I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

”Where is Genzo?” He asked having a bad feeling about it.

Hanzo met his eyes. Whatever she had been carrying through the streets of the city for the past several hours was sitting fully on her face now, and she did not try to conceal it.

”I could not find my uncle,” she said.

Nathan’s eyes narrowed.

”What do you mean you couldn’t find him? He was the one who called you here. He should be somewhere in this city,” he said.

”I know,” Hanzo replied, the frown settling deeper into her expression. ”He called us to Minami-Kyoto specifically. He should be here. But I went through every contact point, every location he would typically use, and there was nothing.”

”Could he be staying hidden somewhere? Keeping himself out of sight until the right moment?”

”Even then,” Hanzo said, shaking her head slowly. ”Even if he was deep in cover, he would find a way to signal me the moment he knew I had arrived. That is not something my uncle would skip. He would never leave me searching without at least one sign.”

”Maybe he doesn’t know we’re here yet,” Nathan offered, though even as he said it he could hear how unlikely it sounded. A man of Genzo’s experience and network operating in a city he had been working inside for weeks, not knowing the moment two people he had personally summoned walked through the gates, that did not fit the picture Nathan had built of the old shinobi at all.

Hanzo seemed to reach the same conclusion without needing to say it. ”He came here ahead of us with a considerable number of shinobis. I found them and questioned every one of them I could reach.” She paused, and the weight of what she was about to say was visible on her face before the words came. ”None of them have heard from him in two days.”

Nathan was quiet for a moment. ”Two days. That would put it at roughly the same time he wrote you that letter.”

Hanzo reached into her kimono and produced the letter, unfolding it carefully. She looked at it for a moment before holding it out. ”This is his writing. I have no doubt about that. I know every habit of his brush strokes. He wrote this himself.”

Nathan looked at it without taking it. ”Then something happened to him immediately after he sent it.”

”I don’t know,” she said quietly. Those three words carried more weight coming from Hanzo than they would from most people, because she was not someone who admitted uncertainty easily or often.

The silence between them stretched for a moment while the city continued its noise below.

”We don’t draw conclusions yet,” Nathan said, straightening. ”He is a careful and experienced man. It is entirely possible he has moved onto something urgent and cut contact deliberately to protect whatever he is doing. That is not a small possibility.”

Something in Hanzo’s posture eased a fraction at that, not much, but enough to notice. She was holding herself very still in the particular way of someone keeping something contained through effort rather than comfort, and Nathan’s words had loosened that grip just slightly.

”We give it until tomorrow,” Nathan continued. ”If he has made no contact and the shinobis here have heard nothing by then, we reassess and find another way forward. But we do not panic before that point.”

”Agreed,” Hanzo said, nodding once. Though the worry was still there in her eyes, visible and honest. Genzo was her uncle. Her last remaining family. Whatever composure she was maintaining right now was real but it was also costing her something.

”And in the meantime,” Nathan said, his voice dropping into something more direct, ”don’t do anything reckless. I mean that.”

Hanzo looked up at him.

”Don’t go looking for him yourself, not alone. Pass that task to the other shinobis already positioned here, they can move through this city more freely right now than either of us should. As for us, we stay as invisible as possible. No unnecessary movement, no drawing eyes.” He held her gaze steadily. ”If someone in this city already knows we’re here, showing ourselves openly is handing them exactly what they want. And if they don’t know yet, then revealing ourselves now would be the worst thing we could do.”

It was perhaps an interesting thing coming from the man who had burned through Minato like a lit torch, but that was precisely why he was saying it. Minato had taught him what happened when you let your presence get ahead of your intentions. Genzo was not here to build the careful groundwork this operation needed, which meant Nathan had to think the way Genzo would have, whether it came naturally to him or not.

Hanzo studied him for a moment, reading the seriousness in his expression. She had been close to the edge of something impulsive when she had climbed back up onto this rooftop, close enough that she recognized it now with some discomfort. Nathan had pulled her back from it without making it feel like a restraint, and she was quietly grateful for that.

