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One step and then another, in a cycle of infinite repetition, the problem: my feet hurting—a lot.
Leaving Yoshiwara, let's say that my plan wasn't exactly the best; after all, there was never a plan to begin with.
The only thing in my head right now is a two-step secondary plan in the meantime: first, meeting Mouse in the new city and getting an easy-to-do job so we can get some quick coins; and second, paying for a good place to sleep so me and Aoha can discuss the long-term plan.
And what is the long-term plan? It is best not to think about it now; it will just cloud my head in the moment. I just need to focus on walking; resting comes later.
To our luck, the way forward has a lot less forest and much more stone paths guiding us, and with roads to follow come signs. A wooden sign on the right end of the path warns us that we are in the direction of Asakusa.
"You don't want to stop for a quick rest?" My question to Aoha is met with a tired groan from her.
"Talking will only eat away your oxygen and make you get tired faster, so shut up."
I decide to go with her advice, knowing that it makes sense, but damn, I should have thought of a better way to cross cities.
Midday passes by, and the sun starts to lower itself from the sky.
We decide that rather than risking being robbed in the street or attacked by an animal, we should get to somewhere with trees and a good view of the path ahead of us.
So we climb a hill, using the last strength of our muscles to push ourselves to the top, and once there, I'm the first to fall to the ever-looking, comfortable grass below.
Aoha, having a little bit more respect for her clothes, chooses to instead of dropping down, lean against a tree trunk and let gravity guide her down.
Breathing heavily and feeling all the muscles in my body ache, I attempt to laugh. "How much do you think a horse costs?"
Aoha raises an eyebrow and shrugs. "I don't know; it's very rare to see someone riding a horse.
"The cost of feeding them would be greater than the cost of buying one, I believe."
"I don't care. If I have to walk this much again on foot, I'll cry."
"The cost would not be the only problem," my companion comments, pointing her index finger to the path ahead. "The poor made cobble paths, the rivers without ways of crossing, the hard climbs of valleys and mountains too would force us to waste more time than we would save."
...
"You're smart, huh?"
Aoha, I guess, understands my words wrongly by the way she crosses her arms and frowns. "If you prefer not hearing my words, I can keep my mouth shut from now on."
Quickly shaking my head, I crawl more closely to her and stop on the same tree she's sitting against, positioning myself beside her.
"That's not what I meant," Raising my knees, I let out a sigh and watch as the air escaping my lungs fogs the air slightly. "I just got surprised; I didn't expect you to be the smart type. I thought you would be more like me.
"It's actually kind of reassuring to see you have a working brain, unlike me."
"Unlike you?" Aoha asks, leaving the strange feeling that this is her attempt at a joke, but it could be that she just found a good excuse to say that.
I nod my head, smiling at her, and rest my chin atop my knee, letting my head tilt slightly. "Exactly, so when I'm in trouble, could I count on you?"
The pose plus my soft tone should be enough to be considered flirting, but it could also easily sound like an overly friendly request.
What is my intention with this in mind? Warm up this fire spirit to my existence, as since the city I saw that she seems to hate me less, and she's actually talking to me like I'm a human being and not an assassin planning on killing her as soon as she lets her guard down.
Not expecting my answer or body language, Aoha clicks her tongue and turns her head away. "It is not like I have other options; my respect for you is enough that I would feel bad not helping."
If she was affected by my attempt is something I can't tell, but maybe I'll find out soon.
"Well, I'm taking the first sleeping shift, so please make sure no wolf tries to make me its snack," I say while yawning, resting my head against the cold, hard tree trunk, and hugging my knees closer.
"There are no wolfs in Edo." Aoha comments with a humf.
With one last smile, I whisper as sleep claims my mind. "That's what everyone says."
Aoha's POV
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What did she mean by that? I'm sure no wolves exist in Edo; there are no books that comment about them, only those that talk about other continents.
Is that an attempt to make me scared so I'll be more open-eyed about our surroundings?
It didn't sound like it, and from the little I know of her, I believe she wouldn't say something like this with such childish reasoning behind it.
Talking about this girl, how can she sleep so soundly surrounded by the unknowing darkness of the forest?
It would be too quick to assume it's because she has my company, but still, we shared a room twice now, even if we were not sleeping near each other.
And since she freed me, she made no attempts to use my powers for her own gain, nor did she request an absurd reward like my body.
While deep in thought, I feel a lightweight against my shoulder, and looking at the source of it, I see the girl resting her head on my shoulder.
If she's awake and did it on purpose or if she simply slid without noticing in her sleep, it's unknown to me... Sensing no ill intentions from her, I just let her claim my shoulder as her pillow for tonight.
This girl, my mind tells me of the various possibilities for her being friendly to me, all for bad reasons, while her spirit gives me no reason to suspect, besides the strange dark spot on her soul.
What a strange girl. I'll choose to play nice for now; there's no reason to keep doubting her, and she had many opportunities to kill me in these two days.
*Yawn*
This makes sense; there's no real reason to waste more energy overthinking than I am right now.
