Chapter 1, Part 4 / Intertwining Fates Sealed Within Interchangeable Motions
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"—And as such, I believe that people of less fortunate circumstances need their chance to come back and be a proper part of society once again. As people of better standings, we need to be the ones to help them out and improve their lives for the better until they can get back on their feet once again, or even perhaps, the first time in their lives."
Ikaruga's voice was spread throughout the room as she spoke on the microphone.
She was at a center meant for conventions and events. In this case, it was a fundraiser for the people in the slums. While it wasn't as if Ikuraga hadn't contributed money towards the proceeds herself, it was far better to be spreading awareness in order to expand people's perspective. Sometimes, people do have a bad tolerance for those that they deemed unimportant to their lives and treat them as bugs, wandering aimlessly under their feet.
… For some reason, the image of her brother suddenly appeared in her head, but that was a far digression she didn't need while making her speech.
She needed to stay focused, because not only was this presentation made for the crowd before her, but there were cameras pointed towards her, being live-streamed online to ensure that the message could reach as many people as possible. This wasn't the first time she was up on a stage like this, so Ikaruga Houou has been a name that's been building up to be a very charitable person. It'll make things even easier for the image of the Phoenix Conglomerate when she eventually steps up to replace her father in name. It might make things easier for her brother if she kept up this sort of image.
"I know if we can have support in the community, we'll be able to ensure that this type of misfortune is reduced, significantly if we can. Not only will this be helpful to some of the poorer members of our society, but it can give a future to the children that were raised up in those conditions. I believe they shouldn't be restricted based on how they were born."
While some people might be able to say things like that without meaning it, Ikaruga truly cherished those words since she herself has met those children from the slums. Their eyes were constantly bright, not knowing that their potential was even brighter than what laid ahead of them without help.
To be honest, she might not have seen it, if it weren't for an important friend of hers.
"Please, let us work together in order to bring about better tomorrows. I, Ikaruga Houou, will work earnestly in order to aide those living in the slums, so if any kind of support is provided, I will ensure that all of our efforts will move onwards to this united goal."
Ikaruga bowed her head to the audience, wrapping up her speech.
"Thank you for listening."
An applause came about for her as she moved off-stage.
One of her family assistants provided her a bottle of purified water and Ikaruga gently drank it to get her throat less dry. She had been talking for a lengthy duration and while she thought about bringing a water bottle with her on stage, she knew that once she started talking, she wasn't going to stop until it was done. That water bottle was better served waiting in a refrigerator, so when she got it, it would be refreshing and nice to drink.
Ever since she graduated from Hanzo Academy, her life has been quite busy.
Already mentioning university and her shinobi missions, there were also these external events she would help to manage. They would mostly be charities, and her family members would always make sure that she wasn't overworking herself, but to some degree, Ikaruga believed in Murasame's words.
It was because she was the child of the Houou Family that she needed to uphold the name in some way. While academics and shinobi missions were important, this would help push herself into the limelight for the future that awaited the Houou siblings.
Although, it certainly meant that she didn't have much time to meet up with her friends and hang out with them because her schedule was constantly packed. Even though a fellow shinobi classmate graduated at the same time as her, they barely saw each other anymore. Her friend wasn't heading to university like Ikaruga was, merely heading off to work full-time immediately.
In any case, Ikaruga was willing to admit that she was missing the old days with her friend, even if they were from a year ago. After all, they didn't exactly start off on a strong start, but by the end of their highschool years, they were great friends that could trust one another.
… She didn't miss her constant fondling though.
That part, she could really do without.
Ikaruga desperately hoped that the next time they met in person, her friend would have already dropped those antics by now. Ikaruga prayed that her friend wouldn't be embarrassing herself with other shinobis that she would get paired with on missions, but shame wasn't a word in her friend's dictionary.
However, there were still the friends that hadn't graduated yet.
It was probably a bad thing for her to not have dropped by to visit them, right? She always made a quick reminder to do that whenever she had the time, but it simply hasn't come to her yet. It's not as if she lost touch with them, considering that all five of them were still in the same chatroom on their phones.
Speaking of which, she should probably tell them how it went.
She texted a quick message to them, to which she received quick replies from everyone. Apparently, they were watching the broadcast, praising her for how professional she looked on stage. For all that she was happy to hear from them, she needed to quickly sort herself.
Just because the speech was finished, it didn't mean that her job was done here. There was still far more she had to do before the day was over in the charity event, but as she turned off her phone, she heard a familiar voice calling out.
"Ikaruga! Over here!"
A girl with long blonde hair with a green clip in it waved gently from the sideline. The familiar face caused Ikaruga to smile as she handed the bottle back to her assistants and came up to the friend.
