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Great Lakes and Expectations chp 2: White Elephant
🕑 Added 2018-12-31 20:11:06 +0000 UTC “Who are you?” her captor demanded.
He used the exact same wording that this one infuriating youtube commercial advertising beer did, so it took Regina a moment to straighten out her emotions in response to that confusing input. She told him her name. The grip on her shoulder became a little painful.
“Where do you come from?”
He did not like her answer. But he let her go and pushed her shoulder so that she spun around to face him.
Regina lifted her hands slowly, palms up.
Her assailant glanced at them and blinked, as thought something about her palms was surprising. She resisted the urge to glance at them because she already knew what her hands looked like.
The man looked very frustrated. He pushed back bangs that had fallen over the scuffed headband he was wearing.
'That's the same thing as what the dead lady was wearing,' Regina realized. 'The kanji for water.'
His was even more beat-up, but to be fair this man looked more worn and hardened than the dead woman who had been at Regina's feet when she appeared in this godawful place. He might have been in his thirties, but not in the way where he was aging gracefully. He had a few lines above his eyebrows, tired dark eyes, and pockmarked scar tissue disappearing down into his neckline.
He seemed to decide something, tilting his head slightly.
She flinched at movement, but he was putting his sharp thing away and holding up his hands in a mirror of her posture. Even aside from being in fingerless gloves, his hands were not like hers at all-
'Oh,' Regina realized. 'That's what he was looking at. My hands don't have any cuts or callous.'
Well. Rough, sun-tanned hands with scars and thick tissue probably came with a military career.
'That's slightly reassuring. He thought I was a fighty person, so he attacked me first. But I am not a fight person. So. He doesn't want to fight me. Good plan. Thank you, mr knife man.'
Letting her go when she seemed to be harmless was a good sign for her survival. So Regina managed the least-trembly smile she could sum up.
He dropped his voice lower, in tone and pitch. He apologized.
She told him it was okay. Actually, on reflex she said “こちらこそ” which was way too formal and made his mouth twitch.
Regina didn't normally like people thinking her linguistic fumbles were cute, but she would like for this person not to hurt her. Plus it was objectively kind of funny to say, “No, I should be saying that to you,” after someone apologized for leaping at you with a knife.
“なんでじらいやと旅行しますか？どこに行くの？”
Um. The second question was easier... Except that she didn't really know where they were going. Regina babbled something that hopefully communicated that all she knew was they were going to Iron country. But the first part-
'I don't know why I am traveling with Jiraiya. Lack of options? He's decided to haul me around? I definitely don't know how to explain that.'
”一週間前ぐらい、じらいやさんと会いました、”She picked slowly. It seemed important to explain that she didn't know Jiraiya that long. A week's association wasn't worth murder-stabbing her for, right?
The stranger's eyes sharpened, but he only nodded. Clearly he was waiting for more so she stretched her brain.
'The closest I can get to explaining that I don't know anyone.... I can say that everyone is a stranger. Then say that Jiraiya helped me.'
'全人は知らない人なのでじらいやからてつだうもらいました。” Shit, wrong verb. “くれました、” Regina corrected. And that wasn't exactly what she'd meant to say anyway. She had implied that Jiraiya had helped her specifically because she didn't know anyone. Probably fine. Close enough.
“そうなんですか。。。” After that, the man leaned back a little and looked her up and down, very deliberately. His gaze seemed to catch on her obviously new shoes before dragging back up to her face. She felt like he was ...checking her face for symmetry or something. There wasn't really anything else to do when staring at a person's face that long, was there?
She was getting tired of holding her hands up. But she also wanted to live, so she didn't move them.
The next thing he said was more difficult to parse. She caught 'Jiraiya', the word 'risk', and.... that was about it, really.
A bit weakly, she asked him to repeat it slowly.
He didn't say the same thing. He pointed to his headband and asked her if she had seen it before.
Regina knew that freezing wide-eyed wasn't a good response, but it was what the universe gave her. After a moment, she nodded.
The next thing he said...
'I think he's asking if I saw Jiraiya kill the woman wearing it.'
