“The finals are in one day.”
“Yep… Tomorrow might as well decide my fate.”
“Eh? Didn’t you do your best to study and retain all that information?”
“Surabukādo, I think I did the best I can, sheesh it’s not that it’s hard… it’s so fricking irritating.”
Masashi stops in the middle of the hall and shakes his head.
“Cause you gotta understand.”
“Like everything is so competitive, I have to cram all this work in, and I fear that I will probably be left back. It’s like man, the expectations are insane, you do get me?”
Masashi slouches his head questioning everything.
Surabukādo grips his hand.
“I feel the same way, If this society was any better I think I wouldn’t have to distract myself from being a joker.”
“Look, it is very hard on everyone, I just found my way to cope with things… distracting myself.”
“That was deep man.”
“Yeah I know, well it’s good luck from here on out man. If my brain was a computer I’d fare much better.”
“Hell no, that would be the worst. Calculating all those methods constantly would be a pain. I’d rather live in the states.”
Masashi jokingly fires at Surabukādo.
“What do you mean like America? My uncle is always sending souvenirs from there. I got a shirt that says ‘ROCK AND ROLL, CHEARMILL CLUB’ whatever that means.”
Masashi spits his water out his mouth before covering it.
“You and this imaginary uncle dude, stop with your lies.”
“Hey,” Masashi turns his attention towards Surabukādo, giving a smug look.
“Good luck tomorrow, and don’t barely pass this time. Unlike that middle school final.”
“Hahaha, I could say the same for you too. I want to see you next year y’know!”
“Oh I will be there Surabukādo.”
“Later!”
Walking down the courtyard of the school, he could only think about the finals tomorrow.
For him it could decide if he becomes a sophomore or not, but he’s unsure if that really is the case.
But he hopes he gets a good score for the time being.
“Masashi!”
“Mr. Hashimoto? The usual, securing me home I guess?” Masashi questions.
“Well not exactly this time, hey kid you don’t have to worry a huge amount about that Sovereign inside you, after all on that night you were brought in.”
“Seals were put in place. As long as you aren’t purposely knocked unconscious or your willpower drops, you’ll be fine.”
“Oh? I think I remember someone saying something like that… But what do you mean by not this time?”
Hashimoto points to his car to reveal Amaiaruheitō sitting in seat with her legs up.
“Amaiaruheitō?” Masashi shouts.
“What’s this all about?”
The car door opens and she steps out pulling her glasses slightly down.
Grasp!
Grabbing his shoulders she looks at him with a worried look.
“Hey Masashi, come in the car for a bit.”
“Huh?”
Masashi enters the car along with Hashimoto.
For a few minutes there was nothing but silence, even a bead of sweat drops down Hashimoto’s bald head.
“Well Masashi, they’ve done it now. I’ll cut to the chase. Tonight you’ll be joining me for an assassination mission on some big shot, I’ll run down on details a little later.”
“It’s an operation Amaiaruheitō. Not assassination…” Hashimoto remarks.
“Hey wait now! Why am I involved?”
His eyes zap around as he recollects his thoughts.
“You said they, right? That must mean.”
She turns towards Masashi in the back seat.
“Yeah, whatever you are thinking about it relates to our organization, do you happen to know a person by the name of Hyuganatsu Okemia?”
Masashi’s eyes widen a bit, thoughts run through his mind.
But he can’t seem to single out one of them, he closes his eyes before opening them back again.
“Yeah, I know Hyuganatsu. Well we’re not close but.. I guess you could say we’re sorta friends.”
“Alright that is perfect, well I guess the reason they brought you here was because they did some digging and found two and two together.”
“I guess that makes sense. But what- Wait this big shot you’re talking about you don’t mean?”
“Hyuganatsu Fuji. Apparently her brother, he is our target we have to take out.”
A wild surge of energy emanates from Masashi, shaking the outside trees slightly while affecting the car a good bit.
“Hey Masashi! Calm yourself.” Hashimoto yells out.
“I think it’s warranted Hashimoto, take it easy. ” Amaiaruheitō looking at the rear view mirror mutters.
The surges stop after a bit.