"Yomi! I'm glad you made it!"
"If you were helping in coordinating an event such as this to help out the people in the slums, I don't think I could ever miss out on this. Of course, I wanted to see the fruits of your hard work."
Yomi, despite her refined demeanor, was someone similar to Ikaruga, that being a shinobi, but the differences came where they were aligned. Unlike Ikaruga, Yomi was considered to be an evil shinobi and back then, they have fought against one another in the line of their duties. Compared to someone like Ikaruga, her upbringing had been difficult because she was raised in the slums, so she considered those of wealth as her enemies, ergo believing Ikaruga to be an opponent of a personal vendetta.
When an incident occurred, causing Ikaruga to siege the evil shinobi school alongside her classmates, it was Yomi who had been her opponent and they steeled themselves for a fight to the death.
—Anyways, stuff happened and they managed to reconcile.
And due to circumstances, Yomi was still in highschool, despite being the same age as Ikaruga. It was a decision made by her de-facto leader of the group, since they were on the run as renegades for a bit of time, after wrapping up an incident in Kyoto. Her group of friends even became good friends with Ikaruga's group of friends after that matter, despite being on opposing sides of the shinobi world.
"When I didn't see you, I thought you weren't coming," Ikaruga said.
"I wouldn't miss it even if the world started to burn down to mere ashes."
By the way, Yomi had a very polite tone, but the words that can come out can have a significant gap in them. It was something Ikaruga already got used to.
"I was simply held up a bit when I came by to visit the slums this morning."
"Oh? Did something happen?"
Yomi's expression grew slightly grim. "You see, one of the children disappeared overnight. You remember Kei, right?"
Ikaruga nodded. Since Ikaruga visited the slums every so often for volunteer help, she was introduced to some of the children that Yomi helped to take care of whenever she was there. Sometimes, it was even under cover as a masked hero on a stage.
"His mother was desperately trying to find him, so I offered to help out. However, I wasn't able to track down any clues as to where he could have ran off to."
"That's…"
"I spent the entire morning and some of the afternoon trying to figure out where he could have gone, but I ended up with nothing to show for it. And I said that I was going to come to this event, so I had to cut my search short for a bit to see you."
"Now I feel bad for keeping you here. If there's a child out there that's lost, I can't leave this problem alone in good conscience." Ikaruga pulled out her phone and started making calls. "I'll have some people look out for him and make some investigations on their own."
"Aah…" Yomi wryly smiled. "Maybe I should have come to you before handling it myself…"
"It's better late than never. Even if we're supposed to be enemies on paper, it doesn't ripple whatever bond we have. After all, me and my friends are rather fond of your group, right? If you ever need help with something within our boundaries, we would certainly be willing to lend assistance."
She connected her call to a few contacts that would help out in extending the search once Ikaruga provided with Kei's details and within a few minutes, she turned off her phone.
"There. Now we have more people looking out for Kei."
"I really do appreciate it. I'm sure Kei's all scared right now, being all by himself."
"It's these types of instances where a phone would come in handy. Are you sure you don't want me to buy you one? It doesn't have to be an expensive model, if that's not your taste."
"It's fine, but…" Yomi cheerfully sighed. "I am starting to see the benefits of having one. I'll likely consider it, but find one that isn't very expensive! I won't accept it otherwise!"
"Of course," Ikaruga laughed. "Now, I shouldn't be keeping you here. You probably want to head back out to continue searching for Kei, right?"
"That should have been my line. I'm the one keeping you here from your charity event."
"If we do find him, I'll make sure he gets back home all safe and sound."
"That's all I can ask for."
After their brief conversation, Yomi went on her way, leaving Ikaruga to continue her day, but merely a few moments later, her phone started to ring. She thought it was a bit too quick for the search to have some sort of update, but when she looked at the called identity, she was surprised.
"... Huh?"
For him to call at this time of day, it was certainly odd. She thought he would have been in his meeting with the Tengu Foundation right about now, but she wasn't going to turn down a call from Murasame. She answered it and brought the phone against her ear.
"Brother?"
"Ikaruga! Quickly, you've got to—!"
The call suddenly cut off. She pulled her phone away to redial back the number, but no matter how many times she did it, the connection wouldn't go through. His words were already unclear to hear, but this was starting to worry her.
One of the assistants came by, seeing that Ikaruga hadn't moved on as per the schedule demanded it yet, and called out for her.
"Lady Ikaruga? Have you gotten ready for the interview? As a reminder, you need to be back at the front in order to take questions for the event."
However, she then noticed that Ikaruga was frozen in her spot, sweating a bit.
"... Lady Ikaruga?"
"I'm sorry, but there's been an emergency that happened." Ikaruga pocketed her phone hastily and rushed past the assistant. "Please pass that message onwards that I won't be available."