Um. Not technically, but she nodded. The man's eyes flicked to the side, where her hands were trembling.
He seemed sympathetic. When he repeated what he'd initially said, it made more sense. He was telling her that Jiraiya was a dangerous person.
Regina forced down hysterical laughter.
“じらいやは。。。、” he said urgently. She was pretty sure the word she didn't catch was 'murderer,' from context. No argument there. “あなたにせいじゃない。僕の仕事。。。聞く。。見えるき…出来るの？”
'He's talking about Jiraiya. And something about me not being something. Then about his work. Listen, can see.... is it possible? Is he asking me if something is possible- if I can do something?'
Her expression was probably blank. He didn't wait for a response to repeat himself once more, patient and slow.
She got a little more, probably from tone and body language than actual words.
'I think he wants me to tell him about what Jiraiya says and does,' Regina realized. 'He wants me to be his spy friend. Er. To inform on Jiraiya, I mean.'
That made a lot of sense... it seemed like getting close enough to Jiraiya to spy on him was dangerous. But Jiraiya was keeping her close for some reason. So she might see things that someone following Jiraiya would have to risk their lives to discover. But it would be easier to get her alone- he'd already done it once.
Her options stretched out in front of her. Option one: she said yes. He would let her go back to Jiraiya. Then, she could either decide to do what this man wanted, or tell Jiraiya about the encounter. Option two: she said no.
If she said no, this man was probably going to kill her.
She could only assume, anyway. He'd clearly been willing to use force.
'But I haven't actually seen him hurt anyone,' Regina deliberated. She bit her lower lip, hoping for time. 'I know for a fact that Jiraiya kills people. He kills a lot of people. That could mean that spying on him is way too risky for me and I should tell him about this immediately. Or it could mean that being with him is too dangerous and I should make another ally so I can get away from Jiraiya. I don't know which one of them is a good guy. Maybe neither of them is, actually. But they're definitely not working for the same people.'
There weren't really any options at this juncture. She nodded, slowly. She agreed.
The man glanced at the door. He was probably concerned about the time. When he turned back to her, it was with a small smile.
She tried not to relax too much. Her hands were still up.
He told her his name was Kou. That was probably a first name. So either he wanted to be friendly, or he didn't want her to know his last name. Then he said something that included the information that he'd see her again.
Then he was just fucking gone.
Regina spun in a circle so fast that her hair smacked her neck when she stopped. The room was empty. She pulled her hands to her chest and swallowed, hard.
'He could still be here. I wouldn't know.'
She did not feel comfortable to use the facilities. So she washed her hands, smoothed down her hair, adjusted her clothes, and went back out into the bar.
Jiraiya barely glanced up when she walked past him. He was still deep in conversation with Ando. Both men were red-faced from alcohol at this point. Ando gestured broadly and nearly bumped her as she passed.
'I don't think he knows anything,' Regina thought, and she did not like the idea. 'If he wouldn't notice another person following him, and didn't know that person threatened me a couple rooms away, can I trust that he could keep me safe? If I told him, would I be in more trouble, because Kou will know I betrayed him and Jiraiya can't or won't keep me safe enough?'
She had plenty of time to contemplate just how screwed she was through the night and into the next day.
After Jiraiya had stumbled to their hotel from the meeting with Ando, he had slept like the dead until past noon the next day. Regina didn't really feel comfortable straying too far from her room next door, but hunger eventually took her to the dining room downstairs. Of course he'd made them miss the complimentary breakfast, so she had to venture outside alone.
At least Jiraiya might have thought of this. It was the first time she needed to dig into the money he'd given her. There were three identical bills.
The bad thing was that it wasn't yen and she didn't understand how it worked at all. Regina agonized over it for a while- she didn't know if what she had was enough for a meal. It could be, like, 3 bucks in value, or 300. She had no way of knowing.
Well. Into the breach. She wandered around the market, lingering inappropriately close to other people to watch transactions and money changing hands. It was hard to see the small details on the money without really making a nuisance of herself, so it took some time. But after a while she thought she'd gotten it- she'd seen a man give a bill that looked like hers for a bento, and he got other bills back.
