Kai had chosen himself to follow Jack through the city, and honestly, he felt like it was the only logical decision. He could already picture the disaster that would unfold if he allowed either of the other two to take on the role.
Gary, for one, had bright green hair that practically glowed under sunlight. Even in a crowded street, Gary stood out like a flashing signal flare. Kai could already imagine him getting distracted for half a second, losing track of Jack completely, or worse, walking straight into him while daydreaming.
Then there was Lupus. Although Lupus had been a Werewolf for a long ti and, on paper, should’ve been good at stealth missions... he simply wasn’t. It wasn’t in his nature. Lupus confronted problems head-on. If sothing got in his way, he smashed through it. If soone bothered him, he spoke up. If sothing demanded subtlety, he usually broke it by accident. That, combined with his sheer size, made him an attention magnet.
Kai sighed as he moved through the bustling centre of the city, blending as best he could.
“Do you sll that?” soone in the street said, pinching their nose.
“What the heck, who is eating durian in the middle of the day!?”
“That sll... that’s gotta be durian. Only that fruit stinks this much.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with eating a fruit?” another argued. “It’s ant to be eaten whenever you want, and besides, it’s actually sweet.”
“If you take that into an inn, they’ll throw you out instantly!”
Kai tightened his jaw. He realised his “special disguise” was creating a lot more attention than he wanted. The durian necklace he had created, the strongest masking scent he could think of, was powerful enough to make a whole street react.
Great.
He needed distance. A lot more of it.
Kai slipped into a narrow alley, checked to make sure no one was looking, then scaled the wall in one smooth, practised movent. He pulled himself onto the rooftop, crouching low, the wind hitting the pungent fruit sll and flinging it behind him like a toxic cloud.
From up here, the view was clear. He could finally see Jack without the crowd getting in the way.
Thankfully, Kai’s vision, honed through years of chasing moving targets with werewolf speed, allowed him to keep track of Jack even as he moved through packed streets. And Jack wasn’t exactly difficult to spot either. The man walked like he was carved from stone, broad-shouldered and towering, and many of the city residents bowed respectfully as he passed.
Kai stayed far back, leaping from one roof to another when he needed to close distance, keeping his eyes trained on Jack’s movents. Eventually, the busy streets thinned out. Houses beca more spaced out, fields stretched wide around the edge of the city, and the scent of durian beca even more problematic.
Kai froze behind a slanted roof, watching Jack walk toward an open field with almost no buildings in sight.
“Since there are hardly any buildings here, if he catches even a whiff of this sll, he’ll know soone’s been following him,” Kai thought, sinking lower. “I can’t risk going any closer.”
So he waited.
Minutes crawled into an hour. Kai remained crouched, focused, tracking the direction Jack had gone. He kept ntal notes of any possible return path Jack might choose. His legs started to ache from staying in one position for so long, but he didn’t dare move.
Then finally,
Jack appeared again in the distance, heading back toward the city. He walked steadily, calmly, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Kai frowned.
“I guess he’s coming back? Should I continue to follow him...? No, that makes no sense. He’ll just be headed back to the camp.”
He needed to stop wasting ti.
“I need to check where he went. If there’s anything strange... it’ll be back there.”
Once Jack was far enough ahead, Kai climbed down the rooftop and imdiately threw the durian necklace into a trash bin. The fruit had done enough damage to his presence for the day. Even after removing it, the sll still clung to him like a curse.
He sniffed his own arm and winced.
Fantastic.
Still, he didn’t waste ti. He headed toward the direction Jack had gone into earlier, already forming his guesses.
After crossing the field, Kai noticed white-clothed staff entering and exiting a tall building. He recognised the structure imdiately, it resembled the dical buildings he had seen elsewhere in the kingdom.
“A hospital...” Kai thought. “So is this where he’s been going every day?”
He lingered near the entrance for a mont, head slightly lowered, trying to observe before pushing through the doors. The inside of the building was surprisingly quiet and lacked the chaos of modern hospitals. There were no computer terminals, no flickering screens, no detailed records pinned up anywhere.
In so ways, that made this easier. In other ways... much harder.
“So no patient records... and barely any notes on the walls,” Kai muttered. “How am I supposed to figure out why he’s here?”
He moved toward what looked like a reception desk.
A woman sat there, scribbling in a ledger. Kai cleared his throat gently.
“Hi. I was just wondering...” Kai began, trying to act casual. “I saw Jack Dem walk in here earlier. Is he hurt? Or did he co to visit soone?”
He was gambling. Patient privacy didn’t exist yet, not like in his ti. Not in a world without digital systems and strict paperwork. If he was lucky, she would simply answer him.
And she did.
“Oh, Jack?” the nurse said with no hesitation. “He cos here every day. Although I think it’s just to speak and give morale to the others. He’s never visited anyone in particular. And he doesn’t get checked up himself.”
Kai blinked.
She said that so casually, like it was nothing. Like it didn’t raise any questions at all.
Jack ca every day. For morale? But didn’t visit anyone in particular? And wasn’t being treated?
What was he doing here then?
Kai stepped back, mind racing. His initial theory, that Jack might be sick, or injured, or hiding sothing related to Unzoku, no longer made any sense.
So he had a location. But no motive.
“I guess I’ll just have to see what the others found out,” Kai muttered. “And hope we can piece this mystery together.”
He turned and walked out of the hospital, the stale fruit sll still faintly trailing behind him.
*****
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