Mired and Moored
It had been more than a month since Tatsunari came under Ougonshi’s sway, though Ougonshi only ever used the words “employ” and “partnership”.
Tatsunari had followed the oni out of the Jukai Forest, escaping the Order of Jukai that would undoubtedly kill him now, and up into the Sokenzan Mountains. His clothing and boots were far too thin for mountaineering. This left him reliant on Ougonshi for help when climbing and for warmth. And then for shelter when they made it to a cave that Ougonshi knew was uninhabited. And for training to learn how to wield the blood-freezing power that Ougonshi could push through him to channel and direct.
Now they were traveling down from the Sokenzan mountains. Tatsunari’s clothing was tattered at the edges from roughing it so long. He had already tried asking a few times about where they were going. Every time, Ougonshi just said that he would see when they got “there”.
Once they made it to the bottom of the mountain, Tatsunari took a moment to lean against a boulder and catch his breath. He was shaking from both exertion and the climb. The boulder didn’t help; its stony surface was just as cold as the ones higher up the mountain.
Ougonshi waited for Tatsunari to finish adjusting before it spoke again. And now we head west.
“West?” Tatsunari repeated. He took a moment to recall what was west of the Sokenzan mountains. Geography had never been his forte beyond tracking the boundaries of rival Reckoner gangs against his turf. But he did remember something Quicksign once told him. “That’s...the Takenuma Swamp, right? Why are we going there?”
You will see, Tatsunari, Ougonshi chided, as though Tatsunari were a child. He bristled slightly at the tone and immediately shrunk when he felt Ougonshi’s cold hands on his shoulders. It will be safe. After all, you need a new base to rebuild what is yours. One where your enemies will not find and stop you.
That did the opposite of reassure Tatsunari, but he kept his mouth shut. The new tattoo on his chest, the one that Ougonshi put there, felt like ice on his skin even when the invisible oni let go of Tatsunari’s shoulders. He didn’t want to press his luck, not with the sole person who was helping him. But what if Ougonshi was just going to betray him too? He would be thinking about that the entire time they continued traveling west.
Wading through the Takenuma Swamp was very high on Tatsunari’s list of things he hated. What was left of his clothes were now drenched in water. And even when he did make it to a sturdier patch of ground, he immediately tripped over an abandoned body. That caused quite a bit of swearing and fumbling in the mud.
Tatsunari glared at the corpse that he had tripped over. The human man hadn’t been there for long based on the fact that the maggots hadn’t gotten to him. He seemed to be from Towashi based on all of his implants and body mods. His clothing alone was probably worth more than Tatsunari’s life and soul. With a little digging in the dead man’s pockets, Tatsunari found a full wallet of translucent kinsen, a credit chip, and a few pieces of technology. Tatsunari briefly wondered why whoever had killed the guy hadn’t looted the corpse. Then he decided that it just meant more for him to get. He only hesitated for a split second before also taking the man’s boots along with everything else.
Once done with that, he continued moving. He knew that Ougonshi was waiting for him to catch up again. One piece of tech, some kind of phone-like communicator or another, felt heavier than it should have been in his hand. He promised himself that he would check everything more when he got somewhere safer.
The house had no doors or windows. It was raised up out of the swamp on stilts and could only be accessed by getting a running start and climbing in from the bottom. It was here that Ougonshi told Tatsunari to stay until the oni returned. It was here that Tatsunari curled up against the least-drafty wall to try and sleep. Hunger and discomfort, his oldest friends, were his only company.
Then he remembered the tech he had taken from the dead body. He fished out the gadgets and started to turn them on and figure out how to get past the password locks. It took more time than he expected it to. Then again, he wasn’t a hacker prodigy. He scowled at the thought and tried to shove it away. He had spent so long in the shadows of others just because he wasn’t exceptional. Not until he raised Keimi.
But now Keimi was gone. And so were the rest of the Mukotai.
It was just him.
He wiped his face with his sleeve and ignored the tears left behind. Ougonshi was trying to help him rebuild, at least.
Tatsunari got into each piece of tech one at a time. One was basically an extension of the credit chip he had grabbed that made a display to see the funds change in real time. Money-management devices were popular among recovering gamblers. That and the number of kinsen actually on the body made Tatsunari wonder if the dead man had been a gambler that got on the Hyozans’ bad side. Then again, they didn’t usually kill debtors because then they wouldn’t get the money they wanted, and the money and credit chip had still been on the dead man...
He shook his head. No sense thinking about the dead. Not when he had to try and figure out how scavenging worked if Ougonshi didn’t come back soon. Trying to live in a swamp notorious for everyone dying in it... He wasn’t confident about his odds, to put it plainly.