“Sorry, It’s just that I’ve met the bastard before. That time he came for her when we were at a movie theater.”
Amaiaruheitō sighs.
“I’ve seen that in the report of him, though it was just mentioned in his last sighted locations.”
“Well we will drop you home. I’ll come pick you up later at night, and that aunt of yours might get worried. So try to sneak out.”
“But hey Masashi.”
“Yes?”
“Keep a leveled head, okay?”
“Understood.”
It still doesn’t sit in his head, he wonders if he can really gain anything with doing this.
It’s not like he has a choice to really back out, but he wonders if he could stay on the sidelines.
Not getting in the way of others.
CLAP!
“Oba thank you for the dinner, if anything I should cook for you once in a while.”
“That is so thoughtful of you Masashi. Oh my, maybe I could use a break once in a while.”
“Yeah, don’t go pushing yourself at your age.”
“Ah.”
She seems visually offended by that remark.
“Mind you, I am not that old. I mean I haven’t hit my forties yet!” Oba plants her hands on the table.
“But thank you for your concern dear.”
“Aha. It’s no problem Oba.”
There is a good moment of silence between the two at the still yet busy night.
“You think Shimizu is still out there somewhere? I have no Idea where she went. It’s like she after we picked her up from the airport and later it went into the nigh–”
Masashi pauses for a good minute unsure of what to say really, to himself and to what real concerns Oba might have.
“I don’t know.”
“Masashi… Oh. I am keeping myself from tears right now, I don’t know where my niece has gone after she came home from Europe.”
“And people are stalking our house too, well.. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised after all.”
Masashi’s movements stop for what seems like forever, he doesn’t move yet stare onto the table where his food lies cold.
He can’t recall it, but Saijou had told him that agents would be monitoring his house.
He didn’t believe it because of his jokeful nature.
But it seems to be true.
“Masashi.” She says in a warm condescending tone.
“The world is dangerous… and I think you already know that. It was in your mothers best interest to keep you from experiencing things like these. To some extent even your uncle and our mother too.”
“I want you to know, whatever you do I’ll still love you. So please don’t get yourself injured or even worse. Please say that you’ll come back to me in one piece!” She urges with hand near her heart.
“I promise you, I’ll come back to you after it’s all over.
I promise to find Shimizu as well.
Oba extends her pinky finger over the table.
“Pinky promise?
“Pinky promise.” He smiles while extending his.
Their pinkies tie together in a warm embrace.
“Stay safe out there. My charming, Nephew.”
“I promise too. My beautiful Aunt.”
Masashi gets up from his chair and heads upstairs, he looks down when he reaches the top and really wonders if he could pull it off.
Heading inside his room he falls onto his bed.
BRINNNGGGG!
“Unknown caller?”
Beep!
“Hello?”
“Masashi, Amaiaruheitō here! I am Outside your house. Your aunt or ‘Oba’ as you call it asleep or something?”
“Tch. Yeah that’s figured out.”
“Well hurry up and get your ass outside.”
“Yeah yeah I’m coming.”
He suits up in the outfit that Amaiaruheitō provided him.
“Hopefully I can still remember her run down, sheesh my brain could not handle that.”
Masashi leaves his room and walks downstairs heading towards the door exit.
Before he opens to leave.
He thinks about what Oba had said earlier, he doesn’t know if she fully knows what is going on, or if what she said could make sense of the situation that was really going on.
Right now he pushes the thoughts to the side, there is something greater at hand.
“Alright.” Masashi breathes in and out in preparation for what is about to happen.
He exits the door making sure not to make noise.
“Well well, not too shabby. Come in, we’ll meet at the point of surveillance.”
“Hey Amaiaruheitō could you explain that plan to me again?!”
“Phew, never thought you asked. I’ll talk you through it again on the drive.”
Entering the car door, Amaiaruheitō hits the gas as they drive off the meet up point.
The car ride is somewhat silent, Masashi stares out of the window without much of any talking.
There is sudden bits of radio chatter happening, but everything remains quite.
“Alright this is as far as we can get. We’re here.”
“That fast?”
