By the Grace of a Pebble Thrown
A Novelization of Battle Moon Wars
Chapter 1 – Under the Morning Sun's Light
It was early morning and the various paper pushers, overworked researchers, and hung-over agents of Shin'i were mostly busy drinking the mildly awful coffee from the communal break room to fend off their tiredness. In the briefing room on the second floor, however, a college student and a teenager were watching as a tortoise-shell colored cat named Mike cleaned himself expertly with his tongue.
Haruna yawned still feeling slightly groggy. Mike's call for both her and Takumi to come into headquarters had woken her up from the middle of the only nightmare-free sleep she had managed in a week, having just returned from hunting down a particularly powerful spirit murdering humans in Tokyo. Takumi, however, Haruna noted grouchily, looked completely awake. His unkempt green hair was busy dripping water slowly onto his leather jacket; obviously Mike's call had caught him in the midst of his customary post-training shower.
At least he had managed a shower and what looked like a change into a decent set of clean clothes, Haruna thought, although to be honest it was hard to tell with his unerring fondness for creepily similar brown slacks and light grey sweaters. Meanwhile, she had had to make do with her old school uniform from the Asagami Private Girl's Academy which while clean did nothing to wash away the feeling of sweat and grime from the last mission. Sighing, Haruna pulled out a chair and sat down not bothered about smoothing out her skirt; Mike was a cat and Takumi was like her big brother, they wouldn't care if she didn't act like the successor of a prestigious, supernatural family name like she had to in front of her parents.
While Haruna began the futile process of suppressing rogue tufts of pink hair, Takumi, tired of tapping his foot louder and louder against the floor in an effort to call his boss's attention back to the matter at hand, finally spoke up. "An emergency, sir?"
Mike stopped mid-stroke cutting Takumi a look that promised cleaning duty after long and disgusting cleaning duty in the process and subsequently sat up right settling into a position reminiscent of an Egyptian guardian sphinx.
"That's right. Surely you've heard about Misaki City?" he asked the two of them in a voice much too deep and human for a non-supernatural cat to have.
There was a second's silence before Haruna tentatively began to speak. "If I remember right, a vampire princess, a curry-obsessed church solider and other strong people gathered there and ended up in a last-man standing battle royale a year ago. This created stagnation, destroying the balance of the land and allowed evil spirits to rise up. They were expelled with the town guardian's help, but not before the city had suffered immensely." She finished, yawning again and leaning backwards in her seat.
Takumi blinked unable to believe such a far-fetched situation had happened without as much as a briefing about it. "What's that?"
Mike nodded, taking the chance to lick a soot-colored paw with which he began to use to clean his ears and face. "That's pretty much correct." Haruna turned back to look at Takumi and grinned proudly.
"How could that be right?" Takumi scoffed looking back at Haruna.
Haruna scowled letting some of tired frustration into her voice. "It's true! I heard it directly from Misaki's guardian!" Mike just looked on uncaring as his two charges argued.
"One of your friends?" Takumi asked raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, her name's Akira Tohno." Haruna replied pointing at her school uniform. "This uniform is from the private academy we went to together; plus, both of us were in the archery club together."
"I guess that makes sense then. You do have a tendency to know all the right people." Takumi conceded shrugging, looking away from Haruna to focus on Mike who began to speak again on cue. Haruna however continued to glance at Takumi while Mike spoke, unsure how to take his allusion to her family's' various political connections.
"As Haruna said, Misaki City is in an unstable region. That area was made so incredibly stagnant that it's no wonder that so many evil spirits sprung up. But when the town guardian expelled them, the power unleashed by the guardian and the souls she watches over only managed to suppress the stagnation present in the city." Mike stopped to scratch his ear a few times before continuing, "Two days ago, our agents in Misaki sent out a distress call reporting that the new balance the guardian created has deteriorated."
"What signs are there?" Takumi inquired.
"Apparently, the stagnation is already beginning to spread again and at a rate unprecedented in such cases," Mike answered showing his evident disbelief by not pausing in his intensive cleaning efforts.
Haruna disregarded her boss's cynical outlook on the situation, more concerned with the safety with her old friend. "What makes them think that?" She asked.
"This hasn't been made public by the police yet," he replied sitting back up and fixing the two in his sight, "but there have been a number of unexplained murders spread over a two mile radius." Takumi and Haruna grimaced; both knew that if the murders were so spread out it could only mean the stagnation was terrible enough to give physical form to malevolent spirits.
"The police believe it's the work of a serial killer," Mike continued his voice softer now, "but it could also be attributed to the poisonous effects of the stagnation and the creatures it would give birth to."
His two agents stood silently, unmoving, and Mike wondered once again whether it was a mistake sending such young agents, regardless of their amazing personal accomplishments, into the field.
Takumi cleared his throat and began to speak again. "Did the distress call say anything else?"
"Yes, one more thing." Mike said nervously; he sat up and began to pace nervously in a tight circle.
Haruna glanced meaningfully at Takumi who nodded in agreement. Whatever it was Mike was concerned about was the true reason Shin'i was interested in Misaki City; Shin'i would never send agents into guardian's territory without their express permission unless under extremely dire circumstances.
Takumi pressed onwards. "What is it, sir?"
Mike slowed his restless pacing but didn't stop as he began to talk. "We don't have enough information to back this up. But the call stated that Misaki City seems to be becoming "hallowed ground."
"An entire town becoming hallowed ground…"Haruna breathed out, sharing looks of horrified disbelief with Takumi. Hallowed ground was a blessing for Youkai, humans who possessed supernatural powers, as it released higher than normal amounts of mana as well barred evil spirits from inhabiting the area it covered. However, the process of creating hallowed ground required sacrifice, or in a more precise sense the burial of bodies, hundreds of human corpses.
