In The Depths

Arata was the one who held the only lantern in the room. He stood in the doorway, his body proving there was no way out for the prisoner kneeling on the rack of sharpened stones. Only the shuddering ‘stop’ she whispered filled the silence between Arata’s questions.

“I will ask you again, who did you coordinate with to kill Koseki Torohachi?” He looked over to Aose as he asked the question, preparing the other witch hunter for his duty if the colluder repeated her previous answer.

“No, I already told you!” Tsukishiba replied, struggling up against her bound hands and feet. “The witch circle isn’t mine, I don’t know how it got there!”

For a courtesan, he expected her to be a better liar. Arata nodded to Aose who turned to the pile of cobblestones beside him, picking one up and walking beside Tsukishiba. He laid it to rest alongside the other two blocks already on Tsukishiba’s lap and tried not to wince away from her cry of pain.

“That’s hard for us to believe, why would someone plant evidence in a way that the average investigator would never find it?” Tsukishiba scarcely seemed to be listening and Arata advanced on her like a thunderstorm. “Who else did you work alongside?”

Her breath turned into a pant, before coiling hot in her throat with a keen. “There was a girl at the Red Blossoms, a couple of months back. I hadn’t seen her around before she joined but she said… she said she could give me something for the men’s potency. To help them perform.”

Arata nodded to himself before turning to Aose. “Another one.” Even though her words were strained, they were too practiced. There was no other girl and the entire time they had the witch circle in their possession, not a single man mentioned increased potency. There was something in the truth that would lead to her execution but that was the exact thing Arata wanted. He just needed a strategy to rip it out of her.

Across the room, Aose bent to pick up another block and waded against a tide to Tsukishiba. He placed it on her lap and the air filled with a bass snap, sending Tsukishiba’s screams into a fever pitch.

“What—”

“What are you doing?” Aose interrupted his superior, moving between Arata and their prisoner. “One of her legs just broke, she needs to be seen to.”

He didn’t have time for insubordination. “After this next question.” Arata replied, moving around him.

“No, it’s too much.” Aose turned to remove one of the stones from Tsukishiba’s lap but Arata caught his shoulder before he reached down and pulled him back.

“Outside. Now.” Arata hissed and Aose flicked one last look to the woman on the stones before he stepped into the hallway. Beyond the doorway, Arata forced Aose against the wall. “Should I tell the daimyo that I’ve found a second colluder? Or are you going to put the city first and help everyone else find this witch?”

Aose didn’t back down. He tried to make up for the height difference between Arata and him by squaring out his shoulders, although this close it didn’t have the effect he was looking for. “I want to. You know I want to. But this method of torture, she'll just say anything to have it stop.”

“Telling truth from lies doesn’t need a witch circle. You look them in the eyes and see if they’re worrying you’ll find the inconsistencies they didn’t think of the second before it came from their mouth.” Arata glanced back into the room at the kneeling woman. “Either that or the inconsistencies are too great to not notice to begin with.”

“And you want to put a citizen’s life on the line for that conviction?” Aose glare didn’t waiver, even as the silence stretched out.

Arata broke it first. “Yes. She had a witch circle in her drawer: Aose, she’s not innocent. The only ones who collude with witches want to see all of us burnt, whether they realise it or not.” He stepped away, returning to the room. “We save people, remember. No matter how many we hurt in the process.”

When he turned back to Tsukishiba, he clicked his tongue against his teeth. She had slumped over to the side, tendrils of blood flowing towards them from the cuts in her shins, unconscious. He didn’t need to turn to see the look Aose gave him, only felt it in the back of his neck, and he took position to carry the prisoner out of the room. Neither of them spoke as they walked, the resentment simmering, until they passed the cell of a man Arata hoped he would never see.

They locked Utsubo up months ago, just before the newest string of fires, and had to put his interrogation on the backburner. All the better for his old friends in the underworld, who wanted to see his mouth permanently closed before it got a chance to open again. Arata examined the prisoner in a split-second he disguised as passing interest. If he hadn’t made a mental note of his position in the jail, he would have blended in with every other prisoner, and only the hurried route they took due to Tsukishiba’s injuries forced them past. What could he know to force Kawaragi, a lowly gambling rigger, to want him dead?

Arata’s thoughts flashed back to the monks and how they could play into all of this. There must have been some connection between Koseki, his favourite girl at the House of Red Blossoms, the priests who led him away, and whoever cut away all of his hair. If there was anyone who saw the sympathiser, it would have been the monks. He just needed a way to get that information out of them.

The pair had done enough first aid in the field to know how to apply it in the jail’s infirmary but Arata could still feel a tension between them.

“If there’s something you want to tell me, do it. Don’t worry about impropriety.” Arata glanced up to Aose across the table as he cut another bandage strip.

“I think interrogation techniques with excessive violence—”

Arata cut Aose off. “You mean the techniques I using?”

It took a second for him to respond, chewing on his words. “We already destroy civilians’ houses, why torture them as well when there are other options?”

Arata tied off the white sheet and moved to carry Tsukishiba back to her cell. “It’s a deterrent. We treat all colluders with witches this way to make those considering it think again.” He took hold of her legs as Aose moved to support her torso. “Executions didn’t work, this is the only option.”

And did the number of colluders decrease? Arata couldn't stop himself from thinking. When the daimyo demands one is shot every month until the burnings stop, does it even matter?

“Sawatari will be out by the day’s end, I’ll continue this with her tomorrow.” Arata pushed open the cell door with his back and moved to lay Tsukishiba on the futon.

“No.” Aose adjusted the reed straw pillow so it was comfortably beneath her head before meeting Arata's eyes, speaking louder. “No, I need more experience down here.”

Arata could only respond with a nod. This was the life of the witch hunter. If he burnt to a charcoal the next day, Aose needed to be able to pick up the slack. There weren’t many of them to start with and less every month.

They needed to end this fight soon or demon fire would keep crawling up from the roots. Before long, everything would be ash.