NOVPUBA couple hours ago, before Zhen Liu made contact with the obvious pseudonym...
After a rather stressful dinner at the Blessed Willow Manor, the Zhen branch clan made their way back to the Cozy Maple Hotel in order to recuperate, physically and mentally.
They were offered a wing of the Zhen Clan’s ancestral home to spend the evening, thanks to their blood relations, but the branch clan elders politely refused the invitation.
The elders knew when they weren’t really invited somewhere, and that was especially the case due to the Imperial prince and princess having decided to stay with the Zhen Clan while they were visiting the city.
Either way, the branch clan members were incredibly happy to be out of there and back in a hotel that was at least several thousand feet away from their main clan counterparts.
Both the younger and older generations of the branch clan looked forward to turning in for the evening, putting this rollercoaster of a day behind them.
Well, most of the members of the branch clan were looking forward to sleeping.
Zhen Liu had noticed something was following them the moment they left the main branch’s compound, but their aether-enhanced stealth was too strong for even his grandfather to detect.
The only reason he noticed was due to him picking up the one thing that couldn’t be suppressed: innate desire.
The moment Frosttusk had concluded that several sources desiring [revenge] was present and strong enough, Zhen Liu had secretly summoned him and the rest of the kaijin to go and hide out in the various alleyways and corners of Stomp Town.
While Zhen Liu didn’t know whether or not he needed to fight, he at least wanted to be prepared.
’Alright, in terms of spies, saboteurs and/or assassins, I am fully expecting at least one from the main clan, one from the royals and probably two to three from the fallen clans...let’s see if this is a straight or four of a kind...’
[Wait, what?]
’Making a quip about if we’re going to get a bunch of spies from the same group or different ones, Spring Brawler.’
[Ah...okay.]
’Now then...am I playing this as a gloomy weirdo or haughty know-it-all?’
[Can’t you do both?]
’One would think, but a haughty weirdo is endearing more so than intimidating and a gloomy know-it-all is waifu/husbando material...I have to stop listening to Pathos regale y’all about their dating sim opinions.’
<SO YOU WERE LISTENING!>
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Back to the present...
’What do you mean y’all aren’t sure?’
[Emblem...on...person...doesn’t...match...others...]
[Emblem? My guy has no jewelry but has a distinctive ass tattoo.]
[And my guy looks a lot like that Kuro dude...oh I see where this is going...I think the maestro’s performance earlier may have riled up more parties than we had anticipated.]
[So...milord, do you want us to capture or kill these other guys in hiding? Because it seems like only one out of...four?]
[Five.]
[One out of five is possibly related to that "Kuro". The rest appears to be other parties.]
’Oh that’s fun...whatever! Just tag ’em, bag ’em and drag ’em over to where I am after I deal with this wannabe black cat. I want to see just how much information I can get out of them before doing more...extreme methods.’
<I’ll prep the interrogation room~.>
=We said not to teach the children a beginner’s course in torture, correct?=
<Not until they’re old enough to question authority and can withstand the taste of alcohol without gagging.>
=Fair enough.=
’Wait, before you do that, is it possible for you guys to identify who they are via the kaijins’ vision?’
=Technically, yes.=
<It’s just gonna take some time in order to do so.>
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Zhen Liu proceeded to play with Kuro’s expectations for an answer, making it obvious that he was "seriously" thinking about the offer he had just been given. He made a whole show of it, scratching his chin in thought, walking about and making obvious "hmms" and "maybes" sounds for no particular reason.
Kuro, for his part, maintained a stony expression towards Zhen Liu’s actions...but the latter could feel he was making the former uneasy.
As was the point.
Eventually though, much to Kuro’s relief, Zhen Liu started communicating with words again.
<<Hmmm. Pray tell, Kuro, can you tell me just who exactly this...collaborator is? Or is this one of those situations where I would need to agree first in order to find out? Is it because you’re actually working with a devil or a demon or something? You gonna take my immortal soul in exchange for revenge?>>
<<I...wait, what?>>
Kuro was taken aback for a moment at just how strange Zhen Liu’s question was, but quickly recovered as he recalled that such a question was in their expectations, or at least, it was in the expectations of his superiors.