"H-how long?"
"I'm not sure, but—"
Ikaruga's eyes narrowed, focusing on the problem. If she didn't, her worries would consume her. Even if something small had happened, Murasame wouldn't have called her in any circumstances, knowing that she had her hands full with the event. Under any circumstances, Murasame wouldn't have simply called her, sounding so panicked, as a joke or anything close to one.
Something happened.
"—this is something I must attend to as soon as possible."
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Murasame gulped.
With one guard behind him and a handful of evil shinobis in front of him, added to the mix a boy who didn't exactly have an ounce of wariness in his bones, Murasame knew for a fact that this wasn't something he could easily get himself out from. In the worst case scenario, he could always push up the kid beside him as a scapegoat, but something told him that it wouldn't fly here.
He had to figure something else out and quickly, but then—
"Are you three the source of the commotion!?"
"... You three?"
—Murasame had a wild idea, seeing that the shinobis and the guards didn't know each other's identities. Or at the very least, the shinobis didn't know the guards.
"Don't worry, I'm with—"
Just as the guard tried to clear things up, Murasame spoke loudly to make sure that the evil shinobis couldn't hear the explanation.
"Alright! You two!"
He looked over to Isayuki and the guard.
"You guys distract them while I take them down methodically!"
"Okay!" Isayuki cheerfully nodded, but he bit his lips before staring blankly at Murasame. He raised his hand with the same enthusiasm. "How do I distract them!?"
"Wait, are you talking to me!?" the guard frowned, flinching.
Two spectrums that he needed to take care of, but there was only one that he needed to suppress in order to make it more convincing. He nudged Isayuki and whispered for him to be quiet, to which he attentively respected. He tried to make the whisper as non-noticeable as possible, by slowly turning his head over to the guard and speaking during the motion.
"Huh? Of course I'm talking to you, obviously!" Murasame pointed to the guard dramatically. "You're on our side, right!?"
"Are you stupid!?"
"Are you turning your back on us already!? We've got this fight in the back! Two of us, one of you against the three of them! It's an equal fight, dumbass!"
"Turning my back—!?" The guard looked absolutely flabbergasted at what he was hearing. "What the hell are you saying!?"
"You helped us take down the guard you were paired with after I made that offer to you. Don't tell me that you already forgot that I gave you a salary that was far greater, and likely more legal, than whatever shithole this place is providing for you?"
"Wh-wha—!?"
Through Murasame's confusing lies, he pulled Isayuki along with him as he recoiled back to the guard's side, as if he was legitimately regrouping with the man. Keeping the guard in between them and the evil shinobis, Murasame had a split second to make his next move before the guard could turn on them or he did whatever anybody would do in this situation.
Quote, unquote. To sell out their allies.
"Money doesn't earn itself! Go forward, my temporary peon!"
"What are you—!? H-hey!"
Murasame kicked the guard forwards into the shinobis before he had a chance to realize what was happening. The three shinobis launched outwards in order to take down the flailing guard and out of instinct, he struck back in order to stop himself from getting hurt.
That was the last thing he should have done if he wanted to stay safe.
"Kid! Run with me! Let our friend there handle it!"
"Okay! I'll follow behind you, Mister Murasame!"
Turning on the toes, Murasame and Isayuki started running while the guard unintentionally bought them time. Through the clashes, Murasame could hear the guard frantically trying to explain the situation, but the evil shinobis weren't listening. They were of the belief that he was an enemy, but it didn't require all three shinobis to defeat one guard.
One of them "slipped" through and chased down Murasame and Isayuki.
Now, considering Murasame's lack of ability when it came to being a shinobi, the one thing he did have a rightful confidence in was his running. He was able to keep up with his sister in terms of speed, but like everything regarding his physical abilities, there was a caveat.
"Mister Murasame! Where are we heading!?"
"Don't worry about that! Just keep running! Our enemy is right on our tail!"
Translation; "I have no goddamn clue! Stop asking me questions! We're going to fucking die!"
Surprisingly, Isayuki was not only able to keep up with Murasame down the halls, but he didn't look like he was sweating too much to do so. That was a positive for Murasame, since he didn't need to babysit the sudden companion for a bit.
They headed down an alternate hallway that went away from the prison cells, but they were no closer to any sort of stairwell that could bring them up to an escape. At the very least, they needed to somehow lose this shinobi.
There were a few utility carts in the hallway, similar to what someone could find in a hospital, so Murasame broke his speed and grabbed the handle. However, his caveat played into effect, the fact that he was terrible at stopping, so he tripped over himself and tumbled and caused the cart to roll over into Isayuki's path. The shinobi was quickly approaching, so as a last ditch effort—
"Kid! Take the cart and throw it right into the enemy!"
