[Current Balance: 4,755,411,970,700 Mon]
---
The air in the hidden Assassin bureau was thick with the scent of old paper, damp earth, and brewing tension.
Alaric looked at the detailed map of Edo spread across the low table, a faint smile playing on his lips. Kensei and Chiyome sat opposite him, their expressions were a mixture of cautious hope and deep-seated suspicion. An alliance had been forged, yes, but trust was a currency that had to be earned, especially in their world.
"Before we discuss a direct assault on the Shogun's castle and Arai Hakuseki," Kensei began, his voice was a low, steady rumble, "there is a matter of trust that must be addressed. A test, if you will."
"A test?" Alaric raised an eyebrow, leaning back on his hands. "Wakatta, I'm game. I do enjoy a good challenge. Who's the target?"
"We have a brother in need of rescue," Kensei stated, his gaze unwavering. "… Giovanni Battista Sidotti."
Alaric hummed thoughtfully, repeating the name under his breath.
"Giovanni Battista Sidotti..." he murmured. "That's an Italian name. What's a man from my part of the world doing locked up by the Shogun?"
Kensei nodded grimly. "Sidotti-san is a missionary. Not of the Christian faith that the shogunate so fears, but of our Creed."
Chiyome took over the explanation, her voice a quiet rasp. "He came to these shores years ago, believing that all people, regardless of their birth or station, deserve spiritual freedom. He fought against the oppression of the rigid class system, not with a sword, but with words, with ideas. He preached that a man's worth is not determined by his lord, but by his own heart."
"A concept," Kensei finished, his voice laced with cold anger, "that the shogunate finds… threatening. They captured him a month ago. He is a valuable man, possessing knowledge of Templar activities in Europe that could be vital to us."
"I see," Alaric said, his expression unreadable. He could appreciate the man's ideals, even if his methods seemed hopelessly naive in this era. "So, where is this brother of yours being held?"
Kensei pointed to a specific location on the large map of Edo. It was a walled compound in the northern part of the city, marked with a stark, simple name.
"Kirishitan Yashiki," he said, the name itself seeming to carry a heavy weight. "The 'Christian Residence'. It is the shogunate's special prison, a place where they send those whose ideas are deemed too dangerous. It is a fortress within the city."
He began to trace the layout with his finger, his voice becoming a low, strategic murmur. "The walls are ten shakkanhō high, smooth stone, impossible to scale without specialized equipment and the cover of a storm. There is only one gate, heavily guarded at all times. The men stationed there are not the corrupted rabble you encountered in the city. They are the Hatamoto, the Shogun's personal elite guard, men whose loyalty and skill are beyond question. The prison is located in an open district, with no tall buildings nearby for observation or easy access. We have been studying it for weeks. Infiltration is… nearly impossible."
Chiyome slid a smaller, more detailed schematic of the prison complex onto the table. "The guard patrols are constant and unpredictable. They change the rotation every few hours. There are archers on the walls, and the interior courtyard offers no cover. We have lost good people even attempting to get close."
Kensei looked up, his ancient eyes locking onto Alaric's. "We have a plan. It is risky, it will take several days to prepare, and it requires perfect timing."
He laid out the strategy. It was a classic Assassin operation: complex, multi-layered, and relying on precision. Chiyome would create a diversion at a nearby merchant warehouse, drawing some of the city guard away. Two of their best shinobi would use the chaos to scale the western wall during the brief window of the midnight guard change. Meanwhile, another team would attempt to bribe a lower-ranking guard to create an internal disturbance. Alaric, with his immense strength, would be tasked with creating a breach in the northern wall at a precise moment, allowing a final team to rush in and extract the prisoner.
Alaric listened patiently, nodding occasionally, his gaze fixed on the intricate map. He let Kensei finish laying out the entire, desperate plan.
When the old Assassin finally fell silent, a proud, determined look on his face, Alaric took a slow, leisurely sip of the tea that had been brought for him.
He set the cup down gently.
"That's a very... complicated plan, Kensei-dono," he said, a faint smile on his lips. "Lots of moving parts. Lots of things that can go wrong. A single guard raises an alarm at the wrong time, the diversion fails, the timing is off by a second… and your people die."
Kensei and Chiyome frowned, their pride clearly pricked by his casual dismissal of their painstaking work.
"It is the only way," Kensei insisted. "We do not have the strength for a direct assault."
"You don't," Alaric agreed easily. "But I do."
He stood up, stretching his arms leisurely. "Here's my plan."
He looked at the two stunned Assassins, his smile widening into a confident, almost lazy grin.
"I'll go there now. I'll knock everyone out. I'll carry your friend back here. Then, we'll have more tea."
He paused, glancing at an imaginary watch on his wrist.
"Should take... what, ten minutes? Fifteen, if I decide to take a scenic route."
Kensei and Chiyome just stared at him, their mouths agape, utterly speechless.
---
Less than an hour later, Kensei and Chiyome sat in the silent bureau, the map of the Kirishitan Yashiki still spread out on the table before them. The air was thick with an anxious tension. They had tried to argue, to reason with Alaric, to explain the sheer impossibility of what he proposed.
He had simply smiled, told them to "put the kettle on," and walked out of the shrine.
"He is arrogant," Chiyome finally whispered, breaking the silence. "He is reckless."
"Perhaps," Kensei replied, though his own voice held a note of profound uncertainty. "Or perhaps… he has a reason to be arrogant."
Suddenly, from the city above, they heard it.
The faint, distant clang of an alarm bell.
It rang once, twice, then was abruptly cut off. It was followed by a few muffled shouts, which also died out almost immediately.
