The Emperor's Dragon II

The Nomu

Atsuhiro hadn't spent any time working in an office. He was a magician and a thief and they didn't work in offices. With magic, a lot of it was about sleight of hand, of making one thing look like another, of making things appear normal, when they weren't. So the instant he'd entered the office the Shie Hassaikai were using he'd felt it. There was something off with the office. It wasn't everything it seemed. There were parts that were normal but there were parts that felt... There was definitely something hiding here.

And that something was probably what they were looking for. The only thing Atsuhiro wasn't sure about was how big it would be. The physical item containing the cure for Himiko would likely be quite small. The storage space, or whatever the Shie Hassaikai had here was the bit he wasn't sure about. It could just be a small room, it could be a larger hidden space. They hadn't had time to get the building records and even if they did, he knew they probably didn't have time to measure wall lengths and compare them to what they should be.

So they were doing this the old fashioned way, through intuition and brute force.

On that, Atsuhiro had to admit the Nomu were very good with brute force. They were currently overturning everything as they searched, though they had no idea what they were searching for. He'd been tempted, earlier to tell them to stop, that there was no need to rip apart the office space before he'd realised that there was also no reason not to, and it was possible that moving the desks would reveal something or attract someone's attention. And with them somewhat occupied, it left him free to think about the problem in a logical manner. Magicians would tell you that magic was just magic, but it was also a matter of logic and showmanship. Your audience had to understand what you were doing, even if they didn't know how.

So while the Nomu were destroying things, Atsuhiro was carefully looking at the internal walls. Most of the office was open space but there was one solid internal wall. It was panelled, which he thought was interesting. For an office, why would you need to panel it when painting was so much cheaper?

He felt a smile form under his mask and quickly moved to the wall. Atsuhiro looked along it. It was straight and he could see that one end met the external wall, while the other disappeared into a corridor. He made his way down there and looked at the corridor. The signs proclaimed it to be a facilities area. Male and female toilets and changing facilities. They'd take up some space. He looked back at the wall... It didn't quite make sense.

A secret door wouldn't come off the internal wall that was open to the rest of the office. That defeated the idea of a secret area. The secret door was far more likely to come off this shorter corridor. Atsuhiro stood at the corner and examined both walls. There was a bit right at the end of the facility corridor that could be it and there was one point along the internal wall where you could slip away. To separate the walking area from the desks there were some hanging dividers. They could be arranged to obscure the view.

He still thought the door would be better in the facility area but he needed to check that out.

"Snooping is no good."

Atsuhiro whirled at the voice and stared at the man. He had a slight figure with blond hair covering one eye and was wearing a plague mask that he'd been told the Shie Hassaikai favoured. Except for the mask, he looked... well, not like a typical office worker but like the one who wanted to stand out with a green shirt and a salmon coloured tie.

"You could just open the door," Atsuhiro replied, touching one hand to his top hat in greeting.

"And you could leave," he countered, raising one hand.

Mr Compress shook his head and reached into one of his pockets, drawing out several marbles. He held them between his fingers. He always carried a few filled with various, useful items. He wasn't expecting them to shoot towards the Shie Hassaikai member. The blond caught them in one hand and looked at them curiously. Atsuhiro watched as the plague mask tilted back and forth.