Chapter 5 – The Sword in the Sky
"What do you have against women?" asked Suoh when they got to the refectory (which was a fancy name for a dining hall) at the ground floor. "And casual clothes? It's wall-to-wall cock and balls in this joint, and every last one of them looks ready for an audience with the Queen."
"Says the guy whose only female follower was an underage girl in corsets."
"And now she's King."
Reisi didn't have a counter to that. At least he wasn't the worst offender. Weismann had a naked cat-girl and Jungle some sort of busty cyber-ninja. The worst that could be said about Seri was that she had terrible taste in men and should definitely have invested in a sports bra.
"No matter," he said. "Now that you are here, I'm sure we'll have more female applicants. They love a redhead, I am told. As for the dress code, it prevents recruits from rolling out of bed in last night's booze-drenched clothes. Perhaps you don't know what a laundromat is either? We have one on the premises. Very convenient. Robots do everything from bed linens to dry cleaning."
"It was either this or cargo pants and squirrel shirt."
Of course. Fushimi. So clever, so delightful. He should have assigned Suoh's reclamation to somebody else, less senior, more amenable, but it was Saruhiko who had turned up at his door, which at the time had seemed auspicious. Less so now.
"Let me know if he's done a better job recovering your money," said Reisi. "If not, I will advance you some for a trip to the thrift shop."
"Do you enjoy me hitting you or what?"
Suoh was probably right about that. Riling him up was one of life's simple pleasures. And getting hit was like scoring points. On the other hand, it was probably cheating if Suoh was hungry. Reisi waved his phone at the menu counter and tapped in an order. Then, the two of them stood in line like a bunch of schoolchildren, waiting for some freshly-made omurice and apple juice to be handed to them, while ripples of fearful gossip spread from them in ever widening circles. Reisi couldn't decide if it was to their credit or their shame that not one of his many clansmen stopped by to ask whether Suoh was a ghost returned from the pits of hell to haunt the man who put him there.
Once they received their food, Suoh marched straight to the nearest free table and inhaled his omurice in three quick bites. The man was a bottomless pit. Between the waffles and the bar food yesterday he had eaten an entire fried chicken, two pizzas, and a novelty box of chocolate-dipped celery sticks he'd found at the bottom of a mostly empty gift basket in the executive lounge. Not that Reisi minded subsidizing Suoh's intemperance – he was clearly making up for lost time – but the sooner the man could be weaned off his junk food diet and gently prodded into sampling other food groups, the greater the chances that he'd see old age. It would be shameful to have put in all this effort to revive the guy only to lose him to his bad habits.
"I'm getting another one," Suoh declared, and Reisi handed over his phone in resignation so that the glutton could pay for his second meal. At least the sight of him making a ravenous spectacle of himself over his breakfast tray had calmed the populace. Fried egg on one's face was hardly terrifying.
Another portion of omurice later, Suoh was as sated and happy as he got, which meant of course that something else had to go wrong immediately. Which it did in a sudden and extravagant fashion. First, there were shouts. Then, a clamor. And finally, explosions in the direction of the practice grounds.
Suoh arched an eyebrow, shoved an entire melon bread in his mouth, and took off toward the commotion like it was his business. Still acting like a King, thought Reisi as they ran. Always seeking responsibility. It turned out, however, that it was Suoh's business. Firstly, because the disturbance was being caused by his former clansmen. Secondly, because of what transpired shortly after their arrival.
Most of the racket was due to Yata and Fushimi as usual, though the rest of HOMRA had shown up in force. They were spread out across the practice grounds, flanking their tiny King, who burned like a fiery bird at their center, her flaming Sword hanging in the clear sky overhead.
"Give him back!" she demanded in her breathy, sing-song voice. No need to specify the him in question, Reisi supposed.
"I am not holding him prisoner," he responded, summoning enough of his own power to counter hers.
And that is where it all went horribly awry.
Right after his own Sword had materialized in the sky, a wave of pain and nausea brought Reisi to his knees. He'd barely had time to notice that the crack in the blade was gone, before he saw the darkness where the glowing blue orb should have been and felt like he was having a heart attack. The rest of it he saw in broken pieces.
Zenjo abandoning his defense of the trainees and racing towards Reisi.
Seri abandoning her staring contest with Kusanagi and racing towards Zenjo.
Saruhiko and Yata abandoning their fight and racing towards Suoh, who planted himself in Zenjo's path, flames racing up his arms.
I should stop this, thought Reisi. But his thoughts felt sluggish and muddled.
