Andrijana Krstevska's Story

"She's housed in G Unit, which is a medium security protective custody unit only intended for inmates who would be at significant risk if placed in general population," said Andrijana, looking askance at Drulović.

"I've said before, Dr. Krstevska, I'd much prefer to stay in general population than to remain where I am," the old woman said, shrugging.

"And we've denied that request for your safety," Andrijana said firmly. "You are not safe in general population, for any number of reasons I shouldn't have to explain to you."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I doubt I've ever truly been safe anywhere. I'm afraid my current housing assignment has done little to change that." The old woman's shoulders were rigid, her arm pressed to her side, attempting to keep it still to avoid further aggravating the injuries. "I'll be fine, though. I've survived long enough; I doubt I'll soon offer the pleasure of my death to the enemies already gathered at the gates - a disappointment, to be sure."

Andrijana shook her head. "It's our responsibility to care for those in our custody, to ensure their safety." She looked back to Aeka and Hokushin. "I'm sorry; I can't ask your bodyguard to stay here. I can't permit him to either - this is a secured facility, and he is not an employee or contractor."

Aeka simply shook her head. “I’m not asking for you to make him a guard, or anything of the sort, no I want you to shackle him, and put him in a cell as a prisoner, so that he can watch Arianne, but also provide valuable insight To the inner workings of a facility that you seem to have no control over.”

Hokushin made no reactions, other than to speak slowly, his baritone voice commanding his presence. “I do whatever her highness instructs.” He said flatly, as Aeka nodded slightly.

The young woman shifted slightly, crossing one leg over the other, and letting her hands fall into her lap.


“I’m sorry, i’ve already been too much of an imposition as it is, perhaps it is not a good idea, Hokushin would have to intervene, and your irons would not be able to hold him.” The Princess said, looking back towards Drulovic.

“I should be able to convince my mother to come to Shintenchi, when she arrives I will send by courier, and we can arrange the visitation.”

Andrijana's jaw dropped momentarily before she recovered. "What?" She shook her head, in apparent disbelief. "You want me to ... what?" She looked between the other three inside her office. "That's ... If legal found out, it would be a disaster. There'd have to be paperwork. Documents. Liability waivers. A dummy file. Yes, such things have been done before, usually as internal audits, but, this is ... to have a foreign national pose undercover as an inmate, with no prior plans, and no accounting for the many ways this could go wrong."

"It's certainly an odd proposition," Drulović seemed to agree momentarily, but added, "but I can't say I'd decline the offer of company, even for so short a time. It's quite lonely here, Dr. Krstevska, don't you think? How often, precisely, do you see your own loved ones, living so far from the nearest city while you toil away here?"

"I - that's quite personal," said Andrijana, drawing herself up to her full height and moving away from the old woman. "I just... It flies in the face of protocol. No. I don't see how it could be done, or what good it would do. You won't even tell us who was responsible, Ms. Drulović. I cannot help you if you will not even tell us whether it was a member of staff or another inmate. But of course, you won't turn snitch. That's always what it comes down to, I guess."

"It's simply not important," said Drulović, her eyes traveling up to meet Andrijana's. "My face will heal. I'm sure I've had the bits and pieces of it rearranged enough times to last several lifetimes by now." The fresh bruising and cuts, which Andrijana winced at every time she looked, still could not mask the thick, knotted scarring where the old woman's ear had been until less than a year ago.

Aeka sat silently as the wheels turned, her eyes following Andrijana as she grasped with the possibility, but Aeka briefly turned to Drulovic, and then back to Hokushin, and then finally, her gaze moved back to Andrijana.

“Nothing would go wrong, Mr. Hokushin comes from good stock, he’s probably the most composed, and disciplined person you could ever have, he follows orders to the letter, without question.” Aeka said, as she placed her hand on his back, patting him, though he was annoyed, he didn’t show it.

“Nothing your inmates, or guards could do would even hurt him, he’s had to endure so much more, the selection process, it’s very strict, we only accept the absolute best to be our guardians.” Aeka explained.

“Mr. Hokushin, tell her.” Aeka implored, and the man spoke, his voice crisp.