When Kuro and his superiors met earlier that evening, the latter had given him a list containing several possible questions and answers that may come up in the course of the former’s recruitment efforts.
It may seem redundant, given that this wasn’t the first time they had recruited enemies of the Zhen Clan into their fold, but his superiors had weirdly insisted that Kuro reviewed this list this time around.
His superiors, this time around, had a feeling that the recruitment of this clan of exiled Zhen members was going to be particularly...annoying, if the first person they made contact with wasn’t the patriarch of the Zhen Clan but instead the Fourth Young Master who seemed to make it a habit to get under his opponents’ skin.
Evidently, they were right.
Thankfully though, Zhen Liu’s question of identification was on that list.
<<The people who wish to collaborate with you and your clan,>> Kuro began to say in a rehearsed manner, <<are not the type to reveal their identities so casually. All you need to know, is that the Zhen Clan have made many, many enemies over the centuries and we are to say, one of the oldest.>>
<<Oh! A guessing game!,>> Zhen Liu exclaimed with a strangely jovial voice, <<I love those, well they’re frustrating to be sure, but they can be so much fun when played a certain way.>>
<<What?>>
<<And especially when they’re played with the right amount of people. Which is normally more than two, like say...six?>>
<<...what?>>
That last statement of Zhen Liu’s had that same weird tone he had this whole evening, but for reasons beyond Kuro’s understanding, on an instinctual level, something about him sounded...off.
If anything, he was feeling as if he was caught up in the machinations of someone significantly more dangerous than he let on.
The long stretch of silence didn’t help either.
<<What are you->>
<<Now let’s see here, if I had to guess on who you work for...,>> Zhen Liu trailed off while circling a pointed finger at Kuro like he was on the receiving end of a villain’s monologue speech, <<I could say to you that perhaps you’re actually a member of the ’hateful’ Zhen Clan and you’re simply using us as a means to resolve an internal dispute of some kind.>>
<<That is->>
<<But then again, maybe it’s actually the fellow who is about to encased in ice.>>
<<Beg par->>
*CRACK!*
"Ah-!"
Kuro’s expression at that moment was straight up confusion, until he heard the exclamation of surprise in the distance.
<<Tsk! That wasn’t it...oh! Maybe you’re actually an Imperial spy, one who is trying to tempt me and make sure I implicate my family in yet another crime in relation to a petty as fuck lizard of a prince...or is that just the guys who are getting buried in a half ton of rock and stone right about now?>>
*CRUMBLE!*
<<WHAT THE FU->>
<<AH!>>
At this point, for the first time in decades, Kuro’s hair was standing on end as he began to sense the sudden appearance of fellow warriors who worked in the shadows such as himself. However, none of them were auras he was familiar with...yet.
<<Hmmm, looks like it’s not any of them...ah! Then I know precisely who you work for!,>> Zhen Liu said with an excited tone and a clap of his hands.
Every fiber in Kuro’s being told him to either run or fight, but his experience as a warrior told him that doing so would be a very, very bad idea.
<<You...do now?>>
<<Why yes,>> Zhen Liu smile turned a bit stranger as he answered, <<I do believe you, and your friends who are about to have a thunderstorm’s worth of electricity coursing through their veins, are actually members of one of the so-called "Fallen Clans"! Am I right?>>
*ZAP!*
"GYAAAA!"
As soon as Zhen Liu posed that question, the sound of thunder and lighting going off filled Kuro’s ears, followed by the screams of his companions.
Kuro was stunned silent at this point, as when he began to stretch this senses further with the usage of aether, he began to realize that this boy wasn’t acting alone.
There was something...inhuman, helping him out.
<<Now then, are you going to tell me which of these guesses are correct, or am I going to have to guess again?>>
That question didn’t sound intimidating, at least on paper.
But to Kuro’s ears, the voice saying it belonged to someone who was, as he said earlier, a devil.
<<Well? What’s it gonna be?>>