"Stop!" Seri was shouting. "Look! It's not falling. Just look!" But she was not going to be able to intercept Zenjo before he ran into one of Suoh's fists.
And then Saruhiko was skidding to his knees at Reisi's side, while Yata barreled on like a loose cannonball to back up Suoh.
Suoh. Just out of reach.
"Sheath it, Munakata," Saruhiko hissed in his ear, as Suoh forced Zenjo back, bracing for another attack. "You hear me? Put away your sword!"
He should do that, shouldn't he? Before someone got killed. It was hard to concentrate in so much pain, but he'd felt worse. When had he felt worse? No matter. Reisi encased the pain in ice, trying to shrink it to a manageable level, and somehow it worked. The power crushing him let up, became his to command again, receded like the tide.
And then the blue Sword dissipated overhead. A moment later, so did the red.
"The hell was that?" said Fushimi's voice much too close for comfort.
"It was odd, wasn't it?" said Kusanagi somewhere on the periphery of Reisi's awareness. "Not overdrawn, just dark. Really dark. Saturated."
"Move," said Suoh's voice.
"This is all your fault," said Seri's.
"Fucking children," spat Zenjo.
He was right. It was time to reassert his authority. Reisi moved to stand, praying he didn't fall on his ass. He didn't. But it helped that Fushimi was there.
"Please show our guests into the lobby," he told Seri. "So that next time they wish to pay us a visit they can find the front door, and more importantly the doorbell. After that, we can reconvene in the conference room and discuss the near apocalypse like civilized men. And women." There. That was good enough. Now, he needed a drink. "Oh, and Zenjo," he added, "please refrain from murdering anyone for the moment."
"You're the boss," said Zenjo.
"That is correct," said Reisi. "Though far too many of you keep forgetting it." He tried to execute a sweeping turn, but his body failed him and he fell forward into a pair of arms, where it was lights out until someone's shoulder jabbed him in the gut.
"You're fucking heavy," said Suoh's voice somewhere around his hip. "And your saber is in the way. Help me out here, Saruhiko."
Right then Reisi hated him and wished him dead again, but there was nothing he could do – not even say so – because every step Suoh took knocked the breath out of him, and it took all of his willpower to keep from vomiting. On second thought, it might be worth the brief indignity for the chance to ruin Suoh's only set of normal clothes and force him to attend the meeting in the squirrel shirt.
"Puke on any part of me," said Suoh in a startling feat of prescience, "and I will drop you on your head."
Reisi concentrated on breathing. This had to be karmic payback for all his gloating at the bar last night. He had been less than sympathetic to the Reds' outrage, so now he was having his pride jostled out of him in full view of two rival clans, half of which were his subordinates. He would almost rather have died.
"Hang in there, boss," said Fushimi without his usual rancor. "We're almost there."
Suoh carried him all the way to the second floor conference room, where he dropped into the chair at the head of the table and draped Reisi across his lap, keeping a hard grip on his knees and shoulders. And Fushimi just stood there like a lump, letting it happen. Reisi did not like to curse, but this called for some strong language.
"Are you fucking enjoying this?"
"Immensely," said Suoh.
And he wasn't lying. Reisi was fairly sure it wasn't Suoh's phone in his pocket that he could feel pressed up against his ass. Of course the ill-mannered lout got off on power. Of course. Why had he ever felt anything but disgust and pity for this HOMRA refuse? He tilted back his head and rammed it into Suoh's chin.
On the plus side, it worked to break Suoh's grip. On the minus side, the suddenness of Reisi's defiance had unbalanced the chair, pitching them both backwards to the floor. On the absolute zero fucking side, that was the moment everyone else chose to join them in the conference room.
"Ah, this is more like old times," said Kusanagi, surveying the scene. "Only there used to be more flashy lights."
Thank you, my glasses brother, Reisi thought. Please stand by while I murder Suoh again.
But it was not to be. Instead, everyone took a seat with minimal fuss, leaving Suoh down on the rug where Reisi had KO'd him, and tried to make sense of the day's events. This, it turned out, wasn't easy, because HOMRA had no discipline and more opinions than both houses of the Diet. These varied from "Munakata is a menace, kill him" (Yata) to "make Munakata freak out again, it was kinda cool" (Kamamoto, Dewa) to "yes, let us endeavor to make Munakata experience again the worst pain he has ever felt in an effort to analyze this fascinating new phenomenon" (Kusanagi, Bando) to "is Mikoto alright?" (Anna).