“I am proficient in over three hundred fighting styles, and I have a mastery of over one hundred Ki techniques, I can fight armed, and unarmed, I speak thirty languages, two of them rare dialects, including obscure terran languages. I train my mind, and body every moment, even now, so that I can reach my true Ki potential.” He explained, his tone was not boastful, but very matter of fact, Hokushin’s fighting in the most recent Makai tournament was a testament to his skill, he was a very capable fighter, but also very patient, highly disciplined.

Aeka smiled, satisfied. “He will follow my word to the letter, you merely have to set the parameters, Doctor.”

"First and foremost, you must understand, I do not allow violence of any kind in this facility. What happened here..." Andrijana gestured, somewhat helplessly, to Drulović's face, "this was an aberration. It is not typical." Drulović suspected that Andrijana knew very little of the fighting rings that her predecessor had permitted, over a decade ago, and which some intrepid guards occasionally revived in the yards on weekends when Andrijana was out of town. "My charge is to protect all of the inmates in our custody, and likewise, to protect all of my staff from any possible harm that might come to them. I'm impressed by Mr. Hokushin's resume, truly. It's impressive, and if I were to be completely honest, a bit frightening." Drulović had thought that the monk might have been one of the elite warriors Shimizu had been quietly recruiting for his private unit. Now the man had confirmed it. "I have absolutely no doubt that he can keep you safe - and that he can protect her, even without bloodshed, or at least without killing. But that brings me to my second point." And there it was. Drulović watched Andrijana closely, her own face betraying nothing other than the pain that was self-evident from her movements. "This - if I agree to this at all - can only be a temporary arrangement. Only until you are able to settle ... what it is you and your mother need to settle, when she comes to visit Shintenchi. We need to manage our own affairs here. I need to take care of what's happening." Drulović watched Andrijana plead with her, with her eyes, but she knew she did not wish to speak of what Ulrich had wanted, not here, and certainly not to Andrijana Krstevska.

Aeka offered a nod. “Of course, once our business here is concluded, I plan to return to Niihama with Mr. Hokushin and my mother. Unfortunately, my brother does not approve of these expeditions, and frowns on our mother leaving the palace grounds for unofficial events. Hopefully he will not be too upset with all this.” Aeka said with a frown.

“I don’t want him beating me again.” She said with a frown, and Hokushin nodded. “We have a legal doctrine in our land, I believe the proper translation is ‘The King can do no wrong’ As the Emperor created the courts to protect his subjects, the Emperor does not answer to the courts, and is immune from their jurisdiction in all cases unless he consents. I believe the Terran legal doctrine is Sovereign Immunity.” Hokushin commented.

“It is not our place to speculate on the legality of His Majesty’s doings, therefore, what’s done, is his will, and destiny.”

The monk shifted his weight, and turned to Aeka.

“Mr. Hokushin, I ask that you follow Doctor Krstevska’s orders as if they were my own, and that of her staff while imprisoned here. I ask that you only intervene if Drulovic’s life is in danger, and to take no life. You are a Shintenchi national facing a sentence of espionage.” Aeka said, displaying a surprising amount of cunning.

“Is this enough to maintain the farce?”

Hokushin replied a moment later.

“The guard in the lobby knows my identity as your guardian.”

"Perhaps you were arrested while visiting," said Drulović, speaking softly, her gaze sliding over to Aeka and Hokushin again. "It certainly wouldn't be the first time it occurred, I think. Recall what happened to Franz Hollinger some years past."

"I'll arrange for the dummy file," said Andrijana, resigned to permitting this strange arrangement in her facility. "It won't be good indefinitely - so please ensure that your mother makes it to Shintenchi soon." She looked at Drulović. "And I'm assuming you will not be speaking of this conversation."

"What is there to say?" Drulović turned her palm upward, then set her hand back against her abdomen, fingers curling tightly there. "You'll have my silence, for now. I've no need to cultivate unnecessary enemies or even base hostilities, Dr. Krstevska. I have plenty in store already."

"Your highness, I hope that you've been able to get what you came here for," Andrijana said. "As I said, this ..." She nodded around at her office. "This is unusual. I don't usually grant requests like this. But for a visiting dignitary - though I understand you're here unofficially - I'll of course do what I can. Mr. Hokushin, I'll arrange for the guards in the hall, outside the door, to take you into custody. They won't have heard our conversation here. I'll tell them I caught you and Ms. Drulović in cahoots. They'll take you both to the disciplinary unit."

