Maiko

Maiko allowed herself to be publicly seen leaving the Sato estate. She suspected that the house was likely under surveillance, but until she could identify Masashi’s spies she couldn’t risk a move towards the capital or an attempt to get a message out to Himari. Her friend was wise not to trust Masashi, of course. And the fact that she didn’t even want to read the letter without verification that it was from her mother was a wise course of action.

She slipped into an alley between two buildings, listening for footsteps behind her. It didn’t surprise her to hear them, or to feel their tremors in the earth. Whatever this new sense she’d developed was, it was about to come in handy.

She walked to the center of the alley before she turned around. Two men, both with the lithe, short builds that Masashi always favored in his assassins. How unoriginal. She gave a cheery smile, waving to them in a way that showed a distinct lack of concern with the situation. “Good evening, gentlemen,” she said. “I don’t suppose your presence here is a sign that our esteemed Imperial Advisor has learned how to delegate?”

“Maiko-san,” one of them grunted. “You will be coming with us. Quietly, if you don’t mind.”

“Ah,” Maiko grimaced. “So the answer is no. Tragic, really, he probably should have told you that I don’t like taking orders from him, let alone people like you.” She stretched her neck calmly as she talked, carefully limbering up for what she knew was coming next. “I assume we don’t want to make a scene of this. Would you prefer a rooftop chase, then? Or shall I dash your hopes of this being quiet.”

The first man, the evident talker of the pair, let out a heavy sigh. “He did say that you are uniquely exhausting. If you please, coming quietly will make this easier on everyone. Yourself included.” The two stepped closer to her.

And so she ran. She turned and sprinted out of the alley without a second’s thought. She heard the curse behind her as she cut immediately to her right and leapt onto a nearby stall. And she heard the relatively clumsy footsteps behind her as she leapt again onto the roof above. If they were determined to capture her, she was going to make them work their asses off for it. She looked in all directions, planning her route quickly. Of course from the south there were already other assassins on the roof. Masashi knew from the start that she wasn’t going to give this nonsense the time of day. So she dashed westward, leaping quickly from the building she stood on to its partner overlooking the alley. Fortunately for her, she seemed to have options for the moment.

Unfortunately for her, she hadn’t made quite as much ground off of her initial sprint as she might have hoped. Only a few moments after she had landed on the roof and started running, the sound of two other bodies landing just behind her clued her in that she wasn’t going to be able to just get away without some effort. A quick glance told her that the other two that she saw on the roof were still pursuing parallel to her. With a curse under her breath, she started running across the long row of buildings.

The faint whistling of something coming at her barely caught her attention in time for her to tilt her head left. A small dart barely missed her, and she cursed again. She wasn’t sure if they were trying to put her to sleep or kill her, and frankly, she didn’t have time for either option. Her eyes caught on the castle overlooking the markets she’d found herself in, and slowly she started formulating a plan.

Step one; break the chase’s rhythm. As she ducked another dart aiming for her neck, she rolled away from her pursuers, falling off the roof and into the nearby alley. Her hands caught a clothesline and she slid swiftly down, her run bursting out into the street. She heard a scream as she ducked into a crowd of people, but for the moment she was too busy looking for her best place to lose them.

Which brought her to step two; Find a place to lose her pursuers. She slowed her run to a walk once she found a large enough group of people. Hiding amongst the crowd was no permanent solution, but she reasoned at least that it would give her a chance to assess her situation and plan her next move. She caught a glimpse of the two original assassins looking from her at the edge of the market, and slowly scanned the roofs to find her other two pursuers. No doubt they’d be scanning from above, so she tried to keep herself as unassuming as possible.

Her foot found a sewer grate and she breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Not the cleanest getaway,” she muttered to herself as she carefully kicked it open with a sandaled foot. She looked around one last time, but it wasn’t until she stepped to fall into the grate that she oh so briefly caught sight of one of the roof top assassins staring right at her.

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Cursing the fact that good luck and she always seemed to be on opposite sides of the spectrum, she pulled the grate closed swiftly and began to run again. She knew she would have a head start, but there was little way of knowing even where she would pop out when she found an acceptable grate. Each turn she took was random, trying to stay towards a general idea of ‘south’ and ‘east,’ but never giving enough thought to the plan that someone might be able to parse something out.

When she did finally slow down, she took a quiet moment to feel the vibrations around her. She’d managed to push it out previously to a hundred feet, and her heart calmed considerably when she realized that there were no other footsteps following her. The second realization came a moment later. The disadvantage, of course, of randomizing her movements to confuse and lose pursuers was that she was now hopelessly lost herself. She vaguely had an awareness that she was south of where she started her run. But that, truthfully, could mean anything.

