Note: Sekirei belongs to Sakurako Gokurakuin and the only thing I own here is my OC.
Kara and I were walking in a part of Shinto Teito, just relaxing in the evening sun on a holiday from missions. Lately, the amount of missions we got increased so much that rarely did a week pass by without at least one. Considering that a mission on average took between 1 to 3 days and we demanded a day's worth of rest after each one, our timeline was rather busy. So one would understand our severe irritation when suddenly both Kara's and my phones began to ring. Only Minaka ever did that.
"What?" Kara asked with an irate tone after flipping open her phone. "This better be something damn important for you to interrupt our day off."
"But of-" The White Clown began his usual grand entrance before he was interrupted by an angry Takami.
"Shut up you Clown and let me do the talking." At this point we noticed something was odd. They weren't moving. The picture was being taken by the ceiling camera so we saw Minaka and Takami stand still with 5 kids of varying ages around them.
"I need you to get Takehito here, this stupid moron right here just messed around with a Jinki and it paralyzed us." Takami stated as she glared at Minaka who would've ran off squealing like a little girl if he could as much as twitch. "Takehito is one of very few who understands this thing and how it works and he is the only one in the city at the moment."
"Oh?" Kara smirked, amused at their troubles. "Didn't he retire to live with Miya who threatened to kill any MBI employees who step foot in her house?"
"Yes, but we need an expert here right now." Takami insisted. "I don't know what this retard did and he might've set off the ship's self-destruct sequence for all we know. That is why we need a Jinki expert and Takehito is the only one in Shinto Teito right now."
"Very well, we are on our way." I answered for both of us and we began to make our way to the Izumo Inn that Takehito and Miya Asama owned.
"Does she always greet her guests like so?" I asked Takehito who turned out to be a handsome man in his prime wearing a traditional style kimono.
"Karasuba mostly." He answered in a pleasant baritone as we watched Miya - a purple haired woman in a miko's outfit - and Kara argue, Miya violently and Kara sarcastically.
"Well, while Kara does her part," I turned to my target. "I think I shall do mine and take you away."
"What does Minaka want me for?" He asked after glancing at the haori I draped over my shoulders like a cape.
"According to Takami," I said coming closer and beginning to plan where to grab him and how to transport him." He was screwing around with a Jinki and did something that made them all paralyzed."
"Of course he would." He sighed and then quickly said before I grabbed him. "Not over the shoulder!"
I merely shrugged and took off, carrying him like a princess. While in transit, he contacted Takami and began to troubleshoot the situation, his face getting paler by the minute.
"He activated some sort of self-destruct system didn't he?" I groaned.
"Worse, he somehow triggered an area-of-effect deactivation protocol which would deactivate – kill basically – all Sekirei and Ashikabi in the immediate area." Takehito answered while at the same time face palming. "How did he even do that, I thought it took all 8 Jinki for that feature to even become available."
"You can fix this, right?" I glanced at him even as the MBI tower grew closer.
"Thankfully, a single Jinki doesn't have the power required to do more than kill everything in a short radius and this is after a significant delay to accumulate enough energy." Takehito explained as we began to jump up the tower, MBI had a series of ledges installed for Disciplinary Squad to come and go to their level quickly.
"As of now it's still powering up and depending on how much time we have I'll implement a solution."
"What if I were to send it to the Spirit Realm?" I offered as we reached the Disciplinary Squad level. "As far as we've experimented, nothing can get through the barrier between Living and Spirit Realms but me."
"You can do what?" Takehito stared at me in wonder as we entered the elevator which sped us up to the final floor.
"This is definitely a possibility." Takehito said as he ran his arm through me in a vain attempt to grab something while I was in Spirit Form. "Yes, let me tinker with it and then you can take it to this Spirit Realm as a precaution."
And just like that we burst into Minaka's office, everything still exactly as when the White Clown called Kara and me. We have Minaka in his usual pose, with a hand outstretched holding a crystal of some sort. Then we have Takami, frozen in mid-swing, her tablet en route to Minaka's face. And finally, we have 5 kids of various ages standing in a loose circle around the two of them.
Takehito wasted no time in snatching the crystal from Minaka and began to tap it in an order known only to him. Occasionally he'd twist and the crystal would shift to a different edge alignment with a unique series of clicks. As I watched, still in Soul Form, somehow he understood those clicks and his face grew grimmer.
"Hey Takami, where's Akitsu?" I asked, stopping before Takami and eyeing her posture with a light grin.
"I got her to stay behind and supervise the final preparations for departure of latest batch." Takami replied. "Thank the gods too; I'd rather not have her here if things are as serious as Takehito states."
"Rei." He called over. "I don't have time for anything but an alignment switch. When this thing goes off it will now instead strike out at anything non-Sekirei or Ashikabi, like myself."
