"My leg!" Mr Hokaze shouted. If they hadn't already been driven to the edge of exhaustion by his antics, a nurse might have rushed into the room on the sheer authenticity of that scream. Neither of the other two occupants of the room even flinched. This was the third time Mr Hokaze had shouted since their arrival.
Everything was simply white, from the chemically clean sheets and pillows to the cue ball-smooth flooring, that reeked of antiseptic. The ceiling was white; the guest seating was white. White, white, white. Maddeningly white. He supposed that he couldn't blame the old geezer for trying to splash some colour onto his boredom.
They stood in an inpatient room at Touhoku Medical in Wakabayashi Ward, Sendai. Mr Hokaze was the only patient left in his ward; it had been cleared for the sake of confidentiality. What they'd been authorised to share to learn the truth of that morning. Two sorcerers, and an amputee trespasser. It sounded
Mr Hokaze sat up in his bed, adjusting the position of his IV drip as he did so, regarding the pair with a bored look on his face.
"Tough crowd," he sighed "my granddaughter loved that show."
He gestured at a framed portrait of what looked like a middle school girl. She sat poised as her lavender hair fell down her shoulders in ringlet coils. "Ah, Junko, my pride and joy. Only you truly understand me."
At the age of sixteen, Nitta Arata felt that he was already too old for this shit. Interrogating victims of cursed spirits. They were either uncooperative, or prolifically uncooperative. There was no in-between. He couldn't even remember what his first question had been— the man had been rambling on and on. No wonder the police hadn't gotten any useful information, either. Arata supposed he could give the man on the bed a little leeway. It wasn't every day a non-sorcerer survived an encounter with a Grade One. But that was precisely why they needed more information. It just wasn't done.
"Sir—" he tried, but Mr Hokaze wouldn't hear it.
"Now look here. I've barely had time to rest." the old man interrupted, "I'm gonna tell you what I told the cops. A damn dog—"
"And you saw this dog?" said the other sorcerer, knowing damn well that he probably couldn't. It got slightly easier for a regular person to see a curse the closer to death they got, but only slightly.
Arata cast a glance to his left. Yep, he thought, that asshole finds this funny. Arata respected Todo. He did. Just not enough to forgive him for making him take the train journey from Kyoto to Sendai at fuck-you o'clock. As if that hadn't been bad enough, they'd also immediately been alerted to a massive collision of cursed energy, so now it went from a working vacation, to just work. Work Todo couldn't be bothered to deal with, so when they finally made it to the park and saw the crater which reeked of the remains of a Grade One, Todo just made himself scarce. Instead, they sent—not someone reasonable like Ijichi Kiyotaka— but a special Grade One asshat from one of the three great clans. He supposed they thought they needed the muscle, but he honestly would have taken even Miwa over the smug bastard standing next to him. He kept that thought to himself, of course. He quite liked his bones right where they were: nice and unbroken.
"Felt its teeth," Mr Hokaze replied
"You didn't see it, but it definitely sawed your leg right off, must have been huge," the man continued to smirk.
"Damn big dog," Mr Hokaze barked. "Hate dogs. Always have, always... well, not..." Mr Hokaze looked to the side like he already knew the answer. "Did he make it? The mutt that pulled the other one off me."
They didn't reply. The older sorcerer rolled his eyes.
"Damn big dog," he sighed.
They let the silence hang for a moment, before Arata decided to break it.
"So," Arata probed. "You told the police how you lost your leg, now we'd like to know about the person who saved you."
"Never said anyone did." Mr Hokaze snapped.
"You didn't have to." Arata pointed at the foot of his bed, specifically at the leg Mr Hokaze no longer had. "Your wound. The first aid done on it probably saved your life."
Well, it had helped, but he'd heard chatter from the on-site paramedics. The man's chances had been low. They wouldn't have been able to save him if he'd bled anymore than he had already, but with a generous application of his cursed technique, Arata had delayed the would-be inevitable all the way to the hospital. Pain Killer — not to be mistaken with real analgesics — stopped injuries from getting worse after all.
"Your shirt was found around the stump. Good knot. Kept it nice and pressured. Doubt you did that yourself."
Mr Hokaze looked down. Good. Arata knew he had him now. "Your phone made the call, but I doubt that was you on the line, either."
"Look..." he tried, but they cut him off. Like he hadn't been through enough of that already.
"We know you know it wasn't a dog."
Arata leaned in, his voice became a whisper as he fetched his Jujustu identification card. "This is very much on a need-to-know basis, but we specialise in this kind of thing. The paranormal. Very high up secret information." Arata cringed at the oversimplification, but he was about to cringe harder at his own upcoming bluff. The higher-ups, hated unknowns. Arata sincerly hoped his bluff wouldn't turn out to be one. "Chances are that you were rescued by one of our agents. We'd be able to ID them from a description."
A thoughtful expression found its way on Mr Hokaze's face. He seemed like he was wrestling with an idea. He looked at Arata in the eyes, taking in his face, before trailing his gaze up and down him like he was judging how tall he was. Whatever indecision he was facing had given way to dark realisation. Now he was scowling. Not at Arata, but at — from what he could tell — the idea of him. He got that look a lot. The look of a concerned adult when they realised there were child soldiers running around Japan. Mr Hokaze faced the ground again.
"Problem is," the other sorcerer cut in, "no one's reported that they took care of this... dog. We've been on the scene. It was stronger than the average whatever, a lot of our—" the man gagged as he said the next word "agents are too weak to handle something like that. That's why we've got me, you see? Maybe he got injured and is bleeding out somewhere. Wouldn't surprise me. You could be returning the favour? Or maybe" he said with a chuckle, "he's a terrorist and you'd be helping us stop—"
"No," the old man's voice was firm. After a moment, Mr Hokaze put his thoughts behind his eyes and raised his face to meet their gaze. "She's a good kid. I ain't saying nothing."
You could have heard a pin drop. To his left, he could see the other sorcerer's face warping halfway between a smirk and disgust. Arata ran through a check list in his head. All the young sorcerers were accounted for, as far as he knew, but apart from Yuta, Todo and the Kamo heir, no one their age should have been capable of taking down a curse that strong. At least, without leaving behind any evidence of personal injury.
"Kid?" Arata mumbled. He could already feel a headache coming on. "Kid," he blinked, as the other sorcerer in the room expressed a stronger reaction.
"She?!" said Zenin Naoya, forming the syllables of the pronoun the same way one would drop a slur.
"Crap. Wait!"
As it turned out, a lifetime of mobility was pretty difficult to unlearn. Mr Hokaze tried to stand, but he currently lacked the facilities for that. Instead, they watched the old man tumble his way to the polished floor.
"She's a good kid," he repeated, pushing himself up from the white. He levelled a glare at Naoya. "Don't get her involved in... whatever this is."
"Uh, uhm, thank you for your time, Mr Hokaze."
The impulse to help him get back up was there, but Arata decided to distract the Zenin man by speaking first. He hastily made his way to the door and held it open. Naoya looked at him, then back at Mr Hokaze. Then he laughed. He laughed his way out of the ward, then he laughed his way out of the hospital. He laughed because he never had to do the paperwork. He laughed because the higher-ups would not be the least bit happy to hear about this.