, even if the building beside it was weirdly far away, giving less cover. There was, however, a cracked open window on the second floor with no lights, although Yuki could hear snoring from it. The right side was similar, albeit with the building far closer. No open window, though. The sound of conversation followed by a door opening up front caught her ear, and she pulled back into a shadowed crevice.
"Why'd we have to be the ones on tonight?" complained one voice, followed by a sigh from the second.
"You know why," hissed a second.
"No, I don't," insisted the first.
"We're here for the third night in a row because your dipshit brother couldn't wait until we went to a town with a brothel, fell for the most obvious trap in the world, and got jumped in an alley!" growled out the second. "Now we're here all week. If the prick wasn't that badly hurt already, I'd lay him out for another week." The second stomped off, and the first didn't respond.
Yuki had no doubt that those men were dead now, or at least wished they were. Killings were a strong message, but one that tended to fade quickly and galvanize others against you. Maimings, though? If they aimed to come back in spring, a few people with hands chopped off and beggared would remind all of the consequences of disobedience with every passing day.
She heard him stop, then felt him use a faint flicker of power to light something ablaze, likely a torch, given the orange light now spilling around the corner.
Reacting reflexively, she stepped out of the shadows and jolted into the air with far more force than an old man should be able to muster, carefully propelling herself so that she soundlessly landed on the roof of the single-story building next to her. Most large, land-bound creatures that weren't typically preyed on by flying creatures, including most humans, shared one glaring, critical weakness. It took immense effort to overcome, but few even thought to.
They rarely bothered looking up.
She still laid flat just in case, and her disguise peered over the ledge at the man below as he rounded the corner. By all means, he was pretty average. Dark hair, a bit on the short side, fit, and a few scars. She drank in his appearance as he walked below, keeping a close eye on the man as he passed.
A plan sprung to mind.
Yuki memorized every detail she could, from the little nicks on his armour to how he held himself. Eventually, though, he passed around the far corner, and she was left alone once more. The kitsune flashed in black-gold flame as she warped her disguise to match him and suppressed her Presence with expert ease. "What do you mean? I'm just taking a bit of a break," she lowly repeated in her target's voice before frowning. No, that was not nasal enough. She made a few more alterations before she was satisfied, and then she waited to see what his route looked like.
Soon enough, he passed under her again, then a third time a few minutes later. It seemed like a simple circle around the property, with no real variation. Honestly, it was embarrassing if they were genuinely trying to prevent infiltration and not just make it mildly annoying.
In a gap between the patrols, she descended off the roof and shadowed the man's route, heading back towards that open window, as the others were almost certainly locked. Once the man was around the corner, she sped over to the spot underneath and leapt up a story in a single bound, catching the edge of her boots on the open windowsill with hardly more noise than a landing bird.
The room was dark, with a single man resting on a bamboo mat. He looked like he had seen better days, with bandages all over his torso and a brace holding a clearly broken leg in place. The "brother" the pair of guards was talking about, maybe?
The kitsune stepped into the room and slowly walked over to the door. A tiny whisper of power was all Yuki needed to lock the boards beneath her in place, stopping them from creaking. The hallway was still lit, and she could hear a man sniffling at the end. Hmm. That may pose an issue.
She'd usually just lie her way past him, but there was no telling if he saw the man she was impersonating leave. The hard way it was, then.
Yuki cracked the door open so she could peer through it, and beheld the corridor. It was dark, and the only light source came from the guard down the way. Across the hall was another door, and she listened to try to divine what was behind it. No breathing, so it was probably either an unused room, unlikely given the items being kept outside in the back, or a storage room. That would suit her just fine.
Light and darkness crept across the floor in the cracks between the floorboards, entirely hidden from sight… and then rose in the room like ethereal wraiths. It took a bit to get it right—and she could feel a minor headache coming on from the poisons still coursing through her—but she formed the silhouette of a man lit by a candle. Then, Yuki thunked her foot on the floor. Not too loud, but enough to get the attention of the man toward the end of the hall and make him question if he heard something.
"Hmm?" he grunted. Once Yuki heard him take a step in her direction, sure he had seen the bait, she cut the lights. The guard, suddenly spurred into action by the change, hurried over. Still, he hadn't sounded the alarm yet. In what was supposed to be a "safe" place, waking up everyone who was sleeping for what might be nothing was a good way to get a lot of enemies.
He slid the door open, confirming to Yuki it was a storage room, and started to look around. It mainly was "taxed" materials, it seemed… including a few barrels of booze. Initially, she planned on slipping past him, but it gave her an idea. She slipped up behind the man like a ghost while he looked around for an intruder who wasn't there, so close that he'd feel her breath on his neck if she were not holding it. His heartbeat was still calm, no fear having taken hold of him.
Her Presence struck out like a blade, but she kept it tightly contained, and not a whisper was felt more than a stride away from her. It was overpowering, suffocating, and it snuffed out the man's waking mind without a fight, sending him spiralling into unconsciousness before his heart's next beat.
She caught him, again ignoring her blooming headache, before he hit the floor and rested him against a nearby wall in the store room. He'd probably get a full night's rest, unless, say, the next shift woke him up first, looking for where the guard went.
