Gasp! An update! After several sleepless nights pondering over upcoming essays!
Chapter 7: Restart
Nobody dared to go near Yomiko for weeks after the incident. The fire crews had cleared out pretty fast as soon as the flames were under control - they were more afraid of the Paper Master killing them than a large hot light. Yomiko had searched for hours in the wreckage, salvaging whatever she could before she collapsed from exhaustion. Only then was the Library able to drag the woman back - if approached while digging through the remains of her home she would become a screaming, hysterical mess that not even Drake wanted to try and speak to on a good day.
About the only thing that would calm The Paper down for an extended period of time were several books to read. Joker assigned Wendy the task to supply Yomiko with books to read and food to eat while The Paper shut herself up in a tiny study within the Library. The blonde assistant was always seen pulling texts off of shelves, sneaking into the hideaway, then carting off the last load Yomiko had read and neatly stacked away for reshelving. According to Wendy, Yomiko did eat and sleep...it was just that she never saw the Paper Master actually perform said actions and didn't want to ask. Not in a tiny room filled with books, anyway.
One day an old man entered the Library. Peering around, he found Wendy carting yet another stack of books to the study and asked a few questions. Wendy brought him to Yomiko's study, where she swapped up books quickly and left.
The old man was left to look around the room. There were books everywhere, all in neat stacks on the floor and furniture. Yomiko curled in a wooden chair, a throw blanket wrapped around her lap and a book in her hands. The old man looked around, shifted a few books, then dragged up a dusty chair and sat in front of Yomiko.
"Yomiko," he said.
Yomiko's eyes slid up and she gasped. "Oji-san! 1 What are you doing here? What about your bookstore?"
"The bookstore has no life," sighed the old man in Japanese as he pulled off his cap and ran fingers through fringes of white hair. "My cat misses you."
"I'm...I'm sorry," Yomiko answered.
"Ah, no one is buying books because no one is running around, visiting each store with a liveliness us older ones dream of," the old man went on. "The store next door wants to close because it's bad business."
"Oh no!" gasped Yomiko.
"And I've been getting death threats. Your friend, Sumiregawa-san? Five phone calls last week, demanding to know where you are, and if I didn't tell her she'd do some things that no lady should ever say. She did the same with the other bookstores too, I heard! Scared for my life, I am - "
"SENSEI!" Yomiko screeched. She leapt to her feet and promptly fell over face first, her legs tangled in the blanket. She quickly wriggled out of it, like a snake shedding a skin, and skidded out the door, narrowly dodging a surprised Wendy in the process.
The old man chuckled. He slowly got up, helped the poor bewildered blonde to her feet, then let himself out of the Library.
"Joker-san, I am going to hunt Hisaki," The Paper said to Joker.
Yomiko had made a frantic phone call to Nenene after leaving her old friend. She had then spent two hours confirming that, yes, she was alive - and no, why she had seemed to disappear off of the face of the Earth for several weeks had absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. After that it had taken another hour of begging Nenene not to torture any more bookstore owners before Nenene had calmed down (although Yomiko was sure that Nenene was just teasing her, of all the things she planned to do... Sensei could be so mean sometimes!) Yomiko had demanded a meeting with Joker. Unsure if she was actually back or mentally unstable, she had been granted an audience rather quickly.
Joker stared at Yomiko impassively over his desk. "The Paper, how do you plan to do this?" he asked. "We've been trying to trace The Firestarter for weeks, but we haven't been able to find her."
"I can. I know her. I know what she wants."
"Then what does she want?" asked Joker, mild curiosity showing on his face. Yomiko took a deep breath to steady herself.
"She wants power. Kanzeyori-san's diary is missing, and she thinks that she can get power by killing others. She stole and read the books on higher magic in Donny's library and she wants to use that magic. So she wants to find more power, either in books or people."
"Quite an observation, The Paper," said Joker. "But if she wants more power, wouldn't there be a rash of killings or thefts, particularly ones involving arson?"
"That...I don't understand," Yomiko answered. She seemed to deflate as she lost her confidence. "I don't understand what she's waiting for. I think she would hide and wait, but..." She looked away. "I don't know."
"What about the house fire?" asked Joker. "How did that come about?"
"I don't know either," Yomiko said. "I thought...she might have tried a spell and lost control, but it looked like a normal fire. It had none of her Craft abilities in it."
"Hmm." It would've killed Joker to admit that the absentminded bibliomaniac had a point and her logic had gotten him more answers than the fruitless searching his team had been doing for the past few weeks. Therefore, he didn't admit it. "What do you plan to do now?"
"I think...you should all leave the Library..."
1 Literally "old man." Meant as a title of respect, but I'm sure translated it's more of an insult.
Another cliffhanger. One day I'll do too many of these and fall over. For now, I'll have fun dangling plot lines over it.
Megami Kanzeyori: Check "Ashes to Ashes", chapter 7. I made her up; she was Donny's teacher and 17th Paper Master.
Thursday, April 7, 2005