"Oh, call it what it is," Drulović said, contemptuously. "You mean to say you intend us to go to solitary confinement." She remembered all too well the collective years she'd suffered in solitary confinement in one prison or another, each their own hell.

Aeka nodded, and turned to face Hokushin to give him a reassuring nod, not that it meant anything, he had his orders, and he would carry them out without question.

“It will be about two weeks round trip, it will take at least a week to reach Niihama through the astral gate, and a few days to get my mother ready, and about a week back, but I will do my best, I can only hope my brother doesn’t decide to get upset over this arrangement.”

Aeka heaved a slight sigh. “We’re both taking risks here.” She then cleared her throat.

“How dare you what is the meaning of this!?” She screamed, standing up in her chair. Hokushin said nothing, he simply raised his eyebrow awaiting what comes next.

Both the officers rushed back into the office, the tall, lanky dark-skinned one and the short, plump fair-skinned one arriving with alarm in equal measure, stun batons at the ready.

"That one. Take him into custody," said Andrijana, nodding sharply toward Hokushin. "And Drulović, a level three ticket. It seems I've caught her at attempted espionage." She looked at the old woman entreatingly. I hope you know what you're doing. Drulović hardly moved. "She's under code red communication restrictions. It's in her file. This should never have happened."

"What?" One of the officers looked in confusion to Andrijana.

"I'll call the NPA - they'll have to come sort this out," Andrijana said, shaking her head. "For now, take him to the disciplinary unit. I'll have to figure out with the NPA how to handle his booking. He won't be here long-term, since we're not meant for holding. It's... well. This is an unprecedented situation."

"You'll believe what you'd like to believe," said Drulović, her tone calm and serene, her dark eyes revealing nothing, before her voice turned contemptuous. "You've no proof of anything at all, only your paranoia and wild accusations. Be careful, Dr. Krstevska."

"On your knees," the officer closest to Hokushin ordered, baton out.

"Shut up, inmate," the other officer said to the old woman, terse, at nearly the exact same time. "You want her out now?" He looked at Andrijana.

Aeka stood in the corner of the office angry, she was putting up quite the show, tears welled up in her eyes as she tried to play the part. “I will report this to my brother! Detaining a member of the royal party! He will put you all to the sword!” She cried out angrily as Hokushin slowly got onto his knees, his hands slightly up and his fingers spread out.

Aeka started to step forward, playing at the hysterics.

“Let me out of here! Now!” She took a step forward towards the door, while Hokushin made no moves to resist, on his knees at the moment.

“Touch me and it will be an act of war!” Aeka bellowed at the guards, at Andrijana pointing an angry finger. “Don’t worry Mr. Hokushin, my brother will send for you.” She then glared at Drulovic. “You! Your life is forefeit for this treachery!” She cried. “Let me out of here! I must contact my government at once!” Subtly, she winked at Andrijana, and Drulovic. Hokushin had already begun committing everything to memory.

There was no turning back now.

"And what of it?" said Drulović with a shrug. "My life means so very little already."

"I said, shut up," said Salgado, the officer closest to Drulović. He looked at Andrijana. "Ma'am?"

"No one's stopping you from leaving, Ms. Takayama," said Andrijana, cold and business-like. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." She shook her head at Salgado, throwing her shoulders back, and crossing her arms over her chest. "Not yet. Don't take her down to disciplinary just yet." Jonassaint, Salgado's counterpart, pressed the baton into Hokushin's back, forcing him to the floor, and then grabbed each of his arms, deftly cuffing them behind his back and conducting a quick pat-down. "He's a spy, Ms. Takayama. I do not permit criminal activity of any kind within this facility. Perhaps things are different on Niihama. Here, we do not extend special dispensation to members of our leaders' personal entourages."

Jonassaint was already radioing for backup. It took only a few seconds more for two other officers, who'd been at the other end of the hall, to arrive, hands on their batons, eyes rapidly scanning the room on high alert. "Remove the spy," said Andrijana, nodding at Hokushin. "Ms. Takayama, I suggest you leave now. Contact your embassy. Do whatever you like. But go." Drulović reached a hand for the folded letter from Kendra, when Salgado's baton slammed onto the table, an inch from her fingers. He snatched the letter, holding it up in front of Andrijana with a questioning look. "Give it to me," Andrijana said, holding out her hand for it.