I nodded and drew a small circle around the Jinki. I found that some of my abilities gained an alternate effect when used while in Spirit Realm as opposed to Living Realm. For instance, Gate:Swap swapped only a single object it actually touched rather than an area. The time the object stays in the Spirit Realm increases dramatically however. After taking it to the other side I quickly jumped back into the Living Realm, just in time to see the crystal pulse and give off a shaky muted blast of red energy.
The best way I could find to describe Gate:Swap was that if one was to in visualize the 2 realms as layer of water and oil, they'd separate out and never mix if undisturbed. What Gate:Swap did was grab a bubble of say oil – Living Realm - and hold it in water – Spirit Realm – until the ability has no more power to hold the bubble in place at which point it gets pushed out, back into its usual state. It was a little strange how going from Living Realm to Spirit Realm grabbed a big bubble which drained the energy the ability had much faster than the significantly smaller bubble – just enough for 1 comparatively small object – I could grab from Living Realm to Spirit Realm while I was in Spirit Realm. The closest explanation I could find was that when I went from Living Realm to Spirit Realm with Gate:Swap, I myself tore a much larger opening in the border between the realms which resulted in a lot more things getting sucked up as a result. While in Spirit Form the gate I opened was significantly smaller as it didn't have to account for me to get through – just whatever I was trying to drag in.
"Huh." I stared at the ghostly, see-through crystal that hanged in midair, exactly in the position it used to hold when I was still there, in Soul Form. "I didn't know I could do that."
"Excellent job, Takehito and Rei!" Minaka bounced around, finally free of the paralysis. His joy didn't last long though, as Takami unfroze next.
Somehow, Takehito and I turned into a wall behind which the kids cowered as they saw Takami beat Minaka into a bloody pulp screaming something about this being the reason why she had white hair.
"Hey Takami." Takehito watched with amusement as his onetime boss turned into a giant tenderized Meat Popsicle. "What was he trying to do with the Jinki anyway?"
"This-fucking-moron," Each word was punctuated with a Minaka scream before she finally had enough and stopped, just an inch short of actually killing the fool. "Tried to accelerate the growth of these Sekirei with a Jinki to start the Sekirei Plan early because he was god damn bored."
"Somehow, I am disappointed you beat this Clown to an inch of his life." I deadpanned as everyone stared at me incredulously. "This now prevents me from adding my share."
"So what are you going to do now with the kids?" Takehito asked Takami after we all finished laughing.
"What else is there to do?" Takami lit a cigarette. "106, 107 and 108 will go back into growth tubes; they are just far too young still. 104 and 105 on the other hand…"
She took a deep breath and stared hard at the oldest of the brats. I followed her gaze to find a pink haired girl with an odd flame in her dark red eyes and a gray haired girl who was currently poking the twitching remnants of Minaka.
"They haven't undergone Initiation yet but Minaka wants to groom them into a replacement for Yume." Takami finally stated, her cigarette nearly done.
"He realizes it's not possible, right?" This time, I truly deadpanned. "Yume was literally one of a kind cheat. No normally adjusted Sekirei could ever even hope to match her."
"Hey!" The pink haired girl stood up straighter and glared at me. "I don't know about her, but I am no weakling!"
"Oh?" I tilt my head a little to the right, staring at the girl with a smouldering flame in her eyes.
"Yes, we are not weak." The gray haired girl stood up slowly and turned to face me, her hair covering one of her eyes.
"But you are not Yume." I stated clearly, could they not understand this simple truth?
"We can be better!" The pink haired one said passionately.
This…this...
"Umm…" Takehito coughed into his hand as they all watched me fall to the floor in a clatter of armour, laughing my ass off.
"Better…then…Yume…" I squeezed out of myself as I began to cry from laughing so hard.
"What's so funny?" Pinky fumed.
"Ah…that was the best laugh I had in ages." I finally got up and used my mask to wipe the tears off my face. "Thank you."
"As much as I appreciated the laugh, I have better things to do Takami." I grabbed Takehito and proceeded to the elevator. "Nice seeing you and do tell Akitsu hi for me would you? If you're still around tomorrow, let's go for drinks!"
"Why…you…" Pinky growled and then rushed me as I walked on. "Don't ignore me!"
I shifted a little and suddenly the girl slammed her fist into a pillar which turned out to be harder than her fist. Hearing her bones break I smiled a little. Perhaps, after she finishes final adjustments, it would be worthwhile to take another look.
A roar and a sudden danger alarm from my instincts shook me out of my thoughts. I turned and blocked a punch from the pink haired girl with my gauntlet, an angry red aura engulfing her fist. So powerful were the blow and the shockwave that followed it that I even slid back half a foot. The energy management of said ability was piss poor though, as excess power erupted from her back in a parody of jet fire or dark red wings.
"Impressive." I stared at the panting girl who clutched her right arm in pain, blood dripping down it. "You managed to intrigue me, girl."
"I'll see you later, Benitsubasa." I teased the girl with a nickname I made up on the spot. "Perhaps you'll even interest Kara."
And with that, we were gone; the final sight of the girl was the determination in her eyes that stared into mine even as the door closed.