Broken Contracts (Hana ✗ Sen)

[Hana]

Shooting a queer look at Phynex for his question - why would he want to know anyone about to get married? - Crow's reply died on his lips, a sudden loud beep shattering the peaceful chatter at the table. The three looked towards the entrance to the small home, where the pure black telephone beeped once again, before Tiger's electronically-emulated voice sounded through the speaker. The youkai inspector's usual boisterousness blasted through even technological boundaries, carrying his confident and cheerful voice and his message to the two foreigners.

Selene's brow rose ever so slightly at the brief slip Tiger let out. So even he has to admit that this teahouse is more a brothel than what it parades itself as. She nodded quietly to herself, closing her eyes in satisfaction. Not that she expected anything less than that spotlessly forged application passing even the suspicious teahouse's standards. What ever qualifications Dragon included in that resume must have been quite spectacular if they got accepted the day after. The only question was if they could actually prove those qualifications under the prying eyes of the supervisor...

"Hm. I will prepare myself, Dragon-san." The other woman knew better the kinds of clothing to wear for this excursion, so she was leaving it in her capable hands. Selene only had to assume it was something suitable for her disguised appearance.

Crow announced the arrival of their breakfast by setting down a big bowl of rice at the middle of the table, with a wooden spoon resting on top. The grilled salmon in smaller plates followed quickly after, and surprisingly, more riceballs. "I made more after you two left for your walk last night."

 

[Mu]

Phynex looked over at the spread with glee, thoughts of marriage pushed aside for the time being. He was a little nervous to send Selene off on her own with only the other investigator as her only support, but he was sure backup had been arranged at the least. "I humbly receive," he sighed as the three of them took to their seats before scoffing down his meal as usual. He felt a bit more comfortable to act as he normally did around Crow and Selene, both of which knew he had... less than normal table manners. But it wasn't too bad, right? Even the fire demon tired of acting sometimes, and just wished he could be himself.

After eating, he was first to properly get dressed, donning a white business shirt that was buttoned around his form tightly with a dark red tie that he pulled slightly loosely around his neck. He had an affinity for dark clothing, it suited him well. He knew Selene agreed. Throwing on a rather nice black trench coat, he pinned on the badge he had been given. The demon whistled at his reflection, turning to admire the clothes. He really did look like some sort of police officer.

Looking out the window, he spotted the familiar car pulling up into the driveway, though the driver of the vehicle remained inside, giving them plenty of time to get ready before they needed to head off to their destination.

 

[Hana]

"Check if you've forgotten anything," Selene murmured from where she caught the fire demon spying on what was likely their co-workers' arrival from the window. She threw her borrowed shirt towards him with a flick of her wrist, returning to getting dressed. Taking out the clothes she should sort into the closets soon enough, Selene shrugged minutely and picked two main articles of clothing. There was nothing much to concern herself with when it came to work attire for this day, what with the disguises Dragon was going to lend her. Sleek dark pants cut from velvet that only served to lengthen her legs' appearance, a white silk button-up that she was sure she received from Delilah years ago, and black leather shoes. Easy to get out of. The pants cinched high and tight around her waist, part of the button-up tucked under it.

If anything, Phynex thought more carefully on his dressing choices than the huntress did. He also got dressed first, which didn't nearly happen quite as often as Selene doing so. After noting the weather outside, she slipped into a blazer that matched the pants. Ah, so it was part of a set. Looking over at the fire demon, she checked over his appearance once and arched a brow. "I don't think I've seen that coat before." He must have gotten it before they left Nora, but she had never seen him in it.

She held her own cloaking device in hand, meandering out of their room and into the hall to meet up with Crow. The tengu was an oddity in civilian clothing, with what looked like a dark grey graphic tee and trousers, a cap put on backwards on his head. His hair was tied back at the nape of his neck. Unruly dark bangs were pulled away from his face with the cap, which was a surprising red color that matched his eyes. A silver chain hung around his neck a strange little knife hanging from it like a charm.

"... It was a gift from Tiger-san and Dragon-san," he explained awkwardly as he caught where her eyes were looking. It was a nice-looking knife, and upon closer inspection it was a handmade creation with a thin layer of wax to dull the sharp edge from cutting its wearer. But it wasn't any less sharp if he actually used it.

The huntress blinked, and calmly complimented him. "It suits you." She clasped the device on her wrist, changing her appearance in the matter of a few seconds once again.

 

[Mu]

Catching the shirt with quick reflexes, the demon smiled a little as he folded it up and tucked it away into their new temporary wardrobe, placing it on top of the pile of shirts he had brought some time ago with the help of the musical Old One. "I went and brought some clothes for Neo-Edo. Kimyotake said I would stand out too much if I wore what I got when I arrived," the demon shrugged. He was most comfortable in the clothes he had been wearing for the past three years, but beggars weren't allowed to be choosers. He had to deal with what he had now.

With all the materials they needed being prepared for them, the trio did not need to take much for the day ahead as they headed out and downstairs to the waiting car, disguised and lightly humming as the engine was left running. The ever-so silent driver sat in the front dressed in formal black and stereotypical sunglasses to hide his eyes, and the fire demon could not tell whether or not he was looking at them as they entered the car.