Feeling the cold of the night, I call upon a small flame to surround us, a flame that should help push away the hunting cold of the night and, with luck, scare away any predator lurking between the slender trees.
Sleepiness comes for me too, a lingering feeling that draws me closer and closer with the promise of rest and safety that looks so good right now that my body starts to betray my mind and slowly succumbs to it.
I'll just shut my eyes for a second, then, just for a small second...
Back to Zero's POV
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The morning sun hits my eyelid, and as I try to move my head, I feel a weight that makes me unable to. So I force my eye open and see a strand of dark brown hair tickling my nose, threatening to make me sneeze.
So I blow it away from my face and hear the faint sound of a snore from the not-so-mysterious anymore source of the weight at the top of my head.
What do I do in a situation like this? Do I wake her up and move or stay like this for some more, to at least give her some more time of rest?
I'll wait for now; after all, this feeling is too nice to just end for an idiotic reason, like letting my blood flow again on the shoulder because her body is pressing down so hard against it.
Fifteen minutes go by, and Aoha wakes up on her own, blinking her eyes slowly so they adjust to the sunlight coming from the horizon and quickly surpassing the mountains in the distance.
"Morning."
Aoha, hearing my voice, looks at me with a raised eyebrow and the situation down on her as quick as the static feeling of the blood finally being able to flow in my shoulder and right arm.
"I-," coughing, she rapidly regains her posture. "Apologies; the travel left me tired, and so I was not able to control myself and must have fallen asleep without noticing."
Giving her a thumbs up with my left hand, I rise to my feet and extend my hand to help her up. "It's fine, really. There's no reason to be embarrassed."
"I see." Taking my hand, Aoha stretches her legs and arms, preparing herself for the three to five-hour-long walk ahead. "Should we part now?"
Nodding my head, I point towards the mountains and the city's big red tower temple thingy. "We need to arrive before the evening, then we can meet a friend of mine, ask for directions and maybe even a job."
"A job?" Aoha asks, crossing her arms.
"Yeah, it will be nothing bad. Just helping the folks from town with something no one wanted to do, get the coins, and leave for the next city."
"And the plan after that?"
"When we find a good hotel in the city, we will discuss it, I promise."
Aoha, after a second of thinking, drops the subject, and as she's about to put on her backpack, I grab the katana and put it in her hands.
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"Put it on your kimono, just so no one suspects anything."
Accepting the katana, Aoha straps it to her kimono and gives it a little test before walking forward to see if it is secured. With the knowledge that it is, both of us start walking down the hill to return to the main path.
Moving again sucks, my sore feet from yesterday are still bugging me, and the constant passage of people all around us doesn't make anything easier.
On the way, one thing becomes obvious almost instantly: most of the people that reside in this city seem to be yokai or kemonomimis from what I see past the city gate ahead. I heard rumors a long time ago of a city made only of non-human folk, but I didn't expect it to be this one.
The way this society works is broken; people accept the existence of the yokai and kemonomimis, but when it comes to existing in harmony with them, there are a lot of people who oppose it.
Saying that they steal jobs because most of them have superior physical attributes compared to normal humans or whatever bullshit they can think of. People sometimes are dumb; nothing new here.
But one funny thing is that brothels with monster girls are very popular, especially among those who disapprove of their existence. Humanity is really something else.
That's why some years ago some cities were made so the non-humans could live peacefully, among only those who aren't assholes and who respect their ways.
Like their spirituality and connection with creatures, like the one walking beside me, but if she didn't have a physical form and existed only in the other plane of existence, or, more popularly called: low spirits.
Aoha is a high spirit, I believe, one born from great admiration and faith. Not that I can confirm anything I said; I just heard from Uba, so I assumed everything she said to be true.
Now talking about the city, this one is exclusively pretty; a tall torii gate with autumn flowers blooming from the top showers the newcomers with petals, something you don't see every day.
Approaching it, we stop in a line leading to some guards checking people's identifications, and tilting my head to see past the mountains of shoulders blocking my view, I notice the guards here aren't the same as the emperor's.
They seem to be a local type by the way their uniform differs from the standard and the fluffy ears of one of them. The emperor only accepts humans into his military force. This is a good sign; the lack of the emperor's presence means less chance of everything going bad.
We stand on the line, waiting so we can get to the end of it. Meanwhile, conversation happens all around us from others wishing to enter the city, and as a very respectful person, I don't lose the opportunity to hear the talk from others.
"Did you hear?" One young, beastly man asks with a whisper.
"Hear what?" His friend leans closer to hear.
"The rumors, man."
"You talking about the people disappearing at the Sensoji temple?"
The first young man nods his head. "Yeah, I heard from some guys that it is a beast doing it-" As the man finishes his words, he finds me leaning closer to hear, almost tripping. To my surprise, the man pulls me closer.
"If you want to hear, just stay quiet," he orders, and I obey, so he continues. "So, the guys I mentioned said there were big claw marks everywhere, but surprisingly, everyone that was going missing was never confirmed to be killed.