So. If she used that same bill, it was definitely big enough for a small transaction. What were the other bills? Would one of them be enough?
Ah, hell. She didn't know. She took herself into the first place she recognized as a restaurant, but god knows how many she walked past without knowing what they were. Lucky that tonkatsu places tended to have the red split curtains and the hiragana word written out front. She didn't know most food kanji. For some reason her language course had cared more about vocabulary like 'taxes', 'elephant', and 'economics' than helpful daily things.
'I do get a lot more mileage out of 'elephant' than I expected to, in fairness to course design. But. Does tonkatsu even have a kanji name?' Regina wondered. 'I don't think so. Or if it does, it's one of the old-fashioned ones that nobody uses anymore.'
That was interesting but not the current problem. She couldn't read the menu in its entirety, but she identified a teishoku meal, chose one kind of meat over the other confidently even though she didn't know which was which, and folded her hands in her lap to wait.
The place wasn't too crowded, but it was very small in general. To her right was a large window that opened to display a little nook of a garden. The building curled around it, making the garden a sort of private sanctuary. The owner's house was connected to the restaurant, probably.
People were staring, but not so much that she had to acknowledge it. This, at least, was normal. People stared at foreigners in Japan because they were just so unused to seeing them. And she hadn't seen anyone else who looked like a Westerner so far.
'But I've seen so many weird-looking people that actually, this doesn't make much sense.' Regina found herself frowning. 'It can't be my hair or eye-color, because I've seen much less plausible coloring here. My facial shape is still weird- my face is a little long, my eyes are atypical, but not so far out of the norm I've noticed around.'
Must be the nose. Having a high bridge wasn't a typical Japanese trait. It seemed like a weird thing that she would never notice, but her Japanese classmates had been conscious of that as a determining feature in attractiveness, along with 'head size' and how 'three-dimensional' a face was.
She really literally could not see whether or not a face check-marked those standards, but that had to be because it wasn't a beauty standard in the states. She just hadn't learned to look for it because it wasn't relevant back home.
The proprietress slid down her tray meal with a smile, “ゆっくりどうぞ”, and a nod. Regina smiled back- and then Jiraiya cheerfully threw himself down into the seat across and snagged her meal.
Regina felt her expression become decidedly unfriendly.
The waitress left real fast.
She leaned forward, made eye contact with Jiraiya, and put both hands on the rim of the tray.
He stopped with chopsticks at his mouth, already having shoved a strip of tonkatsu in with an appalling lack of grace. His brow furrowed.
“Mine,” Regina said firmly. She glared and pulled the tray back. She did it slowly, measuring his reaction to be sure Jiraiya didn't look to be angry. He seemed surprised, but not like he was going to be violent. So she settled the food back on her side of the table. “Chopsticks, please.”
'When did he even take those? I didn't see it.'
Jiraiya glanced guiltily at his hand and then passed over the utensils. He seemed enthralled and aghast when she took them.
'Oh, right. Using someone else's chopsticks is considered an indirect kiss here. I guess it isn't hygienic.'
Well. Confiscating them still made sense. She put them down on the tray quietly. Then she called back the server and asked for more chopsticks.
The waitress nodded and then glanced to Jiraiya. He said something so fast that Regina didn't understand much, other than that he was ordering food.
'I can't tell if he's just fucking with me or if he really is a ridiculously tall child.'
Either way, he was frustrating.
It was good to see her taking some initiative and showing some spine, as prickly and tentative as her attempts were. Jiraiya kept his amusement mostly off his face.
Rejina gave him a suspicious look between prissy, delicate bites. She didn't seem to notice that her left hand was protectively clutching her tray.
'She's a weird kid, that's for sure. She can't think I'd let her go hungry, after I've taken care of her for 9 days now.'
He kept the sigh in, as he'd been doing for a week and change now.
Shit. Just, shit.
