Chapter 3
As the biggest urban area in the world, Shin Teito was a city that hardly ever slept. Even in the wee hours of the night, there was consistent car traffic and people walking on the sidewalks.
Silence and quiet were unfamiliar concepts to the people inhabiting this city.
However, even in the middle of the day no one would have missed the explosion that tore open a hole in a side of MBI's tower, sending flames and smoke into the sky as well as fragments of steel and glass on the streets below.
Passersby screamed and scattered, holding their heads between their hands. Anyone close enough to see anything was too busy running for cover to look up at the location of the conflagration.
If they had they would have seen a human silhouette soar through the air and disappear into the dark sky above the city, like a bird who had broken out of its cage.
"What do you mean she's gone?" Sahashi Takami asked, with the kind of voice of someone who already had to put up with far too many things
"She, ah, Subject Zero-Seven took advantage of the explosion to escape the building ma'am," the middle aged clerk replied.
"Took advantage? She wasn't the one who caused it?"
"No, ma'am," he shook his head. "Our review of the footage seems to indicate otherwise. Number Zero-Seven didn't make use of her abilities."
"Then what caused the explosion?" she asked.
"We're still looking into that, but if we are to take the preliminary readings into account we have a spike of S-Particles right before the event."
"You just said that Zero-Seven didn't use her abilities."
"She didn't," he confirmed. "She was inside the scanner at the time. We would have picked up a build up of energy on her part if it had come from her.
"Then it must have been one of the Feathers that have already been released. Check the satellite logs and see which were closest to the building."
"Already done, ma'am. There were just a handful in the this district at the time, but none close enough to do that kind of damage. Not unless we have severely miscalculated their potential. Additionally, the first survey of the scene seems to indicate that the explosion originated from inside the building rather than the outside and no, the members of the Disciplinary Squad were nowhere near the area."
Takami drummed her fingers on her desk.
"How likely it is that one of the Feathers figured that they had a tracker implanted and got it surgically removed?" she asked, looking like she already knew the answer but wanted to hear a second opinion all the same.
"It would take extremely sensitive equipment simply to locate it, much less to remove it. Currently they are all online and transmitting correctly. I don't believe any group other than us could successfully remove a tracker and use it to transmit simulated data."
"None of this makes any sense," she stated flatly. "There must be something we are missing."
"Agreed," the clerk nodded. "We are still going through the rubble so we might have a better understanding of the events later."
"Let's hope so. What's the magnitude of the damage by the way?"
"Two laboratories have been rendered completely non-functional and three more have received damage to at least half their equipment. Sixteen researchers have suffered injuries ranging from minor to grievous, two have died and five are missing."
"Missing?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"They had logged into the labs before the explosion, but we found no trace of them," he explained. "We have listed them as missing while the investigation is in progress."
"Are you working with the assumption that one or more of them could caused the explosion to fake their deaths and leave the city with sensitive data?"
"We are not dismissing any possibility yet. There are just too many things that don't add up at the moment to jump to any conclusion. Still, it does look like an inside job so far."
"Wonderful," she said sarcastically. "What of the missing Feather? Have you already dispatched a team to bring her back?"
"Number Zero-Seven wasn't meant to ever leave the labs, ma'am. We…. we never saw reason to tag her," he explained hesitantly, knowing that the news wouldn't break well with his superior.
"Are you telling me you lost a Sekirei?"
"Temporarily misplaced, ma'am. We've already dispatched all available teams in the direction she took in her escape and we are currently repositioning the satellites to track her whereabouts. She won't be able to leave the city and we are confident that we'll have her back in our care within forty-eight hours at most."
"See that you follow through with that estimate. Otherwise I think that the next thing to be misplaced will be your head, but there won't be anything temporary about that I'm afraid."
"Noted, ma'am," the clerk replied, loosening the collar of his suddenly suffocating shirt. Like any of it was his fault. He didn't write the security protocols. It wasn't his fault that Number Zero-Seven hadn't been tagged like the others. Why did he have to take the fall for this? Damn it.
