Engineers, Jack thought ruefully, tuning out the rest of the steampunk geekery with practiced determination. Tuning out Uryuu joining in on the mess that was a burned-out bulb and who knew what else, actively holding pieces of casing and screws for the guys with tools, was a little harder. Biker guy. Motorized infantry strike team guy. And the Hunter knew tech, too? Huh.
Makes sense, though. Guy’s lived on and off trains a while, sounds like.
As Suzuki’d said, later. Jack’s job right now was to not be distracted. Not when the local weather was sunny, with a chance of Kabane. “Okay. Which way should I be watching?”
Kurusu blinked once at Uryuu, then barely glanced at him; just enough to be sure he meant it, Jack figured. “The right-hand track. I have the left.”
Okay, made sense. “Behind?” Jack asked. Because Mumei over there hanging out on the other side of the light from the steamsmiths wasn’t quite in the right position for that, even if the kid could jump roof-high at a moment’s notice.
“The guards on top of the hayajiro are keeping watch.”
Uh-huh. Trust Kurusu to give him an answer that wasn’t an answer. The guy might be a bodyguard instead of a soldier, but Jack knew Kurusu could guess he really wanted to know what Mumei was doing-
Wait. Think about it. What are we all doing? Looking out for Kabane. And you know the kid can smell them.
Jack parted his lips to taste the wind, and nodded. Yep. She was in the right spot to catch stuff blowing to her. Hopefully that’d be just enough extra warning.
Good thing Ayame’s got the Hunters in the last car, though. He didn’t know if that was luck or planning, could’ve just been the last place she had left to jam people. But they’d all last longer with experienced Kabane-fighters at both ends of the train-
Wait a minute. “The last car,” Jack stated, feeling his heart pick up the beat. “Not the one with the bees. The one you picked up in Keishi.”
“Relax.” Uryuu’s lip curled. “There’s always somebody guarding the crazy.”
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
So far, so good… No sign of Kabane yet. Though I wonder if localized clumps of Kabane might not end up forming where maintenance is performed (semi)regularly.
..
A bit off-topic, but I recently came across this video on the “Forgotten Weapons” youtube channel. Black-Powder-and-Iron-punk FTW.
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thanks
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“Relax.” Uryuu’s lip curled. “There’s always somebody guarding the crazy.”
And we all hope it’s someone trustworthy… ^_^
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Oh, it is. *EG*
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XD. You know, one shouldn’t have to ask “trustworthy to do what?”
Alas, if you can trust someone to always do the worst thing in any situation… does that not count as “trustworthy” in some twisted way?
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Well, even if someone is completely trustworthy, there’s the whole weight of numbers thing….
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Well, according to my psychologist grandfather, trusting someone merely meant you could predict what they’d do. That’s part of why cross cultural meetings can be so tough, because you can’t predict the unknown culture. It’s why Kurusu is like he is towards Ikoma and Mumei in the first few episodes: what he predicted was they’d become Kabane and attack. He could trust that.
Good thing Ayame is willing/able to take chances, ne?
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A very good thing. And also that Kurusu is willing to follow her. 🙂
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Why do I think they should absolutely not be relaxing? Well, any more than they need to to keep fingers from going numb on weapons, anyway? …Is it because I’ve read your stories before? *suspicious squint*
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It’s possible. 😉
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