Chapter 9: The Safehouse

Two Weeks Later - Somewhere Between Kuroda and Kyoto

Kiku had become a ghost.

She traveled only at night, sleeping during the day in caves or abandoned buildings. She spoke to no one. Trusted no one. The few times she needed supplies, she took them—stealing from farms, from travelers, from anyone who had what she needed.

She was wanted now. Truly wanted. The bounty had grown from a few gold pieces to a small fortune. Posters with her description appeared in every town, every village. “Fujioka Kiku - Wanted for Multiple Murders - Extremely Dangerous - Approach with Caution.”

She’d seen one nailed to a tree outside a hamlet. Had stared at her own name, rendered in brushstrokes by some magistrate’s clerk who’d never met her, who had no idea what she’d become.

Extremely dangerous.

Yes. That was accurate.

She’d killed three more bounty hunters in the past two weeks. Men who’d tracked her, cornered her, tried to claim the reward. They’d all died quickly, efficiently. She didn’t even remember their faces.

They were just obstacles. Bodies between her and Kyoto.

She no longer thought about Miko. Couldn’t afford to. The grief was too large, too consuming. If she let herself feel it, she’d drown.

So she felt nothing instead.

Just rode. Killed when necessary. Moved on.

She was ten days from Kyoto when she reached the town of Hamamatsu.

According to the information Kaito had given her before he died, this was where she’d find the next piece of the puzzle. Not Sato directly—not yet—but someone else in the chain.

The safehouse owner.

Kiku had learned more in her travels, asking careful questions in the right places, paying for information with stolen coin. The assassination network that had killed her family was larger than she’d imagined.

There was a whole infrastructure: weapons dealers like Tanabe, brokers like Nakamura, the actual killers like Hayato and Kaito, and in between—people who provided support. Safe houses. False documents. Escape routes.

The man in Hamamatsu was one of those people.

His name was Yoshida Kenji—no relation to her hometown, just an unfortunate coincidence. He ran a small inn on the edge of town. Legitimate on the surface. But in the back rooms, he hid people who needed to disappear. Assassins between jobs. Criminals fleeing justice. Anyone willing to pay.

Hayato and Kaito had stayed there before the attack on her family. Had used it as a staging point.

And Yoshida Kenji would know who’d hired them. Would know about Sato. Would know things that dead men couldn’t tell her.

Kiku watched the inn for two days, learning its patterns.

Yoshida was careful. He had guards—not many, just two, but they were competent. They checked everyone who came and went. Searched for weapons. Made sure no one brought trouble to their master’s door.

The inn had regular customers too. Merchants who knew nothing about the back-room business. Travelers who paid for a clean bed and decent food and never suspected what happened in the basement rooms.