He'd be traveling much faster if he wasn't suddenly weighed down by a civilian who wasn't even in good shape by those lax standards. This girl had never done physical work in her life, and had definitely never traveled more than a dozen kilometers on foot in a day. She was clearly aching and miserable after 4 hours even at just a brisk walking pace, and he hadn't dared to give her more than a couple kilograms of personal effects to store in her bag at any point. The few times he'd had to push her to run, she'd staggered and slowed after 10 minutes.
As best as he could tell, she had to be from serious money, because no working woman had hands and feet that soft. A merchant would be accustomed to long travel, a farmer or cook or housewife or pretty much anyone, really, would have strong hands with probably a callous or two.
Rejina was the kind of ridiculous little puffball that you only found wrapped in silks somewhere writing poetry or arranging flowers, slender only because eating sufficiently was unladylike.
It was damned lucky that she had half-decent language abilities. Or maybe not, because that could have been a requirement of the seal matrix that he hadn't had time to study in detail. The Kiri woman had been trying to summon some kind of lake monster to compensate for being outclassed. Presumably, she had intended for it to be one that she could control. Intelligence and language had to be written into the seal matrix.
'I don't have time for this. I need to know if those were really Orochimaru's people, or if they were from that group of mercenaries.'
The trouble with having your fingers in a lot of dishes at once meant that it was hard to know who in specific was trying to kill you or warn you off at any given point in time. He was not a safe or really very interested traveling partner for a confused young foreign girl.
The trouble was that it was his fault she was here, she had absolutely no survival skills, and she would be dead or worse in two days if he just left her somewhere. And enough people had seen her with him that she'd be in additional danger by association. It wouldn't be very gallant to leave her in a hotel with enough money for a week and wish her the best.
He had inquiries that he needed to make, and she couldn't come with. But if he was right, he'd have an adequate babysitter lined up soon. Rejina could be dumped off with someone trustworthy while he got down to business. Then when he had some actual space to breathe, he could see about sending her home.
She stood out too much to be tucked away in a quiet corner, unfortunately. After spending only a day with her, Jiraiya had known for certain that she was an absolutely normal, baseline civilian. Unfortunately, a first glance said otherwise.
Her height could be explained away as a quirk of genetics. But anyone else would see her odd coloring and features as proof that she was from a shinobi line. Her hair was such a light brown it couldn't be much more than a generation away from fading to blonde, her eyes were green-brown, and altogether she just looked weird and gangly.
If a viewer was sympathetic, she could pass for exotically cute. Especially since she was perpetually slinking around shyly, watching everyone with big eyes. She looked about as misplaced and helpless as she was, which was unfortunate but did give something of a 'lost kitten' impression that could be leveraged in the right situation.
Her lack of fluency was another large problem preventing her from being anything approaching inconspicuous. As soon as she opened her mouth, it was clear she wasn't speaking her first language. Her hesitancy screamed 'target'.
Her obvious softness was the final, insurmountable barrier to dyeing her hair and passing her off as some nobody. Even if he set her to working as a farmer all alone in a field or something, it was fairly apparent from her too-pale skin and prissy little hands that she wasn't used to working or even being outside. He'd landed himself some confused, misplaced little noble. No one would accept her as scenery, even on the first glance. Only one person had to see her to know she was a target. And then she'd be alone, at risk, helpless. So that plan wouldn't work even temporarily.
...At least she wasn't a sobby type. Could have been worse.
The most obvious cover story was probably the best. It wouldn't do anything good for his reputation, but it would paint her in a sympathetic light and provide a reason for someone else to watch over her.
'It will, however, make the book I eventually write about this seem a little off.'
He let himself smile, because it was a ridiculously romantic storyline. A young noble girl, lost in foreign lands due to the magic of an evil witch, accompanied by a handsome and noble knight. It was a very good potential basis for a story, and he was looking for his next one now that he'd handed off the final manuscript for the movie adaptation of Icha Icha Acrobatics.
Speaking of which. He finished wolfing down his meal and tossed down some cash. Rejina glanced down at the bills for a second or two longer than was normal, but she followed him out.
