Yakuza-gazing

"Are we supposed to be out here after dark?"

Lachlan hummed, throwing a sideways look over his shoulder at Drake. The big lad'd been quiet ever since the akuma thing and hadn't seemed interested in talking about it, so Lachlan had let him be. Those were the first words he'd said yet. "Curfew is at ten. We still have a couple hours. And it's Sunday, so no Nihonjin lessons in the way."

"We haven't won the assignment yet, gaijin," Eden pointed out with a minimal amount of disdain. Surprising, for him. "Even if we had, why here, of all places?"

Lachlan smiled, bunting the back of his hand against a glimmer lantern hanging from the tree. "Remember what that yokai said about yakuza?"

"The gaijin is right. Again." Ariake blew out a breath, his hands in his pockets. "I don't have anything else to do."

Damn, were they coming down with something? "It might be nothing, but it's worth taking a look." He winked. "If we're quick, we can even swing by a pub on the way home."

The glares returned. A shame. "We can't afford hangovers, gaijin."

"Hm, does that mean you're open to the idea?"

"I'd rather get eaten by another akuma than go drinking with you," Ariake put it bluntly.

Lachlan smirked, brushing through the glinting leaves into the quiet space where mould and oppression still lingered, prickling at his skin. "We'll see. It's still Hanami."

They crawled back into the tunnel, Ariake with his face set into stone, and padded or crawled through the darkness, faint chinks of light threading down between floorboards in places, splinters of wood pricking his paws under the now-patched floor they'd broken through earlier. The tunnel sloped down, brushing pipes and foundations, the scent of life and clean air filtering through the mould and damp clinging to everything.

Along with the smell of sweat and smoke, and acid excitement.

"I hear yelling," Ariake muttered behind him.

"They're up ahead," he confirmed. His own ears caught the sound not too long after, a faint thudding shaking the ground, like feet stamping, and the familiar roar of a crowd. It grew louder as they approached, light streaming down from the heavens ahead through a grate.

He peered up into the room just in time for a body to thud straight into it, blood spattering him straight in the muzzle.

Well, it was slightly better than mould, anyway.

He shook it off, growling under his breath as the body rolled away and a shard of glimmer shattered against the grate instead. Damn, not a good place to be, is it?

"What's going on?" Ariake crowded in next to him, the others on his heels.

"It looks like a glimmer mage fight," Eden stated, as if it wasn't obvious.

Drake peered up, making the whole place ten times more crowded. "Should we be talking...?"

"None of them are going to be obake," Ariake scoffed. "It's illegal to take on a yakuza, anyway. We'd have to report them to the Guardians if we saw one."

"Mentoring's not the only way to make an obake." He managed to keep his own space by sheer virtue of refusing to move, peering up at flickers of light and movement, a shout crashing through the crowd he couldn't see.

"What other way is there to become one, gaijin?"

What other way...? Lachlan squinted sideways at him, wondering if he'd suddenly picked up a coy sense of humour.

"You really don't know?" Even Drake turned to give Ariake a funny look.

The hawk obake seemed to suddenly notice the stares, shifting his attention to flick between them, scowling. "Know about what?"

Lachlan tilted his head at him. "You became an obake through a sensei, didn't you?"

"Of course I did." Ariake frowned. "My parents are obake. They mentored me into it when I was old enough so I could join the Shadow Corps."

"So they made you complete a little task?" Lachlan prompted. "And you gained a yuurei?"

"Obviously," Ariake said, less scathing and more uncertain.

"We aren't barbarians in Nihon, gaijin," Eden put in over a cry of pain from above. "This is the way our people have become obake for generations. To do otherwise would incur the death penalty."

Fantastic, I'm not a murderer after all. He hummed, the scent of someone else's blood thick in his nose. "Suppose that hasn't happened for a while, then."

"Is someone going to explain?" Ariake demanded. "What are you talking about? Death penalty?"

"We should move on," he said, flicking his tail and leaving the little puddle of light. "There might be a better vantage point somewhere."

"Is no one going to—?"

"Wonder why it led all the way here?" Drake mused, following him and leaving behind a seething Ariake to take up the rear behind Eden. "You think this was where it formed?"

"Don't know." He nosed along a foundation line. "Would've thought it formed in a bathhouse."

"From someone pissing in the sauna?" Ariake muttered.

Lachlan inhaled dust down the wrong way.

"The collective disgust when the water turned yellow?" Drake said, far too thoughtfully. "I can see it."

Lachlan had to switch back just so he could wipe his eyes and thump his chest. Oh god, these two could make a good comedy act. "I'd become a demon, too, if that was what birthed me."

"Are we, or are we not, meant to be investigating this place?" Eden asked pointedly.

"Alright, alright, your majesty." Lachlan poked at a skinny gap, squeezing his way up past an insulated pipe. "God forbid anyone has a sense of humour."

Drake snorted at that. Ariake probably couldn't understand the Angaelic. Attempting to wedge his way up, Lachlan let it lie, dust and grit working its way into his mouth and nose despite holding his breath. Hope there's no asbestos here. Hopefully having his yuurei on would stop any bad effects if there was.

He managed to make it up into some kind of between-floor space, a whiff of the night carrying through from a vent somewhere, from the faint clatter of a fan under all the shouting. Carefully crossing over beams, he made his way towards a light coming up through the ceiling and found himself peering down from the topside, this time.

Definitely yakuza. One almost-naked man covered in glowing tattoos sliced into another with a glowing whip, blood and glimmer mixing.

He watched them beat each other to a pulp for a little while, scanning the rest of the room. Nothing but money changing hands to the betting master and sake doing the rounds.

Shuffling back, bracing himself for the squeeze back down, he—

Felt a crack shudder underneath him, and his stomach rocketed into his throat as he lurched for a secure handhold. And missed.

Falling straight through the ceiling.