9 Connection

Plato met up with Basara and Iwatani in front of the KTV. The KTV itself had a very Asian theme, and it was dedicated to karaoke. It was unlike the western karaokes that had a dining area and a bar as well. Whoever owned the KTV had thought out the building plan well and had a lot of money, since it was a three-storey building separate from the main shopping street buildings.

Although he was uncertain, Plato guessed that there were at least 20 rooms a level, with 60 rooms in total. This surprised Plato, since Canberra itself was very small. Within it, Civic was only a small part, and most of the people that lived here had some connection with the ANU; either as students or teachers. The fact that the owner thought that at least 60 people would come to this KTV at one time was rather… exaggerated.

"Welcome. Is this your first time here?"

As Plato was meandering at the entrance while thinking of the business model, Basara and Iwatani had already moved to the reception. The receptionist greeted the two in her usual manner, and received a swift response from Iwatani.

"Not for us, but our friend at the entrance is. We've already booked a room for 10am. Uh… it's under Miyamoto. Mi-Ya-Mo-To."

The receptionist nodded, and proceeded to look up the booking on her computer. As she was doing so, Iwatani tried to start some small talk with her.

"Hey, are you working part-time here?"

"…"

"Are you a student? Have you graduated yet? Which uni did you graduate from?"

"…"

It was quite obvious to both Basara and Plato that Iwatani was annoying the heck out of the receptionist. They both felt sorry for her, but did not attempt to stop Iwatani. As a natural chatterbox, he would often ruthlessly expose your deepest secrets in public if he was stopped while performing his usual antics.

Basara slowly crept towards Plato, before whispering in his ear, "What do you think? How much would you rate her?"

In response, Plato shifted his face until he had a look of mock-disdain, and replied, "When did you two become such sleazebags? Just a couple of years ago you were prim, proper and noble 'heroes of justice'!"

"Aiya! My good brother! Please don't mention our dark history to us anymore. Damn. I thought you'd have forgotten by now…"

For some reason, whenever Plato was interacting with Basara and Iwatani, he felt his own cold and detached personality shrink, while Naofumi's personality expanded. It would be like a three-year-old trying to fight back a behemoth. Perhaps Naofumi's remaining 'will' existed just to make sure that Plato would continue to get along with the two.

Either way, Plato himself felt like these two were worth getting close to. He had had a strong bond with all the soldiers in his century in his previous life, and had shared many moments of banter with them. He had missed it somewhat since he felt like he didn't belong in this world, but Basara and Iwatani acted as refuges from that sense of loneliness.

One thing was certain – he would continue to enjoy a good relationship with these two. Not only because they were good brothers, but because of Ashikage Junko's warning as well. It might sound a bit cliché, but Plato wanted to protect these two brothers of his from whatever was coming; even if his personal strength lacked somewhat.

Soon, the receptionist confirmed their booking and led the way to their room. Much to her relief, Iwatani stopped bothering her. He was only doing it to kill time anyways.

The three entered the room, which was neither spacious nor small. At the very least, since it was meant to fit a group of people, it was much bigger than his room in Bruce Hall. Couches attached to the wall were lined on both sides, with acoustic enhancers on the walls. As expected from a karaoke room, the walls were soundproof, so there was no worry about singing too loudly.

There was a TV at the end of the room, directly opposite the door. The phone was right next to the door, and another TV that showed the time remaining or any emergency notices was opposite the phone. All in all, it was a tidy establishment that did not lose out to mainstream KTVs in Japan.

Iwatani immediately started selecting the songs that he wanted to sing, while Basara ordered some alcohol and snacks from the phone. Only Plato had nothing to do, so he spent his time flipping through the list of available songs.

To his surprise, the two songs that he had chosen out of Naofumi's memories were on the list. He selected them hesitantly, somewhat unlike his decisive nature. Iwatani was immediately surprised that two songs he had not chosen had popped up on the queue, but did not pay much attention to it.

Meanwhile, Basara had finished ordering and was choosing his own songs. Iwatani was first up to sing, and his voice was rather mediocre. Since he had already lined up at least five songs for himself, Plato decided to converse with Basara.

"Hey Basara, have you heard of someone called Ashikage Junko?"

"Hm? Ashikage Junko, huh? Yeah, I've heard of her before." Basara replied, halfheartedly.

Plato was actually fully aware of her entire history, thanks to "All-Seer". But if he wanted to broach the complicated topic of these families that had existed since the Sengoku Period, he would need to introduce it slowly. His first step was to announce a relation – albeit slight – with a figure other than the two of them.

"Who exactly is she? She seemed pretty arrogant when I me- "

Plato was cut off halfway through his sentence when Basara exclaimed so loudly that even Iwatani's voice was covered.

"H-H-How do you know that name? Has she been in contact with you?"

"Yes, she has. Why? Is she dangerous or something?"

Iwatani looked at Basara menacingly, as if saying, 'control your tongue!'. Basara returned the gaze rather awkwardly. He then turned back around to speak to Plato, while Iwatani resumed singing like nothing had happened.

"Ahem. No, not really. I was just a bit surprised, that's all. Yes. Absolutely nothing wrong with her. Tell me, how did you even meet her?"

"She came to look for me. Said something about… the Hattori's and Miyamoto's, and how I shouldn't be involved with them or something."

Upon hearing that, Basara fell into a contemplative expression, not replying to Plato. There was a slight sign of struggle on his face, probably because he was torn between his family matters and the bond he shared with Plato. Since Plato had purposely left out the part of her observing his sword training, Basara had grossly overestimated Junko's intelligence network. That was the main cause of his concern.

The silence between the two continued, and soon Iwatani had finished singing. Next up was Plato with his two songs, so he left got up and replaced Iwatani. On the side, Basara and Iwatani were whispering to each other.

"My brother, how could you slip up like that? Now he knows that we're involved. He might even be too scared to associate with us anymore."

"Hehe, Iwatani, I'm sure you of all people know about Nao's personality. He's fiercely loyal to us brothers. Even if he can't handle something, he'll try his best to help us, like we helped him all those years ago. Heck, who knows if he's taken a liking to Junko after meeting her."

"Haiz, don't talk about it. All the men in the ancient families are attracted to her to a certain degree. As for whether they'll act on it, no-one knows. In any case, Nao has nothing backing him that would make her fall for him, and he knows that. He's realistic enough to not entertain such a preposterous idea."

"True. What should we do then? Knowing Nao, he'll feign ignorance since he can tell that we don't really want to talk about it. But I feel bad for keeping him in the dark…"

"What can we do? We can't tell him too much since it'll just put him in danger. At best, we can tell him after we train him enough for him to guarantee his own safety. The only problem is how we can bring it up…"

As they finished up their whispers, Plato had finished singing his two songs. His voice was not too bad, but not at a level that would awe anyone. In short, an average voice. That was just fine for Plato. He didn't have the ridiculous dream of being the best in everything – just most things.

And, as expected, he feigned ignorance of the deeper matters of the ancient families. He could tell from a glance that it was probably a power struggle or a plot of some kind, but since it wasn't exactly something that Basara and Iwatani had experienced, he couldn't find out with "All-Seer". He was seriously considering changing the name, since it brought him more troubles than insight…