#silentsign

The Undercity’s neon lights reflected easily off of the white armor of the Imperial enforcers on the street. They seemed to be searching for something, and the nezumi that typically lived on this street had taken cover to hide. The silver accents of their armor and the red sashes made it clear that these enforcers were here by orders of Clan Sasaki. They were wearing full helmets and masks, making it impossible for Silentsign to tell if they were saying anything.

Silentsign’s eyes narrowed. Clan Sasaki had recently lost one of their scions, Takahiko, because he had made the mistake of kidnapping Reckoners to torture and do...well, frankly, Silentsign didn’t know what else. And while the attack to rescue some Reckoners had led to Takahiko’s death, it seemed as though they were trying to tie it back to the Dokuchi Reckoners.

His fur bristled angrily when one of the enforcers grabbed the arm of a younger nezumi. Fear was clear on the boy’s face as the enforcer spoke to him. He recognized the boy as Chippedtooth. Chippedtooth’s mother worked in the marketplace on Okiba turf, and his father was an electrician that Silentsign had contracted to help with the lights in the orphanage before Koda learned how to do it. Whatever was going on, Silentsign refused to stand by while a child was being threatened. His options were simple: either attack and hope that Chippedtooth could get away in time without getting hurt, or step out and make himself a more notable target for arrest. But the former still put the child in danger.

So with his wakizashi still sheathed, Silentsign stepped out into the neon street.

The enforcer who was speaking to Chippedtooth turned in time to see Silentsign – or maybe only his obvious Reckoner tattoos on his bare arms – and let go of the child in favor of approaching the older nezumi aggressively. His hand grabbed Silentsign’s right arm with enough force to bruise outright. His jaw moved under his mask.

Slowly, so he wasn’t assumed to be reaching for a weapon or preparing a spell, Silentsign raised a hand to his left ear with a missing chunk out of the tip and tapped it twice. It was a fairly universal sign to indicate deafness across all of the sign languages in Kamigawa.

The enforcer’s eyes narrowed, but he turned and seemed to call out. Another enforcer came over with her own weapons still sheathed. Based on the differences in her helm, this one was a clone, and Silentsign briefly felt bad for her. He wasn’t surprised that Clan Sasaki used clone enforcers alongside non-clones. Those damn machines were possibly the worst things that the Saiba Futurists ever made.

The clone enforcer signed in the Kamigawan standard sign language. “I am Batch 593 Clone 354. You are being brought in for questioning by the authority of Clan Sasaki regarding the death of the young lord Takahiko Sasaki and its connection to the Reckoner gangs of Towashi.”

Silentsign used his free hand to sign. “Understood.” Chippedtooth had escaped, as had the rest of the nezumi who had been questioned. He had succeeded. He could deal with the consequences himself.

Clan Sasaki had a holding facility in Towashi. Silentsign wasn’t surprised – many of the richer Imperial noble clans did, after all – but he was surprised by how dark it was inside. Previous Imperial jails and prisons he had been in (and gotten out of, naturally) had been blindingly white and sterile enough to make even a Futurist scientist want to track muddy boots in. But the Sasaki facility was dark and dim, not standing out from any other building in the Undercity.

That made it more dangerous.

Silentsign was sitting in a room with his hands cuffed to the table. There was enough chain to move if he needed to sign, but not enough to weaponize. His sword had been taken from him but he hadn’t been searched any more thoroughly than that. Tucked into an inner pocket of his shirt was a communicator, so if he could just get to that, he could update Lethaltooth about what was going on.

The door opened. Batch 593 Clone 354 stepped through first, then stepped aside and held the door open for another enforcer, this one without a helmet or mask. The other enforcer sat down in the chair across the table from Silentsign and spoke.

He squinted at their mouth to try and make out the words. He recognized a few words – Reckoner, Sasaki, kill – but couldn’t make out much more. He raised his left hand a little from the table and tilted his head. It was the closest he could get to signing to indicate his deafness again at the moment.

