Alexis frowns as she watches Ilsa head back towards Erich’s home, mind swirling with the revelations of the night; for a Shinigami to show up, wounded and asking for aid, is one thing, but for that Shinigami to be Erich’s soulmate?
It smells like a trap. Maybe not of that Shinigami’s devising, but the idea that someone could have gotten close enough to figure it out and then set them all up? Oh, she’d absolutely believe it of the bastards that act as the Shinigami ‘Elders’.
(Either that, or someone figured it out and then tried to kill the man for it.)
(Both options are entirely believable, in her opinion.)
“A Shinigami,” Briar says once Ilsa is out of sight, his tone incredulous. “Erich’s soulmate is a Shinigami?”
“An injured Shinigami,” Tobias pipes up as he steps closer, head tilting as he catches Alexis’ gaze and holds it. “Injured by unknown forces,” he adds pointedly, letting his Quincy cross slip from his sleeve to dangle in the air. “Are we hunting like Ilsa asked?”
Alexis considers Tobias for a moment, then turns to give Briar and Ria the same once over; if this is a trap, they’re walking into it two members — including their healer — short of a full unit. And while she could certainly wake up another pair to join them, it won’t be the same as having Ilsa and Kai at their backs. If it’s a trap, any little flaw in their coordination could spell disaster, but not having the extra pair might also spell disaster.
“Tobias and I are your scouts for a reason,” Ria points out as she straightens and tips her chin up. “There hasn’t been a Shinigami yet who’s caught us.”
“Tonight might just be the night,” Briar rejoins before Alexis can say anything. “If this is a trap…”
Ria snorts and settles a hand on her hip as she asks, “And if it isn’t?”
“It’s a risk either way,” Tobias says with a sidelong look at Ria, then turns his attention back to Alexis and continues with, “But I’m in favor. If it’s a trap, better to know it now, and if it isn’t, better we figure out what tried to kill our Clan Head’s soulmate before it comes after us for sheltering him.”
“True enough,” Alexis agrees. “Briar?”
Briar hesitates, lips thinning, then nods sharply. “Best we do it now, before any evidence is erased.”
Alexis meets and holds Briar’s gaze for a moment, searching for any remaining hesitance — Briar’s her second for a reason after all, his natural caution a good check on the rest of them — then relaxes when she sees only determination. “Right, let’s go then,” she says, gesturing for Ria and Tobias to lead the way. “We’ll start at Erich’s door and trace it back from there.”
Ria and Tobias both nod and immediately dart off in twin bursts of hirenkyaku, heading towards Erich’s home before she can say another word.
“We’ll need to figure out how the man crossed our wards without alerting anyone,” Briar murmurs as he and Alexis dart after their scouts. “If there’s a weakness there…”
Alexis hums in agreement. “I’ll set our warders on it in the morn— holy shit,” she breathes as they land in front of Erich’s porch and she takes in all the blood; Ilsa’s comment about the Shinigami showing up ‘near death’ suddenly feels a lot less like exaggeration and a lot more like the truth, given the amount scattered around. It’s not ‘movie gruesome’ levels, but she’s been in more than enough combat to know exactly how much blood loss is potentially deadly and this is certainly close. Closer than she’d like to acknowledge, really.
(If Erich hadn’t been awake, if he hadn’t heard the man knocking, if he’d just ignored it…)
(Shit, they might have all woken up to a dead Shinigami on Erich’s porch and no answer as to why.)
At her side, Briar hisses and kneels, a tiny spark of light forming in his palm as he examines the blood spattered path up to Erich’s door. “At least the trail should be easy to follow,” he jokes hollowly, then glances over at Ria and Tobias. “Ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” Ria says with a wry twist of her lips. “We’ll have to go slow, though, even beyond worries about a trap.”
“There’s practically no traces of power in this trail,” Tobias clarifies when Alexis tilts her head in question. “Either he was drained because of… whatever did this, or he managed to keep himself hidden while bleeding out. Not sure which explanation I want to be true.”
Alexis grimaces and can’t help but send a concerned glance at Erich’s door — both options are worrying for entirely different reasons, Tobias is right about that! — before tearing her attention away and back to her scouts. “Lead the way,” she orders.
