Maiko
As Maiko came to, her head throbbed in pain. Slowly, she blinked herself awake, eyes taking too long to adjust to her environment. She recognized that she was cold, and he recognized that she was in pain. Her captors certainly did not treat her kindly. A sigh escaped. It wasn’t her first dark, dank dungeon. She hated reliving the experience, but it certainly wasn’t the first time. She lifted her arms and noted quietly that they were attached to heavy chains.
“Great,” she muttered to herself. This wasn’t how she’d planned to infiltrate the castle. But to Masashi’s credit, as much as the idea of that was bitter on her tongue, it got her where she needed to be. Slowly, she moved her hands to test at her pockets, trying to determine the resources she had available. Unsurprisingly, her knives were gone. She’d have to go find those later. Climbing tools? Of course not. They were, to their credit, thorough. She reached behind her head slowly, careful not to hit herself in the face with her chains. And as she found it, she smiled. A single hair pin, tucked into the surprisingly thick mess of short hair. Not the sort of thing most would look for from a girl who paid little obvious attention to hair care.
She curled into a small ball, sliding the pin between her teeth. They were smart in that they used locks that were big enough that she couldn’t just slip her hands. They did not take into account the possibility that she’d learned to work a lock with her teeth. It was clumsy and… not exactly fun. But she was finally able to catch the click that freed her right hand of her bonds.The second one clicked open a few moments later, and from her curled up position she took a bit of time to stay down and formulate her plan.
Maiko groaned heavily. The sound carried throughout the small cell and out into the stone floors of the prison. A second voice burst down the hall suddenly. Close, by how strong it was. “Hey! Keep it down there! You aren’t gonna get sympathy from me!” A single voice, feminine but commanding. She pressed her bare foot against the cold stone and felt out. She could feel the bars, the walls, and a single person standing just outside that cell.
Perfect. “Please, it hurts so much,” she groaned out.
“Please,” the woman said. “You don’t think I'm that stupid, do you? You act sick, I open the door, and you try to overpower me.”
Maiko laughed, sitting up with the shackles clutched carefully in her hands. “Damn. Most guards I’ve escaped from are pretty stupid, I’ll give you that. One groan, a convincing pass out, and they come running in. You’re not the smartest, but I’ll give you a lot of credit for not falling for that.”
“Not the smartest?” The guard raised her eyebrow. “What do you mean by-” she didn’t get a chance to finish the question as one of the shackles suddenly smashed into her face. As Maiko stood and brushed herself off, she shook her head.
“Never stand right by the door when you’re the one holding the key,” she advised. She reached her hand out, feeling around the woman’s obi until she finally found what she was looking for. She took the key and calmly clicked the door open. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. It’s only been three years since I’ve been down here and I need to reacquaint myself.” She grabbed the unconscious guard and pulled her into the room, latching her down with the shackles and locking her inside.
Fortunately, Maiko was well aware of the catacombs that made up the prison below Kōtei no kyūsoku. She didn’t allow herself time to think about the implications of that familiarity, choosing instead to be thankful for the fact that she knew exactly which little holes and crevices to slip into to avoid the guard patrols that seemed to pass by every few hundred feet. Fortunately, time was an asset she had in relative spades, so she made absolutely no effort to move faster than absolutely necessary.
Patience was rewarded in swift enough time. Slipping out of the dungeon, she found herself in the lower levels of the castle. She recognized the servant’s quarters swiftly enough. Which meant that there was a room set aside for her. The servant’s guise wasn’t one that she had previously used a great deal, but it was quite a useful one nevertheless. She stalked through the halls quietly, taking care to avoid the few servants that weren’t upstairs tending to the everchanging whims of the nobility above them.
The corner that she’d been given for a servant’s guise was in one of the least used corners. Masashi as Imperial Advisor had long made sure that staffing was only ever at 75% of its capacity. She once heard him tell Ichiya XL that it was to keep costs down. She was fairly certain he used it for all his assassins. Or at least, used it for some number of them. But with no one else in sight, she slipped into her room quietly.
The room was small; a futon that was currently rolled away, a small wardrobe for hanging clothes, and room for little else. She opened the wardrobe and slipped off her clothes, tossing them aside to replace with the servant’s garb that she’d be using to push through the castle. She slipped her fingers under one of the mats that made up the floor and pushed it open. A trio of knives sat untouched in the opening she created and she smiled. “Hello old friends,” she said with a chuckle.
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The knives found their way into the overly elaborate obi worn by the palace servants. With a sigh, she turned to leave. The easy part of the infiltration was done, at least. Now for her least favorite part: acting.
Maiko was careful not to be seen leaving her servant’s quarters. She made her way through the halls and up into the lower levels. As she entered the kitchens, she was frankly surprised at how few were running around. Typically, in the reign of Ichiya XL food was almost constantly flowing somewhere or another. The skeleton crew that stood in its place was almost disconcerting. But she couldn’t let herself get distracted by such thoughts.