And then… silence.
A deep, unnerving silence that was somehow more alarming than the noise had been.
Kensei and Chiyome exchanged a wide-eyed, worried glance. They sat there, frozen, listening, for what felt like an eternity. Ten minutes passed. Then twelve.
Just as Kensei was about to send one of his agents to investigate, the sound of footsteps came from the staircase.
The bureau door slid open.
Alaric stood there, his simple rōnin disguise completely unruffled, not a speck of dust on him. Slung effortlessly over his shoulder, like a sack of rice, was a pale, thin man in tattered prisoner's robes, unconscious but clearly breathing.
Alaric walked into the room, casually deposited the unconscious man onto one of the cushions, and then looked at the two stunned Assassins.
"Told you," he said with a cheerful grin. "Thirteen minutes. I got a little held up by the locks on his cell."
He walked over to the table and picked up his still-warm teacup.
"Now," he said, taking a sip. "About our deal..."
---
The silence in the hidden bureau was absolute.
It was a heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by the faint, sputtering hiss of the paper lanterns and the shallow, unconscious breathing of the Italian missionary sprawled on the cushion.
Kensei and Chiyome stared, their faces were masks of utter disbelief. They had spent weeks planning a complex, high-risk operation involving diversions, infiltration teams, and a coordinated assault, an operation that had at best a slim chance of success and a high probability of casualties.
This… man… had accomplished the same goal in thirteen minutes.
Alone.
And he had the audacity to be drinking their tea while doing it.
Kensei's ancient, wrinkled hands, which had guided a brush with unparalleled grace and a blade with deadly precision for over sixty years, were trembling slightly. He looked from the unconscious form of Giovanni Sidotti to the rōnin who was casually sipping his tea.
The numbers didn't add up. The fortress of Kirishitan Yashiki, guarded by the Shogun's Hatamoto elite. The high walls. The unpredictable patrols. The sheer impossibility of it all. It was not a question of skill; what he had just witnessed defied the very laws of physics as he understood them.
"How…" Kensei finally managed to speak, his voice a dry, hoarse whisper, the single word filled with a lifetime of broken assumptions.
Alaric set his teacup down with a soft click. He looked at the two stunned Assassins, his expression was unreadable. "Like I said," he replied, his voice still holding that infuriatingly casual tone. "The locks were a bit tricky."
Chiyome finally broke from her stupor. Her body, which had been frozen in shock, coiled with a sudden, tense energy. She moved, her hand blurring towards the kunai still tucked in her sleeve, her killer's instinct screaming that the man before her was not a potential ally, but an unknowable, terrifying threat.
"Stop," Kensei commanded, his sharp voice cutting through her intent. Chiyome froze, her hand hovering, her sharp gaze fixed on her husband, then back to Alaric.
Kensei slowly rose to his feet, his joints creaking in protest. He ignored the unconscious missionary and walked around the low table until he stood directly before Alaric, who remained seated, looking up at the old Assassin with a calm, almost curious expression.
"We have shown you our sanctuary," Kensei said, his voice low and intense. "We have shared our intelligence. We have accepted your help. And you have displayed a power that is… not of man." His eyes, sharp and piercing, searched Alaric's disguised face. "We have given you our trust, stranger. Now, you will give us your name."
Alaric held the old man's gaze for a long moment. He saw the demand, the fear, the desperate need for an answer, for some kind of context for the impossible events he had just orchestrated. He saw that the test was over. The charade of being a simple, if skilled, rōnin was no longer necessary, or even possible.
He sighed, a faint, almost weary sound.
"You're right," he said softly. He stood up from his cushion. "The disguise is getting a bit… stuffy."
Poof.
A small, insignificant puff of smoke erupted around him, swirling for a fraction of a second before dissipating.
And the man who stood there was no longer the anonymous, average-height rōnin.
Kensei and Chiyome both took an involuntary, gasping step back. Their hands flew to their weapons out of pure, reflexive shock.
The man before them was a giant. He towered over them, easily six-foot-four, his frame broad and powerful. The simple, dark kimono was gone, replaced by clothes of a strange, foreign cut… a fine white shirt with intricate ruffles, dark trousers, and sturdy black boots. Draped over his shoulders, adding to his imposing silhouette, was a magnificent coat of deep crimson, embroidered with gold thread that seemed to catch the lantern light.
But it was his face, his features, that shattered their reality completely.
His hair was not the common black of their people. It was the color of moonlight, a brilliant, almost white platinum blonde, falling in soft waves around a face that was… perfect. Sharply defined, impossibly handsome. And his eyes… they were no longer a common brown. They were the color of the deepest sea, a startling, piercing blue that seemed to hold an ancient, unsettling wisdom.
He looked like a deity from a forgotten myth, a being of another world who had inexplicably found his way into their hidden sanctuary beneath Edo.
Kensei and Chiyome stared, their weapons half-drawn, their minds reeling. They had seen gaijin before, the Dutch traders confined to Dejima, but they were pale, ruddy men. This was something else entirely. This was… ethereal. Imposing. Terrifying.
"As for my name," Alaric said, his voice the same, yet seeming to carry a new weight coming from this towering, otherworldly figure. He offered a small, disarming smile, holding his hands up slightly to show he meant no harm.
"I am Alaric Jonathan Kenway. From a small town called Swansea, in a country far to the west called Wales."
He looked at their stunned faces, the fear and awe warring in their eyes. He let his smile soften.
"And no," he added gently, his voice losing its earlier edge. "I am not your enemy. I have no allegiance to the Templar Order. But… I am not a member of your Brotherhood, either. I am simply… myself. And I am here to find my family."
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