Ria nods sharply, exchanges a look with Tobias, and then turns and begins to follow the trail of blood into the darkness. She leads them down the path away from Erich’s door, then turns off of it, heading through a yard and around a grove of trees, further and further away from the heart of their little community.
It’s a meandering path, and a telling one: the Shinigami had clearly been moving between bits of cover, doing his best to stay out of sight the whole way. Whoever he is, he’s clearly had training in stealth or infiltration, which is…
Well, it’s a concern, but it’s something that will have to be dealt with later. For now, it’s possible that the man’s training is the only reason he’s still alive.
They slip into the forest at their border, the wards a silent hum in Alexis’ mind that grows more present with every step closer—
Until, oddly, the hum… flickers, like a candle about to go out, before suddenly strengthening again. She pauses, gestures for the others to pause, and give the area a very careful once over. Whatever is causing the oddity in the ward structure, she bets it’s how the Shinigami got through, but how did he know? Only the warders (and ward-holders like herself!) should be able to sense it like she can, so what would have given it away…?
Her eyes catch on the silvery glint of moonlight on water — a boundary stream, if she recalls correctly — broken by a dark slash of a fallen tree, and knows immediately what happened.
“Found his entry point before our scouts, then?” Briar asks with quiet amusement, even as Ria and Tobias exchange exasperated looks and turn towards the little stream.
Alexis hums in absent agreement and carefully approaches the boundary, trying not to muss any evidence of the Shinigami’s entry. The moonlight is more than strong enough for her to see how the deadfall forced the little stream to divert, flowing into and then right back out of the ward-line; it’s enough to disrupt the wards but not enough to break them — probably not even enough for the wardmasters to truly sense from within the clan either, the detour barely a meter all told — and she can already tell how a clever person skilled in detection could use this little disruption to slip through the wards.
Briar scowls as he takes the deadfall in and then slants her an annoyed look. “I’ll make sure the wardmasters walk the whole boundary tomorrow,” he grumbles.
“Our new friend didn’t do this,” Ria announces as she kneels next to the little stream and peers closely at the fallen tree. “This has been here for at least a week.”
Tobias clicks his tongue and slips over the boundary to begin searching beyond it. “Definitely took advantage of it, though,” he says as he crouches to look at something at the base of another tree. “Looks like he followed the ward line until he found this spot.”
“Any idea of how much farther we need to go?” Alexis asks as she carefully pulls every trace of her power beneath her skin and steps over the boundary into the forest beyond. When Tobias and Ria both shake their heads, she grimaces, sweeps her gaze over the forest all around them, and reluctantly gestures for them to keep moving. “Nothing for it, then,” she mutters as Briar catches up and falls into step with her once more.
“This is going to be a long night,” he says in tired agreement.
Alexis sighs but can’t refute Briar’s statement; she’d known from the start that it wouldn’t be a quick thing — very few people were fool enough to set a trap or stage an ambush just beyond the Quincy wards, after all — but there’d still been a speck of hope in her soul that maybe this time…
But no, it wasn’t to be.
The only bright point about this is that the trail can’t lead all the way back to Shinigami territory, given the wounds Ilsa described and the amount of blood the man had lost.
Instead, whatever happened has to have occurred nearby, but with how meandering the man’s path has been…
Well, there’s no sense in speculating. Tobias and Ria will follow the traces as far as possible, they’ll examine the area for any clues, and then they’ll all (finally!) be able to go back home to report.
Until then, it’s her job to stay alert so they don’t fall into a trap either.
(Please let her suspicions be wrong.)
(She doesn’t want to start a war tonight.)
(Just… let this be infighting, or an accident, or something that has nothing to do the tensions between their two people.)
(She can’t stand the idea of Erich forcing himself to go to war once again, not after what he’s already been through.)
Alexis takes a careful breath, hand flexing and power coiling beneath her skin, and then lets it out. Shoves her worries aside and focuses on the world around her.
She won’t fail, she can’t fail, and whatever happens, happens.
(If this is the opening move in a war, she’s going to make sure it’s the final move as well.)
(And damn every squawking, war-hungry bastard in both communities.)
(She’ll make them all pay.)