[Current Balance: 4,755,411,970,800 Mon]
---Previously---
'Arai Hakuseki,' Alaric thought, his eyes narrowing as he focused on the central keep where the advisor's chambers would be. 'Let's see what the Apple left you with.'
His mission was clear. He had to get inside the most heavily guarded fortress in Japan, confront the Shogun's most powerful advisor, and unravel the last threads of Caroline's passage through this isolated kingdom.
---Now---
Alaric had spent the day listening, his Mind's Eye sifting through the city's psychic noise, his ears catching the whispered gossip in tea houses and sake bars. The name Arai Hakuseki came up often, always spoken with a mixture of reverence and a new, subtle fear. The Shogun's brilliant advisor, the scholar who shaped policy, had become… reclusive. Unpredictable.
Alaric knew this was the lingering stain of the Apple. Caroline had found her pawn, twisted his intellect to her purpose, and then moved on, leaving him a puppet whose strings were now frayed but still attached to a dark, unseen master. The sword she sought was undoubtedly the key.
As night fell, draping the city in shadows and the soft glow of paper lanterns, Alaric stood on a rooftop across the wide, dark moat from Edo Castle. The massive white keep, the tenshu, rose into the night sky, a symbol of absolute power.
He knew that Arai Hakuseki's chambers would be deep within that fortress, the most secure location in all of Japan. A direct assault was not just foolish; it was inefficient. He needed to understand the defenses, find a weakness.
He needed to see the shadow before he tried to cut it.
He waited, a statue against the night sky, for hours. He watched the changing of the guard, mapping the patrol routes in his mind. He noted the archers on the ramparts, the silent watchers on the rooftops. The castle's defenses were a masterpiece of overlapping fields of fire and watchful eyes.
It was almost midnight when he saw it.
A flicker of movement on the roof of a smaller building within the castle's inner sanctum, near the residential quarters of the high officials. It wasn't a normal guard. This figure moved with an unnatural fluidity, a silent, weightless grace that was deeply unsettling.
Alaric's eyes narrowed. He focused his chakra, pushing his vision to its limits. The figure was clad in stark black from head to toe, their face obscured by a simple, porcelain noh mask, painted with a blank, emotionless expression.
Another appeared on an adjacent roof, then a third. They were communicating with silent, precise hand gestures, their movements perfectly synchronized, like puppets on a string.
These were not samurai.
These were the strange new guards the merchants had whispered about.
Alaric moved, melting from his rooftop perch. He flowed through the shadows of the city, using alleyways and rooftops to close the distance, circling the massive castle grounds. He found a spot along the western wall, a place where a large, ancient cherry tree grew close to the stone ramparts, its branches offering a perfect bridge into the castle's outer garden.
He moved up the tree with the silence of a cat, then leaped, landing without a sound on the stone walkway atop the castle wall. Two guards stood less than twenty feet away, their backs to him, oblivious. He ignored them, slipping past them and dropping into the meticulously raked gravel of a rock garden below.
He was inside.
He moved through the maze of courtyards and corridors, a ghost in the machine. He could feel the proximity of the masked guards now, their chakra signatures were faint, strangely muted, but present. He followed the feeling, his path leading him deeper into the castle, towards the residential keep.
He found one alone, standing perfectly still in the shadow of a decorative pagoda in a moonlit garden. Its back was to him.
Alaric approached silently. As he drew close, the masked figure spun around without a sound, a short, wickedly sharp tantō already in its hand, slashing at his throat. There was no warning, no shift in weight, no tell-tale intake of breath.
Alaric reacted instinctively, leaning back, the blade slicing the air a millimeter from his chin. He slapped the attacker's wrist, expecting the dagger to clatter away.
It didn't. The figure's grip was like iron, its arm like stone. It felt no pain, no shock. It simply reversed its grip and stabbed downwards.
Alaric twisted away, his eyes widening slightly. This was no human.