But there was nothing he could say in protest. Sahashi Takami's authority was second only to the president himself. What she said went inside of MBI, unless countermanded by the CEO. He couldn't appeal to the man himself though. He wouldn't meet anyone unless they piqued his interest somehow, and that was often enough a fate worse than most others.
All he could do to insure his head and neck wouldn't go their separate ways was finding Number Zero-Seven and bringing her back as quickly as possible.
Shirou loved physical labor. Although he could sit at a desk all day long if necessary, in the end he was someone who preferred working with his hands and seeing the results of his work, which is why he didn't mind hauling heavy equipment back and forth through the building site.
Like in most things he did, he spared no effort and this quickly endeared him to the rest of the crew. Nobody liked a slacker, especially when there were deadlines to meet.
Of course, as it was often the case, for everyone who excelled there would be at least someone who would underperform.
Seto Kaoru was that person. The shabby looking man was a struggling college student approaching his thirties. No one was particularly surprised that he still had to complete his studies, if his work ethic was anything to go by.
He was punctually late and he had a devil-may-care attitude towards his seniors.
In spite of that, he still managed to keep his job on account of his incredible physical strength belied by his slim build. Shirou had seen it for himself as the man easily carried twice as much load as anybody else without breaking a sweat.
The man wasn't very reliable, but he did save the company both time and money, so he got to stay around despite having flaws that would have gotten anyone else fired in the long run.
Shirou never interacted with the man on account of being on different crews, but he heard the foreman grumble about him rather often.
However, it was none of Shirou's business. He planned to work with this specific company for a few weeks only, enough to save some money and make a name for himself.
The foreman had already promised to put a good work for him with his colleagues, after Shirou had proved he could deliver quality work in a short time both as a plumber and an electrician.
Then he could truly start focusing on his hunt in earnest.
Of course, as the saying goes, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
The life of construction workers followed the cycle of the sun. They would start working at sunrise, and would not stop until there was a bit of light to be had and then some.
By the time Shirou was done for the day it was already completely dark. Of course, being early evening there was still plenty of people clamorning around. In fact, the rush hour was still strong.
As such, Shirou decided that it would be better to get something to eat right away rather than return home.
Since the construction site was right in the heart of the city, he simply walked to the closest place he could find. At that hour it would probably be packed everywhere, but it was better to wait for food than being stuck in traffic on an empty stomach.
Besides he hadn't eaten anything but cups of ramen for over two weeks now. Adding a bit of variety to his diet wouldn't hurt.
While he walked through the city, he couldn't help but notice several people in business suit looking around the place. To ordinary people they would have passed for ordinary salarymen, but Shirou had developed an eye for these kind of things.
He could distinguish the bearing of a military-trained person from that of ordinary civilians anywhere, and while a couple of such persons would have flown under his radar, the sheer number of people deployed stood out to him like a sore thumb.
Was there something going on, perhaps?
The explosion at MBI's tower the previous night was the topic of the day, and while it had been declared a lab accident by the MBI's spokesperson just that morning, this deployment of plain-clothed security forces told Shirou there was more to it than that.
Granted, there was no proof that these people were actually from MBI, but there was no doubt this was a manhunt, and if one considered the recent events it was highly unlikely that they weren't.
Perhaps rather than an accident it had been a case of corporate espionage gone awry, covered up through the sheer power of the financial colossus.
It would be hardly the first time Shirou saw this kind of situation at play. Whether it was the Clock Tower, mundane governments or corporations, power beget lies and prevarication of both law and people.
Besides, personal principles notwithstanding, it was just human nature to do anything one could get away with. It was just that some group could get away with more than most others.
Far from being impressed, Shirou went about his business as if he hadn't noticed a thing. It wasn't something he could or should attempt to fix, at any rate. Even when he was less disillusioned he wasn't the sort of person that would try to solve every single problem in the world. His vision never stretched that far ahead of himself.