The enforcer scowled and turned to speak to the clone woman. She didn’t even blink despite their agitation and just stepped forward to sign. Silentsign kept his gaze on her hands as she signed in Kamigawan standard. “Clan Sasaki is demanding information on which Dokuchi Reckoners were responsible for the death of Takahiko Sasaki and the escape of Clan Sasaki’s prisoners.”

Clan Sasaki’s prisoners. What a diplomatic way to say what was actually happening down there. But Silentsign wasn’t surprised. There was a reason so many Imperials didn’t consider Reckoners, nezumi, akki, and ogres to be people.

Silentsign tried to raise his hands to respond, but found the chain too short to effectively make any standard Kamigawan signs. But he still tried. “The Dokuchi Reckoners were not among the gangs captured. What makes you believe we were involved?”

The clone’s lips moved as she translated this for her superior. They scowled and shouted something, making the clone flinch. Silentsign carefully kept his expression neutral. The clone signed again. “Security footage captured serpent tattoos just before the cameras were taken down. The Dokuchi Reckoners are the gang who use snakes for their tattoo magic.”

“We’re only one gang who does so,” Silentsign corrected. “There are fourteen different Reckoner gangs who have snake tattoos.”

Upon being translated for the enforcer, they stood up from their chair, walked around the table, grabbed Silentsign by the back of the head, and smashed his nose into the steel. Silentsign grimaced slightly but stayed still until the enforcer sat back down. He raised his head to watch the hands of the clone enforcer, who now seemed far more nervous. Or at least, Silentsign assumed she was. It was still hard for him to read human body language. She listened to her superior, then signed again. “It will be easier for you if you just tell us what we want to know. Which Dokuchi Reckoners were involved in the young lord Takahiko Sasaki’s death?”

Easier. How many Reckoners heard that just before they were killed in Imperial prisons like this one? How many of Takahiko’s own victims were promised that things would be “easier” before he tortured them?

Silentsign responded. “The Dokuchi Reckoners were not involved in Takahiko Sasaki’s death.”

The enforcer threw their hands up and stormed out of the interrogation room once it was translated. Silentsign watched them leave. He ignored the blood dripping from his snout. Then he turned his attention back to the clone enforcer.

Her jaw worked for a moment before she signed again. “I’m sorry. I will try to make sure you get legal representation.” Legal representation. The phrase would have made him laugh if he knew how to do that. Silentsign assumed she was new, if she wasn’t jaded by how things actually worked among the Imperial Court’s noble clans.

Part of Silentsign was bitter about his son, Lethaltooth’s son, Ayame’s son, taking a place as the head of a noble house. But, he reminded himself, it was part of an effort to make things better in Kamigawa for everyone. A misguided effort if you asked Silentsign, but an effort nonetheless. It certainly put life back in the favor of Reckoners more than Lethaltooth and Silentsign’s last mission as Dokuchi Reckoners.

Once the clone enforcer left, Silentsign closed his eyes and crossed his legs in the chair, opting to meditate. He focused and tapped into the Serpent. Or rather, the memories stored within it. He went through his previous escapes from Imperial facilities. It had been many years, and there wasn’t much that could help right now. So he pivoted to the memories that Cunning and Moonshade had contributed from the very attack on Takahiko’s home prison that he was being interrogated about.

The most jarring difference, as always, was being able to hear.

Silentsign had been deaf from birth. His memories stored in the Serpent were similarly silent. But when tapping into the memories of others, he finally heard. And based on how much of it was the sound of metal meeting flesh, things being torn or crushed, and lots of yelling and screaming, he couldn’t say he was missing out on most of it. He focused on the visuals – seen through Moonshade’s eyes – as she, Cunning, Victory, and Vasro attacked the manor. The manor’s hallways were more like this holding facility’s, dark and narrower than was standard.