"A week ago, they sent some hunters there, and they came back all hurt—badly. Now the job was put down, and the area became restricted to us until further notice."
"Nice, now I know exactly what I'll do to pass the time." My comments is met with a strange look from both guys, and before they can think more of what I said, I push them further. "Ya'll are next."
Both exclaim and grab their identification, promptly showing the guard and disappearing into the city.
I grab my necklace and show the identification, which is a piece of copper melted and put into a little cube. This serves to identify the class you belong to.
Like, copper is the lowest value coin, silver goes second, gold third, and lastly, the emperor's metal, aka platinum, something that shows you're from the high society, and there are only a handful of people walking around with an emperor metal necklace, most being his sons and daughters.
The guard writes something down and lets me go, turning his attention to Aoha. Aoha's dark gold eyes tell me something bad will happen. She pulls out her necklace and hides from my view. The guard's reaction is enough for me to assume it's a gold one.
Damn, if she's rich, that will help a lot, but as she has no coins and the prior situation of hers was difficult, to say the least, that means no extra coins for me.
"I wish you a nice stay, ma'am." The guards say so nervously and permit her passage.
When she gets to my side again, I try peeking to see her identification, but she swiftly hides it.
"You're no fun."
Aoha silently stares me down, and so I pout exaggeratedly, resuming my walk down the main street, giving her no more attention, so she feels bad, something I don't think will happen, but it is fun regardless.
The streets are filled with life, and the merchants all show off various types of sweets and food I have never seen or heard of. If Ume were here, she would pass out from happiness or from eating too much sugar.
But food and tourist gifts are not what we are here for; we need to find Mouse, and to find that sneaky girl, we just need to get to a dark alley away from all the noise.
Pulling Aoha with me, I gaze around and end up finding the perfect spot, so I direct us there. My companion at first doesn't think much, but I feel from her palm a nervous feeling as I pull her to it.
It makes sense. Imagine you're walking peacefully with a friend, and they pull you out of nowhere to a dark alley.
"Relax; we are just going to see if Mouse is in the city."
"In a dark alley?" Aoha questions firmly.
As a response, I give her a thumbs up with my free hand. "Exactly, let's say Mouse values a lot her privacy; that's why she only appears to help her friends, me being the only one on that list."
With my words, Aoha seems to let herself relax slightly, and soon we are in the not-so-smelly-as-I-expected alley, so I prepare the 'ritual'.
Going to one of the more dark corners, I start humming a rhythmical melody and stop in half. As I stop, from the darkness of the alley, Mouse appears, with her same gray hair loosely trying to cover her ears, continuing the melody with a smile on her face.
As she finishes the melody, Mouse quickly rushes in my direction and wraps her arms around me, or tries, as she has the height of a child, even if she is older than me—something about her species aging differently than humans.
And yeah, she's a half-human, half-mouse person with a long, thin tail, big ears on top of her head, and a very cute face.
"You came; I missed you. I thought you could have gotten yourself into trouble after you asked for that prison map." Mouse says with a relieved sigh, not letting go of me yet.
With a laugh, I pat her head as if she were a child, earning a poorly forced grunt to hide her squeaky happy sounds. "You know I'm the best; not in a million years would I be caught by some untrained bastards."
"Untrained? Aren't most of the guards retired samurais?"
"Yes, but still, my point stands: I'm the best."
Mouse, not understanding the way my advanced way of thinking works, decides to go with everything I say to avoid me talking more.
"Well, Mouse, my dear friend, my best friend, the cutest thing on earth-"
"You need work, right?" Mouse asks with a small smile.
"WHAT? Do you think I'm so superficial to meet with you only when I need work?"
.
..
...
..
.
Is it my head, or is everyone getting smarter?
"Okay, okay, yeah, I need work. But," Embracing Mouse, I pet behind her big ears to show how much I appreciate her. "The only one I trust is you, my best friend."
The sensory overload from patting her weak points seems to be enough so that she believes me, and I'm not lying; still, things are rough and work is always appreciated.
"I have something for you." Mouse grins and points towards a big torii gate at the top of a mountain deeper into the city. "A hunt quest, the work is dangerous enough that many who took it never came back, so the emperor himself suspended the request.
"Now, the reward for the bravest is at its highest. So if you want some coins, that would be the way."
"How much are they offering?"
Mouse grins widens a lot more, a good sign that the pay is exceptional. "Right now, speculations say one gold coin."
Wow! It makes sense, but still, one gold coin is a lot. Most cities use copper only and silver very rarely, so a gold coin can be the difference between sleeping in the forest or in a hotel.
"Okay, what do we do then? Do we need to accept it somewhere or..."
"They are asking for the creature's head; there is no formality or anything; it's just going and doing."
"Time for me to go then; we talk later, Mouse. Thanks for the help."
Mouse walks back to the shadow and waves. "Come visit me when you can; we could eat something in the city."
Giving her a thumbs up, I turn to my companion now with a plan and a job.
"Let's hunt a big one."
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