Masashi and Amaiaruheitō both exit the car door, leaving a parking lot in a nearby town.
“I didn’t expect to be busy tonight.” He comments as the warm wind blows ever so suddenly.
“Well it’s the perfect time to strike, the noise drowns out the action. Come on, we gotta walk far anyway.” Amaiaruheitō gestures at Masashi to hurry up.
As they walk through the city, Masashi can’t seem to periodically take his eyes off the city lights.
The overall feeling of this place gets him going.
“Hey about that wakizashi you choose, I managed to get a sheath for it. By the way what did you ever do with it? Like how did you even conceal it?”
“Oh, I found a good spot.”
Masashi opens up his sleeve a bit, as his hand digs into his wrist.
SWICHING!
Amaiaruheitō looked completely bewildered.
“What?! Where did you pull it out from?”
“Well after I couldn’t find a place to put it, I did something creative. I don’t how I found this out, but I did.”
“Fantazumu actually helped me by becoming the weapon sheathe through my ability.”
“Fantazumu? Oh, is that the name of your Kussetsu?”
“Kussetsu? Wait, I remember Saijou telling me about not having a Kussetsu and it being my ability.”
“Wait he didn’t fully explain it? Figures he probably didn’t have time. But since you already managed to speak to your Kussetsu, you’re ahead of most.”
“Hold on. I still need to know what exactly it is?”
Amaiaruheitō takes a deep breath in.”Since we are in a hurry I’ll explain it in a step by step process.”
“A Kussetsu is a part of your soul that splits off, splitting off it becomes its own thing. they make up most abilities and are mostly the main source of power.”
“Kussetsu’s can have different appearances, sizes. Even mirroring the gender of their user, but not always.”
“Most Kussetsu are born from different aspects of our lives, might it be joy, sadness, certain events or traumas. But some represent mindsets. Instincts. Probably deep desires you didn’t know you had.”
Amaiaruheitō stops in her tracks.
“Overwhelmed?”
“It’s… a lot,” He slows down a bit.
“But it does make sense. I’ll process it later. For now, I’m good.”
“Good.” She gets back on track.
“That’s the basics. Now just keep up.”
“Alright!”
They venture through the city, walking through various avenues and streets.
He wonders why they couldn’t just park somewhere closer to save all of this time.
“Hey where are we? This looks like the Bayside, right?”
“Your right about that, we couldn’t get closer because of the smaller land and less parking.”
It still doesn’t sit right with Masashi, he thinks about how they could have just used a way to get in the parking lots.
But before he could formulate any in his head.
He looks up.
Masashi looks on in awe “Woah this place is-”
“Yeah, that company estate is large alright. I guess no wonder they’re having problems.”
Both of them look over at the large land, the side of the entrances covered by thick trees.
A tall gate looks to block the eyes of a curious person, and the point where cars pass through seems thoroughly guarded.
“Tsk, the toll booth is guarded like crazy right now.”
Amaiaruheitō taps her ears.
“Hey Kino! You and the other guys nearby?”
Bzzt
The ear piece in ears flicker as she responds each time it goes off.
Masashi checks the time on his watch.
It’s 18:46…
“Keep your eyes sharp Masashi, You see that.”
She points to a nearby building.
“What about that place?”
“After we mapped out the place, we found paths connecting to sewers/underground entrances. So we’ll enter there. We’ll be accompanied by some others. It’s three people per squad.”
Both of them make their way out of the somewhat busy street.
Crossing various crosswalks to approach the targeted building.
“Alright so where is this entrance? Do we have to go in this building to find that?” Masashi questions
“No, it’s just through this cellar door at the back here.”
BVRANG!
With quick precision Amaiaruheitō kicks in the cellar door.
“Damn,” Masashi looks at the blown out cellar doors.” She’s strong”
Swoopt
“You arrived, Kobayashi.”
The man pulls out a briefcase before checking his glasses.
“Well I would not want to miss this, Suwarofusukī.”
“And I assume you are Yanagidate right?”
Masashi brings his hand out for a shake.
“Nice to meet you!”
“No need for that, Agent Kobayashi, nice to meet you.”
“Ah I see.”