Tiger and his female companion were already inside chatting about something mundane when they entered, so they shuffled aside to make some room and were warm with their welcome, smiling and grinning from ear to ear. The kimono-clad woman seemed particularly pleased about the success of the false applications, her eyes a little brighter than usual.

"Change of plans, ladies and gentlemen. We don't be going to the office, but to a closer place instead," the police general hummed. "We'll look suspicious if we were caught leaving the Headquarters. Your clothes and everything will be there too."

By closer location, the man had meant yet another teahouse. It was not far away from the place they had just scouted the night before, and it looked ordinary and not out of place among all the teahouses and secret brothels. Inside were quiet youkai and humans of both genders, customers sitting away in secluded rooms sipping tea and other beverages. Phynex wasn't sure what was so special about this place, until the youkai standing behind the front desk took one look at the badge their male officer flashed discretely at directed them towards the second floor. It was one of those buildings and facilities that assimilated into normal society and acted as a gathering point for information. Making a name for itself within the teahouse community, collecting data on particularly dangerous targets and potential criminals and any sort of underground activity that was illegal.

 

[Hana]

The second floor of the so-called 'Jewel Dragonfly' teahouse, that was in truth an undercover division of the APA, boasted an intimate-looking collection of smaller rooms and a bigger meeting room. To keep up with the times and trends of the teahouses in the district, the decor erred on the oriental rich appearance, with colorful beaded screens hiding the compartments and softly lit lamps providing light that didn't overwhelm the patrons' eyes. Plush fur rugs and carpets cushioned the carved wooden tables and cabinets containing fine china and pottery, fur that seemed to be collected from exotic animals such as tigers and the lion species in the East. Competing with the paper lamps were the small colored candles placed on the tables, flickering gently and releasing a woody fragrance that reminded people of the deep forest.

Serving girls dressed in silken clothing and linens retreated into the second floor to change their attires in a room that was bustling with the lot of them, placing knickknacks such as bejeweled pins and combs into their hair and slipping into appropriate attire. The girls were obviously working for the police agency, but were less involved in the crime investigation side and more as the eyes and ears that caught useful pieces of information that the police normally couldn't access. Two of them flashed painted smiles to Tiger and Dragon as the two inspectors appeared, soft powdered hands coming up to usher the latter into the dressing rooms.

When they caught sight of Dragon's 'partner', they looked at each other and then back at Selene. The one on the left wore light pink and white robes, her raven hair braided down her back with a large flower pinned on the right side of her head. Her face was white with powder and her lips a glossy pink, her eyes lightly lined with black and her brows delicately darkened with pencil. She held a critical, calculative look as she eyed the huntress up and down. "We've worked on Dragon-san before, but she told us to alter you minimally since this appearance is already a disguise?"

 

[Mu]

"Right," Tiger folded his arms, looking as comfortable as ever. "Do something dark, nothing too bright. It's bad to stand out here." The look on his face suggested that the women he was talking to understood what he meant. The lady on the right nodded in silent agreement, the dark shadow that passed through her features unmissed by Phynex, who was standing aside for now. Quickly, the two ushered Selene away into the changing rooms - now the fire demon was leaving his partner in their hands.

The fire demon looked around the facility. It was a standard teahouse, a little less extravagant looking than the one they would be infiltrating in soon. It appeared plain to 'not stand out' among all the other buildings that operated in the district - but had plenty of expensive-looking decorations littering the interior. The front rooms had what appeared to be customers, but the fire demon could guess that they too were undercover officers. Assuming this was a place for them to relax yet also help with the facade of the false teahouse was not too far-fetched.

He turned to Tiger with one eyebrow raised. "What will be our task?" Phynex asked, serious at the question at hand. They could not enter with them without having to watch their backs. The lower the number of infiltrators the better, but that did not mean the fire demon was not uneasy with what was going to occur. Selene was his partner after all. And after the whole show with the promise ring, she was more important to him now than ever. He wanted to make her happy in the future, not lose her here. But he knew Selene would never go down that easy. She was a fierce fighter, and he liked that about her.

"Outside, we'll be camping outside. Being customers will be pointless if we don't get them to serve us, and we will have eyes on us at all times." The officer shook his head. "You have good hearing, don't you. You have an ear open to Selene, and I'll have mine on Dragon right outside the teahouse. At the first sign of trouble, we'll break in to get them."

 

[Hana]

"That is what I already had in mind," Selene mentioned evenly, more to assuage what the fire demon was likely to think about Tiger and the strange lady's shared looks. Dark grays and blacks were her preferred colors even in her normal attire, they stood out the least when it came to the brightly colored birds that danced about in dresses. Even in the East, it was still the same, even more so with the brightly patterned kimonos the women wore. It would not be so nondescript that it would be suspicious, but she wanted to look plain enough to be overlooked, yet at the same time acceptable enough for that place's standards. That would have been a tough act to follow if it weren't for the experienced hands that Dragon entrusted them to.

