Chapter Text
In Japan, the gods were a myriad. Yet among these same gods were those that do not please humans. For example: a god of sickness, a god of obedience, a god of poverty, a god of pestilence, a god of death, a god of revenge.
Perhaps, even a god that spins and weaves and clothes calamities to unfortunate people.
Truly, these gods are not very welcome.
Truly, in this day and age, this myriad has long since been forgotten.
—At least, for the most part.
In Japan, a certain forest crowns a family compound like a bridal cowl in the unfolding summer heat. The compound itself is vast and deep with multiple houses connected by roofed pathways, halls stripped bare of its walls to reveal rows of neatly trimmed pine trees crouching and bending their grand splendor to peek at the lives of passersby flitting to-and-fro from each hip-and-gabled building. Even from afar, before their carriage had reached the gated entrance of the compound, he can feel a reverent awe from the sight of this place that the British Empire failed to produce.
Ryunosuke can only stare as he, Susato, and Professor Mikotoba are led to the main guest room of the Asogi family compound.
“It’s, uh. It’s big.”
“…Kazuma-sama really was right when he lamented over your ‘powers of description’, wasn’t he?”
Somehow, hearing that comment twice leaves him more speechless than the reality of his best friend being from a renowned martial family. The realization of such prestige had clearly been delayed until now—which, in his defense, is not entirely his fault because Kazuma is not the type to act like a young master.
Well, most of the time.
Once Professor Mikotoba explains the reason for their visit to the current head of household—an uncle who had taken over leadership of the school of swordsmanship Genshin Asogi left behind—the three of them are led along the verandas by one of Kazuma’s relatives. It is here that Ryunosuke begins to catch glimpses of Kazuma’s former life: of apprentice swordsmen running through practice drills, washerwomen bringing in the linens by the basketful, servants shuffling about with tools or produce or the occasional gossip. Sometimes, he would see older people greet the Mikotobas with a brief nod of their heads. It is then Ryunosuke remembers that he is the only true stranger to this place.
Eventually, they find themselves standing in front of a pair of sliding doors deep within the main house. With some parting words to inform someone should they need absolutely anything, their escort leaves them to their work.
Kazuma’s room is an eight-mat room. There is an alcove opposite from the doors. Beside it is a low table and a hanging scroll affixed to the wall above, the same one Kazuma had hung in his room on the S.S. Burya. There are no windows, but to their right is another sliding door that opens onto a veranda facing an inner garden. On the side opposite the veranda, to their left, is a closet six feet wide, followed by a wooden dresser and a wooden bookshelf crammed to the brim with legal texts and university workbooks.
Overall, Kazuma’s room is tidy, traditional, and surprisingly scholastic for someone surrounded by swordsmanship.
“He was determined to study law, Naruhodo-san.”
“I know that! It’s just… I’ve never seen a guy his age with a room like this.”
“From what I’ve seen so far, I doubt you know any other man your age aside from Kazuma-sama in the first place.”
“Hey—”
“Come now, you two. We have a mission of our own, so let’s not overstay our welcome and get things done promptly.”
Kazuma had not asked for very many things to be sent from his childhood home: certain titles from his bookshelf for further reading and reference, two ink blocks and a whetstone that is understandably unavailable in London, a few garments he can wear within his new living quarters at the van Zieks estate, along with some other odds and ends to ease the yearnings for Japan. Somehow, going through Kazuma’s personal effects is much less invasive compared to discovering the skeletons in his idiomatic closet during his last trial in the British Empire. As far as his friend’s belongings are concerned, there are no more secrets left for Ryunosuke to find—thank goodness.
Everything fits neatly into one wooden crate, carefully and neatly packed.
The Asogi family compound is still a stranger to Ryunosuke—much like how he is to it—by the time the same relative escorts them back the way they came; the glimpses Ryunosuke catches are the same as when they first arrived, with the same faces flitting in and out without any names he can ascribe them. Nothing has changed.
Except, after they are pleasantly seen off at the gate with Professor Mikotoba handling the farewells, Ryunosuke spots a narrow path lined with small stones further down the road where the compound’s walls do not reach, leading into the forest deeper within.
Ryunosuke cannot recall that he had seen it when they first arrived. Nevertheless, as they wait for a way to take them to the railway station:
“Is that also part of the property?”
“Oh! I don’t think I’ve noticed that way before. Has that always been there, Father?”
“Hm? Ah, yes. It leads into the forest, but only the part closest to the road. I believe the property line is marked by wooden posts some meters in. The rest of the forest remains unclaimed.”
“Really?”
“From what I understand, yes. I don’t know myself about the rumors in the area since Genshin never told me of any, but it would seem that the locals steer clear of the forest if they can. Something about being spirited away or a curse or the like.”
“Is that so…”
Two men eased out from the other side of the wall with a pair of rickshaws to bring them to the station, hailed personally by the current head of the family: one to hold the Mikotobas and the other to hold Ryunosuke and the crate. The discussion about the forest and the mysterious pathway closes like the fall of a curtain.
As they ride away from the Asogi family compound and its verdant bridal cowl, Ryunosuke looks back. He fixes his gaze onto the narrow stone path before the sight is consumed by the horizon and faintly hears the ringing of two claps.