Scepter 4 was outnumbered in these deliberations, but at least it was united in Reisi's defense. Even Zenjo, who thought it was his job to prevent apocalypses, admitted that the incident fell perhaps somewhat short of a doomsday.
"This is all Suoh's fault," Seri insisted. "Because he couldn't stay dead."
"While I agree that it's too strange to be a coincidence," said Kusanagi. "Mikoto didn't ask to be brought back. Your boss did that all on his own. Which I would dearly love to hear about in greater detail. Saying 'a rogue Strain did it' is a rather feeble excuse."
"A rogue Strain did do it," said Reisi. "We made a trade. It wasn't anything important."
"Suoh said you gave away a part of you," piped up Fushimi, the little traitor.
Now everyone was looking at him funny. And he could've sworn he heard a chuckle from the floor behind his chair.
"Which part?" asked Yata with the bluntness of the guileless.
"The unimportant one," chimed in Kamamoto, stifling what was very definitely a giggle. "Didn't you hear him say?"
"You're all hilarious," Reisi told them. "But it's none of your business." He didn't want to tell them. Not that he cared what any of them thought now that he wasn't afflicted by his senseless sentiments for Suoh, but he also wasn't going to encourage shameless gossip. It was an internal clan matter, and they could resolve it without these HOMRA busybodies getting in the way. "If these two incidents are connected, and if, as you've said, it was my unilateral actions that have led to this calamity, then it is only proper that we at Scepter 4 take responsibility."
"Perhaps," said Kusanagi. "But your actions could have dire consequences for us all–"
"Speaking of," interrupted Fushimi. "Did any of you know that the Dresden Slate records every bit of information about everyone connected to it?"
No. No, they didn't. And Reisi wanted to strangle Saruhiko for blurting it out, until he realized that his lieutenant's indiscretion had conveniently derailed their previous line of questioning. Crafty, crafty Fushimi.
"Mikoto," said Anna. "We came here for Mikoto. Is he... information?"
"I'm afraid so," said Reisi. "But it is exact information. No different from the Mikoto you knew. A little extra maybe that he's gleaned over the year of stumbling in limbo."
Let them chew on that as well. Death used to be permanent; the only truly eternal thing. An opportunity to rest in peace. A release freely available to anyone. Now that Suoh had come back to life, there was no certainty in anything.
"So," said Kusanagi. "As I see it, there are three problems here. One, the Strain. You told us yesterday that it contacted you. Which means it wanted something from you. And I think we can safely assume that it got it. Which brings us to two, your Sword. The Sword is a reflection of the King. Yours is unusable. That means you are unusable. Whatever you had given away to the Strain, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to you, has disrupted the normal function of the Slate. If all we are to it is information, then it was important information. And three, you got some information in exchange. Something that wasn't yours but ours. We would like it back."
"Suoh is not an it," said Reisi. "And all I did was give him another path to follow. I don't command his feet. He can go walk all seven if he wants to, instead of pretending to still be unconscious so he can avoid making a choice."
"Mikoto?" said Anna.
"I'm sorry," said Suoh quietly from his spot on the floor. "I am not the same. No matter what Munakata says, I am not. I will come see you, but I won't rejoin. I won't be Scepter 4 either. I... maybe I'll move to New Zealand."
"There you go," said Reisi. "Satisfied?"
They didn't look it. It seemed to honestly perplex them that people weren't falling all over themselves to join their little club.
"That still leaves the first two matters unsettled," pointed out Kusanagi.
"Then let's settle them," offered Seri. "I'll come with you and we'll brainstorm this rogue Strain business, yeah?"
Praise the heavens! At last his second-in-command's clandestine liaison with the barkeep was going to prove useful.
"Agreed," said Kusanagi. "But, Munakata, do not summon your Sword again. Not under any circumstances. Not until we know what we're dealing with."
"You do not give me orders, Red," Reisi said. "And I can follow the dictates of common sense." Not to mention the dictates of his body, which shuddered at the thought of having to experience that level of torment again.
"I will show you out," said Seri, offering a deferential nod to the Red King. "Fushimi, go round up the guys in intelligence and have them tamp down panic before the sabers scare each other into thinking Jin Habari is lurking under their beds."
Reisi watched Zenjo flinch at the mention of his old boss, but to his credit the man shook off whatever memory it brought, slung his arm across Fushimi's narrow shoulders, and herded the younger man out the door along with the dregs of HOMRA, leaving his King alone with Suoh Mikoto.
"So," said Reisi, rubbing at a twinge in his chest. "Let us discuss your recent behavior."