The gate opened before me in all it's glory.
"Chloe wait for me outside, I'll be back soon and I'll need your assistance."
She huffed but nodded soon after.
A familiar older woman staff member, unhurried, appeared before the gate.
"Please follow me."
I was led through the front entrance without a word, the quality of air changing subtly. taking the elevator to the second floor I followed the turn down a corridor that turned twice opening into a different wing entirely. I hadn't seen much of the place last time I arrived and it was clear by the vast array of traditional artifacts lined up atop the podiums we passed easily. The dark flooring suddenly shifted into a light healthy wood, and clean decorative weapons lined the walls, all directing attention to a single sign.
'The kendo hall'
It was just before me now, I took a pause and walked forward.
I walked through the set of shoji screens, already pulled half-open, and beyond them the space expanded. Just like the top floor this room was also built with a high ceiling, pale light shown from the windows, set near the top of the walls so they wouldn't interrupt a match. The floor itself was old school hardwood smooth to the touch. Weapons, real steel ones and wooden stood on racks along one portion of the place reminiscent of a supermarket. In another Two target dummies set at measured intervals. Scrollwork along the upper molding in what I believed was a classical Heian pattern, and on the far wall, a single painted panel — brushwork, ink on paper that showed a figure mid-stance.
My eyes roamed and Tomoe Tsurugi was at the center of the hall.
She stood with a shinai resting across her hands, sweat indicating she was at the end of her practice.. She was dressed in full hakama and keikogi, dark indigo, and her posture was straighter than every floor board in the room.
She was also looking directly at me, which was the thing people always had to reckon with about Tomoe Tsurugi. The medical reality of her vision was documented but it didn't seem to apply in any way that mattered.
"Couffaine," she said.
"Ms. Tsurugi-san." I nodded in respect before walking up to her onto the matts.
She brought up her shinai the closer I got and my guide took it from her hands in a deep bow. with a single fluid motion and turned to face me fully.
"I hope you liked my gift," I said with a smile.
I wasn't sure If she was already aware of that miraculous being in new York before I'd given it to her but It didn't matter a miraculous was a miraculous and I was positive she comprehended what it was.
"Sit," she said, and gestured to a low table near the weapon rack. A tea service was already there. She moved to the other side and settled into seiza and I sat across from her. Our cups were poured without the need of asking.
"The gift you sent, I'm more pleased with it every time I gaze at it," she said, lifting her cup. "It seems it was worth the trouble of sponsoring you."
"it's a very precious item, but I managed to get it without much trouble thanks to your small loan" I said. "I even heard It was supposedly meant to be a part of a museum exhibit."
She held her cup and looked at me across the steam.
"How did you get it."
"Oh just some tricks I picked up, it really just fell into my hands."
A silence bloomed. She seemed to be measuring something with her eyes I couldn't even see.
"Kagami tells me very little about you," she said finally. "I find I have to read around the silences."
"There's not much to say, I'm just a normal guy living a normal life."
She set her cup down. "Kagami does not consider people as carefully as myself, still."
"You gave her something quite useful," Tomoe said.
"I did? What might that be."
"She's been wearing it since the day it arrived." Her voice was neutral, giving nothing away in the inflection. "Kagami doesn't wear jewelry but I saw fit she did with this one."
I didn't say anything to that though that was exactly what I hoped. Kagami getting the miraculous was essentially regifting it back to myself. Still I waited with a neutral expression just to see where she wanted the conversation to head.
Tomoe looked at me with those precise, unseeing eyes.
"Before you see her again, show me your hands," she said.
I set the cup down and placed both hands flat on the table between us, palms up.
She leaned forward slightly, not to touch, just to look even thought she's canonically blind. She studied them regardless seemingly seeing the calluses at the base of my fingers, the width of my palm, along with other noticeable factors.
"Musician," she said.
"I play Guitar primarily."
"And you've fought."
"Yes."
"Not trained. Fought."
"A little of both," I said. "In that order."
She settled back. Something in her expression had shifted
"The artifact she wears," Tomoe said. "do you know what it is."
"Not exactly, I have some clue about its history," I replied lying casually.