He crossed his hands behind his head and sighed, stealing a look down at his companion. He should at least try to explain what he was doing today, and then find a spot nearby to leave her. Did she need some entertainment? He'd give her an Icha Icha, but she couldn't properly appreciate the beauty of the prose yet. What did young people like to do?
'She seems to want to learn the language,' Jiraiya mused. 'I would too, in her situation.'
That in mind, he breezed to the bookstore and flashed a toothy grin at a startled employee who was just finishing up unpacking the rush order from the printers. Ando was pretty efficient for an old guy.
He scoured the shelves for something age-appropriate and not too terrible to give to an impressionable youth. More than once he had to steer his young charge away from biographies and political garbage. Her tastes were clearly suspect. So he found an adventure novel for young adults and girly romance, a dictionary, and then a couple of notebooks and pens. Rejina hovered nearby with her fingers clasped together in front, awkward and out of place. But that was normal for her so he let it slide.
He checked out, then immediately flopped down on the couch in the reading area. He didn't wait for Rejina to dare to sit. Jiraiya tore open the pen packaging with his teeth and then flipped open the adventure book. He spread it out on the table and started marking furigana above the kanji. He filled out two chapters hastily, and then did a chapter in the other book as well. She'd be able to read the kanji aloud and find them in the dictionary that way.
When he glanced at Rejina, her eyes were wide with comprehension. Good, good. Remembering something, he opened a notebook and started scrawling a list of words that he'd taught her while walking. He filled out a page before losing interest. Then he tossed it to her.
Rejina barely caught the notebook, crinkling some paper. But she smoothed it out with the side of her palm and then set the book down to have a look. A slight furrow formed between her brows, and her awkwardness fled into concentration. Tentatively, she picked up one of the pens he hadn't used and began making markings next to the words he'd written.
Curious, Jiraiya leaned over. What was she- ah, those must be the definitions in her language. She didn't seem to remember all of the words, but she worked quickly on those that she recognized. She clearly had some kind of system that involved writing something in a red pen, then black.
The next thing she did was flip the page and start writing in simple, neat hiragana and kanji. What was she- oh, she was writing example sentences.
Jiraiya felt his brows raise, reluctantly impressed by the logic and initiative. Each new word was going to get a full page of example sentences, apparently. He would bet quite a lot that she would work up the nerve to ask him to check her work later to be sure each usage was acceptable.
'Definitely well-educated. I think she can entertain herself like this for quite a while.'
On an impulse, he reached out and ruffled her hair. Rejina ducked away and gave him a wonderfully offended look. He resisted the laugh that curled up and looked out the large windows overlooking the courtyard where he would do his book-signing. She'd be able to see him, but he wouldn't be able to see her. That was a problem, since it was a lot more important that he be able to monitor her safety until the absolute earliest chance he could dump her on someone else.
With a sigh and a stretch, he got up and loped back and forth the area to make a plan. Rejina barely glanced up until he started moving bookshelves.
She made an appalled little squeak, mouth hanging open at his daring.
Jiraiya gave her a thumbs-up and dismissed her flustered attitude in favor of rearranging the store set up to his liking. A salesperson came by to peer in and frowned at him with all their might, but didn't do anything to stop him.
Rejina made to stand when he came back after having moved the shelves, but he waved her back down onto the couch while he moved the armchairs and tables. She settled in reluctant and speechless, watching him work. On some level, he liked how obviously she was impressed by his strength when he wasn't even trying to show off. It was nothing on Tsunade, but for a mere man, he was a mightily impressive specimen if he did say so himself.
He grinned and picked up the entire couch with her on it. Rejina grabbed at the cushion and said something foreign that almost had to be rude, if he was any judge of tone.
The store manager walked by with an accusative expression and a 4 meter long banner with his face on it. She was really booking it towards the entrance, clacking past at a speed that had her little green apron flowing in the breeze of her own speed.
He would have waved if he'd had a hand free. Jiraiya settled instead for a grin and edging past her with his couch cargo. He carefully set it down at just the right angle so that Rejina could bask in the sun or scoot over into the shade, depending on how she felt as the day passed.