This was the thing that made him different from her. Although they wished for similar things, the scope of their purpose is what separated them back then; the reason why he had to let her go.
He caught himself thinking about the past and grimaced. What use there was thinking about that now? Those days were long gone and so was the man who had those dreams. If he had the time and energy to waste like that he would do better to make something productive out of them.
Steering his thoughts away from his memories, and what had caused them to come at the forefront of his mind, he stepped into a nearby okonomiyaki restaurant.
Emptying his mind and filling his stomach sounded like an excellent plan at the moment.
Although it couldn't really be called cooking, the simple task of fixing himself a meal put Shirou's mind at ease. He didn't know when it was the last time he ate something that didn't come out of a box or that required more than adding hot water.
He didn't stop to ponder about it. There were too many things tied to his old habits that he went at great lengths to leave behind.
As far as he was concerned, living from moment to moment was just fine. The alternative was just too cumbersome. He ate his meal in silence, listening to the soft murmurs of the other patrons, interrupted by the occasional laughter of those who had already drank too much.
He didn't know how just long he had been sitting there, listening to this unintelligible sound until he glanced at his wristwatch and noticed that two hours had already gone by.
It was time he returned to his apartment and got some decent rest. The next day would begin as early as today. He couldn't really afford to dally around the city any longer.
After paying for his meal, he left the establishment with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. The watchers from before had lessened in numbers, having probably gone to look for whomsoever it was they were searching for elsewhere. Only a couple of them still lingered around the place, undoubtedly to make sure that their quarry didn't come to this area after they had already left.
Shirou paid them no mind, and they ignored him in turn. He made his way back to his van, which he had left next to a small park. He was about to climb inside and drive away, when his nose picked up a scent he had grown all too familiar with, one that made the hair on his neck stand up straight and sent his mind spinning into overdrive.
It was the smell of blood.
He stopped and turned around, surveying his surroundings through narrowed eyes.
His sense of smell wasn't exceptional by any measure, but he had been forced to learn how to pick up on some smells even among countless others.
Still, there had to be a sufficient amount of blood for him to detect it, and it had to be close.
His eyes immediately honed onto the nearby park; a patch of green amidst a jungle of steel and concrete.
He immediately took off in that direction. His first thought was that someone was wounded and in need of help. That was his instinct playing out as usual.
His second thought made him question what had caused the blood to be spilled in the first place. Accident or intent? That was his experience talking, warning him to take a cautious approach.
His steps changed from a determined charge to a soundless stride and his posture shifted from a straight walk to a semi-crouch.
The park was empty at that hour. In that part of town, people were either still at work or they had already left for home. The wall of trees separated the park from the rest of the city, making the sounds of civilization into a distant backdrop; almost like a separate world altogether.
It was then that Shirou saw it.
Outwardly it looked like a woman, and a gorgeous one at that. Her appearance would have probably fooled anyone, but not Emiya Shirou.
He had always been good at telling when something was not right; outside of the natural order of things and this creature with short light brown hair, dressed only in a blood-stained lab coat was certainly not right. Not human.
It would be impossible to define with words a sensation that did not reflect as one of the fifth senses. The best comparison would be a sort of gravitational pull, as if the weight this creature had upon reality far surpassed that which its form implied.
He had already been exposed to a similar sensation in the past, though the scale was wildly different.
It was the same feeling evoked within him so many years before, when he had stood in close proximity to any of the eight Heroic Spirits during the fifth iteration of the Holy Grail War. The feeling of an existence that far outclassed that of a human being.
The fact that it looked like a gorgeous woman did not assuage the anxiety building up in his chest. If anything it made it worse.
There were, after all, four types of predators in the world.
Those who hunted by virtue of their superior form, those who camouflaged themselves with their environment and those that lured their prey into being devoured. Lastly, there were the predators that could do all of the above simultaneously.