Whoops. Did he say "throw"? He meant to say to "roll" it right into the enemy in order to slow them down, but just as Murasame's command came out, Isayuki grabbed the handle in his steed and twisted his body with a pendulum-like momentum.
"I'm on it right away, Mister Murasame!"
And he actually threw it over his shoulder.
It wasn't a light one either.
"Grah!"
With paperwork, test-tubes, and miscellaneous objects flying all over the hallways, the airborne cart crashed into the shinobi who hadn't been expecting that sort of move. It definitely dazed them for a brief moment. That wasn't the strength of a normal person his age, that was for sure, but there were more pressing matters on hand than to wonder about that.
Murasame grabbed Isayuki's attention by stumbling back onto his feet.
"C'mon, kid! This way!"
As Isayuki twirled back to chase after Murasame, letting his long white hair fly with the spin, he heard the shinobi try to get back up.
"You're not getting away!"
Isayuki looked over his shoulder to see something flying towards him and without any precaution, it struck him right in his back. He staggered slightly, feeling a sharp object piercing his back, but it didn't have enough force to stay in there.
His subtle sways managed to slide it right out, but seeing that Murasame was still running ahead of him, he did his best to ignore what happened and continued to follow him.
It was good to assume that the shinobi had already recovered and was back on their feet, but in the distance, Murasame noticed a room marked as the armory. That must be where the weapons would be and as such, they might find something useful there.
It was unfortunately locked by a keycard which would be a problem—
—if he hadn't pick-pocketed the guard from before.
He slammed the keycard into the reader and the door opened up. Isayuki quickly followed inside, also sliding through as if the floor was slippery, leaving Murasame a single scan of the area in order to determine the best weapon in this situation.
(Guns, blades, explosives…)
(Yep, this was an armory, alright.)
Despite all the potent weapons that could provide offense retaliation, it was no good if it made too loud of a sound. That was the reason why his eyes locked onto a few canisters on the wall. Dropping his kusarigama, Murasame grabbed the canisters and ran back to the door, opening it quickly.
Pulling the pin, Murasame tossed it outside.
"Special delivery, for one annoying shinobi on our trail!"
Hoping for the best, a bright light suddenly exploded from the hallway, almost blinding the shinobi and causing them to stagger backwards.
"... Is a flashbang supposed to be that strong? Ugh, questions for later!"
He had a second canister, one that was different to the first, and tossed it out.
"Alright, kid! Run once this one goes off!"
Once the canister landed on the ground, smoke quickly spreaded out in the area and as Isayuki was about to run out, Murasame then suddenly grabbed the kid and pulled him away from the door. Isayuki was about to ask questions, but his mouth was covered up to block him from speaking any further.
It took a few seconds for the door to close by itself, but once it did, Murasame held himself close to the wall and listened carefully through his heavy breathing. A few more moments later, he heard the evil shinobi run down the hallway, making him sure that the diversion worked out somehow.
With a sigh of relief, they managed to catch the break they were looking for, but they weren't out of the woods yet. While still far from it, Murasame could already feel himself be tired out. He picked up his kusarigama and caught his breath.
"Alright, I think we lost them."
"That's so amazing, Mister Murasame! You really did have everything under control!"
"Of course I did. Who the hell do you think I am? I'm Murasame Houou, after all !"
Even now, Murasame couldn't help himself in playing himself up like that, even if he was sweating bullets with every step he took. There was still the matter of getting out tough, so he endured his tiredness and glanced around once more for something that can help them.
These flashbangs and smokescreens were extremely helpful and compact in their design, so it would be nice to keep a few on him, just in case they had another run-in, but his attention drew over to a map, likely kept as a fire emergency protocol.
"Even an evil lair has to have something like this? They make it too easy."
"Looks like a drawing of scribbles to me…"
"Are you kidding me? Have you never seen a floor diagram before? Just take a better look at this. Those are the stairs that we have to take if we want to get out of the rat's nest."
"Oooh, so it is. So those small rectangles represent stairs?"
"Yeah, and this circle is where we are right now." Murasame pointed at the map and guided his finger between the two areas. "We need to go through this way if we want to leave."
Isayuki came up to Murasame, trying to take a closer look at the supposed "picture" and while Murasame wanted to push him out of the way, he noticed that there was fresh blood on Isayuki's back.
However, there were no wounds to show for them. He wasn't going to bring it up, but even if he was, Isayuki spoke up first.
"Leave? Wait, but there's someone else that's trapped in this building too!"
"Another person?"
Now that Murasame thought about it, he had no idea how Isayuki ended up here to begin with. Not that he was particularly interested on a personal level, nor was he willing to find a reason to stay in this forsaken place for any further than what was needed.
