Anomaly Ch. 52

The wind on the highway smelled like dust and iron. Wagons groaned, leather creaked, and somewhere behind him Helena’s wings rasped as she settled again on a cart’s rail. He kept the Imperial writ tucked where his hand could find it without looking. The parchment felt heavier than it should - part authority, part leash. He signed as Chulainn. That was the name the Empire needed to hear, and that was the name on the seal he carried now.

Shirou had no doubt that the Emperor knew it was a fake name. And that, accordingly, the moment that this was revealed, the writ meant nothing. Honor was sacred to the Empire, and faking one's name was perhaps the most dishonorable thing he could have done.

Well, not like he didn't have a good reason to do so.

The column wasn’t small anymore. The Warrior Bunnies rode quiet, eyes moving in tight arcs, while the orcs paced at the flanks. Komakado’s people managed the loads with the baffled efficiency of professionals thrown into a different century. Tyuule stayed forward-left of him without being told, reading the road the way a commander reads a room. She’d taken the cloak he'd set on her shoulders back in the capital and worn it like it was hers all along.

The Warrior Bunny was strange, in a familiar way. She reminded him of desperation, disappointment, and pride all tucked together into a single package. When they had exited the main gates of the capital, she looked as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. At the same time, it seemed as if she hated that she felt that in the first place.

Shirou quickly pieced a few things together due to that.

The reason that he found her familiar was that she was exactly like the magi of the Clock Tower whenever they failed to exact revenge on their targets. Shirou had been approached by them on occasion, whenever he had gotten back from a mission.

They wouldn't even question if his mission was successful, who he was targeting, what he did, or anything. All they asked - more demanded - was to confirm if their information was correct.

Reading in between those lines, as one was required to do so in the Clock Tower, the Enforcer realized that these people were ones that were so obsessed with their targets that they had been meticulously monitoring the same targets Shirou had taken down.

As soon as he confirmed it, they would leave in a huff, disappointed that they couldn't do it themselves.

Tyuule...was exactly like those magi.

She was absolutely the most dangerous person in this entire convoy because of that. Still, he could take solace that he wasn't the target - or if he was, she was doing a damn good job of hiding it. He'd watch her regardless, just in case she did something that would get them all in trouble.

While they had left in the evening, the sun quickly caught up to them. They couldn't move too fast, as they had people that were too malnourished to go any faster. As such, they only reached the first checkpoint at midmorning. Rough palisade, a half-crumbled mile-marker, and a squad of bored provincial guards in plain helmets doing their best impression of gatekeepers from a better story.

“Hold!” A boy with a spear called, too loud for the space, too eager for the rank. Two more jogged out to the center of the road, glancing from Yaga to elf to orc with a sneer, “What’s your business? Who - what - are these?”

Shirou forced the scowl off his face.

“Laborers.” Shirou said, steady, “Under Imperial charge.” He drew the writ, letting the red press of the seal catch the light without shaking it in their faces. He didn’t need to play it up. He only needed to let them see it.

The boy took a step back but didn’t yield. “That…that can’t be right.” His eyes snagged on Tyuule’s bare throat where iron had left its memory, “Those aren’t laborers. Those are…those were-”

“Slaves.” One of the other young men finished, mouth twisting, “You can’t just-This is forged!”

Before the word could hang, a gravelled voice cut in from the shade, “Stow it.” The sergeant had the look Shirou trusted in soldiers: sun-scarred, lines at the eye, nothing to prove. He didn’t ask for the writ, he held out his hand and waited until Shirou put it there.

The elder read without moving his lips, glanced at the seal, then at Shirou, and finally at the varied faces in the column, “It’s real enough.” The sergeant folded the parchment once, careful not to crease the seal, and returned it, “Orders are orders. You pass.”

The eager spearman couldn’t let it go, “Sarge-”

“Do you want to argue with the Senate’s stamp and the Emperor’s temper?” The sergeant asked, not unkindly, “No? Then step aside. Let them move.” He met Shirou’s eye as the bar lifted. There was a question there he didn’t say aloud. There usually was.

They rolled on.

Only after the checkpoint disappeared behind scrub and thorn did Tuka slip up beside him, keeping pace with the wagon wheel, “Lord Emiya.” She said, low, “Why did the older one allow us when the young ones were ready to fight over it?”

Lelei watched too, silent as ever, which meant she was already three steps ahead and waiting for him to catch up.

Glancing subtly around, he could see that Komakado and the others were similarly speaking quietly. Mostly, it was Komakado and his assistant doing the talking, possibly answering the same question Tuka had asked.

It was times like these that reminded Shirou that, for the age difference between them, the elf had no practical experience dealing with politics as he did. It was the same story with Lelei, but the blue-haired girl was sharp enough that she had clearly already realized what had happened.

“To the young ones, it says something impossible is being forced through. To him, it says the impossible is already settled, and his choice is whether he wants to be the hinge that breaks.” He exhaled, “And because he’s old enough to have seen what happens to hinges.”

The Enforcer could relate. A little bit too much, sadly.

He rubbed a thumb along the parchment’s edge and slid it away again, “Moreover, that sergeant understood that this entire thing is nothing more than polite political fiction. The Emperor and I both understand it. The Senate understands it even if they hate it. On paper, these people are ‘laborers under my responsibility’ - temporary property moved out of the city to do useful work. In practice, everyone knows what I’m going to do once there’s space to breathe.”