The second gadget was a standard-issue Imperial multitool. It was an electric lighter, taser, and energy knife in a small and rechargeable form. The man hadn’t been dressed like he was an Imperial enforcer, even an off-duty one, but maybe he had been? Or he stole it from one? Or got it from a family member who was an enforcer?
And the final gadget. The personal communications device. The one that felt strangely heavy. Tatsunari didn’t take long to get into it, but opted to just create a new account on the communications app instead. It would give him something to do.
He was sent to a series of chat rooms after making an account. His brow furrowed when he realized that there was someone named Vasro Hayashi in there among the screen names. Hayashi was a common enough surname, he reasoned. Not everyone with the name was related to Koda. But it was still rather strange. The other names – Gesserith Edmund, Arturo Vazante, Demy, Baptiste, Douxe Fesses – meant nothing to him.
Tatsunari scrolled up in one of the chats and stopped when he finally recognized a name and profile picture. Greasefang? The Okiba boss was on this network? He flipped to another channel and scrolled up. He found the name of Haruko, the bonded kami of Koda Hayashi. Scrolling up even further, he found some messages from Koda himself a few days prior. What were the odds of other Reckoner bosses being on one network in one series of chatrooms? Pretty high, it turned out.
He hesitated, then searched for a direct messages screen. If Koda, Haruko, and Greasefang were all on the network, then someone else was too. With shaky hands, he searched for the name Satoru Umezawa.
And there it was. The profile picture looked just like the Hyozan boss. Unless this was a network based entirely on identity theft, that was a pretty good sign. Tatsunari took a deep breath and typed a message. Umezawa, it’s Tatsunari. I need help. He stared at it for a few moments. Did he really want to sound that desperate? Especially to the Hyozans? But Satoru was also the most likely to actually help him. Sure, he’d owe the man a major favor, but...at least he’d get food and help. The Hyozans hated the Order of Jukai and vice-versa to boot.
He took another deep breath and sent the message.
It didn’t take long to get a reply. Satoru ain’t in a state ta talk right now. This is Huck, his boyfriend. I’m sure after he wakes up, we can figure somethin out. What dya need help with?
Tatsunari stared at the screen for a few moments. The words “Satoru” and “boyfriend” did not belong in the same paragraph, at least not without Koda bullying him about Autumn-Paws. This must have been a really damn new development. Then again, Tatsunari was three-ish years behind what was happening among the gangs...
Was this a trick? Tatsunari couldn’t write that off. But he remembered just how little help he had access to. I’m somewhere in the Takenuma Swamp. I just need food and maybe some spare clothes. An oni named Ougonshi found me while the Order was making me work. He got me away from there, but I have no idea when he’s going to come back and I don’t have any help otherwise. Briefly, he wondered if Huck knew that he had been a Mukotai Reckoner and that the Mukotai had been wiped out.
Huck’s response answered that brief question. I’m sorry ta hear that. We’ll get ya some help when we can. But... Kid, some of your people are still alive. Can’t remember their names off the top of my head, but I can check.
Tatsunari’s heart skipped a beat. Some of the Mukotai were still alive? His hands shook more as he typed his response. Please do. I thought they were all... He couldn’t bring himself to end the sentence and just sent it. Ending on the ellipses held the implication without Tatsunari having to type the words himself.
He almost held his breath as a few moments ticked by before Huck’s answer came through. Quicksign and Kotose. Dokuchi found em. Helped em get free of where they were bein kept.
Quicksign and Kotose. If Steelblade was also alive, that meant that the ones that Tatsunari loved most had somehow survived the gang being hunted and slaughtered. He knew that they had escaped the first capture of the gang by Vakuze’s branch of Futurists, but had no idea if they lived past that.
Tatsunari pressed a hand to his mouth. Tears trailed down his cheeks. He kept rereading that message over and over. The Dokuchi helped them. Tatsunari’s mind drifted back to Koda getting him out of the Futurist cell and healing him, then making it clear that the Order of Jukai wouldn’t kill him. What had gotten into the Dokuchi Reckoners?
Either way, this was the help he needed. I’ll try to figure out where in the swamp I am, he typed. Like I said, I don’t know how long it will be until Ougonshi returns. For some reason, the idea of Ougonshi finding out about Tatsunari finding help from others made him uneasy. He didn’t know how it would react.
Huck’s response returned quickly. I’ll add ya to a chat with a few others. I suppose ya wouldn’t want to be usin the main ones.
Definitely not. Tatsunari didn’t know most of those people in the broad chats. That meant that they couldn’t be trusted. He could only stretch his tiny amount of trust so far. Thank you, Huck. He made sure to mute the notifications on the communicator so it wouldn’t go off when Ougonshi arrived.
Just in case.
[OOC note: All Huck portions written by @the-horned-rider]