Mike nodded, his tail drooping. "Yes, I can't believe it either. In all honesty, I believe and hope our agents to be mistaken."
"Have you seen anything like this happen before?" Takumi asked, still slightly shaken by the idea of such a development, unconsciously clenching his right hand into a near fist as if to grasp a sword hilt.
"Indeed, a few times over the centuries. However, those incidents took much longer to develop. Regardless, the rapid growth of Misaki City's stagnation and these series of murders must be related."
Haruna and Takumi nodded. "If so," Haruna mused, "they really are in trouble."
Mike stopped his pacing and summoned all his conviction into his vocal cords as he faced them. "Right. Unfortunately, the local government won't long be able to cover up and control the situation. Thus, your mission is to find the town guardian, Akira Tohno, and confirm these reports with her help. If the reports turn out to be true, then you must find whatever is disturbing the balance of the ground in the region and destroy it before its too late."
Haruna and Takumi confirmed their mission with a simple "roger" then turned to leave; but before they could make it to the door, Mike called out.
"Takumi, Megami told me to tell you that he has the prototype of the sword you commissioned ready."
Takumi nodded, unable to hold back a smile at the thought of holding the next incarnation of Futsu-no-Mitama in his hands. "I'll go and collect it before I leave."
"Make sure you thank him, he's been pulling all nighters getting that thing ready for you." Mike reminded him.
"Of course, sir."
"And both of you," Mike shouted out before the two could finally take their leave, "make sure you come back safe. Shin'i can't afford to lose you. Good luck."
Takumi smiled and nodded while Haruna grinned and replied, "Of course. If I plan to be as respected as Kuu, I can't die anytime soon. We'll be back as soon as we can." With that said Haruna walked back in and gave Mike's fur a final good-bye ruffle before exiting through the doorway followed by Takumi who waved a reserved farewell.
Mike stared at the door, almost wishing he could call his students back for a second, before shifting into his favored position for cleaning his rump and deciding to later sacrifice that annoying bird outside the window to any gods and benevolent spirits for their safety.
"Of course not." He chuckled softly before pushing the briefing room's door closed with his telekinesis.
By late afternoon, Takumi and Haruna had made it to Misaki City by way of one of Shin'i's company cars driven, rather poorly, by Takumi. "All the sword training he did clearly left no time to learn to not continually drift all over the road," Haruna had thought as she gritted her teeth at the umpteenth close call.
In comparison, it proved to be a simple matter to rent out a simple two bed room in one of the dingier and cheapest hotels of the city as their temporary base of operations. Thankfully, after a brief inspection, it appeared that no vermin or insects made their homes in this room and all the bed sheets and covers were washed to acceptable cleanness. It definitely wasn't the best room the two had ever occupied but it definitely wasn't the worst.
The electric lights of the city had replaced that of the sun by the time Haruna and Takumi were beginning to prepare for their first preliminary sweep of city. Both clipped on one of Shin'i's patented EDS (Electronic Device Scrambler) devices in order to not accidently show up carrying lethal weaponry on CCTV cameras and cause problems with the local police. The two Youkai glanced at each other and quickly looked away; both remembering the humongous chewing out Mike had given them after letting a chase between the two of them and a possessed sledgehammer of all things be recorded by about half the cameras in Tokyo. Haruna rubbed her right shoulder while Takumi scratched the back of his head; the severity of their mistake had been drilled in to them permanently by Mike with the aid of pieces of telekinetically thrown furniture. It was also where their unfortunate moniker of 'Team Obvious' had come from; the office hands still used it behind their backs to this day.
While Takumi left the room to go retrieve his mysterious prototype sword from within a compartment in their car, Haruna pulled out the pieces of her modified P90 from her luggage and arranged them precisely in front of her. Assembling the submachine gun from its component parts was second nature to her now, and she let her fingers drift over the gun's component parts, the cold metal and plastic soothing away her worries and tension. Effortlessly, she slotted each piece into its appropriate place finishing by clipping in a fresh magazine. To the untrained eye, it looked unmodified, a simple unmodified FN P90, but an expert would note the thicker than normal stock and strange waved grip design; it was underneath this inexplicable mod that the blood and sweat of Shin'i's research department beat allowing a Youkai's power to shoot effortlessly out of muzzle along with a bullet.
After attaching a strap onto the submachine gun, she let it rest against her left hip as she pulled out her standard issue Spirit Dagger and placed it in the front pocket of her white button down shirt. Hearing keys in the lock, Haruna looked at the door and after a few seconds was graced with the first look at the 5th incarnation of Futsu-no-Mitama.
There were only four words which could encapsulate what she saw, which were 'unbelievably large' and 'obscenely bulky'. While the main body looked sleek, crafted from specially forged blue and white-gold coloured alloys with interspersed vents, the space right above the hilt, which itself looked to be made of metal piping, was a large piece of bare metal covered in screws and bolts. It only got worse as just below the metal slab was grafted a three-dimensional rhombus painted in the garish warning colours of black and yellow.
Takumi noticed Haruna's slack-jawed stare and smiled proudly, "it's a work of art, isn't it?"
"That's not quite how I would put it but it is impressive," Haruna squeaked out, trying hard not to shout out that it was the largest eyesore she had ever seen. "What happened to your old Futsu-no-Myitma?"
"Unfortunately to make this prototype work, the remnants of the original Futsu-no Mitama," Takumi said making sure to enunciate each syllable of the sword's name, "had to be extracted from my old sword making it useless."
Haruna nodded, "Are we ready then?"
Takumi looked around their sparse motel room for a second before nodding, "Yes, I think so. After you."
With that, Haruna and Takumi left their apartment, making sure to lock it behind them, to start their first patrol of Misaki City.