"You brought a witch here?!" a voice echoed violently through the room.
Ren had barely stepped through the threshold when Iori was already on him. She then turned her glare to Kagami, who was stepping into the clinic a few steps behind Ren, like a queen in disguise. Her tail curled slowly around objects nearby.
"I did," Ren answered. "It's a long story..."
"A long story?" Iori's voice sharpened even more as she walked toward him. "You brought that in here, and you think it matters what kind of a story it is?"
Kagami yawned, unbothered by the hostility in the air. "That?" she repeated, amused. "How flattering."
"Are you perhaps enjoying this?" Iori went, clenching her hands into fists.
"Oh, absolutely," Kagami replied, stretching out her entire body as she was enjoying the newly-found heat in the room. "I like being underestimated. It happens quite frequently, actually, and it's a guilty pleasure of mine proving the theory wrong."
Before Iori could snap back, Mika intervened, breaking the tension.
"Enough," he said, stepping in from a back room while drying his hands on a cloth. "Iori, stop wasting breath. If she wanted to turn this place to ash, she would've done it already."
Iori couldn't argue with Mika, didn't want to. Instead, she just glared at everybody except him with distrust. Especially Kagami.
But Ren wasn't there to argue or prove anything to anyone. He simply wanted answers about what he was seeking, and it was clear to him that they knew more about the underworld than he did now. He was just a child when he left this place. Whatever scraps of memory remained in him, they weren't of much use to him anymore.
"I need information. You both know the underworld better than anyone else I can ask," he said, looking between them. "Have you ever heard the name Kagami before?"
There was a brief moment of silence as the name was spoken, leaving a trace of importance in the air that Ren felt immediately, but couldn't explain. Iori's expression changed as she heard it. Her prior anger quickly turned into something wary, and then she glanced at Mika, uncertain of the reaction she should have. But Mika's face stayed as it was. He looked at Kagami for a moment, piecing together in his mind events that had recently taken place since he found Ren back at Izanami. Then back at Ren.
"Everyone has heard of her," Mika explained. "The witch with no master. She who walked among Clans freely, without any pact to bind her to anything or anyone."
He folded neatly the cloth he had entered the room with and placed it carefully on the desk nearby.
"She used to be around the Kurohana Clan," he continued, "The Black Bloom. Her role in that society was more than just a spellcaster when others needed her to be. People admired her and feared her, too."
Iori's gaze darkened as she listened to Mika speak about it.
"It's said that she was betrayed, then killed during the Clan Wars. She was burned by those who feared her power was becoming more of a threat than anything else. So they made the decision to execute her while they still held the ability to do so."
Then he looked at Kagami directly, without any restraint.
"But it seems," he added with a lower tone in his voice, "history only got part of that right… Didn't it?"
Kagami's eyes met his, and for a moment, her gold irises flared bright. But she said nothing to give it the right meaning. No confirmation or denial of Mika's explanation. Then, after a while, slowly, they dimmed into their usual golden streaks.
Ren noticed the tension right away. He filed the new information alongside everything else he'd learned about Kagami, though it only managed to raise more questions. How much was still hidden? How many secrets was she holding back, for reasons he couldn't begin to guess? He had never dealt with non-humans before, and frankly, their thinking seemed almost… counterproductive.
"I'm looking for her eyes," he said, seeing no point in circling around it any longer. He wasn't ready to share the details, but he needed answers, so for now, this was enough. "That's all I need to know."
Iori's expression tensed even more, hearing his question, as she could already guess where this was going. She looked toward Mika again, looking for a silent confirmation. Mika gave the faintest nod, so she exhaled while folding her arms tightly across her chest.
"There's one place that might interest you…" she said. "If you're chasing something like that… you'd probably end up there sooner or later anyway."
Ren watched her closely and didn't interrupt.
"It's called Naraku. People forgot about it after the Clan Wars ended, but it was once considered a sacred place by the Clans themselves. They even built their palaces and infrastructure around it at the time. It was a neutral ground, or so they claimed because silently, it was where the underground power truly resided."
She then hesitated, as if considering her next words carefully.
"Kagami ruled it."
Suddenly, Kagami hissed from where she sat, as if hearing her name told in a story like that clearly stirred something old and venomous.
"When the wars broke out, most of the palaces around it fell, and everything burned with them. But Naraku endured. When the fighting ended, the Clans that were left standing all agreed on one thing: that the place would be sealed. Locked away. Hidden from scavengers and anyone else who had no business going near it."
Ren looked towards Kagami and could clearly see hatred in her eyes, as feline as they were. Her gaze was fixed on Iori, unblinking, burning with something darker than her usual sarcasm.
He then turned back to Iori.
"I want to go there," he said. "Tell me how to reach it."
"Pfff!..." she scoffed in a mix of amusement and annoyance as well. "You're clearly begging to be torn apart by Hollows or Ghosts, or who knows what other nameless creatures crawl in that place. But have it your way..."
Iori gave him the directions he was asking for without missing any detail of it. She named streets, forgotten paths, and buried landmarks no outsider would ever find without guidance. She knew the underground well, better than most.
Mika watched quietly from the corner of the room. When Iori finished, he finally spoke. "When you're done with what you seek over there, don't forget about this place. We can help you out when you most need it, and my guess is that you will need it."
Ren considered his words.
"I'm also interested in your bond," Mika added with his usual calm but calculating tone. "I want to study it. My experience only goes as far as my own, and there aren't many pact-bearers who willingly walk these streets nowadays."
Iori's eyes widened slightly, but she didn't want to contradict him, despite how she felt about such things.
Ren's first instinct was to refuse, but he stopped himself before actually saying anything. He had nothing to bargain with here, and the path ahead wasn't one that seemed to be easy to walk. What happened back at Izanami could easily happen again. So he reconsidered.
"Fine," he said. "I'll come back."