Author's Notes: Its been a long time coming but here's the second chapter of By Grace of a Pebble Thrown. Third one should be out a lot sooner.
Chapter 2- A Visitor in the Night
It was a minute to midnight and the streets of Misaki City were all deserted; the residents long since coming to an understanding that those who wandered the streets at the witching hour tended to become the newest additions to the front page the next morning. Only the sounds of cars moving swiftly along main roads and bridges remained to serve as a sign that Misaki City was still inhabited by the living. It was in this near soundless realm that Takumi and Haruna found themselves.
For the past few hours, they had been trying to triangulate a place in the city that contained higher stagnation than the rest. They had stuck to the sprawling system of back alleys and ruined buildings that made up the poorer section of Misaki City in order to avoid having their night vision erased by the street lights lining the main roads. Now, they found themselves having to force away thoughts of self-mutilation and murder as they walked closer to what felt to be the center of the stagnation in the city.
Most of the alleyway was covered in bags of rubbish, some of which had either burst open or been eaten through their insides strewn across the ground making footing treacherous. An awful stench grew as they pressed onward and with each step they took a sickening cracking accompanied as the rotting remains grew around them.
For a moment, Haruna wondered where all the rats and flies were; a decayed feast littered the ground but there was not so much as a skitter in the darkness. It wasn't long before her eyes were drawn to the floor as a sickeningly fleshy crunch came from under foot. Haruna paled as she removed her foot from what had once been the chest of a rat but was now home to hundreds of writhing maggots. As she looked up from the distressing sight, she noticed the same rhythmic writhing from deep inside the ruptured bags around her. Despite the ill feeling gripping her stomach, Haruna tried to peer deeper into the refuse; the writhing motion…didn't seem quite natural, thought Haruna, but before she could examine it in more detail, she noticed Takumi was getting ahead of her and ran forward to catch up.
Haruna shivered, casting nervous glances at the shadows her night vision did not illuminate and hefted her P90 not yet switching off the safety. "This place gives me the creeps."
Takumi frowned, similarly tightening his grip on his sword. "Definitely. The stagnation must have had time to corrupt the ground here heavily," he said as they reached the middle of the alley.
Haruna immediately felt like being sick; the stagnation was so heavy here, the natural poisonous effect it had on the body and mind was at least ten times stronger. It clawed at her soul; her eyes widened in panic as she felt it stroke her Power calling out to the sealed strength within. 'Don't look at Takumi, don't look at Takumi' Haruna repeated to herself forcing her eyes to glimpse the varied deaths of maggots instead, desperately fighting to keep control of her seal.
Takumi, a pinnacle of self-control, meanwhile found himself having to fight to keep a hold on to his dinner; noticing a side alley just ahead he kept moving allowing his sword to grind across the ground in his wake for Haruna to follow. Breaths swiftly became shallower as the two Youkai's lungs began to deteriorate and even minor movements were struggles to accomplish as the sheer weight of the stagnation bore down on their bodies.
Haruna turned to Takumi as the two of them finally pushed through the stagnation into a side alley, drenched in sweat but otherwise alright. "Well?"
Takumi glanced back at the blighted alley. "Since that alley was so incredibly tainted, it must be the origin. I'd hate to think that there was a more tainted area present in this city."
Haruna nodded. "Yeah, that alley definitely felt like was the most stagnant part of the city that we've encountered so far."
"There appears to be something awakening here." Takumi said eyes still focused back on alley looking for any physical manifestation of the taint. Looking up the alley's walls, he noticed a crow sitting calmly on a rusted fire escape railing calmly preening its feathers. Takumi lifted his weapon, keeping his eye on the strange crow; something was definitely wrong here.
It was the same instant that the crow turned and revealed its eyeless face to him that Takumi heard Haruna flip off the P90's safety and release a quick burst of fire.
"Hostiles, 12 o'clock!" She shouted as the power-filled bullets impacted into the almost comically over-sized head of a robot-like clay doll that had appeared at the entrance to the alley. The doll's head was blown off by the impact and the rest of its body crumbled into dust; the metal tomahawk it had been holding clanked and bounced off the ground once before another clay hand rose soundlessly out of ground and claimed it. Haruna swiftly shot it to pieces but just as the clay shards reached the ground ten more hands erupted from the earth swiftly joined by their cursed hollow bodies. Each head that rose from the ground held the same hollows in its face in a cruel mockery of eyes and a mouth. Haruna swore that there was some movement behind those hollows but nothing revealed itself in the light of the flash of her gun's muzzle.
Takumi, meanwhile, was trying to fend off the crow which kept swooping in to try to claw at his face but retreated before he could bring it low with his sword. Frustrated, Takumi accidently swung his sword too far allowing the crow the opportunity it needed to finish its offensive; realizing his mistake, Takumi dropped his sword; covering his face with his hands just before the tainted crow struck. His hands quickly became marked with bloody gashes from the flying fiend's claws.
