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The thought slips into his mind seamlessly as he lies, back to his roommate and legs curled to fit the slightly-too-short mattress. He traces the faint line Drusilla cut into him, briefly aware of the help his “partner” gave him to turn the corruption into a mere scar. With his ward being a powerful Spiritualist he sees no harm in wishing the man ill and feeling Miyoshi’s eyes on him (however briefly) only cements the thought into his mind. What gave the Japanese man the right to be so shady? If he had nothing to hide then why did he deflect everything and turn it onto him?
He turns his neck to glare at the man in question before the rest of his body follows.
There are times when he hates the good luck he’s had and this one of them. Working under Gandor, head of the West Wind, his loyalty to the House is especially important since the head himself has no favored allegiances. He is faithful to everyone and his actions show it, but right now Claire can’t even look at Miyoshi’s face and that would reflect poorly on his boss.
Lifting his blanket, Claire decides that he ought to investigate the original attack site for any other signs of activity.
For Gandor, the thinks. Not Mouse.
He keeps the oil nestled in his box of cigarettes and the key in his pants pocket while his gun rests in its holster, fully loaded in case anyone follows him. He doubts that anyone will be tailing him at this time of night, but the shiver in his spine tells him not to relax. A few patrolling officers throw him a look that is quickly met with a challenging one of his own. His wild, red locks and equally crimson eyes tag him as Gandor’s bodyguard and the company’s main gateway to American armaments. They could choose to overlook him, but to offend him would be a grave mistake indeed. It’s a new feeling, he thinks, to flounce about without another, higher-ranking party by his side but reminds himself that he has as much authority as any other Saniwa on the train.
Mouse included, Claire scoffs.
Miyoshi’s patronization angered him and fueled further accusations, but Claire could normally take that. He hates it, because the condescension is something new, almost exclusive to Miyoshi. Nobody else pulls the “be a dear” or “take Sterling around the block” card on him when his opinion isn’t necessary so the method and the timing felt like a slap in the face. Did their time in Shanghai mean nothing? Is every grievance just going to be met with lip service and avoidance tactics? Perhaps it is easier to avoid things because then he does not have to deal with them, but if that is the case why make such directed jabs?
Instead of smoke and mirrors, the Kazetanis are a collective mist, concealing via controlled information and even tighter appearances. Compared to Yuuki’s opaque fog, Claire can see vague shadows in Miyoshi’s miasma in the form of Kimura Asagi, drugs, and the camellia. He is sure that even amongst other Kazetani, they all remain nebulous to each other. Still, it does not stop the redhead from digging up post-argument retorts.
Everyone is an agent of your father. You’re only here because he asked you to be.
Claire exits the sleeping cart and tightens his hood, but falls in the face of punishing winds. Climbing onto the roof only exacerbates the chill whipping against his face. Instead of standing, he lowers his stance into a crawl to check for evidence along the sides of the roof.
We might have a better chance of finding it if she buried her knife in Mouse instea-, Claire cringes before he can finish the thought. No, he may ask for great pain but death is another matter.
Perhaps he has jumped the gun too quickly. He wants to think that he has the moral high ground on that end. Compared to Miyoshi’s normally grim comments, he reserves his death wishes for those who do tangible harm or faraway figureheads; Miyoshi’s worst crime was putting him in a position of danger.
Corruption, Claire affirms, let him be corrupt and nothing more.
Leaping from the restaurant to the passenger and baggage, he grabs his compact from his other pocket and lets his little companion emerge once more…
...only for her to freak out.
“Eek! We’re on top of a train, a train!”
“Mrrph Mary you need to let me see or I’m going to drop it!” he says, struggling to open his eye against her iron clasp.
“I’m going to fall?”
For all of the trauma reflected on her body she still carries the quirks of being a child. Wrapping her arms around his head, she gives him little in the way of vision or a chance to loosen her grip. Despite not having any earthly perception of temperature she shivers at the sounds of the billowing trees and the sense of something dangerous.
“Mary, please,” Claire backs up until he can fall harmlessly onto his bottom. From a less tall perspective, she purses her lip before peeling herself from Claire’s face.
“So what’s our next mission?” She asks, settling for “sitting” in her brother’s lap.
“I’m going to need your help again,” the redhead announces, pointing behind her.
“You seem tired Big Brother, shouldn’t you do this in the morning?” she tilts her head, more calm now that she didn’t have the fear of Claire dropping her.
If I wanted to do this in the morning then Uncle Miyoshi would probably, guilt trip me, is what he wants to say, but he settles for something less divisive.
“It’s a secret mission,” he lowers his voice into a whisper, but clears his throat when Mary shoots him an odd look.
“I need you to help me find that bad lady’s remains. You know, like all Revenants have?” he turns the compact around so that she can see the scope of the train, “she’s here somewhere but I just can’t find her.”
“Oh well I can help! I just need to-” she looks down at the compact before pressing her lips together.
“Relax, Mary,” he ruffles her hair, “I just need you by my side.”
She nods as Claire affixes the compact to his front pocket, returning to his previous state of crawling. Unlike fights he felt comfortable having her tail by his side since the worst trouble she could possibly get into is attempting to wake the other passengers and she knows that he will close the compact as soon as she tries to misbehave. She provides a softer, more stable type of partnership that doesn’t result in his resentment or someone coming back from the dead and attempting to kill him.
There’s a thought, having a partner you can trust, Claire grumbles a slight but continues toward the next cart.
“Big Brother I’m scared,” Mary whispers.
“We’ll only be here a little bit longer,” he assures.
