Introduction

If Noa hadn't already known that the Shijos and the Iseki Conglomerate were connected from Murasaki Iseki/Shijo's self-introduction, he would have suspected it from the hours that followed. 

He was blindfolded, gagged again, and removed from a building that smelled of newness and cleaning fluid. He half-fell out of the building and was picked up and tossed into in yet another auto, which he rode in for what he estimated was a little under an hour. 

Then hands dragged him out and shoved him forward. He went, stumbling over his own feet. It must have been dark out, because only the tiniest sliver of light made it through the blindfold. 

"Stairs," said one of his captors. 

He climbed them as best he could and was dragged to a halt in what sounded like a hallway, the air dank and close. 

The door shut behind him and his blindfold was taken off. He was indeed indoors, with no windows and minimal lighting—no hints as to the location of the building. 

The men with him were wearing hoods, the shadows hiding their faces. 

"We're going downstairs," one said. "Nice and easy. Try to run and you won't like what happens." 

Noa nodded, but was already being pushed along. 

They stepped into a room along the hallway, and then one of the men opened a closet—seemingly empty—and reached inside. There was a low rumble, and the back and floor of the closet folded away to reveal a staircase. 

A finger poked harshly into Noa's spine. "Down." 

Down Noa went. The stairs went on for a long time. 

At the bottom of the stairs was yet another hallway. It looked like it might be a sewer or other maintenance tunnel, and turned and kinked at odd intervals. The light was greenish and faint, the walls dark, made of stone or concrete. The ground was even except for the odd crack or jut. The third time he almost lost his footing, Noa gave up on looking around him to focus on the ground in front of him. 

He was jerked to a halt at what looked at first like a bend in the hallway, one fork ending abruptly in an iron door. 

A guard stepped forward, pressing his hand to the door's center. It glowed faintly as the lock clicked open. 

Inside were rows of barred cells. 

The lights were low, but as they walked along, Noa saw that the cells contained people, mostly lying in cots. One or two stood elsewhere in the cells, pacing or staring at nothing. None of them tried to meet Noa's eye. 

He was stopped halfway along the hall while the guard worked a spell on the bars, opening the door and shoving him inside.

"On the bed," one man said. "Hands where we can see them. Don't try anything funny." 

He obeyed, and one of the guards behind him reappeared from further down the hall. He set a bundle on Noa's cot and then stepped out of the room. 

"Quiet till lights-on," one of the men said, and Noa thought he saw his teeth light up in a grin. "Nightie-night, kid. Sweet dreams." 

And then the door shut and locked, and the men's footsteps faded away. 

Noa cautiously approached the bars, but the cell across from his was empty, and he couldn't see the ones on either side. 

The bundle on his bed contained blankets, a shapeless nightshirt, an overshirt and trousers, a roll of toilet paper, a comb, and a toothbrush. 

Noa laid out each of the items, staring at them blankly. Somehow, this strange, small bundle of amenities frightened him more than anything else so far…and as he searched for a place to put them that wasn't the cot, he realized why. 

In the corner, with a bare partition to hide it from the hallway, there was a toilet, a sink, and a single cup on a bare shelf. 

This wasn't a waystation like before—nothing so temporary. 

They intended to keep him here, with the others they'd captured—probably indefinitely. 

***

It was hard to sleep, suspecting what he did about the indefinite length of his stay here, but sleep was the only thing he could do. 

So he slept, and woke when the lights flickered on overhead, and then sat on his cot and waited. 

And then paced a while, unable to bear the boredom. 

And then waited some more. 

Each hour, he considered speaking up, trying to talk to anyone else trapped in this place, but every now and the a silent guard paced the length of the cells, seemingly at random. He didn't know how far sound carried. He couldn't risk it. 

Eventually a panel in the back of his cell opened up, with three bowls: rice, miso soup, some sort of meat in a sauce. Flimsy chopsticks sat to one side. 

He ate. A chime rang above the cell, and guessing at what to do, he returned the dishes. The panel slid shut again. 

This happened again several hours later, and an hour or two after that the lights flickered out. 

One day. 

Then the next. 

Then the next, and Noa used a bit of magic to start marking the wall by his cot, one mark for each morning, just in case he started losing count...or something worse happened. 

After the first meal on the third day, someone walked by who was different. 

He wasn't in nondescript dark clothes with a hood over his face. His hair looked oddly green as he peered into Noa's cell, and Noa, bored out of his mind, couldn't help staring right back at him. 

"Hello," the young man said, and grinned. "I've heard you might be interesting. Come here, I need to bind your hands." 

Noa stared for a long moment, wondering why on earth he should agree to that. And then he figured that he wasn't in a position to refuse demands and stood, putting his hands together and pushing them through the bars. 

The young man lazily wound a length of cord around them and then said a word. The cord tightened just enough to pinch and trailed into his hands. Then he opened the door. "Come with me," he said, and with no other options, Noa followed. 

They walked down the row of cells and out the large metal door, and then to a second one. 

It opened to reveal not a continuation of the tunnels, but a room that was whitewashed and nearly entirely bare. 

A metal bed stood in the center, restraints hanging from it. Behind that was a magic circle—one unlike any Noa had seen before. 

The young man gestured at the table. "Have a seat," he said. "Don't worry, I won't stick you right away. Let's talk first." 

His smile had far too many teeth. 

Noa went to the metal table and hopped awkwardly up onto it, unable to use his bound hands. 

The young man drew a stool from a desk to one side and sat down in it, bracing his hands on his thighs as he leaned forward. "I'm Takara Nagasawa," he said. "And you're Noa Takasu. I'm looking forward to working on you."