Silentsign then turned his memory from the Serpent and towards the way he had been brought in. He traced it back to get back to the door leading to the alleyway behind the building. Alleyway-facing doors on Imperial Court holding facilities were standard. It was always easier to make a Reckoner disappear if you never brought them through the front door, after all.

He pondered his options. Option one was to stay in the interrogation room. Option two was to escape quietly. No matter which happened, Clan Sasaki would definitely keep hunting for Dokuchi Reckoners – and Reckoners of other gangs – until they got their “revenge” on the gang for Takahiko’s death. Though, thinking about it, Silentsign figured that it was more about the escape of so many prisoners than it was about one particular scion.

He made his decision.

He took a deep breath. He flexed his hands. Then, like only a trained assassin could, he went loose in the hands and slipped out of the cuffs. He wiped his bloody nose on the back of his left hand and slid down out of the chair and to the floor. The door was unlocked, which made him more alert. The Imperial Court’s enforcers were often sloppy and vicious, but they weren’t complete idiots. This could reasonably be plausible deniability for killing Reckoners who “attempted to escape”, knowing how things were when Clan Hayashi was calling the shots.

Regardless, Silentsign slipped out into the hallway and investigated. There were other interrogation rooms in this hallway, then an evidence room where he reclaimed his wakizashi, and finally he was among the holding cells that he had been dragged past. He peered into a few and was glad to see that they were empty. That was one less issue that he would have to deal with.

He kept an eye out for enforcers as he crept through the halls. Modern security buildings had quiet alarms with no light indicator. He kept glancing over his shoulder just in case.

And it was a good thing that he did. An intercessor turned the corner with their staff already up and a furious look on their face. Their mouth moved like they were shouting something just before they gestured broadly with their staff. Silentsign spun and drew his wakizashi in time to slice through the ofuda-like magic. Some of it got past his blade.

The pain was searing and tore at him without drawing blood, but Silentsign grit his teeth and kept retreating down the hall. He needed to get to the door leading back outside.

Another wave of intercessor magic hit him. His breathing hitched from the pain as it passed through him. He stumbled. His right shoulder hit the wall. He felt a crackle in his pocket from the communicator. He scrambled to quickly fish it out before it tried to electrocute him. He fumbled and nearly dropped it. It crackled again, then something jumped from the communicator to a wall outlet beside him.

Silentsign looked over his shoulder at the intercessor in time to watch arms made of energy burst down from the ceiling, wrap around the intercessor, and go off, plunging the entire building into darkness and dropping the now-fried body to the ground.

Glad that wasn’t me. Silentsign looked down at his communicator again when a burst of power jumped from the wall socket and back into it without harming him. He quickly typed a Hello? into the text bar, then forced himself back up to his feet and kept running.

He ducked around a corner and checked the device again, finding his message deleted and replaced with a response from...whatever was in the communicator. Who are you?

A simple question. Silentsign deleted it and typed his response. Silentsign of the Dokuchi. And you? Then he tucked it away and kept moving. He wasn’t too far from the back door, just a few more halls away.

Silentsign slid to a stop when he saw two enforcers in front of him in the darkness, their swords lit up with yellow light; kami magic, undoubtedly. The interrogator and Batch 593 Clone 354. He held his wakizashi out in front of him and took a deep breath. The blade glowed purple as he reached up to his ancestral kami for aid. The nezumi that had come before him in Towashi’s streets gave their power.

The interrogator struck first. They charged and swung low to hit him. He jumped up over the blade and brought his wakizashi down, but they raised their gauntlet and blocked the blow. In the corner of Silentsign’s eye, he saw the clone hesitating. The interrogator seemed to shout at her before they swung at Silentsign again, cutting down on his options for dodging away or backtracking. Even whatever power was in the communicator didn’t seem to be able to do much at the moment.

He blocked and retaliated as much as he was able. But his years had been catching up to him.

Silentsign’s back hit the wall.

The interrogator’s blade swung down.

He raised his sword to block the last blow.