Aeka whipped around the door, and gave an audible Hmmph, as she stormed out. The clock had started, so she had to figure out how to get Kendra to Shintenchi. Fortunately, Shimizu tended to stay aboard the Soja, and govern the Empire from there, so getting Kendra out of the Palace, and on a transport to Terra wouldn’t be difficult.

With Aeka gone, Hokushin did not make any moves to resist the guards, though the man’s muscles felt like steel, he was compliant, even though his strength, and skill were honed to a razor’s edge. Aeka had given his orders, and this would give him ample opportunity to reflect, and meditate.

The Mazoku warrior cast a look briefly to Drulovic as the restraints clicked, and snapped around his wrists. A Pat down would reveal Aeka’s handbag, which he had been holding on for her, it had her personal belongings, and a few more things inside it. He showed no emotion, no reaction.

Hokushin had pondered several outcomes, one of which he hoped the guards did not tend to gossip, he did not know if word would reach the wider terran government of what took place here. But what was more concerning was Shimizu learning of what transpired before Aeka could carry out her plan, and before Hokushin could deliver his report to Andrijana.

Hokushin looked at the floor, to the dead spider curled up under the leg of the desk, to the dust bunnies from the last time the janitor swept the floor. It was cold, it reminded him of his training with master Genkai.

"The handbag," said Andrijana, and Jonassaint handed it over, wordless. Andrijana took it, setting it on the edge of her desk along with the letter from Kendra. She'd find a way to send the handbag back to the embassy, or to wherever Aeka was staying while visiting Terra this time. The letter would eventually go into the box of Drulović's property, which would be waiting in her cell in G Unit while she was taken down to the disciplinary unit. Of course, Andrijana would have to see to it herself. "Well, Ms. Drulović. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"I doubt there's anything I might say that you might heed," said Drulović, contemptuous, head tilted slightly back in defiance, eyes narrowed to slits, though the expression was a bit lost in the swollen bruising. "I have nothing more to say to you. My work does not concern you."

Something in the old woman's tone suggested to Andrijana that her words might not be entirely feigned or affected. She repressed the urge to shiver. "Fine, then. You'll wait in disciplinary while Officer Salgado writes up the charges. And I'll be informing the prosecutor's office about this. I didn't realize you were so eager to extend your quite lenient sentence." She waved at the officers. "Take them out."

Freed from the earlier directive, Salgado grabbed roughly at Drulović's arm. "On your feet." She staggered slightly, but did not resist, only grabbed at the table to right herself. Salgado reapplied the restraints they'd escorted Drulović up in, locking the handcuffs to the waist chain and the one leading to the leg irons, and then he and one of his colleagues each took one of her arms, moving her out. Jonassaint and the other officer pulled Hokushin to his feet, heading out after the old woman. As if instinctually aware of Hokushin's highly specialized military training, the two were on high alert, tense, and watching him closely.

Andrijana shut the office door behind them.

The disciplinary unit was housed in a building all on its own, within its own separate fencing from the rest of the complex. Meant to hold no more than fifty people at most and rarely holding more than ten at any given time, the original architects of the place had separated each cell from the corridor with a double door - a barred one, and a solid metal one. Of course, the walls themselves were not entirely soundproofed, despite best efforts, and those confined there could, if the metal doors were left ajar, occasionally catch glimpses of one another. The lights burned at all hours.

Jonassaint moved Hokushin into the cell at the furthest end of the corridor, the better to keep him away from those sent to Ĭtpraṽmår sometimes for decades at a time. No one really knew what to do with someone who had been convicted of no crime but had been apparently caught in the act of highly illegal activity. Jonassaint supposed this was the NPA's problem now. But at least temporarily, this was their problem. He scowled.