”Go and give the orders to the others,” Nathan said. ”Then come back. We find an inn for the night and we blend in with everyone else who came here for the festival. Ordinary travelers, nothing more.”

Disappearing into a crowd was the oldest and most reliable form of cover there was. With the city already swollen with visitors from every direction, two more faces meant nothing to anyone.

Hanzo nodded and dropped silently off the rooftop, swallowed by the city below without a sound.

Nathan settled back and watched the last of the evening light fade from the sky above Minami-Kyoto, turning everything a deep and darkening blue, and waited.

Hanzo returned after a full hour, dropping back onto the rooftop with that same soundless ease and settling beside Nathan with the focused composure of someone who had spent the time working rather than worrying.

”Everyone has been put on alert,” she said. ”They are watching, staying ready, and looking for Genzo quietly. Nothing that would draw attention.”

Nathan nodded and rose to his feet. ”Then let’s find somewhere to sleep.”

He stepped off the rooftop edge and dropped down to the street below, landing with barely a sound. Hanzo followed a beat behind him and they fell into step together through the evening crowds, two travelers in plain clothes moving through a city that had no particular reason to notice them.

”I’m surprised you haven’t already gone straight to the castle,” Hanzo said after a moment, her voice casual but carrying a genuine curiosity underneath it.

”I considered it,” Nathan replied. ”But Genzo disappearing the way he has changes the calculation. It could be a trap. Norihiro might already be expecting something and sitting behind whatever he has prepared for it.”

”Are you afraid of him?” Hanzo asked.

”I am cautious about what he is capable of,” Nathan said, making the distinction without particular emphasis. ”You remember what Morosuke became at the end? That form he took?”

Hanzo’s expression shifted slightly. ”It was unlike anything I had seen before. Yes.”

”That transformation came from a necklace Norihiro gave him,” Nathan said.

Hanzo stopped walking for just a fraction of a step before catching herself. ”Norihiro gave that to him?”

”If he was willing to hand something like that to Morosuke, it means he had more to give. Artifacts like that do not come singly.” Nathan kept his pace steady, his eyes moving through the street around them out of habit. ”And a man who has that kind of backing would not seriously plan an assault on the capital without something else waiting behind it. Something he believes makes the difference. Walking in there tonight without knowing what that is would be the kind of mistake you only make once.”

Hanzo was quiet for a moment, turning that over. The logic of it was plain enough. Norihiro understood perfectly well how strong the north was and yet his confidence had not wavered. That confidence had a source, and until they knew what it was, patience was not caution, it was simply intelligence.

”Finding an inn tonight may be difficult,” she said, shifting to the practical. ”The whole city is filling up for the festival. People have been arriving for days.”

”We will find something,” Nathan said.

The first inn they tried was full before they finished asking. The second turned them away at the door. The third innkeeper looked almost apologetic about it, spreading his hands in a gesture that said he wished he had better news. They moved on without complaint and found a fourth inn tucked a street back from one of the main festival thoroughfares, a reasonable looking place with warm light coming through the paper screens of its front room.

The man at the counter shook his head before Nathan had quite finished the question. ”I am sorry, we have nothing left.”

They turned to leave.

”Oh, you two are here?”

The voice came from behind them and Nathan turned to find Shigeru standing in the entrance of the inn with two of his group behind him, looking genuinely surprised and genuinely pleased in equal measure.

”Same inn,” Shigeru said, smiling. ”What are the odds.”

”There are no rooms,” Nathan told him, already reading where this was going.

”We took four rooms between us,” Shigeru said, waving a hand as though the problem had already been solved. ”We can consolidate and free one up for the both of you. It’s no trouble.”

Nathan looked at him steadily. ”Why would you do that.”

”We traveled together,” Shigeru said simply, with a shrug that suggested he found the question slightly unnecessary. ”That means something, doesn’t it?”

There was nothing calculating in his expression, nothing waiting behind the offer. Nathan held the look for a moment longer and then gave a single nod.

”Good,” Shigeru said, already turning toward the counter to sort it out. ”Consider it done.”