"We don't have time to help someone out as we are right now! This place is going to be littered with enemies soon, once the news that we broke out of our cells spreads out!"
"It's a kid, Mister Murasame! He's the reason why I'm here to begin with! I tried helping him out when he was getting carried off by strange people, but I got knocked out as a result and brought here."
Murasame didn't ask for a life story, so he started ignoring Isayuki to let him ramble to himself while he looked for more things that could help him escape.
"We both woke up in the same cell and got to know each other a bit. His name's Kei and he kept wanting to see his big sister. I tried calming him down since it did sound like he got kidnapped, but once they came down and threw you into your cell, they turned to the child and took him out. I'm not sure what they're trying to do with him, but they said something about a sacrifice…"
"That doesn't change the situation I have here."
As a reminder, Murasame did not listen to any of what Isayuki said.
"If you want to stay around here for longer, be my guest." Murasame found a few more selections of projectiles, ranging from incendiaries and small explosives. There was a duffel bag stored in one of the lockers, so he started stuffing as much as he could into it. "It's more important that we save ourselves."
Murasame tried lifting the bag once it was full, but was unable to because he had put in so much that it exceeded his arms' capabilities. Isayuki was surprised, on the other hand, but he started filling in the lack of context by himself.
He looked down to his hands, thinking about how he got captured in the first place.
"I… I guess you're right… Even if I want to help out, I don't even know how to do so. All that happened was that I made things worse and waited until someone else came by to help me."
"W-well…!" Muasame's face was turning a bit red from trying to carry the bag. "If you're done there, I could use some help here!"
"Huh? This?"
Isayuki walked over to the bag and grabbed the handle. With one heave, Isayuki was able to carry it and strapped it over his shoulder. He made it look way too easy, but Murasame played it off while picking back up his kusarigama.
"You looked like you needed something to do. You're getting too moody for my liking."
"I, uh, thank you?" Isayuki blinked, a bit confused. However, he interpreted Murasame' command as a way to keep his own mind from mulling too much, then nodded. "Yeah, that's what I should say. Thanks, Mister Murasame."
"Yeah, just make sure you don't drop any of that."
Just to be safe, Murasame holstered one of the pistols attached to the wall.
There were six shots. He'll have to make them count, if needed.
… if he could hit his target that is.
In any case, Murasame nudged Isayuki to follow him. After a brief check of their surroundings, Murasame ran down the hallway quietly with Isayuki close behind him. Even in holding something heavy, he was still able to maintain the same speed as before.
They ducked into spare rooms when they heard footsteps coming by. Over a few times and even Murasame was starting to get comfortable on his timing, leaving the guards and evil shinobis none the wiser, until they finally reached the staircase. This part was likely the toughest part of the time because if there were people coming down at the same time they went up, things could get messy real quickly.
And just his luck, he heard footsteps echoing down from above them once they only made it through half the floors required. Murasame silently clicked his tongue and ran to the nearest floor exit. They couldn't wait out in the open like this, so he found the nearest room and hid in there with Isayuki.
There was no way to know for sure when they would be good to go, so Murasame counted to thirty and hoped for the best, but Isayuki distracted him from the increments.
"What's this room? It looks really weird."
"What do you mean by that? By your definition, I feel like everything looks weird to you."
Murasame looked into the room to see that this was a computer terminal room. While he shouldn't hold any curiosity in it, his briefcase was on the table in the middle of it. Distracting himself temporarily, Murasame crept over to take a closer look at the thing that caught Isayuki's attention.
His laptop was opened up and it looked like there had been people trying to hack their way inside of it. Luckily for Murasame, his laptop has state-of-the-art security systems, so even a high-tech bypass would have difficulties in breaking through.
(Those assholes didn't have to smash the thing out of frustration though…)
He flipped over the laptop to see that the built-in SD card had still been intact, so he could at least preserve the data, but he wondered why they were trying to break in to begin with. Did they think he kept anything important on it? It was only information concerning the company, but those were blocked by another layer of security as well. The only things they could immediately access once they were in were random text documents that held no serious significance and the internet browser.
However, Murasame started wondering about the data that he could take from them instead. After all, this was an operation that involved yomas and if he would gather up information to give to his father, he could be praised in the shinobi world for it.
There was an available terminal on the other side of the room, so he walked up to it and looked at what he could do about it. He expected a password, but to his surprise, it was already unlocked. Someone must have ran out for a bit and left this opened up, but someone else's mistake was his own opportunity.
He plugged in his SD card and glanced through some of the files as they were copying onto the portable memory. He simply took whatever files he could grab quickly and slammed them into the SD card. Copying it over still took some time, enough for him to lazily glance at the titles of a few text documents.