Human beings fell into this category, but so too did those that preyed upon them in turn.
A seemingly defenseless-looking woman, curled upon herself on a bench in the middle of an empty park, with only an all too tight lab coat to conceal her curves was an alluring enough bait to just about fifty percent of humanity.
Years ago, Shirou himself would have bit it. Hook, line and sinker.
Not today.
Today, he pulled back the hammer of an imaginary revolver inside his mind, the fall of which would fire up his Magic Circuits and enable him to call for his Magecraft. He approached cautiously, fingers flexing in preparation.
He could already anticipate the pain of his Circuits flaring up as Mana run through them.
He could already feel the familiar weight of the Married Blades in his hands.
He could already imagine the pressure of the steel sinking into the flesh of this creature, putting an end to the threat it represented.
He had already made the connection between the blood-stained lab coat, the army in disguise scouring the city and the explosion at MBI the previous many chances were there that this creature didn't escape from their laboratories? Slim to none.
How many chances were there that she didn't kill her way out, taking into consideration the lack of wounds on her and the blood on the coat? Very few.
How many chances were there that this creature could and would kill people if they got in its way? Far too many to let it go.
He considered the possibility that it truly could be as defenseless and in need of help as it looked, but he was no longer a fool. Besides, the truth would become evident once he got within its range. A true predator would lash out as soon as the prey was within reach.
It did not look up to him as he approached, electing to stare at the empty space in front of itself instead. Now that he was a bit closer, he could see its lips moving, but it could not hear what it was saying.
He approached further. The Married Blades were only a paper-thin barrier away from breaking out of his mind and into the real world. He now stood just a couple of steps away from the creature, close enough to hear its words.
"Broken... Useless... Broken... Useless..."
Shirou flinched at the tone of its voice, but he would not let it move him. He could not risk whatever this creature was to give him the slip. The number of non-human humanoids that weren't man eating monsters could be counted on the fingers of an amputee.
He would not risk having the price of his misguided compassion paid in human lives again. He had promised to himself that he wouldn't.
He took another step forward and this time it did turn its head in his direction. Shirou tensed in preparation to strike, but when their eyes met Shirou's breath died in his throat.
He knew those eyes. He recognized the void in them. The utter lack of any sort of hope for the future. They were the eyes of someone who was already dead inside.
"Senpai."
The gears in his mind cranked to an abrupt halt. The Married Blades slipped away from his grasp and disappeared into the depths of his consciousness, while his flimsy resolve to kill shattered into tiny little fragments.
'It's a mistake. It's a mistake. It's a mistake,' he told himself over and over again, but no matter how many times his logical mind repeated it, his heart simply refused to listen. 'Damn it all.'
He took one step closer, expecting this woman to lunge forward and tear him to pieces, except not really. Not with those eyes.
"Are you alright?" he asked, crouching next to the bench she was sitting upon with her legs curled against her chest. Her dead eyes seemed to stare right into him.
"I am… useless," she said as a way of reply. That didn't really help Shirou at all.
"Do you need help?" he insisted, then licked his lips. "Can I help you?"
She blinked and the light in her eyes seemed to change. A small light sparked from the oceans of death. Curiosity, perhaps. Shirou had the impression that she was actually seeing him just in this moment.
"My wings… they are broken. I cannot find... my sky anymore."
Shirou frowned. He had no idea what she was talking about at all. She looked confused and desperate. A dangerous combination from a creature whose power was so evident to Shirou.
"Do you have anywhere to stay? Anyone to go to?"
It was a ridiculous question, of course. He had already figured that she had escaped from MBI's labs. Whether she was an artificial being or something else, Shirou didn't think she had anywhere to go to, otherwise she wouldn't be sitting half-naked on a bench in a public park.
She shook her head, but never stopped looking at him. Shirou felt no enmity from her, no impression that she would tear into him any moment now. Yet he knew he had her undivided attention. It was almost like he was the only thing that she could see at all.