The old woman was taken to a cell a few doors down, where Salgado told her to stand against the wall for another search. She leaned there until he had finished, and removed the restraints - and when he'd shut the doors, staggered to the bed. Her knees screamed in agony. They'd now missed lunch, and dinner wouldn't come for another several hours. Since the old woman had barely been able to manage anything at breakfast, she suspected she'd manage nothing from dinner, especially not if they brought up the dried out mystery meat from the previous day's dinner. Her jaw too ached dully, and her face stung from the recent beating. She stared at the narrow window, but saw past the smudge and grime only the plain stone walls of the next building over.

When they walked with Hokushin, they would find him compliant, he made no effort to resist, or try to escape. His posture, and his movements were fluid, graceful, it wasn’t so much specialized military training that this man had, but years of martial arts experience honed to a razor edge living as a monk, an ascetic lifestyle high in the mountains of Niihama, in some of the few pristine places on the planet untouched by the sprawling ecumenopolis. His footsteps were deliberate, purposeful, and the metal of his restraints strained as he flexed his wrists from the slight discomfort.

Did the handcuffs creak under his movements?

He relaxed after a moment more, taking in the sights of the building as they led him through it. Hokushin was no stranger to imprisonment, as he spent years locked up in solitary meditation under his tutelage with Master Raizen, the founder of his order. Raizen was nearly a hundred years old, but looked no older than his forties, mastering his own body through his use of his ki energy.

Through it all Hokushin didn’t utter a single word, instead he waited for the restraints to be taken off, and the cell doors to be shut. In his mind he wondered what Aeka had been thinking.

On the outside, he seemed completely unbothered by what was transpiring around him, when the cell doors shut, he found a place in the center of the room, on the cold hard concrete, where he crossed his legs, and held his arms out, hands relaxed, eyes closed, he began to meditate on every sound, every word that carried through the concrete walls.

Ulrich came for her four days later, in the night. In that time, the nurse had stopped by daily, dispensing two aspirin and nothing else, and ignoring the old woman's polite requests for a cane. An officer came every afternoon to take her to the disciplinary unit's small caged-in yard for an hour of exercise, which for the old woman meant a slow walk around the perimeter, hand against the wall all the way around, before she sat on the matted, browning grass in exhaustion until the hour was up. Meals came on a trolley, and slid through a slot in the door meant alternately for cuffing or feeding, usually covered by a locked plate. They came cold, soggy, and thoroughly unappetizing. Otherwise, the only other contact she had with a living soul came when one of the sergeants dropped off a copy of her disciplinary ticket, without so much as a passing comment. Until Ulrich returned.

He arrived sometime between two and four in the morning, seeming for all intents and purposes to simply be another officer on night patrol, conducting the first count of the twenty-four hour cycle. But then he unlocked Drulović's cell, sliding the massive metal door open, and descending on her with a knife in hand aiming for her throat. Her eyes opened. "This time, no games," he rasped, "I finish it. You die."

In the hours that lapsed, Hokushin spent them all in deep meditation. He was for all intents and purposes a model prisoner, choosing to eat the food provided to him, even though it was intensely unpalatable. He even kept quiet, being nothing but polite to the guards despite his obvious extensive martial arts background.

He didn't anticipate that the one who beat Drulovic would return so soon, but he had to act quickly before he could take her life.

Chanting a quick shrinking jutsu, he shrank his body to fit through the bars, and under the door. Once on the other side, he reversed the Jutsu to return to normal size, moving swiftly across the pod towards the open door of Drulovics cell.

As Ulrich was slouched over the old woman with knife in hand, Hokushin reached out with incredible speed, and precision. He aimed to grasp the wrist with the knife firmly, and wrench the guard back, to pull him off, and away from Drulovic, with the second aim to put himself between the two.

While doing this, Hokushin said nothing, and moved in almost total silence.

To his credit, minimal as it may be, Ulrich had instead gone to seen the doctor in town, rather than seeking help from the medical unit on the facility grounds. The doctor, an elderly man with almost cartoonishly large ears dropping on either side of his head, had stared in equal parts consternation, fascination, and horror. "Four days, and still such agonizing pain, without any sign of healing?" Ulrich had grunted a response. "This is no normal injury. It must be magical, supernatural, some other kind of force behind it." So Ulrich had done his best to avoid G Unit altogether for now, while quietly asking around to find out who knew anything at all about the Taiyou detainee who hadn't even been convicted of anything yet. Some rumors put it down to a political dispute the Taiyou preferred to keep quiet; others, to the former intelligence director's vast spy network. Ulrich knew it didn't matter exactly how the monk had gotten there. What mattered was finding out when, if at all, he'd be leaving.

