A dozen or so meters down the path from Takeda House stood a little row of shops, bars, yakitori stands, and other restaurants whose patrons sat on street-backed stools and open air booths. They were Kyoto's masses; enlisted soldiers wrapped up in their long coats and zaibatsu workers grateful for their evening of revelry as the Kuvexian War raged on against Yamatai. Some number spilled out from underneath
lantern-lit eaves and onto the maple-lined road, gripping big, frosty mugs of beer to keep warm in defiance of the snow. Most of businesses serving food and drink saw their patrons melded together at this point in the night with the big mix of patrons only broken up by the odd fence (which did not pose much impediment for the swarm of Yamataijin there tonight) and fire pits that were now a scarcer resource than they'd seem during any other season.
One such establishment on the stretch was called
Tanngrisnir and the Tonakai. Its front was situated on the thoroughfare and had a corner bar just beside a foot path that
packed in even more of Kyoto's denizens in father yule caps and Type 32 coats than the big street did. And it was here that sat Nicholas Saiga, who wore a festive black aloha shirt printed with Yamataian bellflowers and holly sprigs despite the chilly air and paired it with an old pair of dress white pants that had grown too shabby to wear with class A β they were, of course, still fit for this celebration. He wore his favorite white Type 36 captain's cap, too, mostly because he was quite fond of it but partly to take part in the camaraderie of the season as so many Star Army soldiers took to the streets. The grizzled Geshrin commando had spied his old boss Hanako down the road and briefly dreaded her noticing him back, and the scolding he might get for his hat. But he was able to chuckle and get back to his
duty when she veered off into the big luxury chain restaurant with all of the other admirals.
"Three!" Saiga cheered in unison with a gaggle of heis and heishos (and maybe a few Shoi, too). They all slammed the glossy bamboo bartop and made the whole place shake as they hollered. "Two! ONE!"
With that, he took another cheap, warmed sakΓ© shot down his gullet and so did the dozens of soldiers around him. Except for Santo Hei Yuu Sakaki, the one member of his SAINT operations group who hadn't scattered off to explore Kyoto after their first shot a few bars ago. All she did was take a sip from her porcelain cup and put it back down on the bar. The fact that the quiet operative still followed along after all this time amazed and impressed him; determination was an important quality for secret agents to possess.
"Another round in twenty!" Saiga declared to everyone in the vicinity, the alcohol still making his voice hot and raspy. Then he turned his attention to Sakaki.
"Ach!" he huffed before plopping back down onto his stool. "How many times do I have to tell
you, Yuu-hei. The whole thing's supposed to go down at once! You're going to scare off all the Minkan boys with that attitude and black uniform of yours!"