Ch 2: To Jive, Or Not To Jive

I was as equally confused as Brody, Deckard, the three of us staring down at the floor, which seemed to be woven out of fiber matting. The woman who had shown us the room had quickly trotted off to get us “washroom tokens”, and I was seriously hoping that she didn’t mean coins.

“Where are the beds?” Brody asked, turning her head left and right as she walked into the middle of the room with her M249 light machine gun.

“I don’t think there are beds.” I replied, opening a nearby cabinet and peeking inside.

This one was empty, as empty as the room was, really; They had given us a low-set, square table in the middle of the room, ground cushions to sit on, a few lanterns that hung on hooks at the wall, three short-legged chairs…

That’s really all I saw, which was spartan, even for military standards.

“They expect us to sleep on the floor?” Deckard grumbled, unshouldering his rucksack. “I haven’t slept on the ground in a decade. I take a mattress even when I go camping.”

Brody lifted up the thick, blanketed edge of the table looking underneath. “This looks to be heated, but do they really expect us to sleep on these damn mats for the entire school year?”

“I’m more than sure that they don’t.” I said, moving along the wall of cabinets and opening them one by one. “The Japanese sleep on ground beds, we’ll likely find them in one of these cabinets.”

Brody set her light machine gun on the table, the surface already suffering the bite of the steel weapon. “Then where am I going to bed rot? It’s bad enough our phones don’t work!”

“You should have done what I did and downloaded a bunch of movies.” Deckard mused, pulling out his thick laptop and setting it on a nearby, stubby legged end table. “Speaking of which, what are we doing about recon, Taylor?”

Hearing my name, I turned and looked around at the man, my eyebrows lowering. I still didn’t like my name, never have, and I hated that of all the names they could have given me… my parent’s chose that one.

“According to what the one guy had said during our hiring, they use some kind of magic to watch things in and out of the castle.” I said, unshouldering my own rucksack and setting it down onto the mats. “If something goes wrong, we’ll get a visit from a crow.”

Brody grinned. “A shame that none of us speak crow.”

“The crows speak Japanese.” I replied, opening the flap of my rucksack and pulling out the parts of my coffee press.

“We aren’t exactly good at that either.” Deckard sighed, stretching out his legs with two, thudding pops of the knee.

I rolled my eyes, pulling out the rest of my kit and putting it into one of the cabinets. “We’ve had nearly a month to learn some of the language, did you guys just jerk off the entire time?”

“The owl was annoying.” Brody said lowly, unfolding her clothes and putting them on the bamboo hangers supplied from one of the closets.

Before we had to start tearing the room apart, the chubby, female teacher arrived in time with our “tokens”. To my relief they were some kind of password icon we wore around our wrist, which granted us access to the teacher’s washroom and water closets.

She then took the time to show us where our “futons” were, as well as the tubular pillows and thick blankets.

Americans slept on elevated beds, more so because we knew what skittered around the ground from time to time, but the Japanese slept right along the ground on these thick mattresses.

It was going to be a learning experience, and Brody’s bitching was already getting on my nerves, having launched into a diatribe as soon as the teacher left.

“We’re on the ground!” Brody fussed, staring into the cabinet of rolled futons. “Someone could sneak in and jump right on our necks! Crack! Squish! We’d be dead before our eyes could snap open!”

I looked over to Deckard, both of us sharing a look that said “If only”, then finished unloading our gear.

“So, Taylor, what does our schedule look like?” Deckard asked, hanging up the rest of his clothes in the closet and making sure they didn’t touch Brody’s.

I arched my back with a quiet crackle of my spine, then exhaled as I tried to remember the layout from the way in. “I’d reckon we’d need one up top at all times, gives us a solid overview of the area-”

A knock came at the sliding door, something we had nearly broken three times already, and all of our heads snapped to it.

It slid open to expose a middle aged Japanese man, another teacher by the looks of it, with a strong, square jaw, a harsh face, and tidy black hair tied into a knot.

“I can assure you, that won’t be necessary." He began, his voice cool as he stepped into the room. “We have plenty of failsafes woven around the school to make sure you receive any intelligence you may desire.”

It was disjointing watching him speak, as our translation earrings didn’t match the words entering our ears with the movement of his lips. The earrings themselves were odd, as they had just sucked down onto our earlobes like a barnacle.

“My name is Mr. Mori, I teach the more nature-aligned magics here at this school.” He said, though my eyes saw him say ‘sensei’ and not ‘mister’. “But, I’m afraid we have hit a small issue with training our messenger crows.”

I blinked respectively. “Issue?”

He glanced towards his own earring, then smiled. “Yes, I’m afraid that the person who we had training the crows… may have done so in a rather creative manner. Allow me to demonstrate."

Mr. Mori pulled a wand from his sleeve, an intricate, long rod of yew wrapped in dancing strands of gold wire that ended in a bell. When he slowly drew the wand across the space in front of us, the bell gave a gentle jingle, and a crow appeared upon our small window.

“What’s waaay down?” The crow called out in a gravely voice, speaking English in a rather… odd way. “Cha’ll call fa’me?”

Deckard pointed to the crow without delay, turning to look at me. “Taylor, they taught the crows jive.”

“Why?!” Brody laughed out, all while Mr. Mori slowly shook his head. “Why the hell did they teach the crows jive?!”

The crow, rather annoyed, ruffled its feathers in a rather disgruntled way. “Cha’ll called me ova' here jus’t'say sumi'n, didn't ya'?”

