A Run-in with a Dragon

 Luckily for him, she did save him before he could be detained and unceremoniously deported.

After a mysterious phone call to his captors, he found himself hustled in a car across a city he barely got to see, mostly consisting of a highway through an odd fusion of skyscraper-style and stacked, traditional sloping roofs. The guards on either side of him weren't exactly fans of his attempted sightseeing, though. He didn't catch much more than a glimpse of a monorail, bright neon signs in a gap, and powerlines like vines, all between flashes of other cars that seemed sleeker and more compact than the kind he used to see in Wilind. Including a tiny lorry smaller than the police's sedan.

The sun hovered just above the peaks of pointed towers by the time he stepped outside again, their route ending on a rise overlooking the city. A complex loomed above it all in front of him, square and metal enough it would've fit right in Blackpool's business district as one of the more foreboding structures that screamed "corporate industry".

At least it's not Ossary, he reflected as he got to crane his head up for one look at glass windows and silver walls before being pulled in. Wonder if the Emperor's castle looks anything like one of the ones back there.

They walked him quickly through a lobby with a surprising amount of pot plants and into an elevator. "Looks nice here," he commented as the doors shut out his view and gave him only grid-patterned walls to look at.

Stony silence. Well, long frosty elevator ride it is.

From the feel of it, and the indicator ticking up to what he assumed was the highest number from the layout, they went straight to the top, stepping through a short corridor/antechamber that reminded him of the area outside a principal's office. He had to remind himself he wasn't fifteen again, being called up for disrupting class, a gold plaque with some title on it catching his eye half a second before the door opened—

And he abruptly found himself eyes to chin with whoever had blocked it. Or rather eyes to impressive glare when he belatedly craned his gaze higher, an air he couldn't define freezing everything solid and setting it on fire under a stare less brown and more flames of hell.

He went for a smile. "Hi there."

The bear of a man flinched, and the glow abruptly died.

Before Lachlan could do more than blink, the other shoved past him, and his guard detail pushed him through the door as he tried to glance after the disappearing... whoever. Well that was odd.

"President Matsuki Nozomu-sama," the man on his left barked, and he twitched forward again as both of them saluted to the man behind the metal desk, hearing the door click shut behind him. "This is the gaijin."

What an endorsement. He gave the stocky, balding man a brief bow. "Matsuki-sama. Pleasure to meet you."

"Dismissed."

He glanced back as his guards saluted and left smartly, taking a moment to look around the office. Pretty plain, really, the only noteworthy things the bamboo pots in the entrance corners, a couple of what looked like class photos and diploma certificates, and the skylight that gave off enough light to make up for the window behind the man staying blinded for some reason. Apart from that, there were only neat shelves and filers, and a very tidy desk.

The man himself watched him like a hawk behind tiny glasses, his face not quite severe, but definitely cut in strong lines that warned him not to step out of line. The stockiness was probably more muscle than fat. He was definitely sizing him up in return.

"Come here."

Lachlan obeyed, stopping in front of the desk. Wonder if it's an offence to show up in front of an academy president with a rucksack on your back and missing shoes. "Sir. I know this looks bad, but—"

"Quiet." The man's expression didn't change as Lachlan snapped his mouth shut. "You're a gaijin, is this correct?"

"Ah, yes. Sir. I'm from Wilind, sir." How often were you supposed to put "sir" in a sentence with military types you actually didn't want to piss off? "The town of Ahnas, in the Emerald Isles, to be specific. I've been here in Nihonjin four years. I was... recruited by a kami. Sir."

"Yes, so I've been told. Your name and age?"

"Lachlan Neale Connor Bronnewhin, sir, twenty-two," he rattled off, trying to keep his accent neutral. The look he'd once gotten from the recruiter in town the first time he had to give his name to a local had been hilarious, but here it'd just make first impressions worse than they already were. "Most people call me Roku here. It's easier."

"Indeed. How did you arrive on our shores?"

Ah. That question. Internally, he sweated. "I came to Nihon from Shang, but the boat got caught in a storm and rebounded to the other side of the ocean after it'd already crossed the rift, and I ended up shipwrecked on the east side. A fishing village took me in, helped me find my feet, and, uh, helped me get citizenship."

It was close enough to the truth. "Adopted by the village and got citizenship through an oblique ancient loophole" would sound a little less official, really.

"And did this village know you were an obake?"

Starting to feel like I'm on a minefield, here. He licked his lips and went for the honest answer. "No. Except for the one family I stayed with."

The man made a noise that wasn't quite a grunt, not quite a hum, and impossible to read. "Kyubi-sama gave me her reasons for recruiting you. What were your reasons for accepting?"

That sounded maybe positive. Not like he was being thrown out, possibly. "I want to protect my people. The military seemed like the best way to do that, so when she offered, I accepted."