Lelei tilted her head. “And the Emperor allows this…fiction…because?”

“Because his son humiliated him in front of the chamber.” The memory of guards hauling a Crown Prince like a tavern brawler while the Senate stared. That spectacle poisoned every argument the hawks might have made today, “If the Emperor claps back in public, he looks petty. If he quietly lets this writ hold, he looks pragmatic. And he gets to pretend he’s cutting me a deal that keeps me busy and far from their center.”

“You mean a bribe.” Tuka said, not accusing, just naming.

“A bribe paid in paperwork and distance.” Shirou agreed, “He moves the problem toward Italica, puts a bow on it, and hopes I stop meddling in the Senate when they still have to deal with the aftermath of the earthshakes." He kept the cynicism out of his voice, or tried to, “Honestly? It’s the smartest play available.”

The road bent south. Komakado called for a halt long enough to check a hitch and swap a limping horse. He didn’t speak to Shirou. The older man’s earlier glance in the capital had said enough: the tempered kind of sympathy that implied a failure seen and forgiven. That look still itched like grit under a bandage. Mochizuki’s name pressed behind Shirou’s teeth.

He’d thought saving her was the one part of this mess he could count on. The truth was, he had failed entirely.

He had saved the many and lost the one he’d promised to bring home.

There’s a math to triage, and it always presents itself as mercy until you have to say a name. Komakado’s eyes had held the question: Did you try everything? He had.

It didn’t feel like it mattered.

...

They moved again. Tyuule hovered near the first cart with the younger girls, face unreadable. When her gaze met his, something like cautious respect, mixed in with more than a healthy dose of suspicion, flickered and passed.

“Why Italica?” Tuka asked later, when the day's heat lifted enough for conversation, “We could fade into the forests around Alnus.”

“Because that’s where a scribe would send us if he wanted to look useful.” Shirou said, “Close to the Hill, far from the capital’s shrines, lots of repair work after the quakes. It fits their story and keeps their soldiers facing outward. It’s the least offensive choice to the most people who matter.” He didn’t add that it also placed them in the shadow of a city watched by the Empire.

Lelei walked beside him, staff tapping a patient beat, “Counting on bureaucratic inertia.”

“I’m counting on human habits. Give people a form and a path, they’ll follow both until jolted. We’ll reach Italica under the label they provided, and then...” He glanced at the wagons. At Helena making small jokes to steady a child. At Anatoly’s men sharing water with Tyuule’s, “Then we start mislabeling quietly. A few at a time. The paper will keep telling one story while we write another under it.”

Lelei gave the smallest nod, “Risky.”

“Yes.”

“Necessary.”

He didn’t answer.

Night came soon after. Their horses were tired, and though the orcs could go on for longer, the same could not be said of everyone else - especially the Yaga. The heat had gotten to them, and they quickly found themselves starved of water because of that.

They camped where the road bent toward a wooded rise, with a river within walking distance. The guards ate separately, which was fine. It allowed them to rotate their patrols, keeping an eye out for anyone that might try to ambush them. The dwarves even set up a small forge, inspecting whatever weapons they had and repairing those that needed it.

Shirou sat down near a small firepit that Lelei had lit. Truly, the mage was a genius that could rival Rin in her younger days. It was the blue-haired girl that had made a lot of the preparations for departure possible. With her magecraft, she had made the act of carrying and transporting goods as easy as could be.

Not only that, Lelei also displayed signs of being an Average One - that is to say, she could use the natural Elements as easy as she could breathe. Given time, he had no doubt that she would turn out to be one of the best in her chosen craft, whatever that might be.

Though, Shirou felt that she didn't need to try too hard. Every time he saw her, she would always be reading, writing, or studying about magecraft and magic. The closest he could remember Lelei relaxing was when she was sleeping, as even now, she was using her magecraft to lighten the burden of setting up camp.

A child deserved a childhood, that much he believed.

Tuka, on the other hand, was taking everything much better. Or appeared to do so, at least. After her earlier outburst, and his subsequent betrayal of the trust he had been given, she hadn't so much as mentioned it. Perhaps she understood where he was coming from, though he wouldn't put too much stock in it.

Likely, Tuka realized that there was literally nothing she could do now that the gears were in motion. That, or she was counting on the Grand Elder to reprimand him once they inevitably went back to Alnus.

Either way, it is a problem that his future self would have to deal with.

Shuffling feet from behind him. From the sound of it, it was made obvious on purpose, to catch his attention. Turning his head back, Shirou raised an eyebrow as he spotted the de-facto leader of the Warrior Bunnies standing with her arms crossed. With a motion of his hand, he gestured to an empty rock.

Tyuule didn’t sit. She stood watching the border of dark where firelight stopped being brave, arms folded, expression empty the way tired strength often looks from the outside. When at last she spoke, it wasn’t a question.

“You’re not keeping us.” She said with a frown. Ah. He knew that this was coming, though not this early.

“No.”

“Then why play their game?”

“Because games with rules are predictable.” He said. “And predictable can be used.”

Tyuule weighed his answer, and stared hard at him. Then, he saw it. Minute, barely perceptible, and yet he could tell that the Warrior Bunny had tensed, readying for a fight.

And then, suddenly, her words put into him the same sort of tension.

“You truly are as that worm described.”

…