"Files on Tsukiyomi… A few files that are in acronyms, a bunch of senseless stuff, and then something regarding… the Kyoto incident and… Kagura? Like, the divine ranking? What is this…?"
Seeing the words of Kyoto caused him to remember the yomas he encountered there. If they had anything directly correlated to this incident, it would be great for his father to have on file. Murasame was terrible at many things, but shifting through documents in a brisk manner had been one of his specialties. It was important to do that during his job, after all.
[This email is to report the death of Dōgen, laying rest in Kyoto after his attempt to control Orochi for himself. His involvement among the four main investors in the Yoma Weaponization will be missed, but this is a step forwards concerning the limits of the power that we are handling.]
Murasame scrolled through, breezing past the information.
[However, we must be careful in our approach. It would appear that Kagura has awoken during this Kyoto event and despite what was predicted, she did not wither back into the Reincarnation Sphere. She was the one to kill Dōgen, after he fused with Orochi. This has become a problem, especially after one of our investors helped push for Kagura's premature death at the hands of their available shinobi.]
Murasame vaguely remembered the story told to him by his sister. It was clear that these shinobis that were being talked about had been his sister's classmates, but it mentioned ten shinobis, not just five. He should have wondered about that, but he didn't really think too much about it and continued.
[As of this writing, we can still confirm that Kagura is still alive, even after months have passed. We will continue to work on Project IK and the various sub-projects as intended, but it will be difficult to unleash our full plan if she is still alive. We will continue to send investigations in dealing with this problem as soon as possible and we will not take any risk until further actions are requested by the director.]
"Wait, so Kagura isn't a ranking in this context? Is it a person? Sister might have already mentioned this to Father if this is the case, but there are other details in this email that might serve to be better fodder for my greatness."
Murasame narrowed his eyes on the part where it implied that there was a traitor within the higher ranks of the shinobi clans, using their position to provide information for this bastardly experiment that shinobis should stray away from. Unfortunately, the email lacked any names or further clues to go off from. He tried opening up a few other documents to search for something, but...
"Hey! Who the hell are you two!?"
"Oh, just my goddamn luck!"
With a scientist right behind them, Murasame was forced to preemptively stop the transfer that took whatever he already had, pocketing the SD card. Murasame then shouted to Isayuki.
"Kid! Throw a flashbang!"
"...Which one's the flashbang?"
"The one with the pin!"
Murasame failed to realize that all of them had pins, so Isayuki randomly took one and threw it.
However, he wasn't told to do anything else, so he just… threw it.
Really hard.
"Oh, come on, what the hell are you—!?"
Luckily for Murasame, the projectile smashed right into the scientist's face and they dropped to the ground, bleeding from the bridge of their nose.
"Ah. I… I guess that worked."
"Did I do good, Mister Murasame?"
"Miraculously, but you're supposed to pull the pin before throwing it."
"Understood!" Isayuki saluted. "I'll do that next time!"
For some reason, Murasame highly doubted that.
"I guess that's our cue to get out of here, but first…"
Murasame still had a vendetta against these people for capturing him and locking him up in such a brutish manner. They didn't have the respect to lock him up in a nice room, so he was planning on getting back to them while he was here. He grabbed a few incendiaries and pulled the pin, tossing them haphazardly into the terminals and their servers for his petty revenge.
"Oh, a distraction! These things certainly look important, so they're going to have their hands filled trying to stop the fire! Amazing idea! We can get out easier with their attention divided up!"
"... Yeah, th-that's what I was trying to do." Murasame nervously scoffed. "O-obviously."
And obviously, Murasame wasn't keen on correcting Isayuki's perspective.
"Alright, let's head out."
Leaving the unconscious scientist in a burning room, Murasame and Isayuki darted out back to the stairwell. He was luckily able to miss the guards' attention as they quickly discovered the burning room just as the pair left their potential sight.
"Up these stairs, kid! Don't trip!"
"Got it!"
Guess what happened?
Yes, indeed. Murasame Houou immediately tripped.
His head slammed against the ground once they made it to the sub-second floor and Isayuki slowed down to see what happened, but just as Murasame was thinking of an excuse, a kunai was flying right over him. Luckily, he thought the kid didn't need an explanation from him "skillfully" dodging the projectile, but if it wasn't going to hit Murasame, then it would end up hitting—
"Ouch! Th-that hurts!"
Isayuki caught the kunai on his shoulder as he staggered backwards. He didn't fall and spill all of the grenades, but he was still taking a tumble while bleeding from his injury.
"Managed to dodge my attack, huh? Try and dodge this one!"