"And how much do you know of these people? Our culture? Our language?"

"I— that's a little—"

"Who is our country's leader?"

"Er, the president is its governing head. His Majesty is its spiritual leader."

"And who is His Majesty?"

This felt like a trick question. He tilted his head slightly. "The Emperor of Nihon, who is the descendant of Amaterasu, who is the embodiment of the sun who gives life to the world."

"Hm." That seemed a little more approving than the last noise. Matsuki reached forward, and Lachlan's eyes automatically followed him as he tapped at a paper on the desk. "And can you read this?"

He flipped it around, running over the mostly kanji. "It's... a letter."

"Read it from the beginning."

He really had gone back to school somewhere in there. Principal's office all over again. "'Uncle, I hope this letter finds you well. I am honoured to be chosen for the'... ah... I've never seen that one before. Something to do with samurai. Samurai program, I guess. Your...." Damn, who used this many kanji in a regular letter, anyway? "Benevolence? Is...."

"How many of these do you understand?"

He squinted. Oh God what even is that. "Most of them. Apart from these. And I have no idea what's going on here." He tapped at some section that might as well be runes for all he could make out, because putting them individually together came out with nonsense. "Your nephew or niece likes big words. Name's cute though— 'Little birds playing'. Must be a prodigy."

"He's speaking of technical details which you would do well to know. It's clear you may know the basics, but you will need to know that which is more advanced."

"...What?" He glanced up a little warily.

"And you will need to learn respect as well."

Dammit. "Ah, yes sir. My apologies, sir."

"You will be taking a supplemental language course alongside your training to ensure you know what you should." The man retrieved the letter, watching Lachlan's face. "You have objections?"

"I... no sir." He kept a careful poker face, not letting the offence show. It wasn't like he'd known the meaning of every word in Angaelic. Nobody had expected him to take an entire language course just because there were words out there only technicians and scientists understood.

On the other hand, it meant he wasn't getting booted out. Small favours. He could live with being forced to take an advanced grammar course if it meant getting in. "Thank you for accepting me, sir."

"We'll see." Matsuki's cool eyes held his as a flicker of movement appeared in the office. "You can do what you like with him, Kyubi-sama."

He glanced over to see Kyubi smiling at him. Wearing a uniform this time, too. "Good, because we're very late, Mr. Bronnewhin."

Angaelic, hm? That smile was definitely more teeth than pleasantries. Had she been there the entire time? "Sorry about that. Didn't have much of a choice."

"Oh really? I heard you made a very avoidable scene." She ushered him out the door. "But I think I can forgive you, because that accent of yours is the funniest thing I've ever heard."

"Thanks," he said drily. In Nihonjin.

"You did miss the orientation speech, though."

"The boring part? Great."

"The part that would have told everyone else what they already knew, and you exactly what you need to know. Boring for them, not for you." She rolled a sidelong look at him, leading him down a corridor perpendicular to the elevator. "But that's fine, you'll pick it up as you go along. One quick question, though. What do you know of the Shadow Corps, Roku-chan?"

...Roku-chan? Now that was just insulting. "Nothing much except its speciality in the magic side of life. And that it sounds like a..." he switched to Angaelic for lack of the words to describe it, "black ops organisation."

"Oh, there's nothing black-ops about it. We fight in the shadows against those who seek to harm us."

"Maybe the 'Corps' part is a bit misleading, then."

She kept shooting him slyly amused glances. His accent wasn't that strong, not after speaking Nihonjin for four years straight. "No, it has its roots in a private military corporation, set up over a hundred years ago. Ties to the old traditions of obake clans and wandering samurai, various things like that. It really began to take shape in the early century with the focus on military power, retaining its independence from the democratic government as a sort of... alternative policing force. If you know your history, you'll have heard of the war against the yakuza, which resulted in a significant decrease of magic in civilian circles, but that's not important."

She led him out into a corridor lit by the evening sun, "It's still independent from the self-defence forces, but we're mostly beholden to the government, like good little kittens."

"You're part of it, aren't you? The kami? You report to the government and not the other way round?" He glanced at her sideways before turning his attention briefly to the window. And the... garden outside? He almost paused at the sight of an internal courtyard as big as a park, the floor-to-ceiling glass giving him a nice view of cherry trees in full blossom lining a path over a meandering river, half-hidden beneath more trees and bushes. And was that a pond?

"Wellll, if we really wanted to, they couldn't exactly say no to mythical, god-like beings. Pretty, isn't it?"

He traced a half-hidden path wandering round a little stony hillock with low fir trees sprouting out of it. "I feel like you spent a lot of money on this place."

"Even more on the Samurai," she said blithely. "Speaking of which, let's not waste any more time, shall we?"

With that, she put her hand on his shoulder and the scenery abruptly changed.