I took in a deep breath, knowing the problems this was going to create, then gestured to the crow. “You's kin go a'haid and leave, so'ry fo' tha’ false alarm.”

“Solid.” The crow replied, then just fell backwards from the ledge with its wings still furled, merely dropping out of view like a base jumper.

“As I said, it appears we had chosen poorly.” Mr. Mori said with a grimace. “And our apologies for leaving you out of the grand feast, you are… not of our alignment, and it is a special moment that we didn’t want to ruin for the students.”

I nodded to him, smiling. “It’s alright, but we are going to require proper food.”

“I will see to it.” Mr. Mori said with a slight bow.

I bowed back, a curt bend of the spine, then gestured to the castle. “Additonally, do you have any orders for us? Or are we to wander around and wait until we are needed?”

“We are in agreement that you and your people should wander around the castle.” Mr. Mori said with a grin. “Learn the nooks and crannies, rub elbows with the students, and likely be near a window in case anything makes an advance towards the castle.”

“Why the sudden change?” Brody asked, settling down grumpily onto a ground cushion. “Can’t magic just… magic everything?”

“Not quite.” Mr. Mori responded, sliding the door shut behind him as he stepped inside.

Deckard leaned back on his hands, Brody leaned on the table, while I settled my shoulders back against a cabinet, crossing my arms and making sure my knees didn’t lock.

“Normally, we would be able to handle anything coming across our paths, same as any other school.” Mr. Mori began, gesturing out the window. “This castle has stood stalwart ever since it was built, hundreds of years ago during the formation of our magical coalition, and has never known a threat it could not rebuke.”

Mr. Mori stepped lightly to the window, letting out an angry sigh as he looked out across the many towers and grounds. “That changed as soon as our front gate fell, last year. Red Oni managed to break through the first gate, attempting to take back the rogue priestess who has been with us for nearly as long as the school has existed. We managed to destroy them, but it cost us dearly.”

“Is it true you cannot use guns?” Brody asked, the question having been burning in her mind since she had been hired.

Mr. Mori nodded, turning and placing his hand on the M249 machine gun. His hand gave a harsh sizzle, and he jerked it back, glancing at his palm. He showed Brody and the room his flesh, and it looked as if he had touched an open stove.

“We burn if we touch your weapons, a contract of our powers we have yet to understand. No cannon, rifle, mortar, nor pistol can be held by us, and we only defeated the Red Oni by a teacher sacrificing himself to fire an ancient cannon.” Mr. Mori said, crossing his arms.

“What happened to the teacher?” I asked, curious.

“He burst into flames, and burned to ash.” Mr. Mori said flatly, clearly annoyed by their apparent weakness to something so mundane. “Merely lighting the fuse that saved the school was enough to forfeit his body. It is the same for all magical kind, and no clever loophole has been found yet.”

Deckard raised a brow, his foot waggling back and forth. “Curious. What if we try and use a wand?”

“Your heart stops, but that is by design.” Mr. Mori said with a shrug. “A failsafe to make sure the conduits for magic do not fall into the wrong hands.”

“Curious,” I echoed Deckard, but I shrugged a shoulder. “Either way, don’t matter to us. We’re here for the coin, not for power. We’ll wander these halls as we see fit, until you state otherwise. Are we welcomed to lunch as well?”

Mr. Mori confirmed that, yes, we could dine with the students if we chose, and he would send crows to get us used to the schedule.

With his departure and us readying the rest of our gear, the already late day quickly turned into dusk. The tedium was broken by the arrival of our dinner, which caused all of us to spook.

Bearing trays, ghosts slid open the door to our room and stepped in, and I must admit, I was taken aback as they stepped in and set down our trays soundlessly. They all had bob cut hair as black as night, red robes with intricate patterns, but no shoes to speak of.

As a matter of fact, I don’t even think they had feet.

They were gone so fast that all I saw was blurs of movement, but the tea and food smelled real enough.

“Were those fucking ghosts?” Brody asked, who had skittered back into the corner of our room like she had seen a six foot long spider.

Deckard, non-plussed, began pouring himself tea. “Yeah. You got any idea what they were, Taylor?”

“Zashiki, maybe?” I said, still confused. “But they are prankster spirits, not servants.”

Brody pointed a finger at the door. “Ghosts can go right through that! What if they come in here and mess with our stuff?!”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Deckard mused, tossing a pickled plum into his mouth, then chewing a few times.

He grimaced, then swallowed forcefully.

“Maybe not.” Deckard said with a smack of his lips, then took a long sip of tea.

I chuckled, kicked over a cushion, and sat down at the table while Brody still sat in the corner.

They had given us a light traditional dinner consisting of rice, miso soup, grilled fish, and a bunch of pickled vegetables. As a sweet treat, they had prepared little mochi for us to eat, which was likely going to pair well with the tea.

We ate, and while filling, it wasn’t exactly as bold as we were used to. As we stacked the bowls and trays, Brody flicked some rice from her cheek, having joined us after a few minutes of glaring at the sliding door.

“Should we do a night watch?” Brody asked.

I shrugged. “We should, but I assume they want us all awake during the day. We’ll sleep together at night until they say otherwise, or until a flock of crows comes flying in here and pecking at us.”

“I can’t wait.” Deckard said dryly, finishing his tea and setting the cup on the table top. “Gonna be three in the morning and some bird is going to be screaming ‘Get your peepers open, daddy-o!’ right into my ear.”