Aiko's first day as Kaito's "shadow" was an overwhelming sensory assault. Walking beside him through the sprawling Ishikawa estate was like wading through a thick, invisible ocean teeming with unseen life. Every room, every garden, every ancient wooden beam pulsed with its own unique energy signature.
In the main kitchen, the air buzzed with the frantic, slightly grumpy energy of numerous small Tsukumogami – old cooking pots, knives, and utensils, all faintly aware and focused on their tasks. In the ancestral shrine room, the air was thick and heavy with the weight of generations of Ishikawa spirits, a silent, watchful council. In the gardens, playful Kodama (tree spirits) flickered at the edge of her vision, and she could feel the slow, deep consciousness of the ancient trees themselves.
"It's... a lot," she murmured to Kaito as they walked down a quiet, sun-dappled corridor, her head swimming.
"This house has stood for four hundred years," Kaito replied, his voice low. "It has accumulated residents." He glanced down at her, his expression unreadable. "Focus. Learn the baseline. What feels normal here?"
She tried. She focused on the general feeling – a deep sense of order, loyalty, and ancient power. The spirits here felt... settled. Part of the fabric of the place. She began to catalog the sensations: the warm contentment of the kitchen spirits, the solemn dignity of the ancestral shrine, the quiet watchfulness of the garden yokai.
They entered the main administrative wing, where clan business was conducted. Here, the energy shifted. It was sharper, more focused, imbued with human ambition and stress. Aiko felt the subtle auras of the men and women working silently at their desks – mostly mundane, but a few flickered with a faint, controlled energy, indicating minor spiritual sensitivity or perhaps pacts with small messenger spirits.
As they passed a closed office door, Aiko paused. A faint wave of something unpleasant emanated from within – bitterness, resentment, jealousy. It felt like stagnant water.
"What is it?" Kaito asked instantly, noticing her hesitation.
"That room..." Aiko pointed. "It feels... unhappy."
Kaito glanced at the nameplate on the door. "My uncle's second son. Passed over for promotion last year. Holds a grudge." He filed the information away. "Note the feeling. Resentment has a distinct spiritual signature. But it is not the cold, listening void we seek."
Later, they encountered Chiyo overseeing the cleaning of the grand hall. The old woman bowed stiffly. Aiko focused, trying to read her aura. It was like trying to read a perfectly polished stone – smooth, impenetrable, and radiating an immense, tightly controlled discipline. There was disapproval there, certainly, directed at Aiko, but it wasn't the wrongness she was looking for. It was the rigidity of tradition, not the hollowness of treason.
By late afternoon, Aiko was exhausted. Perceiving the world on this level was like listening to a thousand conversations at once. They were walking back towards Kaito's quarters when she felt it again.
Faint. Fleeting. But unmistakable.
The same cold, hungry, listening signature she had felt from the crushed device. It wasn't attached to a person or a place. It was like a faint scent on the wind, drifting down the corridor from the direction of the clan's main archive room.
"Kaito," she whispered, stopping dead. "There. I felt it. Just for a second."
He froze, instantly alert. "Where?"
"Down that hall," she pointed. "Towards the archives. It's gone now, but... it was there."
Kaito stared down the empty corridor, his eyes narrowed into slits. The archive room held some of the clan's most sensitive records, both mundane and magical. Access was highly restricted.
The traitor wasn't just listening. They were actively searching for something.
"Good," Kaito murmured, a predatory glint in his eyes. "You've found the hunting ground. Now, we just need to lay a trap for the hunter."