He delivered a powerful, open-palmed strike to the figure's chest. It was a blow that would have sent a normal man flying, his ribs shattered. The masked figure staggered back a single step, the impact making a dull, hollow thump, like hitting a solid block of wood.
It recovered instantly and attacked again, a silent, relentless flurry of stabs and slashes. Its movements were fast, precise, but… mechanical. There was no art to it, no style, just pure, deadly efficiency.
Alaric parried and dodged, his curiosity turning to grim understanding. 'Puppets,' he thought. 'Arai used the Apple's knowledge granted to him by Caroline to create puppets. Like Sasori's, or Kankuro's... but made of flesh and bone… I think.'
They were likely captured rōnin or bandits, their minds wiped, their bodies enhanced and controlled by Isu-tech charms and chakra threads.
He had to end this quickly and quietly.
Seeing an opening, he ducked under a wide slash and drove his fist, now glowing with a faint blue chakra, into the puppet's abdomen. This time, he didn't hold back.
CRUNCH.
The sound was sickening. The puppet's torso caved in, but it still didn't stop. It tried to bring its tantō up for one last strike. Alaric sighed, and his hand shot out, his fingers plunging into the center of the puppet's chest, right where its heart should be.
He felt no heartbeat. Just… wires, and a small, humming crystal.
He closed his fist, and the crystal shattered.
The puppet went limp, collapsing into a heap of limbs, the porcelain mask cracking as it hit the gravel.
Alaric stood over the fallen figure, his expression grim. This was worse than he thought. Caroline hadn't just influenced a man; she had given him the tools to create his own private army of unfeeling, unstoppable killers.
He crouched down, examining the fallen puppet. Tucked into its sash was a small, intricately carved wooden charm, shaped like a closed lotus blossom. He picked it up. His Mind's Eye flared as he felt it… a tiny, residual trace of the Apple's energy, intertwined with Arai Hakuseki's own chakra. This was the control mechanism.
He pocketed the charm. He needed to know more about it, about who might recognize it. He couldn't just wander the city asking about strange magical charms. He needed an expert in the city's hidden world.
He needed to find the Assassins.
He knew they had to be here. A city this important, with this much political power, would never be left unwatched by the Brotherhood. He just had to find them.
He left the castle as silently as he had entered, melting back into the shadows of Edo.
---
The next day, he found his lead not in a tavern or a gambling den, but in the quiet, refined atmosphere of a kabuki theater in the Yoshiwara district. He sat in the audience, watching the dramatic, stylized performance on stage, but his senses were focused on the crowd.
He was looking for a specific kind of person. Someone who watched the watchers. Someone whose stillness was not one of relaxation, but of coiled readiness.
He found her in the upper balcony. An old woman, seemingly just another wealthy patron, but her eyes, when he focused his Mind's Eye on her, held the sharp, cold focus of a hawk. Her chakra was calm, controlled, but powerful.
After the performance, Alaric followed her at a distance as she left the theater and made her way through the crowded streets. She led him to a small, unassuming calligraphy shop in a quiet part of the city. A simple noren curtain with the symbol of a crane hung over the entrance.
Alaric waited for a few minutes, then entered the shop.
The interior was serene. The scent of ink and old paper filled the air. An old man, the shopkeeper, sat at a low table, grinding ink on an inkstone, his movements slow and meditative.
Alaric walked to the counter. The old man looked up, his eyes were ancient and held a quiet wisdom.
Alaric didn't speak. He simply placed the carved lotus charm he'd taken from the puppet on the counter.
The old shopkeeper's hand paused in its grinding. He looked down at the charm. His eyes, which had been calm and placid, suddenly sharpened, a flicker of cold steel appearing in their depths. He looked up, his gaze meeting Alaric's, no longer the simple shopkeeper, but something else entirely. Something much older, and much more dangerous.
"Where," the old man asked, his voice a low, dangerous whisper, "did you get this?"
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