Cryptotrappers!

Cryptotrappers- Relocation

The water was incredibly murky, but I could see outlines. Jutting rocks, a few small fish. I didn't have a flashlight, but Eva was planning to guide me via ACD. This one had a flashlight function installed so as long as I didn't swim too far off everything would be hunky dory. The harness had a large collar, connected to a sealed container of live fish that Selma was supposed to try to eat, but instead it would end up harnessed. It almost seemed like it would work, just so long as it didn't decide I looked far more pleasant to chew. Since it was a predatory sea animal, I decided that my best hope to attract it was in a similar way to other predatory fish. I swam to the surface, removed my wetsuit from my left arm and made a shallow but bloody cut. I winced at the pain but sacrifices had to be made. Blood dripped into the water, staining the once blue red. I wrapped the wound in bandage and returned to the waves. Sharks began to arrive, circling. I should have known Selma had come when they all turned tail and ran. Behind me it lay, fifty foot long and fearsome. It had six fins, down the length of the serpentine body, and the head was somewhere between alligator and Kelpie. I'd gathered the approximate width of the wyrm from the harness's collar but the length really caught me off guard. Having seemingly decided to keep to its diet regime, it swam right past me to the fish in the harness and found itself stuck. I pounded my way to the surface to the helping arms of Eva, Sid, Lucy and Randy, who all pulled me onto the boat.

"That was big." I panted.
"Selma is unique." Eva explained. "Most lake serpents are plesiosaurlike, most sea serpents snakelike. Selma is a sea serpent who resides in a lake. They tend to grow between fourty and sixty feet long, though once I heard of one eighty foot long. Selma will be fine returning to the sea for a while; we'll release her for our duration and bring her back when we return from our destination." She then opened herself up to talk to everyone.
"We have 5 hours left, and then when we get there, you all take a look around while I set up. Now sit back and enjoy the last quarter of your journey everyone. You've earned it."

Two hours of 'fun' and an extra three hours of sleep later and we were approaching our final target, Okayama, Japan. "When we arrive in Okayama, you have a couple hours to explore, grab some food, convert currency, et cetera." Eva explained. "Enjoy yourself, and please, try not to run into any Yokai before we're set up base!"
Everyone was fairly excited, and we'd all made an unverbal pact to explore alone and do our own things. Sid decided to stay behind and help Eva, but despite his best efforts to get Randy to do the same, they fell on deaf ears. Of course people were curious about the aircraft carrier with crates of live creatures, but some cover story allowed us to proceed in peace. Passports would have been a problem, but Eva had the foresight to have had fake Japanese IDs made for all of us.
"This is Dr. Pierre." Eva said, pointing at me. "Miss Ada Pierre," pointing to Lucy, "Dr. Henrik Barrs," pointing at Randy, "and Sid," pointing at Sid. She then pulled out an ID card for herself, which I couldn't tell if it was fake or not. "Eva Bairnsfather. We're here on official business."
These names somehow seemed to check out with the officials and we were allowed to proceed. Eva handed us all a small booklet of useful phrases and set to work with the ACD to let Selma run free for a while. I had a few good experiences to start off with. Converted my money over to yen, had some traditional food, the basics. But it was when I was taking a walk through nature that I encountered my first Yokai of the journey.

"You give off a good first impression, kid." the strange voice rang. I looked around but couldn't find the source. "Too high kid." it spoke again. The voice was low, a bit scratchy, and it had a vague, unidentifiable accent. I felt a smack and turned around to see a small snake-like thing on the bench. It had a rattlesnake like pattern, but the body was somewhat flat. By all accounts it was like a short wide snake. I recognised it immediately.
"Tsuchinoko." I calmly responded.
"Well that was calmer that I expected." the snake replied, bemusedly. "You ain't new to this whole Yokai business are ya?"
"I've seen some stuff, never been actively approached by something I could talk to though." I responded truthfully.
"I wanna show you something. Pick up a rock and throw it below the bough of that tree. Not into the bough, mind you, just below it."
I decided that there was no harm in it. I picked up a reasonably hefty pebble and threw it into the distance. When it flew beneath the tree, rows upon rows of small red glove like things fell down to meet it. They looked like an inflated red glove, but I could tell they were alive. They hung for some seconds and then slid back upwards, likely to startle the next person who disturbed the tree.
"Akateko." my spiritual friend explained. "Just a warning, bub. As you've just seen, Yokai are everywhere here. Trust nobody and nothing that you don't inherently know to be true. Things will be misleading, and it's up to you not to be fooled."
I thanked him and headed towards the area I had been directed to. Evening was far into being drawn now, and I wanted to get there on time. So I made tracks towards the new facility.