Andrijana had kept her end of the bargain. The NPA hadn't even had to be contacted, and most of the employees at the facility were none the wiser. But she'd heard nothing yet about a rendezvous in Shintenchi. She was beginning to wonder whether, if at all, it would actually take place. As if by serendipity, though, the same day that Hokushin called out to the officers in G Unit, who were adept at casually mentioning inmate cop-out forms without ever actually making any effort to distribute - let alone collect - any such forms, Andrijana called down for Hokushin. "Just bring him up, easy."

It was easy, they listened, or so he thought, but it no doubt ran deeper than that, as he was being brought down from the unit to the office, a mail clerk peered into the office with a stack of envelopes, most of them were from the central office, or various law offices, mostly appeals paperwork, or court dates.

“You got a weird one today.” The clerk said with a look of confusion, as he pulled one envelope in particular from the stack, with a large ‘Par avion’ sticker on it, along with a postmark from the Narita Central Post, and a postage stamp valued at two hundred yen, the return address was printed in Terran English.

“The Offices of Her Honorable Shogun Takara Sato
1-1-1 Chuu, Narita-shi, Narita-Ken, Shintenchi”

The Clerk looked at it weirdly, the letter smelled faintly of cherry blossoms.

“Think it’s real?” He asked, handing the letter off, before turning to leave to carry out their duties.

When Hokushin was lead into the room, and should the envelope be opened, there would be a single piece of plain stationary inside, it had a date, and a time handwritten in a rather expensive calligraphy ink.

Hokushin stepped into the room, hardly resisting against his restraints, as they hung heavily from his body,

“I marked him.” Hokushin reported. “Health checks will reveal our mutual foe.” The Mazoku said cryptically.

"Weird keeps things interesting." Andrijana took the letter, sliding a finger beneath the seal to open it, and gently sliding the paper from the envelope. She looked down at the delicate handwriting. Well, there was no real need for subtlety or subterfuge at this point. The message was clear. It would be another week. One more week until she'd find out what exactly Kendra Shaw wanted with the woman who'd been imprisoned for freeing her. She turned the letter facedown on the desk, and set it atop the stack of other mail, to be dealt with later. Maybe she'd send some of it down to counsel's office in the basement.

When Hokushin arrived, Andrijana raised an eyebrow at the officers who'd accompanied him. "Would you uncuff him, please? And leave us." The officers exchanged unreadable glances, but removed the restraints, stepping back into the hallway and shutting the door almost all the way. Andrijana thought she heard one of them mention something about the NPA, and the local sheriff. Andrijana motioned for Hokushin to take a seat at the table, waiting until the sound of footsteps had receded away. "Can I get you something to drink? Sorry about the officers." She shook her head. "So you're suggesting that I schedule mandatory health checks to discover the perpetrator? Is he an inmate or staff?"

Hokushin said nothing to the guards that uncuffed him, the restraints offered the guards some semblance of security, so he didn't resist them, even though he knew in his mind he could escape them at will. Hokushin politely declined the offer for a seat, preferring instead to stand.

"I marked him with a bruise to the chest, through a small amount of my spirit energy, the wound will not heal, but the effect will eventually wear off. Drulovic knew him, they shared a past.

"His name is Shoe maker." Hokushin said, his accent distorting the words slightly. "I sensed a disturbance in Drulovic's Spirit energy, so I left my cell, and discovered this man hunched over her with a blade, I disarmed him, and marked him. I returned his blade, and let him leave, thinking that I would not reveal his intent, or his presence for fear I would exacerbate my own situation."