“Come on boys, no time to waste!”
All three of them go into the cellar finding it to be filled with wine and other sorts of goods
“Must be a brewery huh?” Masashi comments on the somewhat dark place.
Moving through the cellar Amaiaruheitō stops at a specific wall.
Place her palm on the wall, before striking it with intense force.
BRVSK!
Part of the wall crumbles leaving only a glimpse of an entrance, a long dark and dimly lit path way in the sewers.
“Is it really that dark?” Masashi questions
“It’s alright we have flashlights after all. What are you scared of?” Amaiaruheitō chuckles a bit.
“Not really. It just makes me feel uncomfortable”
“Same here kid.” Kobayashi responds with understanding.
Carving away at the rest of the wall.
All three of them enter this entrance walking along the path.
“It doesn’t stink as much as I expected it to do?”
“It doesn’t at all, it seems like they maintain it Masashi.”
“Maybe it’s not so bad..”
“Anyways what are the other squads up to? Are they taking different positions as well.”
“There are three squads consisting of mostly three to four people, so we have a lot of people doing this operation.”
“But they probably have a whole lot more, so we’ll have to be careful.”
“Though I’d doubt any normal person they have would give us an inch of a problem, it’s still good to lay low with the takedowns.”
“We have to be quick. I’ll contact and see if the other squads can pick up.” Kobayashi chatters while slightly trailing behind.
SWOOSH!
Nine minutes have passed since they have been navigating through this sewer system, Masashi seems to be stuffy from humidity of the tunnel.
While the other two seem to be bearing it.
Rushing silently and quickly the three of them dash along the somewhat small sewer passages.
Amaiaruheitō cuts her finger with her sword.
Blood oozes out, but never seems to splatter across the floor.
“Okay it’s starting to open up, eyes out.”
“ARE you done with that? We have to move more of those boxes over there.”
All three of them brace themselves across the wall as the chatter of men start to come into their ears.
“Look this truck is overloaded, this is our ninth truck we have sent over here. This should be enough for today.”
“Tch. Still we don’t meet the quota with these supplies, who knows what will happen.”
As the two men continue to banter, Amaiaruheitō readies herself.
A mechanism from one of her arms swings her katana right into her free hand.
“You two follow after me, got it?”
Both Masashi and Kobayashi nod.
Amaiaruheitō angles her entire arm and points her finger like a gun.
WHRR
The blood suddenly forms into a sphere around her finger.
Angling her finger more precisely, she brings her hand together before aiming.
STWOOVSH!
A stream of blood pierces one of the men in their abdomen.
“WHAT THE? When di-” One of the men yells in agony
“Alright lets go.”
Moving faster than anyone can see, Amaiaruheitō appears on top of the man she shot her blood at.
SLISCSH!
She slashes at the man’s neck, before putting her feet to his dome.
CRASH!
“That guy…”
“SHIT!”
The other man flips around with swiftness before shooting his rifle towards Amaiaruheitō.
Blocking a bullet, she dodges the rest of the fire flipping backwards and moving on to the walls.
“Where did sh-”
SPLISH!
A singular quick moving object pierces the man’s head.
Kobayashi moves in to retrieve his star he threw at the man’s skull.
“Amaiaruheitō, you should have gone for him first.”
“He made too much noise. Be ready at the moment’s notice.”
Amaiaruheitō sighs “My bad, I should have aimed more towards his head. But I didn’t want to overdo it.” before getting off the wall and wiping her blade clean of the blood.
Masashi witnessing all of that is in shock, He knew something like this would happen.
But he wonders if he has to kill someone tonight?
Or maybe in the future?
Amaiaruheitō moves in to check on Masashi.
“Hey you good?”
“Yeah, well it’s not like those few Kara’s I would face. Unlike those monsters these guys are actual humans. I am not sure someone like me can kill another person…” Masashi falters, unsure on how to finish his thought.
“You’re right. You should be in bed right now for school tomorrow. Not engaging in this.”
“But you don’t have to kill anyone if necessary, after all, it’s one of the aspects when coming into this line of work.”
Masashi breathes in.
“I know this is necessary and all. But to me people are not like those Kara’s, they’re not animals.”
