[Day 9, Early Morning] A Patient Man (Closed, Expecting)

[Jiyo Sora]

"I've learned that people tend to say Destiny when they're really talking about how their history has shaped their choices."

[Otomo Gusai]

Gusai shrugs.

"It's a convenient short-hand," he replies. "And there're some things that're fated, at least to some degree. I mean, we're all going to die; how and when, we've got some control over, but not total. Others' choices shape and circumscribe our own, and the world does what it will, as well."

[Jiyo Sora]

"I find that fate runs smoothest when it's worked towards."

[Otomo Gusai]

"I'll defer to experience," Gusai says and takes another pull.

"Probably a market for this, if not lucrative."

[Jiyo Sora]

"Well, again, it's being made in the Ki-Rin lands. If you feel like opening up a trade in it..." He shrugged. "The coming war will likely complicate matters somewhat, of course."

[Otomo Gusai]

Gusai nods. "I've heard that such things tend to. A bit outside my experience, though. Skirmishes, occasionally. Nothing larger."

[Jiyo Sora]

"This will be a fair bit more."

Sora frowned.

"I mean, in the mountains, a raid with fifty men on a side was a big deal. This... this is going to be a whole new dimension of conflict."

[Otomo Gusai]

"Given how much people are...affected even by skirmishing..."

Gusai trails off, his eye closing.

"There'll be a lot of hurt done, and it'll be longer in healing."

[Jiyo Sora]

"About the size of it. First we need to win the war. Then we'll need to... rebuild."

[Otomo Gusai]

"And some of what is lost will never be recovered."

[Jiyo Sora]

"About the size of it."

He paused.

"Why do you think the Libraries are so big on making sure every one of them has a copy of everything that goes in?"

[Otomo Gusai]

Gusai's eye swivels over to Sora.

"I hadn't known that," he says. "But it makes sense, now that you say it."

[Jiyo Sora]

"Buildings burn. Earthquakes and tsunamis happen. Wars.... hit. It's always wise to prepare to absorb losses."

[Otomo Gusai]

Another nod, another pull at the drink.

"True," Gusai agrees. "Though there's danger in some things being...broadly accessible, as well."

[Jiyo Sora]

"Oh, to put it mildly. It's always a balancing act. Still. The issue with dangerous knowledge is that it'll still be out there waiting to be rediscovered. Best we at least have some record of what we're dealing with."

[Otomo Gusai]

"You're doubtlessly right," Gusai agrees. "Voice of experience, or some other source of wisdom?"

[Jiyo Sora]

"Bitter experience, and just this week. If more people had known what we faced to the South fifteen years back, more here might have been on guard."

[Otomo Gusai]

"About that," Gusai asks, "what can you tell me of it? Some I gleaned from the duel, but..."

He trails off, uncertain.

[Jiyo Sora]

"Might be simpler if you tell me what you know, and then I can work from there."

[Otomo Gusai]

"I know that two of the Crane seemed to be...tainted, somehow," Gusai grasps for words. "Jade seems to hurt them. And they can hide remarkably well among us."

His eye fixes on Sora's own. "And they--it?--want us."