Murasame didn't have time to look at the shinobi, but he saw that her foot was in front of him. Throwing out his chain, it quickly wrapped around her leg and with a strong heave, Murasame threw himself backwards—
—absolutely forgetting that he was on the stairs.
"Wait, shit! Let me do that one over!"
Luckily, the strength of the shinobi overpowered him and he hung himself upwards. In fact, the shinobi used his chain against himself, pulling him closer to be stabbed by her blade.
"This can't be how it ends! Take this!"
Blindly flailing his sickle around, he somehow managed to parry the first attack, but he knew he wasn't getting lucky on the second. It would simply mean he would have to get lucky on a different account.
"Mister Murasame! Catch!"
A canister flew over Murasame's shoulder and he reached out for it quickly. He didn't know what it was from the pile, but he was hoping it wasn't an explosive.
Thankfully, he closed his eyes, pulled the pin and tossed it in front of him to intercept the blade.
—A flashbang. Absolutely perfect.
"Grah! I can't see!"
"First of six bullets! Eat lead, bitch!"
Being only two meters in front of him, Murasame pulled out the pistol for a point-blank shot—
—and proceeded to miss, what a goddamn surprise.
(This gun is fucking useless!)
Yes, because it was the gun's fault.
"What was that sound!?"
"We're coming down for support! Those prisoners must have been found!"
(You've got to be kidding me! We were so close!)
He could hear the footsteps coming from above them, as well as footsteps coming from the sub-second floor halls. There hadn't been any other way to proceed further than this, so they only had one more option left.
"Kid! We're heading back down! If we stay here, we're going to get captured again!"
Murasame leapt down to the bottom of that flight of stairs, dazing his legs a bit, but he still had enough energy to continue running. They passed by the floor with the computer terminal room, noticing the large commotion it was stirring up.
"If we're heading down, can we go save the kid while we're here?"
"I—!"
"I'm sure if it's you, you'll be able to save him! I'll help out with anything you need me to do, even if it's as bait!"
"But, ugh—!"
He really wanted to reject Isayuki's suggestion, but with something as big as a plan to control yoma and monetize them as weapons, it might have been worth the effort to disrupt whatever ritual they were planning for that scythe being held in the bottom of the facility. It was a good thing he was shown where it was beforehand and if he could destroy their project, it would be the most pettiest revenge move he could think of.
Oh, and maybe get some bonus points with his father. Who knows? Maybe then he would be recognized as a shinobi that can properly fight if this goes well. It wasn't as if he needed to face off against a yoma or anything if he stopped the scythe from doing whatever the fuck it was trying to do.
And yes, Murasame was that easy to sway on decisions if he personally benefited from it.
"Alright, we'll look for the kid, but you're responsible for what happens!"
"This facility looks big though! Where can we find him!?"
"Don't worry! I have an idea!"
"You know everything, don't you, Mister Murasame!?"
"Of course! I am the amazing Murasame Houou, after all—"
Murasame looked over his shoulder to see the wound the kunai left on Isayuki's shoulder—or rather, the place that the wound should have been. Instead, Murasame was met with his bare shoulder, having no marks or scabs to show for that injury.
He should have showed some level of concern—
—but this was Murasame Houou. If the kid wasn't bothering him and slowing him down, he didn't even care if Isayuki grew a second head.
"Toss any canisters behind us as we hit each floor and down every hallway we see! Cause chaos with them! That should buy us some time!"
"Got it!"
"And pull the damn pins! It's not that hard! Don't think that I didn't notice that you just threw a flashbang without doing so earlier!"
"Right, I… got it…!"
They quickly made their way downwards to the lowest floor with Isayuki juggling the incendiaries behind them with the occasional explosive, blinding light and thick smoke emerging outwards. Flames were spreading through the building, causing abrupt chaos among the workers here, but Murasame didn't care about them. They shouldn't have crossed him to begin with.
"We're almost there!"
The experiment room was just ahead of them, but the keycard Murasame stole didn't have the right clearance here.
However, he did have something that was far better.
Murasame had Isayuki give him an explosive and he threw it right at the door.
—It bounced right back to them.
While Murasame panicked, Isayuki acted quickly. Seeing the direction Murasame wanted the explosive to go, he pulled up his foot and kicked the explosive right back to the door. The force was strong enough to cause it to detonate pre-maturely upon impact and Isayuki thought of nothing about the mistake. He genuinely thought it was a part of the plan.
Smoke blasted out from the doors, tearing it out with ease as the pair rushed in to see what was happening.
"What the—?"
Standing there, Murasame saw Haruto next to an enlarged test tube. It wasn't the same one that held the scythe, but another one that held an unconscious child. Isayuki immediately pointed him out.
"There he is! It's Kei!"