“Maiko-san!” A high pitched, cheerful voice nearly caused Maiko to jump out of her skin. As she turned to look, a single girl rushed up to her.
“Haruhi-san?” Maiko’s voice betrayed her confusion. “What’s going on? Why are the kitchens so dead?”
Haruhi was a waif of a girl, barely entering her 18th year. She was dramatically cheerful, almost annoyingly so, and as she grasped onto Maiko’s arm, she hummed thoughtfully. “Well, you see, when Takahashi-dono took over for Ichiya-dono, she apparently decided that the cooks were wasting their time cooking for the guests of the castle. She kept enough of us here to make sure that the basic needs were met, but I’m not sure what happened to the rest of them. I heard some were going north…”
Maiko raised a hand to quiet Haruhi, and she nodded gently. “That… makes sense. You should leave, Haruhi-san. It’s going to get very dangerous to be around this castle very soon.”
“What? Why? Takahashi-dono said that life was going to be safer around the capital, not more dangerous. What’s-”
“Haruhi-san. Please, just trust me. There’s too much going on, you’ll be in danger if you stay here.” Despite that warning, Maiko already started moving towards the servant’s exit that would lead from the kitchen to the higher levels of the castle. But as she reached out with her senses to watch for threats, it surprised her that Haruhi did not move to leave. She turned around, and as she opened her mouth she barely was able to dodge a knife aimed for her head.
“What the - Haruhi?!” The girl, young and flighty before, had become deathly serious as another knife drew from her obi.
“My apologies, Maiko-san, but you should have simply provided me with the information I sought. If you do it now, I will make this as painless as possible.” She leapt at Maiko, her blade aimed for the assassin’s stomach. Maiko stepped to the side, grabbing Haruhi’s arm and forcing her quickly to the ground even if she cursed herself for that moment of undue trust. She knew better than this.
As Haruhi flipped from her grip and rolled onto a nearby countertop, Maiko’s hand grasped one of the daggers in her Obi. “I should have known. You always have been too chummy. How long have you been in Masashi-san’s employ?”
“Since I was younger than you were when you joined him,” she answered neutrally. “But unlike you, I never wavered in my duty. And when I bring your head to Masashi-san, he will reward me handsomely for preventing your attempted assassination.”
“It’s adorable that you think my presence here isn’t part of his plan,” she growled. “But now’s not the time for regrets, hai?” She leapt forward, her blade arcing towards Haruhi’s throat in a killing arc. Haruhi stepped back in shock, not used to Maiko’s speed. Her blade barely deflected Maiko’s, sending both clattering to the corner. Haruhi looked shocked, but while she was planning her next move, Maiko was already drawing her blade.
“A tip, for the next life,” Maiko said as she leapt in and thrust her knife into Haruhi’s chest. “Always know your next move before completing the first. Hesitation in battle kills more readily than any blade.” Haruhi tried to retort, but all she managed was a release of air as she slumped into Maiko’s shoulders.
Maiko set the dead woman down. She didn’t have much time before the commotion would be investigated, so she quickly collected all of the fallen blades and pulled Maiko through the servant’s door. The hallways meant for the servants were full of closets that she could stash Haruhi’s body into. And once that was done, she began moving up the stairs that would lead to her destination.
The main courtroom of the Imperial Castle was on the Fourth floor. As she stalked up, she took quiet steps, slipping into dark crevices or other closets the moment her senses detected even a hint of another presence nearby. This unfortunately kept her travel slow, but a methodical pace suited her better than Himari’s tendency to rush in.
The thought of Himari caught her briefly off guard as she tucked herself in another dark crevice, waiting for the presence she felt more than heard walk away. She wondered how Himari and Chikao’s planning was going. They would not have much longer to prepare before the battle was to be joined. And Maiko had every intention of being prepared to fight alongside Himari when the time came. She hoped that Himari would make it. No, she knew Himari would get into that courtroom somehow.
But before she made her way there, there was one thing that kept her attention no matter how much she tried to push it away. She stopped at the third floor entrance, standing in a hunched position to best imitate a servant. She was able to slip past the guards in plain sight as she did, making her way towards a familiar room. Maiko found that she was holding her breath, her heart pounding heavily against her chest.
The door she stood in front of had a large, stylized snake circling a katana painted upon the paper walls. When she first saw it, she thought it impressive. Now, however, she realized just how much it fit the person that this area belonged to. She opened the door and stepped inside.
Only to find nothing. No hint of Masashi. Not even a hint of a trap. Just a single low table, with a note resting on it. No matter where she looked, she saw no other indication that he had been in this room. As she approached, she flicked the note, which had been folded neatly in half, open with a knife. And she cursed herself for falling for his tricks again. It read, in very simple script:
Only a fool walks into a snake’s den with no plan.