Amaiaruheitō gently grabs his hand “Masashi, you’re shaking. Are you sure you’re alright? Are you okay with this?”
“Yeah… I’ll continue on.” He turns away not knowing what to do.
“If it helps you. An ordinary person like those guys would not be able to touch people like me, you and Mr. Kobayashi over there.”
“As long as we don’t encounter anyone who uses Tamaryoku we’ll be fine.”
Masashi wonders what is so different from the guys that died all the way in the alley way from his way from work.
To now, he questions why has this shaken a bit more than that ever could.
Before he questioned it, a slight wave of clarity spread across his mind.
He calms himself.
“Well we should start moving up, I think we alerted a few more. Though it’ll be a piece of cake.” Amaiaruheitō stretches before moving, readying her weapon at the truck bay.
Masashi pulls out his wakizashi.
“What do you plan to do Masashi?”
“Do you want to stay with us?”
Masashi looks at Amaiaruheitō with some fire in his eyes.
“I’ll act on my own. After all, I am the only one here with a personal grudge.”
“I’ll do this in the most concealing way I can think of.”
Masashi breathes in.
Before his form vanishes with the wind.
“And what is tha-”
“Huh where did he go? Did he just vanish?” Amaiaruheitō looks confused.
“Tsk. I thought Saijou told me his ability was only manifesting chains.”
TsszT
“Masashi? Can you hear me?”
His earpiece rings.
“Wait, I can hear you through my ability?”
“Ha apparently yeah.”
“Alright so what are you gonna do? Hurry up though I can hear guys coming in.”
“I’ll try to find a way in and meet up with the other squads. I’ll contact you again when you’re free.”
“Haha, that is the spirit Masashi, hey Kobayashi! These guys are coming in get re-”
The ear piece cuts off.
Tip
Tap
Tip
Tap
Striding through the quieter streets night falls upon everything, only a few people stay on the roads.
Sniffing the air she could tell it’s different, some people get drunk with their pals and others move in the shadows.
“I wonder where I’m even going now?”
Shimizu takes a moment to look at the lanterns and lights around being lit up in this fashion.
Having been a few days, she’s been out here since the sun has settled.
Mostly recovered, she doesn’t feel held back anymore, not even an ounce of pain comes to her side.
Only getting out of this world remains on her mind.
Tip
Tap
Tip
Tap
Her body freezes for a second, turning her head in the illuminated darkness she could have sworn someone was following behind her.
Even sensing something is out of the loop as she cannot pick up anything.
“I thought? Oh, must be a rodent or something.” Turning her head she is stunned as she jumps back.
A small statured woman just stands there in traditional clothing, her eyes closed and a smile that is constantly on her face.
“Are you that girl that came through with Kusa? I’ve heard about you. You’re not from this world right?” The woman inquires if she is the right person.
“Wait, how did you know? I wonder if I should even be trusting someone like you.” Shimizu still has her guard up.
The woman waves her hands.
“Oh no dear, I haven’t come to hurt you or anything. I just happened to visit Kusa’s shop and overheard a boy talking about some other worlder, then I questioned Kusa herself about it.”
“Oh? So you know.”
“Well, she told me about this purple-haired girl, and I took interest. But seeing you out here after a few days, I guess you recovered fast?”
Shimizu, still feeling like something is off, doesn’t let her guard down, as the woman doesn’t feel like an ordinary person.
The woman puts her hands up in shock.
“Hey don’t be so tense now, like I said. I don’t want to hurt you, I just heard about your situation and happen to know of a way.”
“You do?”
“Indeed, you want the veils right? I know a way to access them, I’ll help you get one.”
Shimizu scoffs at it.
“And is there a catch to all of this?”
The woman tilts her head.
“Well not really, if anything I guess you owe a bit of your time if you even come back. Well come on, if you want to do it, now is the time.”
She begins walking in the opposite direction, Shimizu eagerly wanting to find out more follows her cautiously.
“And what is your name?”
Stopping for just a moment the woman turns around, her eyes slowly open revealing glimmering silver eyes.
“Shashin Hana Itoha.”