And another sword sprouted from the interrogator’s chest.

The interrogator gasped for breath just before the blade was ripped out and they were kicked to the ground. Behind them, the clone stood, her eyes wide and her blade stained with Imperial blood.

Silentsign slowly lowered his blade and raised a hand to sign. “Why?”

“Call me crazy,” the clone signed with a trembling hand, “but I don’t think the ‘good guys’ beat up an old man, regardless of whether or not he was involved in the death of a nobleman.”

So she did still have that young naivety. She couldn’t have been too old then, regardless of the age that the original her had been. Silentsign briefly wondered if this was why Kaizen had rescued Redlash. There was something so strange about looking at an Imperial enforcer, realizing they’re a clone of a grown adult, and then realizing that they were only a few years out of the cloning machine.

Either way, he signed again. “Then let’s leave. They won’t find you if you come with me.”

She hesitated and looked around. He watched several expressions cross her face – fear, regret, anxiety – until she settled on something resembling determination. She nodded. “Lead the way.”

Silentsign nodded back and pushed away from the wall. He headed down the hall towards the way out again, this time with the clone following him.

Once they made it out to the alleyway behind the building, instead of heading towards the street, he led the way deeper into the darkness where even the neon lights didn’t touch. Only once they were far away from the prison-like building did he check the communicator again. He found a new message waiting for him. I am Frank, an escapee from Duskmourn. Are we safe?

Yes, he typed back. The intercessor that hurt me and seemed to hit you is dead. Thank you for your help.

He watched as the response was slowly typed by whatever it was that was inside of the communicator. That hurt too much. Will they do that again?

Only if they catch us, and I don’t see that happening again for a while. Losing an entire building to electrical failure, alongside losing an intercessor and an interrogator, put Clan Sasaki back quite a bit. Those particular “trainings” were not universal among Imperial enforcers, so they’d have to start from scratch again. And Clan Sasaki did not have the seemingly-endless funds that Clan Hayashi did. This was quite the decisive blow on top of Takahiko’s death and Koda’s very definitive rejection of Hanzo Sasaki.

Part of him wondered why they had chosen to move against the Reckoners. Usually it would be their allies, Clan Kimura, that caused trouble for the gangs. But that was something he could investigate later. First, he had to make it back to his wife and kids.

The Cherry Blossom Orphanage was still standing. Silentsign always assumed the worst when he left, and coming home to see everything just as he left it was always a relief. Even if it changed and grew strangely inside and developed a surprising new floor internally, at least it still looked the same from the outside.

He opened the door and stepped inside first. His wakizashi was sheathed once more and his communicator was safetly stashed in his pocket after a few more conversations with Frank the communicator demon.

Lethaltooth was waiting for him. She raced forward and hugged him tightly, then pulled away to sign frantically in the nezumi sign language. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Silentsign offered her a smile. He knew that wouldn’t do much considering his nose and snout were still bloodied, but he tried. “Ran into some trouble with Clan Sasaki’s enforcers. Set them back a bit, but we should keep an eye out for retaliation from them and Clan Kimura’s enforcers.” He gestured to the clone enforcer who stood nervously beside him. “This is one of the clones, she helped me escape.”

Lethaltooth continued to sign in nezumi while she spoke verbally to the clone enforcer. “Thank you for helping my husband. You look exhausted. Let’s get you settled in so you can rest.” She gave Silentsign a pointed look and didn’t speak while she signed again. “And you should also rest, dear husband, or I’ll tie you to the bed.”

He smirked. “You say that like that’s a threat, love,” he joked, tail twitching to indicate laughter.

Lethaltooth rolled her eyes. Her ears twitched to indicate that it was a good-natured eye roll. “You’re a terrible flirt. Of course, that’s why I married you.” She returned her attention to the clone enforcer to help her.

Silentsign dipped out of the conversation and headed towards the stairs. He intended to take a long shower and search the communications network for any word from his sons.

But it was good to be home.