Takumi winced. His hands were blocking his vision; the frenzied movements and sounds of the crow made it impossible to tell where his attacker's main body was. Desperately throwing his left hand blindly forward, he felt it close around the crow's torso. A simple squeeze was all it took to break the crow's ribs and spine, finally ending its undead existence. Throwing away the foul corpse, Takumi swung his body low and stretched out his hand to grasp his fallen sword. He effortlessly lifted the bulky weapon with a single hand before using his second to still its momentum.
Wincing, as his muscles rippled painfully against his cuts, Takumi turned his head to check on the status of his younger partner. He blinked in awe. Twinkling stars of metal were to be seen scattered among a sea of blackened clay that stretched all the way to the mouth of the alley; just on the edge of the terracotta holocaust was his partner leaning on a wall, gasping for breath.
Haruna smiled wanly as Takumi hurried over. "I'm not injured," she said shaking her head to stop Takumi from checking for wounds, "the stagnation just affects me more." Haruna sighed as she still saw his eyes worriedly scan her body from feet to hair. 'Just like a real big brother,' she thought smiling as she pushed herself away from the wall.
Not for the first time, Haruna found herself thanking her Youkai heritage, the Power she had used quickly returning and infusing her body with its old vigor. By the time she stood beside Takumi, the two Shin'I operatives felt ready for battle again.
"Obviously, our presence here caused the stagnation to spawn creatures to protect itself," Takumi mused, ever the thinker of the two, still gripping his sword fiercely just in case more enemies made themselves present.
Haruna shrugged, more interested in the process of spreading out her senses in order to touch the contaminated space of the larger alley beyond. Takumi waited keeping watch until she returned to herself.
"If that's true, then obviously that summoning cost it; the stagnation's almost completely gone from the alleyway and even the level of stagnation here is less." She said smiling broadly at Takumi; if stopping the stagnation was as simple as destroying the creatures it summoned, Haruna thought, then this mission was going to be over before it even started.
Takumi returned Haruna's smile with one of his own reading her thoughts with the ease of long-time partner. "Unfortunately, it's not going to be that easy."
"And why not?" Haruna huffed.
"While causing the stagnation to react and summon creatures will weaken it; it's only temporary solution…"
"Because whatever's causing this, will still be creating more stagnation which will cause even more areas like this to pop up." Haruna finished. "God, why aren't our jobs ever simple?"
"Probably because otherwise we'd get bored," answered Takumi lightheartedly and the two shared a smile.
However, their comradely reverie shattered as a loud crash emanated from the once-stagnant alley. Quickly, the two grasped their weapons and with a nod, Takumi rushed into the alley while Haruna took cover at the corner so she could give covering fire. But as she peered round the corner, her eyes met Takumi's who was starting to kneel down next to a pile of rubbish further into the alley; he gave her the signal to move up. Approaching cautiously, Haruna spotted what had made Takumi pause. In the center of the rubbish, face down, was a man.
Easily six foot, he was thankfully wearing clothes, the full ensemble of a teenager's t-shirt jeans, socks and trainers, although Haruna couldn't make out what color they were in the darkness of the alleyway. But both Takumi and Haruna knew this was no reason to throw caution to the wind, too many spirits took on disguises to get the jump on unsuspecting or naïve operatives.
Haruna kept the muzzle pointed at the man's head as Takumi placed his sword under the man's body flipping the man and pulling his sword back to strike in an effortless motion. Haruna's finger tightened on the trigger, even the slightest twitch would send a Power-filled bullet into the stranger's head. However, no provocation to that action came; lying at their feet was a human being, his face covered by a piece of paper that had managed to remain stuck to his face despite the forceful flip.
Haruna chuckled as the human blew the offending paper off his face as he breathed out revealing closed eyes behind a pair of thick glasses held together by thin wire. Both Youkai waited for any kind of response but the human seemed intent on slumber.
Takumi frowned; the sudden appearance of this human did nothing more than complicate matters but… "Haruna."
"What is it?"
"You know the location of the guardian of Misaki right?"Takumi asked.
"Yeah, you want me to report what we've found to Akiha and bring this guy somewhere safe right?" Haruna replied as she braced her arms under the sleeping human.
"Exactly, I'll continue patrolling the city and see what effect our weakening of this area's stagnation had on the rest of the city." Takumi couldn't help but smile a little as Haruna let out a groan as she lifted the dead weight; despite her complaining, he knew that the sleeper's weight was as nothing to her just as Futsu-no-Mitama was to him.
Haruna nodded, shifting her charge slightly for balance. "Should we meet up again at the hotel room?"
Takumi shook his head, "Give me the location of the guardian and I'll meet you there."
As she began to draw delicately on her Power, Haruna gave Takumi the address and some simple directions. As Takumi left, Haruna's Power finally began to flow freely out of her body; the plastic bags rustled as the putrid air stirred in its wake. Soon, Haruna's feet were no longer burdened with having to walk on earth. Even if her Power drew the envy of others and caused no end of problems, she would never give it up because of the gift it gave her: flight. She grinned freely as she accelerated towards the sky while the human cradled in her arms gave no sign of worry besides shifting imperceptibly away from the sudden caress of night air.
Meanwhile, the maggots and worms hidden in the refuse turned their eyeless heads to watch the retreating figure disappear into the moon-lit sky.