She left the other three, ushered past a sliding door into a changing room that was already laden with assortments of kimonos and obis, along with their accessories. The two girls with her had fluttered to either side of the huntress, shooting looks at her.

"Well, Aoi, what do you think?" The one clad in pink and white spoke as soon as the door slid shut. They were identical twins. The other was appropriately enough clad in pale blue, her grey eyes settling on Selene before she spoke.

"A yuki-onna stands out quite a lot. They rarely come down from their snowy mountains, Momo." Grabbing a lock of darker silver hair, Aoi inspected it before murmuring, "Though she doesn't look like a pure yuki-onna."

Selene followed their movements and words calmly, standing in the middle of the room and holding quite still. "My mother had left the mountains because of my father and raised me moving from city to city. After her death, I am looking for work to support myself and settled in Neo-Edo. That is the story." Her gaze roamed past the colorful kimonos and obis. Those won't do. There were more muted colors somewhere among those.

"Eh? Dragon-san really thought your cover through. The typical 'single girl going to the big city dreaming of a better life' really hits all the checkmarks for young, pretty, and gullible enough to get suckered into those teahouses." Momo snorted as she bustled around, snatching up fabrics with worryingly long and sharp nails that surprisingly didn't tear into the fabric. "Of course, if it weren't for her and Tiger-san, Aoi and I would have been that exact thing coming to Neo-Edo."

Aoi had moved to a table that was littered with different combs and hair pieces, picking each one up with more care than her twin showed the clothes and holding it in front of her as she tried to picture how they would look against Selene's silver hair. "We weren't almost caught up into a drug and trafficking ring, Momo. We were just nearly the underage stars of a perverted movie director who had a taste for young girls, especially twins." She made a face as she put down a bejeweled butterfly pin. "Child models."

Well, that was an interesting snippet of conversation to catch.

As this went on, kimono after kimono was being held to Selene after she had been stripped of her clothes. When she shrugged on a black sleeveless, shorter kimono-like apparel over the lighter grey kimono, something seemed to click in Momo's eyes. The pink-dressed twin had snatched up a white obi with embroidered green leaves, adjusting the clothes more properly around the huntress before tying up the obi around the woman's waist. "Ah! This will do. Just do her hair for me, Aoi." The obi accessories were added, Momo seemed satisfied as she directed Aoi on what to do with the silvery tresses spilling down Selene's back.

By the end, it was a simple hairstyle that only included two interestingly bladed sections of her hair resting on her shoulders with a looping style at the ends. The kanzashi in her hair was a pair of blue berries among green leaves, complimenting the blue of her disguise's eyes. "No makeup, since you're looking for work and they can see your natural face! They like to judge girls' appearances before hiring them there."

"Alright, time for Dragon-san to come in!"
​

 

[Mu]

Stuck outside, the fire demon paced back and forth, suddenly forgetting how to stay still. His companion didn't seem as concerned and was chatting to the waitresses that were passing by, all undercover officers in disguise. Though Phynex knew that there were hunters out there in the West that hid among communities of volatile demons, never had he heard of numbers as large as these, all working together in order to exploit the enemy. As he paced about, Tiger suddenly tapped him on the back gently, handing over the small block that the fire demon had handed back to the officers before, the one that enabled him to take on that snake-like appearance. The other man helped the demon strap it on, watching with a glint in his eyes as the demon quickly shifted into the shape of a serpent, startling a few of the workers there. The heavy tail fell to the floor with a 'thud', and the slitted eyes of Phynex examined their location with sharper vision, his tongue now able to sense even more than he had ever before. He suddenly found himself quite liking this new form of his. He could sense Dragon moving towards the changing room and assumed that Selene must have been done.

Dragon was a lady who was used to being dressed in extravagant silks. She donned them on a daily basis, and it would be a lie to said she wasn't raised in them. She was a half-breed, and not many people knew that. Not everyone accepted those kinds of people, even though they were common, and even though the youkai side of her family was considered powerful and strong. She enjoyed her job because it allowed her to be whatever she wished to extract information - she had talent acting and had never gotten herself into many sticky situations where her cover was blown. Her expertise made her well known among criminals - and yet none of them had caught her red handed before.

Just like this, it would be stepping into a new shell made of skin, adopting a new personality that had nothing to do with what she really was like. A kimono that reflected Selene's, and hopefully one that would draw most of the unwanted attention from the huntress. Not that Dragon did not believe that the foreigner had the skills, but she did not want to burden the huntress with too heavy of a task. The woman glanced towards the direction of the entrance, almost as if her eyes could pierce through walls. And she didn't want to make the already agitated demon more concerned or have anything that could add to his worry. The two girls helped her into a bright kimono of pinks and red, reminiscent of the sakura blossoms that bloomed during the spring. Her obi was a beautiful weave of gold and oranges, decorated in a motif of the spring breeze. Adding a red blossom to her hair, and inserting a kanzashi that bumped against each other at every little movement into her braided dark hair, the lady emerged as a klutzy and awkward girl. That was the disguise she was going to hold, and she was confident she would do well.


"Well then," she smiled at the huntress, beaming like a naive country girl that knew nothing of city life. "Shall we go now? They're expecting us~"