With little else to go on, she searched until she could find another grate to escape the sewers in. Unfortunately, this meant going places where the scent was… less than pleasant. But with careful steps she at least managed to keep herself mostly clean as she found her exit grate and pushed it open. She scanned to make sure the coast was clear, and was relieved when this one exited out into an alley. The hard work of escape was finished, and now she could focus on resuming infiltration.

Or at least, that’s what she thought. The tell tale smell of awful hit her nose hard, and she sighed with the realization that for so many reasons she was going to need to change clothing. But first she had to get her bearings. As she stepped out of the alley, the scent of the sewer was replaced with the tell tale smell of salt water. A sigh of relief washed over her as she realized that she had found herself in the docks district in the city’s south east. At least here, she knew where she could go for some help.

So she continued on her… perhaps overly cautious route, though instead of going to the castle she instead found herself in a small tavern whose sign depicted a fish set in a sake cup. Her eyes scanned the clientele carefully, looking for any signs that perhaps she was recognized. Fortunately, it seemed that Masashi didn’t have anyone installed here at the moment. Except, well…

“Maiko-chan!” The boisterous laugh of Mimi filled her ears and she let out a small sigh of relief. “It’s good to see ya, girl! Why, it’s been three years now, hasn’t it?”

“Three and a half, not that anyone is counting,” Maiko grinned in return, offering a slight bow. “I’d offer a hug, but I think you’d rather I’d bathe and get into a fresh change of clothes first.”

Mimi’s nose flared, and she nodded in agreement, motioning for Maiko to follow her. “Yes, yes, I can see that. What have you been doing, traipsing through the sewers? I thought I’d taught you better than that, Child.”

Maiko couldn’t help but laugh as she followed Mimi to the back. “Yes, you did. My apologies, Mimi-sama, I had some strange men following me and had to make sure I lost them. It was only Fortune that brought me close enough to here that I could visit. I am glad to see you, but I’m afraid that this can’t be a long meeting for your safety.”

“Oh yes, I assume Masashi-sama is planning some new fool errand or other. I still haven’t figured out what he is doing throwing his weight behind this fool coup. I suspect he has his hands in the resistance as well, but I still can’t work out the angle.” Mimi began collecting water into a bath. “Behind the screen now, Maiko-chan. Keep your modesty while I prepare your bath and clothes.”

Maiko sighed as she did as she was told. Given everything else going on, the modesty she didn’t care about anyway seemed particularly unimportant. “You’re right about his hand being in so many places,” she commented. “I can’t figure out why either. He kept me at arms’ length even before I left the first time. Trying to figure out what he is thinking even in the most reasonable instances is like reading a cat’s mind. You wouldn’t understand it even if you could do it.”

She chuckled at her own joke, but paused in surprise once she realized that there was no response from Mimi. “Oh come on,” she said cautiously. “I know it wasn’t actually funny, but you don’t need to give me the silent treatment about it.” No response. She let out a deep sigh and collected her knife. And in her small clothes, she carefully looked out from the privacy screen to see what was going on.

At first, she couldn’t find anything unusual happening. The water was sitting tepid, waiting for heat that still hadn’t come. But she’d spied no sign of Mimi. Wishing that she’d had a fresh set of clothes, she looked around quickly to spy anything she could use to escape. A window would do nicely…

That is, except for the fact that the door leading out towards the tavern front had just opened, and three very familiar faces stepped inside. One, a face painted with regret, was Mimi. And the other two were the assassins that had confronted her in the alley before. “I’m sorry, Child,” she said quietly. “You shouldn’t have forgotten where my loyalties lie.”

Maiko was instantly a burst of action, rushing towards the window as she cursed her poor luck. But this time, she couldn’t get far before she felt a tell tale prick hit her neck. Instantly, she knew that it was a sleeping poison. She felt her body quickly become heavy, blinking away her sudden strike of tiredness to try to stand against her would be captors.

“Don’t make this more difficult than you already have,” one of the assassins warned as he approached. “If Masashi-sama wanted you dead, don’t you think you’d have been dead years ago? How fortunate for you that he seems to still like you for some reason, don’t you think?” He dared reach for her hands, confident in his poison’s ability to keep her from being able to act.

“I wish he’d just get it over with,” she managed to get out as she stumbled backwards. As he redoubled his efforts, the last act she was able to manage before passing out was to slash his throat open.