Interlude: The Cunning Fox

The blue eyes stood out starkly in the darkness as the tall, wiry man’s hands dug through the drawers of one of the guardsman’s rooms.

Specifically, Jiro’s room.

The tall man cursed under his breath as he yanked the last drawer out of the old soldier’s desk, scattering its contents across the floor. The room was completely ransacked as the lithe man had been left alone to search, while Jiro was visiting the back palace.

“I know that foolish rabbit was here! There’s no way she didn’t leave them here!”

The sound of approaching footsteps in the hall caused the man to curse again, as he glanced around the room. His impatience was going to cost him with no way to cover his tracks. He could slip out the window but the old man’s suspicions would eventually fall onto him, especially after their bout the cycle before.

He quickly grabbed a bunch of the discarded items and shoved them into any drawer he could before slamming them back into the dresser and desk. The man used his wiry frame to slink against the wall beside the door, hoping to use the darkness of the room to slip out before the old man realized anything was amiss.

The door slid open just as he pressed himself against the wall, holding his breath as Jiro walked across the room, before illuminating the magic lantern on his desk. He sat down heavily in his chair, spent from the events of the past few cycles.

The man, still holding his breath, had a sinister idea cross his mind as he stared at the defenseless back of the one they called the Unyielding.

If he could kill Jiro here and now, there would be no further issues with him and the incident might send the whole palace in an uproar while he could spend some time searching for where the old man had hidden what that little rabbit had brought him.

Slowly, quietly, the wiry man stepped away from the wall, moving closer to Jiro.

The old man was reaching to open the top drawer of his desk when he noticed one of his books beneath his desk.

He reached underneath the desk, his hand reaching for the short sword he kept hidden there as the lithe man edged even closer.

“So, I take it you’ve decided to bare your fangs for real now, Kitsuya?”