Before Ryan could offer another placid nod to the initial clerk, a towering, soot-stained stationmaster shoved his way through the swirling maritime fog, slamming a heavy brass lantern onto the wooden barrier. With a glare as dark and unforgiving as unwashed boiler coal, the official planted his boots and barked an abrupt, uncompromising demand: proof of absolute loyalty to the shogunate before the morning mist cleared enough for any commuter to pass. To Ryan, who had spent years dealing with aggressive office security demanding unannounced access passes and hostile compliance officers waving red-inked audit threats, the dramatic demand for feudal allegiance felt frustratingly familiar—just another arbitrary procedural gatekeeper standing between a tired worker and his morning train.
With the practiced, deadpan patience of a man simply trying to bypass an unreasonable administrative bottleneck so he wouldn't miss his connection, Ryan exhaled a slow, weary sigh. He unzipped his heavy canvas messenger bag, sliding past his tin of green tea and spare plastic pen to retrieve the soot-smudged telegram and the grease-stained tax scroll. Holding up the folded papers with a polite, half-apologetic tilt of his head, he offered the soot-dusted stationmaster a mild reassurance about an urgent inter-departmental delivery, silently hoping that a convincing display of official-looking red stamps and bureaucratic paperwork would satisfy the checkpoint before the platform dissolved entirely.