Claire narrows his eyes as he scampers much more slowly toward the end of the civilian sleeping cart. Feeling for the ladder he descends and runs his hands across the exterior of the doorway until something silky appears under his fingertips.
What is this? He pulls the piece of fabric from a door that closed too quickly and stares at it for a few moments. Red, soft, rotting. It may not have had any thumbprints, but he bet dollars to donuts that it belonged to Drusilla. And if a piece of her dress is here, the rest of her body cannot be far behind.
He turns toward the cargo, but prodding from Mary is enough for him to refrain from walking over.
“Can we go please?! Now?” she urges, “I don’t feel safe here.”
Claire grabs the compact to keep her from shaking, but the terror in her face compels him to reach toward his gun.
“Don’t worry. We don’t have to go if there’s something bad in there,” he says, glancing at her pale expression.
“There’s...monsters in there. Strong ghosts,” she manages, reaching for Claire’s hand, “they feel like her.”
There is no arguing there and Claire sets course back to the VIP sleeping cabins.
He doesn’t complain at Mary’s questions about Drusilla nor at her insistence to clutch his torso during the entire excursion. Instead he gives her a reassuring smile and the occasional platitude. His mind, unfortunately, is on other things.
For such a strong, spiritual presence, why did Miyoshi not catch wind of any of this? If the aura of the ghosts on the train are so overbearing that they made Mary, who keeps gunning to fight, then there should not have been a reason for Miyoshi to miss their presence upon boarding. Half of him wants to chalk it up to personal selfishness (he has been voluntarily taking soul tablets), but would it really be fair to pin everything on him if Mary herself had not detected anything until right before they entered?
“Are you and Uncle Miyoshi going to take care of all the bad ghosts?” Mary asks, gently tugging at one of Claire’s strings.
“I…” Claire hesitates before sighing, “I’ll take care of them. Mou-Miyoshi is...”
“Are you two fighting?”
The question cuts through the wind and air before hanging in Claire’s ears like dead weights. Had she always been this perceptive? She clearly slid into her mirror after the battle.
“I thought I told you not to eavesdrop,” he replies flatly, “how much did you hear?”
“I just don’t think you two should fight,” she murmurs, “people keeps secrets sometimes. You did it too, to protect me.”
Though he has only known Mary for about a year, he’s come to know everything about her from birth to afterlife. Her abilities to obscure visibility and detect ghosts or ghouls combined with her transparency have made her invaluable as an asset to his missions; however, there is no doubt that they are not on equal footing. He could put her away at any time and her C Ranking status meant that most Saniwa (as well as more dangerous ghosts) could kill her without issue. The only reason she is still alive is due to Gandor and...Miyoshi.
Two of the more important people in his life and he did not truly know either of them to the extent that he knew her. One of them, he initially had no issue wishing death upon.
“It’s just...different though. I don’t want you to get hurt.” Claire stops only a few feet from the door to lean against the door, “he’s just being selfish.”
“What’s the difference?” she asks, tilting her head.
“You’ll...you’ll understand when you’re older,” he says, before glancing at the door.
“You always say that,” she shrugs, resigning herself to the compact.
Claire slams the device shut before switching it out for a lit cigarette. When he enters the sleeping cart, he feels safe enough to blow smoke without regarding anyone else who might be patrolling. What is more important is the “discussion” (read: telling him the things he did wrong) he is sure that he would receive from Graham. He always had to be the first to look at both sides of a situation or drag Claire’s collar before he leaped into a fight.
He’d probably say something like ‘kind of a double standard isn’t it? Well he did it first. He should know. But then he’d say ‘that’s childish’ and we wouldn’t get anywhere. He’s here acting like it’s so bad that his old man’s head of the House and kind of hates him when he’s never been beat.
“He doesn’t know what it’s like to hop on a train and run the fuck away!”
“Stille!” an officer whispers harshly.
“Yeah your old man too,” Claire says, blowing out smoke. Clearly the officer had forgotten their earlier exchange of looks.
Though the patrolling duo walks off, the redhead remains rigid. Miyoshi never really could walk around without being recognized. It isn’t as though Claire never thought of the scenario himself, Miyoshi severing ties and trying to be someone else but nothing he did would ever detach him from being a Kazetani. Even with Kimura Asagi’s power he could never be invisible the same way Claire was during his earlier years. Even now, if the redhead wants to, he could dye his hair and live life as Joe Schmoe, combat extraordinaire but a Kazetani death would ripple across waters.
The Kazetanis aren’t veiled by mist, they’re trapped in it. It only makes sense that Miyoshi might not want to get others too involved in his family because he still wants to protect them.
“I’m a fucking asshole. I’m a fucking asshole,” Claire sighs, slapping his forehead, “fuck man.”
Whether or not Mouse is truly being shady, the Irishman should not have jumped to conclusions for doing essentially what he would have done. Lord why did he need to be so insensitive? So impulsive? He is sure that Graham would be chiding by now if not smacking him over the head. He should only be so lucky that his Artifact is busy with Helene’s.
Unfortunately, he isn’t privy to waking Miyoshi up for the sake of groveling so he reaches into his pocket to feel Drusilla’s fabric scrap for some reassurance. If not an apology he knows Mouse would be happy to find a clue or two regarding the state of the train.
He stamps his cigarette out before noticing a hunched over male fiddling with a lighter.
“Need a light?” he asks.
From across the room, red eyes glance at the taller male before shoving his hands in his pockets and walking off entirely.
”Hey! Where are you-”
A single match drops from Claire’s fingertips before his jaw drops, both uncertain and uncomfortable with the sight before him. Rather than chase after however, he heads back to his room. He feels done looking for trouble tonight.