There had been some further things Komaki needed prepared for whatever he had planned to help Eva. While Karasuza was grabbing the map from her quarters, Eva was carrying the crate from the genkan into the tatamiroom. Komaki on the other hand had headed outside to the storage shed to retrieve some more things he hadn’t cared to elaborate on.

As was to be expected, it took the elderly tree spirit quite a bit longer to return than the younger women, leaving them free to speculate on who Eva was delivering too while they waited.

“I tell you, it’s probably just some kappa.” Karasuza said with a dismissive wave.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Eva responded with an annoyed flick of her ear. “It might a Tsukumogami[1] that’s living in the tunnel that river leads to after being swept away.”

“Maybe it’s just a Kitsune pulling a prank.”

Before Eva could give another reply, Komaki finally stepped into the room, carrying a, seemingly heavy, wooden box. As he set it down, there was a low thud before he let out a sigh and leaned back to stretch his back.

“Would you mind taking the stuff out of the box for me?” He asked as he sat down. “And please don’t put the small grill directly on the tatami.”

Opening the box, her nose was immediately filled with the faint smell of scented wood. Eva put the top on the floor before taking out the rather heavy metal grill, and carefully sitting it on top of it. Assuming the pieces of wood she found inside were meant to be burned in the grill, she stacked them in it, ready to be lit on fire. Taking some of the strips of paper out, she stuffed them between the wood carefully. But the last three items inside had Eva wonder what they’d be used for. Thus she simply took out the strange knuckleduster, rock and what looked like a roughly spatula shaped bone, and put them down before Komaki.

“Ah thank you.” He said as he pulled out a small book and put it down between them as well. “Now to make this divination as accurate as possible, you’ll need to at least learn the basics of a few new techniques.”

“Wait divination as in fortune telling?” The Kitsune inquired, tilting her head to the side as her tails slowly flicked to the side.

“Yeah, though it kinda sucks at actual fortune telling. Even Magic can’t clearly determine what has yet to happen.” A familiar voice chimed in from the ceiling. Dropping down onto Eva’s shoulder Ratatoskr continues, “That’s why for every Alexander the Great cutting the gordian Knot to cement his rule, we got a Croesus that assumed it would be his enemy that will fall, and a Laius that pushes fate to fulfill the omen he wants averted.”[2]

“Indeed.” Komaki said with a sage nod. “But we already have the information we want. We are simply going to read the bone to make it more accessible to us.”

“So how do we go about this?” Eva inquired, ears perking up.

“First you will need to imbue both this map and the bone with the destination of that crate.” Komaki began to elaborate as he held out the weird bone for her to take. “The bone should be easier for this, so let us start with it.”

The Kitsune took the bone from Komaki, but unsure how to proceed, simply gave him a blank look.

“Get that feeling where you need to bring this thing.” Ratatoskr chimed in, uncharacteristically helpful for once. “Next you want to take that feeling, and push it into the bone.”

Eva just gave a short nod to show she understood. Then, with her empty hand placed back on the crate, the Kitsune focused on that tugging feeling directing her out the door. Mentaly grabbing a hold of it, she tried her best to just ‘push it’ into the bone in her right hand. ‘Of course it can’t just work’ Eva thought to herself as, instead of whatever should have happened, she now knew the bone needed to be right in her hand in this room. Letting out a sigh, she looked at the two older people in the room. “Any other tips?”

“Nope.” Ratatoskr said, while Komai simply shook his head.

Another sigh later, Eva was trying again. And again. And again. With her rising frustration, it took nearly an hour, plus a short break to let her calm down a bit after she nearly threw the bone across the room in frustration, but in the end, she managed to make the bone ‘want’ to go to the same location as the crate.

After this, doing the same for the map took her another half an hour. But in the end, everything was prepared.

“So what now?”

“Now you light the fire.” Komaki said as he handed her the rock and strange knuckleduster-esque piece of metal.

“How?” was all Eva said in response.

“Well unless you have figured out how to call forth kitsunebi, you should just strike the flint stone to create a spark and light one of the paper strips.”

Once again, it was easier said than done. But as this time Komaki and Karasuza both were able and willing to offer advice, Eva managed to light the scented wood on fire after a few tries.

“Good. Now place the bone in the fire and wait for it to crack and splinter.”

After carefully pushing the bone into the fire, Eva shook her hand to cool it off. While she didn’t burn herself, the fire was rather hot.

“Should we maybe get a pair of tongs to get it back out again?” Karasuza offered as she watched the bone start to blacken where it was closest to the heat already.

“Ah, of course.” Komaki said as he slowly got up. “Forgive this old man for not thinking of everything. Especially as I have not done this in a long time.”

He then left for a moment before returning with not only a set of tongs, but also a large plate to put the hot bone on. And he returned not a moment too soon, as the bone gave a resounding ‘crack’ as it began to splinter. Pulling it out of the fire carefully, Komaki placed it on the plate. Then he opened the small book he had pulled out earlier and began to study the various cracks and chips on the bone. From time to time, he’d turn the map before him a round. Or place some of the bits of bone that had fallen off on it. Every time someone tried to say anything, he just hushed them and continued consulting his book and the bone.

“I got it.” He finally said, putting his finger on a river flowing past the edo shown on the map. “It should be here, about thirty meters below ground.”

“Well then let’s see if we can find where that is on a modern map.” Eva says as she pulled out her phone and opened google maps. A few minutes of trying to reference what few landmarks are featured on both maps, they soon found the place. Which turned out to be somewhere below a mall.