Ulrich Shumaker. What an awful mess. Andrijana sighed. "I thought something was going on for him, but I didn't know what." And very few of the officers were willing to speak to her anyway. They'd always seen her as an outsider. They still did even though she'd now been there ten years. "I don't think mandatory health checks will be necessary, since you've been able to identify him." She didn't bother mentioning that she had little clue what he meant by "spirit energy," but that was an occupational hazard of working on Terra. Supernatural and magical forces came in all types. "I'll call him up when he's scheduled to be on duty tomorrow, and I'll ask him." She had an intuitive sense that he wouldn't deny it once confronted either - well, not ultimately, anyway. "Did you find out how Mr. Shumaker and Ms. Drulović knew each other before?" Andrijana couldn't quite recall knowing much about where Ulrich had come from. She rarely knew, anyway. Even when she walked through the staff lounge, most of the officers would conspicuously stop talking upon seeing her approach, resuming only once she'd walked far enough away that there was little chance she'd overhear anything.

Hokushin shook his head. "I'm not clear on the matter." He said, perhaps the man would come clean once confronted. "Some twisted sense of justice, he was confused, how Drulovic could curry the favor of royalty."

Hokushin paused. "Word is not common here, that both His Imperial Majesty, and Her Highness both owe their very existence to Drulovic, and the actions she took that fateful night she chose to release Her Majesty from custody." Hokushin explained, folding his hands in front, interlacing his fingers.

"Your entire staff is corrupt, and compromised; something like this should have never come to pass." Hokushin chided. "But it is not my place to dictate how you run your facility, I can only offer my own counsel while I am here."

The towering warrior kept his calm, it was obvious he was well disciplined, humble even. "Staying here has presented me with an opportunity to train my mind, and I thank you." He said, inclining his head.

"Did you require anything further?"

"Unfortunately, mass firings are both generally unethical, and would be met immediately with the strongest possible resistance from the union," said Andrijana, leaning back against her desk, arms folded loosely over her chest. "Believe me, I've tried." It was no wonder the staff's attitudes toward her ranged from neutral ambivalence on average to openly hostile among a rather outspoken contingent. "I've recommended to Central Office they shut down this entire facility, and start over. The director thought I was joking. I wish I were." She shook her head again. "I'm ... well, I'm glad staying here temporarily has been a positive experience for you. You're one of very few who'd say that. Even among the staff. So - I haven't gotten any other reports from G Unit. I'm assuming Drulović is still alive, in one piece, and relatively uninjured, or at least, not significantly more so than she was last week?" Andrijana was surprised the old woman hadn't threatened to file any lawsuit yet either - the ones who'd been brought down from lofty positions of wealth and power usually were the most vocal in threatening to sue for literally everything under the sun. The former intelligence director hadn't so much as filed a single grievance - not even after she'd apparently been assaulted by one of the officers.

Hokushin shook his head. "Do not be mistaken, everything presents some form of opportunity, or another, no matter how harsh, even the mightiest volcano can still mold the finest diamonds, the hottest flames of adversity can forge the sharpest blade. Such is an opportunity you now have before you." Hokushin commented.

"Princess Aeka is shocked, and appalled with how this facility has been running, I am not sure how it would be seen here, on Terra. But if this facility was exposed, and propagandized by a foreign government, would that not incentivize it's shutdown to save face?" Hokushin inquired, his eyebrow raised quizzically.

"Perhaps rather than shut the facility down, adopting strict discipline regimens that mold the highest exemplars of your correctional system. strict discipline that molds and rehabilitates model inmates, and model staff." Hokush suggested. "In line with the code of bushido."

"Discipline requires enforcement," Andrijana pointed out, "and enforcement requires cooperation, at least from the upper echelons. You can see how well that would work." She had very little real power, at the end of the day, and she knew it. Central Office had all but abandoned her here in the middle of nowhere - a move she thought was definitely intentional - and even the others in management here at Ĭtpraṽmår showed very little deference to her. And of course, she couldn't count on the inmates to back her - she was the enemy, as far as they were concerned, emblematic of the very prison that held them. "What would you propose? I've heard Taiyou prisons are run in a very authoritarian way - how does that actually work out, for rehabilitative purposes?" She'd never been able to make any visits to other systems, let alone other galaxies, to learn how other prisons operated - what to do, what not to do. She'd seen half of the TNG's facilities in one capacity or another, and while none of them were particularly pleasant places to be, or particularly smoothly operated, this one was solidly in the bottom half. Not the worst facility by far. But rife with corruption that nothing she tried to do had ever been able to stifle or prevent, and the site of disastrous riots and escapes more often than should ever be possible.