He sighed. What was he getting himself into? If she wasn't a threat, then he should probably just leave this creature alone. He couldn't afford to jeopardize his mission. He couldn't risk attracting MBI's attention and having to dance around them.
Except that he couldn't just leave now. He wasn't the sort of man that would try to fix all problems in the world, that much was true, but at the same time he wasn't the kind of man that could ignore a problem right in front of his eyes either.
'I'm still a fool after all,' he lamented to himself.
"Look… you can't be here in that state," he eventually said. "I don't know your circumstances, but I can give you a place to stay for the time being, and some clothes as well." He held out his hand, palm held upward. "Will you come with me?"
He would not ask twice, nor he would pressure her into following him. If she turned down his offer he would leave and pretend this encounter never happened.
He did not need to insist. She slowly moved her hand onto his own, shifting her eyes from his face only when their hands met.
"... warm."
Shirou closed his hand gently around hers and gave a small pull. She let her long legs down the bench and stood up with unnatural grace.
She was tall, almost as much as Shirou and definitely much taller than the owner of the lab coat she was wearing. The blood-stained piece of garment was all too small to fit her frame. Its buttons threatened to pop around her chest, and even so they did little to conceal her cleavage. It could not wrap properly around her hips either, so her white cotton panties were clearly visible.
Really, the first order of business was getting off the streets and get her something appropriate to wear.
Shirou let go of her hand momentarily, shrugged of his jacket and wrapped it around her waist, providing a better cover for her legs. It made for an awkward ensemble, but it pushed her looks barely above the line of decency.
"Come, my car is this way."
He took her hand again, and led her towards his van. Fortunately they didn't come across anybody and he was able to let her climb inside without being seen. She didn't seem to know what to do with herself inside the vehicle, and Shirou had to fasten her seatbelt for her.
She was completely passive, and didn't so much as flinch whenever he brushed against her body in the process of getting her adjusted in her seat. Was it a quirk of her species, a byproduct of her time in MBI's care or both?
He glanced around one last time, before turning on the engine and leaving the area. It didn't seem like anyone had seen them, so he wouldn't have to worry about MBI's knocking on his door anytime soon. At least he hoped so.
Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. Rather than driving right back to his place, he made a detour, to see if anyone was following them. After driving in circles through the city for half an hour, he was confident that no one was tracking them and thus he pointed his van toward his warehouse.
At some point he heard a number of helicopters flying over them, but they just seemed to be passing by. MBI was stepping up their search efforts, no doubt. They were getting antsy enough to throw some caution to the wind and let the people of Shin Teito realize that they were looking for something.
Speculations would run wild in the morning, no doubt. Especially because this frenzy had become apparent not twenty four hours after the supposed accident at their labs. MBI would just deny everything and claim that it was ordinary air traffic for them, but people would talk all the same.
There would always be someone willing to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon.
As they drove further away from the center of the city, the traffic dwindled progressively and Shirou could divert some of his attention to the person in the passenger seat.
She was looking at him almost without blinking. He never once caught her looking at the world outside of the windshield. Her unnatural focus was starting to unnerve him, but her gaze didn't feel like that of a predator to Shirou. However, he could not discern the meaning behind her stare either.
He had loads of questions he wanted to ask. What exactly was she? What was her connection to MBI? What did it mean that her wings were broken? What had happened to her?
Still, he had gotten this far and he might as well give her the opportunity to get herself comfortable before starting the interrogation.
Right now, he could only hope he hadn't made another mistake. That his wanting to help the person in front of him wouldn't cost the live of countless others beyond his vision again.
He could only hope.
XXX
AN: This story has officially resumed. The previous chapter has been edited in third person and proofread. For the records, On Wings of Steel will be updated according to the votes on my Pa treon page. rotating between Path of the King and Promises of a Wandering Hero. Check out my page at " pa treon DOTCOM / neoalfa" if you want to vote and if you want to read up to chapter 5.
Thank you!