Hmm.
The signing wouldn't start until when he gave a speech at 6, and then he'd give autographs for 2 hours or until he got bored. There wasn't really that much time- it being 4:42 and all.
'I'll grab her some snacks and a juice box or something, so that she doesn't feel the urge to wander off and get murdered while I'm working.'
Or, wait. Even better. He snagged the next employee he found, gave them some petty cash and instructions, and pushed the bewildered young man out the door.
Rejina was looking over warily when he checked in on her. She ducked her head back down instantly, as though she still thought he was about to hurt her.
'I can't entirely blame her for being jumpy. The first thing she saw was me in a room full of corpses. She doesn't understand who I am, who I work for, why people follow and attack me...'
He sighed and turned his mind to what he could do now.
'Judging by her studying habits, she'd probably appreciate some more colors and organizational things. That'll keep her busy.'
Jiraiya put his hands on his hips, considered it, and told her to wait right there.
Her jaw tightened, but she nodded.
'Weird kid.'
But she was his weird kid for now, so he found colored pencils and markers and glitter pens and a set of stickers and little post-its in varying colors and shapes. At that point she was going to need a carrying case, so he poked around the kid's section and found one shaped like a banana. He giggled, zipping and unzipping it a couple of times. It was enormous and squishy and just plain fun, that's what it was. He tossed his haul down on the counter. Absentmindedly, he picked through the sweets at the front and started tossing chocolates into the pile while the cashier began sorting through it.
“Good afternoon,” He told the older woman cheerfully. “Ooo, bonbons, don't mind if I do.” He put 10 on the counter, then thought better of it and grabbed two more of the dark chocolate ones. Excellent.
Rejina was confused but pleased by the stash he handed over, and even cracked a smile at the bag full of snacks that the bookstore employee dropped off few minutes later. Jiraiya grabbed the employee by the shoulder and quietly ordered him to keep an eye on the girl. Then he headed outside to stretch his legs while his adoring public noticed the signage and gathered.
He used a combination of the chameleon genjutsu and a smokeball to make a dramatic entrance and cackled through his announcement. He took a break from beaming under applause to glance in and see that Rejina was staring at him, open-mouthed and visibly very confused. The employee was reading a magazine in a nearby chair.
All good, then.
The autograph table went well- There was a satisfying number of pretty women, adoring fans, and two of his three spies in the area. One of them passed off a note that Jiraiya tucked away for later. The other asked for a written dedication to his sister who was traveling and couldn't be there in person to meet him. He kept the concern that inspired private and waved the man on without acknowledging what that meant.
His last expected guests showed up when he had only half an hour left. He merited a full three of Mifune's samurai, which was rather flattering. Jiraiya flashed their leader a rakish grin.
The man was utterly impassive, clearly determined to wait as long as it took to politely get Jiraiya's attention. He and his fellows were perfectly still, aside from the way his grey mustache tugged in the wind.
'I was starting to wonder if they would make it in time,' Jiraiya mused while the line began to dwindle. The free posters for the movie were long gone, as were the t-shirts and other sales items. 'I thought they would notice sooner that I was doing a book-signing in the capital city today, despite never checking in at the borders.'
They'd be huffy about the impropriety, but he'd done it knowing he would get their attention. If he'd come in under his name, he'd have had to produce a forged passport for Rejina or use genjutsu on the border agent. Both of those were much more serious offenses than sneaking in.
He waved away the last fan, stood with a stretch, and nodded to the three samurai. They unfolded from the wall they'd been lurking in front of, solemn and attentive.
They weren't wary enough, but they didn't know it yet.
'Hello, suckers.' Jiraiya gave them a grin, the kind that would have have Tsunade punch him on reflex. 'They're going to be babysitting so fast their heads spin. They can't possibly say no, no matter how low their opinion of me is. If I claim I've got a confused civilian daughter who I need them to look after, they'd be risking a diplomatic nightmare by letting anything happen to her.'
And then he could go in peace and quiet to find out why his agents in Iwagakure had all gone silent within two weeks of each other.