In London, there is a heartbeat that pulses through every aspect of daily living: the marching strides of horse-drawn carriages, the steady footfalls of bustling residents, the steady ticking of the city’s illustrious clock tower. Even from within the hallowed halls of the Crown Prosecutor’s Offices, Kazuma finds his brush strokes also falling in time with this heartbeat as he adjusts to life properly in the city he has always dreamed of seeing.
He remains tucked away facing the stretching wall of wine casks, much to the man’s disappointment. As a prosecutor in service to the Crown, apprentice though he may be, Kazuma should at least have enough decorum to use a proper desk, if not move into his own office—except Kazuma is perfectly fine keeping to his low table with a traditional and disciplined posture. He may have acclimated to a generally British life, but there’s a rebellious satisfaction in him that no one is able to fully stifle his spirit as a Japanese man.
There’s also a rebellious satisfaction in knowing that he’s causing a minor inconvenience to Lord Barok van Zieks’s otherwise peaceful work day.
(Besides, having company helps in staving away from more unscrupulous thoughts, focuses his attention towards promises for a better legal system rather than stepping into the knee-deep waters of his past regrets—although he would never admit that.)
When the door suddenly bursts open without so much as a knock, disrupting the careful heartbeat of the day, both men know who it is.
“Hello, hello!” Gina greets, waving a note in her hand. “Telegram for Prosecutor Zooms.”
At this point, Kazuma does not even try to correct her. Compared to when she cycled through several names ranging from ‘Prosecutor Soggy’ to ‘Prosecutor Ghee’, he will gladly take the overfamiliarity of her using his first name.
Still, it does not mean he has to like it. “I didn’t think you took up a second job as a mail person, Miss Lestrade. The Yard must be going through some rough patches.”
“Second job? What second job—I got my hands full as it is!” Which is not entirely untrue: between her training as a junior inspector and trying to catch up to the education someone her age should have, Gina always seems to move at a hummingbird’s pace. “Figured I’d do my good deed for the day and pass this along from the goodness of my heart, but here you are thinking I’m skipping work or something.”
“I don’t think it, I know it,” Kazuma corrects. They have worked together extensively since he decided to remain in London as fellow apprentices, though her mentor has long since dropped out of the picture. He extends his hand to her. “Well? Give it here, then.”
Gina huffs out a mild complaint under her breath before relinquishing the telegram. She adds, “It’s from Sooze.”
He hums a note of acknowledgement as he reads the message, expecting it to be about the items he requested to be sent to London—and then, he furrows his brows.
“What’s it say?” Gina asks. When he does not respond, she tries again with, “Hello? Prosecutor Zooms? Er, Kaz? Sir? Anyone home in there?”
“Prosecutor Asogi,” Lord van Zieks says after a few more moments tick by, looking up from his work with a subtle sheen of curiosity across his stern gaze.
All Kazuma can say is, “Hm.”
After several more hours of work and sending a fussy Gina off to her proper post, he promptly relays his response to the telegram officer, wondering what could have possibly possessed Susato enough to play such pranks. Yet, the more he lingers on the question she posited, the more foreboding a scenario his mind conjures up. Susato is still young despite her precociousness—not even old enough to imbibe in either country—so it’s natural for her to behave fancifully every now and then, but she is never one to make jokes of this nature.
The message stays with him all evening long. He runs through possibilities, right down to the worst case. He boards the train of his imagination into the morning and well into his next work day, where Lord van Zieks has taken notice from his desk on the opposite side of their shared office.
Kazuma hears the sound of Lord van Zieks setting his feathered dip pen into its holder in the early afternoon.
“Out with it already. What did Miss Mikotoba tell you?”
“It’s of no concern,” Kazuma replies.
“It is when my apprentice is making amateur mistakes on his reports,” Lord van Zieks says, holding up the aforementioned papers that Kazuma had submitted mere minutes ago. The sight of Japanese characters filling up the bottom half of the front page snuffs out any further retort. “Well?”
He presses his lips together into a fine line.
The telegram had only been one sentence, comprised of five words:
“She asked me if I remembered Ryunosuke Naruhodo.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Your answer?”
“My—what do you mean ‘my answer’? Of course I do!”
Of course he remembers his best friend, his partner—the man who had, beyond every expectation, saved them all from the manacles of that wretched case from over ten years ago. It would be ridiculous to say otherwise! True, Ryunosuke may have an average face and underwhelming demeanor in passing, but his presence is nothing short of a miracle that one cannot help but be awed by once his resolve roars to life. How could Kazuma ever forget such a man after he has torn through the fabric of their lives, only to piece it back together the right way?
Which then begs the question: what could have happened back in Japan that would warrant such a ridiculous question in the first place?
“If it’s truly urgent, no doubt Miss Mikotoba will be swift in her reply,” Lord van Zieks tells him, casting his glance back onto the other sheafs of paperwork adorning his desk. “For all we know, Miss Lestrade will intrude again without warning and—”
The door bursts open once more.
“‘Oddo’s gone missing!”
It had been as if all the breath was knocked out of Kazuma’s body, freezing his blood in that dizzying moment where life had left through the disbelieving slack of his open mouth. Through sheer force of will, Kazuma wrests that breath back from the words that stole it away and shouts,
“What?!”
As Kazuma turns around to press her for details, he finds that Gina did not come barging in alone, arm flailing around a telegram note: Herlock Sholmes and Iris Wilson are following closely behind—with a second telegram in hand.
Lord van Zieks exhales an aggrieved sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Lock the door.”