Tomoe Tsurugi was quiet for a long moment.
"You may speak to her on the way out," she said at last. "She's in the east corridor. She'll show you out."
I nodded and got up, I'd appreciate her support, even more so when I took over paris. If she looked the other way or decided to assist I wouldn't be against gift a bit of it.
Kagami was exactly where her mother said.
The east corridor ran alongside what I assume was their interior garden, I moved through a narrow channel with a view through the glass panels on one side into a small arrangement of raked gravel and a single carefully shaped pine. She was there staring at the glass with her arms at her front, spine straight, in the stillness I was custom to seeing. She heard my footsteps and turned.
She looked at me fully, revealing a string around her neck. Then at the corridor behind me. Then back.
"She let you in?" Kagami asked.
I nodded walking by her.
She fell into step beside me as I moved down the corridor, matching my pace without thinking about it. "I've only managed to bring one other person here In my entire life.
"Adrien?"
She nodded.
"My mother received them in the formal sitting room. With fifteen minutes of conversation and tea."
"That rough buddy."
"It was, rough, buddy" She glanced at me sidelong.
Kagami was quiet for a few steps, with a little wandering we finally made it back to a different elevator.
"You must've did something right," she said finally, not like it was effortless to say.
"I just did my research."
"Research. No, she approved of you."
"I guess so barely."
"More than I can say, you seem to have it lucky" she said, but not unkindly. "Growing up watching people try and fail. Every teacher. Every coach she hired for me. Colleagues my father used to bring around. She has a way of making a person feel—" She seemed to stop herself catching herself ranting.
"unwelcome, scrutinized, lesser than, yea she seems to be an expert" I offered.
Kagami's chin moved in a short, surprised acknowledgment. "Yes, that's right."
"She did not look at you like that in your first meeting. For the most part."
"Good."
We were in the elevator now and I clicked the bottom floor.
"The piece around your neck," I said.
Her hand went to it automatically, fingertips touching the cord. She didn't pull it out from beneath her collar but the motion confirmed what Tomoe had told me.
"Was this what you were looking for," she said. "In New York."
"Part of it."
She looked at me steadily. "Was it ever going to someone else."
"No," I said. "It was yours from the start. I just hadn't given it to you yet."
Her steady expression remained as unreadable as possible.
"You chose it for me," she said. "Specifically."
"Yes."
She looked ahead again. The entrance was in sight now,
She was quiet for a long stretch. Then spoke.
"I don't have much practice with this," she said, sounding as if she'd been working up to it since the corridor began.
"With what."
"Friendship." She said the word cleanly, without apology, but I could hear the weight of the admission in it. "but you already know that. I've been told I'm not — naturally suited to it."
"By who."
"Multiple people."
How specific.
"They weren't wrong. I know I am—" She considered. "Difficult. In the ordinary sense."
"Trust me don't worry about what they think, the thought of being normals far more scary."
"Most people don't have trouble with the things I do."
"Most people aren't being themselves."
She seemed to considered that. We were at the door now. She stopped before it, one hand resting on the handle without pushing.
"I've been trying," she said, which was as direct as Kagami Tsurugi ever got about something that cost her to say. "With you specifically. I've been — making an effort. And I find I don't know if I'm doing it correctly." She looked at me with the expression she wore when she demanded an honest answer and would accept nothing else. "Am I."
I put my fingers to my chin and looked at the ceiling. I made the expression I made when I was genuinely thinking rather than filling silence.
Then I slapped her on the backside.
Her head whipped to face me, eyes wide for exactly one second — the most unguarded her face had been since ever and I was already facing the door.
"You're doing fine, Kagami," I said. "Friends don't keep score. They just show up anyway they can." I pushed the door open, the morning air coming through cold and clean. "That's it. That's what it means to be a friend."
I stepped out without looking back to check if she was following.
Behind me, in the corridor, I heard the quiet exhale she let out when she thought I was out of earshot.
I was already checking my phone.
I found Adrien's text he was near 7th street. corner of the Palais Royal gardens, near the column installation, where the tourists clustered around the striped pillars.