groundzeroes | IC Inbox

[Rei looks up from the sound equipment he's tinkering with, raising an eyebrow. Wow, Hijikata looks mad as hell! Meanwhile, Rei looks about as unruffled as he always does. There seems to be a pattern forming.....]

Well, if it isn't my fine paladin friend! [Rei can take a BIG OLE guess as to what this is about, but they're in semi-public, so it goes unsaid.] Sure. Just a moment.

[He stands, brushes himself off, and directs Hijikata to the office area in the back, closing the door behind them. The eponymous phoenix-- Princess-- looks up from where she was preening herself on her perch inside the room, and gazes at the two of them with uninterested eyes. Ah, her ward is doing one of his shady things again, isn't he. Well, whatever.]

Let's hear it. [go off king]

[The sight of the impressive golden bird gives Hijikata enough pause to cool him down just a little. So this is Rei's familiar..? It suits him, somehow. Despite looking so glamorous it still seems to have a smug aura about it.]

What came of your investigations of the ghost peddler?

[Can he smoke in here? He scans the ceiling for smoke alarms.]

[Sitting down at his desk, Rei chuckles as he catches Hijikata's very familiar smoking habit. How nice of him to bother checking, but it's Rei's office-- of course he can smoke, fire hazards be damned! Rei slides his ashtray across the table to his guest like it's second nature.]

A lot and a little. [Extremely helpful answer, Rei. He pulls open a file cabinet as he continues talking, looking for the dossier he'd compiled.] I did manage to get in contact with 'em, but that particular peddler was pretty good at hiding their tracks.

[That's partway a lie, of course. But it worked out (for Rei, at least, and partly for Hijikata, but not in the way he'll expect).] Why, did they harangue you again?

[Rei may be the sketchiest person on Avalon (well, at least among the outworlders), but if nothing else he understands that a man needs his nicotine! Hijikata lights up.]

Hm. So we're dealing with a professional? I was hoping it'd be just some opportunistic dipshit trying to get in on the ghost rush. Anyway, they did contact me.

[He suspects that Rei could technomance his way into his private messages with ease, but he nonetheless takes out his phone, opens the exchange and hands it to him. After giving him a few minutes to read he gets to the point that stood out to him.]

This person seems to know that my start with the death magic wasn't... entirely smooth.

[And now Rei knows, too. Ugh!! Actually, why did he show him?! He could have taken over the investigations from here! He doesn't need to rely on him! God, this is why he should have Yamazaki here to do the intelligence gathering for him! Well, now it's too late, and he can only hope that Rei will keep a lid on it.]

[Rei's eyebrows slowly rise as he reads the conversation (yeah, he could probably hammer and chisel his way into Hijikata's DMs, but like... effort) Hijikata handed over. He's silent, even as he skims past the revealing part Hijikata is worried about and gets to the end.

Then.... he cracks up.]

Ahahahah!!

[KLAUDIA YOU DINGDONG. THIS IS TOO GOOD. FUCK!!!! "I have to go." SHE JUST PEACED OUT!!! HELP]

[--oh right, Hijikata.]

My bad, my bad. [He's still giggling a bit as he hands the phone back.] This guy has the weirdest combination of savvy and dipshit I've ever seen.

[That's putting it more rudely than he actually thinks (sorry, Klaudia), but... ya know. Rei is playing both sides of the chess board here.]

Guess you're gettin' famous then, huh? Your good deeds annoyed the trolls enough for them to try and turn other dark-web-trawling do-gooders on you, seems like. [At least, that's the impression he gets from Klaudia's sudden sign-off.] Hell, maybe you already know 'em. Unless your rough start is public knowledge?

[Most importantly, though.] Did your ghosts come back after this?

[When Rei breaks into laughter Hijikata's pissiness returns with a vengeance, and it even stays after he explains that he's just laughing at the weirdo of a ghost peddler, with a brief intensification as he asks about his rough start. Nevertheless he answers most of his questions.]

Most of them did. I'm still gathering all the descriptions of those who trapped them from the ones we found and released. A few are still unaccounted for, though, and if those are the ones that person has...

[He trails off with an angry snort.]

Anyway, there were two quests. One on the standard QuestBoard asking people to help trap allegedly malicious ghosts - that's how they got the good citizens -, and one on the dark web that outright said "Let's mess up the Yuureisengumi".

[Well, rather than that it talked about how annoying a meddler Hijikata was and how they should see to it that he'd be too busy to keep interfering, but details!]

Anyway, Rei, what do you make of their accusation that I sent a hitman after them?

[There's an edge in this question, now. He actually wants a convincing explanation.]

Told you I managed to get in contact with them, didn't I? Guess it spooked 'em. [Rei's smile returns to its smooth calm, letting the aggression roll off of him.] Since you were so recently the target of their harassment, I'd imagine that's how they assumed you were involved. Pretty prescient. [Since it was correct.]

Ah, but the "hitman" part is an exaggeration. I'm an informant, not a murderer.

[That much is true, at least! Still, Hijikata's probing has gotten far enough. Time to redirect, like a true professional. (??????)]

Well. I might not have caught that particular troublemaker, but I do have some information you might like. [Rei slides the dossier he'd pulled out across the table for Hijikata to peruse.] This is one of the folk involved with the "prank." You can see their forum comments on the second page.

[The dossier is on a succubus: a dark web regular. Her crimes are mostly low-tier-- more bored troll than career criminal-- but it's clear from the dossier that this particular fey is a petty sort and found Hijikata's undoing Very Funny. Actually, she's gonna get REALLY MAD at Rei and raise some hell later, but that's a problem for Future Rei to find out.]

And one more thing. [He reaches into his desk again, giving Hijikata a moment to look everything over.]

[Okay, that all adds up... so the ghost hunter just overreacted to Rei approaching them, huh. Frankly, even if he had threatened or otherwise scared them Hijikata would have been more than willing to turn a blind eye to that; he just doesn't want to end up tangled up in anything messier than that (but Rei seems to be on the same page as him in that regard).

He takes the dossier and reads. That dark web user's comments incense them, and his frown briefly get steeper as he sneers around his cigarette. A succubus, huh? He can't help but think of Klaudia, even though she already took great offence at him calling her a demon and certainly wouldn't appreciate being filed with a succubus in particular... come to think, she's one of the few people who saw him flounder around with his new death magic. And she has a special interest in ghosts...

Rei's remark pulls him out of his train of thought.]

Yeah?

Here.

[Rei pulls out Hijikata's fixed-up burner phone, handing it over with a self-satisfied grin.]

Got the enchantment made permanent. Won't have to come in for tune-ups. And hopefully you'll avoid more of these... outages at pivotal moments, heh.

[THANKS KLAUDIA!!!]

Oh!

[Finally the frown dissipates! He takes the phone and tries out some basic functions, but of course there's no tangible difference.]

Why, thanks for that.

[He puts the phone away, extinguishes his cigarette in the ashtray and gets up, having come to the conclusion that that irreverent succubus could stand to be taken into closer focus by him personally... along with a certain irreverent alchemist.]

I think I can take it from here with the information you gave me.

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