We arrived at, by all accounts, an umbrella shop. Parasols, umbrellas, sunshades. But they were the only products. Opening hours 10 AM to 6 PM. Inside were two rooms, a shop front and a back room with a rug. Eva pulled up the rug to show a hidden trapdoor that led deep underground. Down the ladder was the actual base. I have no idea how they got the crates through the trapdoor, but everything was securely contained in habitats very similar to the facility back home.
"The shop is a cover for the base; I'll normally run it while it's open, and while you're off doing missions. One person at all times has to stay and run the shop, so if I need to accompany for the mission, someone else will have to stay. Sleeping quarters are down that corridor, second right. Now let's-"
Eva was interrupted by a knock. We all froze. It was already way past closing time, so why would someone be visiting? Were we followed? Then we all heard a brief calling from behind the door.
"Hi! Helloooo! Anyone inside? I thought I saw people enter..."
It was a chirpy, feminine voice, slightly muffled by the door, vaguely American. Either way, she didn't really sound threatening. Eva decided the best course of action was for all of us to go with one concealed tranquilliser gun just in case. In the glass of the door was the face of a young woman. If I had to assume, mixed Asian-American. She had dark hair and a fairly round face, with a general aura of energy around her. Eva walked up and unlocked the door with her typical kind stoicism.
"Okay, so hi, my name is Nikki, I run a frozen yogurt shop a few buildings down." the strange woman began. "So have you lived here long?"
"Arrived today. I'm surprised you approached us in English." Eva stated, narrowly hiding her clear suspicion.
"Sorry, force of habit." Nikki explained. "I've lived in America most of my adult life, but I came back here a few years ago."
Nikki looked over Eva's shoulder and pointed towards Randy.
"Anyway, who's he over there?"
Randy looked flustered for a few seconds, before responding.
"Randy, well it's actually, uh, Henrik, Miss? But I go by Randy, yeah. It's nice to meet you."
This seemed to make Nikki laugh for a second before she checked her watch.
"Well, it's been nice talking but I should go home." Nikki sighed. "I'll be around to buy something soon, I promise!"
Nikki gave one last smiley wave and then left.

"Well she was nice!" Randy beamed.
"She didn't seem too bad." Lucy offered.
"She's totally into you, Randy." Sid replied, before muttering under his breath "For some reason..."
Eva was far too distracted to care. She was too busy looking at that photograph again, brow furrowed. I walked up behind her and asked "Any luck with understanding it?"
Eva jumped and clutched the photo to her chest, so I followed up "I've seen it. I told Randy and Lucy and I'm fairly sure he would have told Sid. You might as well just share what you know."
Eva deeply sighed and called us all together.

"You all know what this is." Eva stated flatly, pointing generally to the picture, blown up and projected onto the wall. "Clearly, we know this is a Kraken, bitten in half. The wound suggests a humanoid entity, though this may not be the case. The Kraken is fully grown. This means that the assailant is nothing known to Cryptozoology. No Kraken could grow that big as to bite it in half, and no Roc is that big either. It is most likely aquatic, and the only cuerently suggested theory is a Zaratan. However, since the Kraken never surfaces in most cases, and Zaratans very rarely dive deep, this is very unlikely. I will inform you of any updates. Now try to get some sleep."
The image had been explained at last. Our new futon beds awaited us. And so all we could do was sleep.