"And there's the team of idiots. One who managed to capture himself and the one who didn't even know how to resist when being captured. And now, you two have walked right back to the depths of the facility to witness the sight of Tsukiyomi's awakening." Haruto laughed. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you would be trying to help us out here, but with what my people have been reporting to me about..."
"Too bad!" Murasame shouted. "Say goodbye to your little project! Give me an explosive, kid! I'll finish this right here, and right now!"
His target was right at the test tube holding the scythe. It was close to the one holding the child, but if he could damage the relic in any form, it would likely ruin Haruto's plans in an instant.
Isayuki handed him a canister, but—
"... This is a flashbang."
"Oh, sorry. Here you go."
"... This is a smokescreen."
"Ah, my mistake. How about this one?"
"... Are you trying to piss me off?" Murasame clenched onto the second flashbang he was given. "You just gave me an explosive on the way into this room. How do you not remember what it looks like?"
"Oh, that one was the last one that looked like that. I threw the rest of them down the halls like you told me to. You did say to just throw any of them, right?"
"You're kidding me."
Isayuki tilted his head at Murasame, as his hair antenna curled up into a question mark.
Haruto narrowed his eyes in contempt.
"... What type of comedy duo am I watching here? You can't be serious."
Moving on, Murasame grumbled, pulling out his pistol once again.
"Okay, back-up plan. Five bullets left. It's less flashy, but whatever!"
"Do you really think that I'll simply let you do that?"
After Haruto clapped, a few shinobis landed next to Murasame from the ceiling and knocked the pistol right out from his hand. A shot was fired in the process, missing the test tube entirely. They did the same thing to his sickle, then pushed him down to the ground. A few other shinobis caught Isayuki in their bindings, restraining his movements significantly.
"I would ask that you stay put for a little longer." Haruto subtly glanced at a clock on the wall. "Lady Kasuga will be arriving in fifteen minutes, after all."
(Has it already been twenty-five minutes…!?)
All that running around and waiting certainly added time. He tried to struggle out from the shinobis, but the moment he started to move, Haruto kicked him in the chin. The shinobis let go of Murasame and the strength in Haruto's kick flung him right to his back.
"Well, the preparations are all set. I was planning on using these ten minutes to send for some guards to pick you up for Tsukiyomi's awakening, but now that you're already here, I figured that I should repay you for whatever destruction you brought on the facility. I'm expecting some compensation and if you can't pay me in money right now, I'll take some enjoyment in its steed."
"Cr-crap…"
"I'll defeat you, here and now. You have to have some tricks up your sleeve, so I'll make sure to break your spirit such that you won't be able to intervene while Lady Kasuga is here. I'll show you that you're powerless against the inevitable and show you that for all your efforts, it will be in vain."
Murasame figured that Haruto must have believed that Murasame was a legitimate shinobi, but that didn't change the fact that a fight was going to happen. Murasame quickly leapt back, pulling his wrapped chains to catch his sickle back into his hands as the evil shinobis attempt to take him down. However, Haruto stopped them.
"Leave me. I'll be his opponent if he wants to fight so badly and I show him that he's worth nothing against me."
"You think so!? Mister Murasame can definitely beat you down!"
Isayuki shouted from the sidelines, still tied up in his place by shinobis standing on guard next to him.
The bag of canisters were thrown haphazardly to the side, spilling out with no care.
"He's the reason why we got this far to begin with! If it wasn't for him, I would still be in the prison cell, so he won't lose against you!"
"Oh, so you have a little fan?"
A scoff came from him.
"Let us crush those conceived notions while we have the time to spare."
Haruto pulled out his baton, spinning it in his hand to a stop. Murasame could hear the electricity running through the stick. A mere graze would be utterly painful to go through, but it's not as if he had any other ideas here. Although Murasame could try and convince himself that he was better, reality was harsh. There was no chance that he would win this fight, but even so—
"Let us dance, Murasame Houou."
—he wasn't going down without trying.
The pride of a Houou wouldn't allow him to kneel over and he's not saying that because there's no way to prematurely abort the mission here. Okay, maybe he is, but while his bones were shaking through his entire body, there was still somebody that believed in him, no matter how misplaced it is.
And he hoped that Ikaruga felt something was wrong with that brief phone call. No matter what Murasame would say, he knew she was a smart woman. Thus, if he could buy enough time for Ikaruga to figure out what was happening and get here, that would be a victory for him.
"Murasame! Ready for action!"
Grabbing onto his sickle in one hand and the heavy weight in the other hand, he got as ready as someone unskilled like Murasame Houou could be.
"I'll show you my shadow dance…!"
[Author's Note]
I needed an extra part. This was getting too long to fit in a final part...
I'll divulge into the introspect of Enigmatic Variables at the end of Chapter 1, Part 5...