With a mischievous smirk on her face, Yuki wandered over to one of the casks and broke the seal on it, letting the potent scent of sake wash over the room. From there, she grabbed a little silver trimmed mug that was doubtlessly taken in the place of money, dipped it in the drink, slowly poured some in the man's mouth, and forced the unconscious man to swallow it to make his breath smell like a drink. From there, she took another mug of the booze before spilling it all over the floor next to the man.
He could attempt to explain that one when he was woken up, but the kitsune wagered he would not have much luck.
She moved on, straining the ears of her disguise to hear any movement from the rooms, but there was little. Carefully avoiding every lit room, she made her way toward the central room, thankful that her dark vision had not weakened along with her powers. Hearing the coast was clear, she crept up the central ladder. It was quiet up here, too. Light crept around the edge of a corner, and she heard a man sigh, although he didn't move. Another guard, then, and it sounded like he was the only one on the floor, so he must be guarding something important. Something was familiar about him, just on the tip of her tongue. Even with her senses dampened, she could tell the scent was familiar, but who—
Kaito! That was the man's name. He was the one who was out drinking and who had caught John's mastery over heat during the first confrontation. Presumably, he was given the night off to drink, so for him to be guarding now…
He must have been the one the sergeant called out earlier for extra work. Either he made someone mad, which seemed unlikely given how he was not addressed by name earlier, or they were understaffed.
Either way, a plan bloomed in her mind, and a devious smirk crossed her face. Yuki walked toward the man's guard post, making less effort to disguise her approach. She heard him shift, hearing the boards squeak under her boots. "Psst. Kaito," she lowly greeted, just loud enough for him to hear as she crossed around the corner into his field of vision. The skinny man stood stock still beside the door to a corner room, hand on his blade's sheath. Once he recognized his 'ally,' he visibly deflated.
"Gato? What the hell are you doing here? You nearly scared me to death! I know the boss is out, but one of the sergeants will skin you if they see you out here rather than patrolling!" he hiss-whispered back, looking over his shoulder as if someone might pop out from the door he stood beside. Pointlessly, Yuki could tell, given there was nobody behind it.
He was observant, and depriving them of an asset like that could only do her and John good. She stepped closer, shaking her head. "The sarge asked me to run a message to you," she lied, fumbling for something in her pockets as she walked closer.
The man in front of her groaned, but made no moves to sound the alarm.
"Hold on, he just wanted you to check this out…" Yuki trailed off. The man started looking suspicious, and his heartbeat began to pick up, but it was too late. She was already in range. Alas, crushing someone's consciousness with Presence was less effective when they were aware of you and on guard, so she had to ensure he didn't draw unnecessary attention.
Her hand was already crushing his throat before he realized anything was wrong, silencing his scream. One hand tried to pry him free to no avail, and the other went to his sword, but she made no move to stop him as he drew it and stabbed it against her gut. It skidded off like he was trying to batter down a castle wall, albeit soundlessly. His eyes were wide with terror before she blasted him into unconsciousness like a tidal wave washing away a candle.
She caught the sword so it didn't loudly clatter to the ground. While she was tempted to tear the man's soul out for what little scraps of power it would provide, Yuki had a better idea.
Heading into the room, she examined what she was working with. Numerous sheets and scrolls lay on an ill-fitting desk. Some were half rolled, some were still spread out. Many were awkwardly stuffed into a shelf to the side. This was some sort of officer's working space. Excellent.
Oh, and there was a moderate-sized chest at the back of the room with a lock on it, but not a very good one, and she had no doubt it carried some small amount of wealth. It was a nice bonus and made her plan all the easier to make believable. Yuki sniffed the object, scenting aged, used coinage, and felt how it resonated with the world. There was no hint of magic about it. She didn't expect there to be, but she didn't make it this far in life by being too careless.
She quickly examined the sheets on the desk. Guard shifts, normally nice to know, but they'd be pointless after they changed them up when they learned of Kaito's "betrayal" come next guard shift. Supply usage and sources, also nice, although they could likely draw most of these from the town itself in an emergency. A list of… contacts? They seemed to be townsfolk. There were some notes next to them. Tax exemptions.
She found their eyes and ears where their soldiers couldn't tread, or at least some of them.
And there. Transfer orders. It seemed they're due to move in nine days, heading to a place called… Breezetown further upriver, although still well within the forest.
Taking out a few sheets of paper, she quickly copied down anything interesting before returning them all to their homes. Hoisting Kaito over her shoulder and carrying the chest under her arm, she opened the window and leapt to another rooftop after ensuring the latch fell back into place behind her.
They would see hints of her infiltration and panic, sure. They'd puzzle over how Kaito managed to sneak out. The tax collectors would scour the roads looking for their missing money and the traitor. They'd never find either and never think about how their rather important papers were in the same room.
Why would they? They were all still there.
Comments
UnderwhelmingBird
Yuki's a champ. Her behavior toward Kaito has been pretty fun. The vibes are somewhere along the line of a fun thing to play with/game piece/asset rather than an actual person, but I'm sure there's plenty of ways a smart fella can increase his standing! Thanks for sharing :)
Kieran Hosty
Yuki's chapters are always fun, so much offhand allusion to the greater world, but you keep us wondering what's possible.
