A cold brisk morning found Ren Amamiya strolling down the crowded streets of Tokyo.
There it was, Café Le Carré, down the sidewalk.
Apparently, Sojiro renamed the café after an author of the same name visited, at least, that's what Ren heard.
A blast of warm air washed over Ren as he opened the doors of the café, the bell attached chiming, signaling his entrance.
There was Sojiro, still wearing his sunglasses. However, this time, he was clad with an apron and other cooking clothing. A cigarette dangled precariously from his mouth.
The radio chattered on about a terrible accident in the corner as customers chatted about their concerns.
"Ah there you are Ren." Sojiro peered up. "So you'll be in my custody for the year I believe."
"Yeah.. Yeah." Ren replied.
"Follow me. I'll show you your quarters." Sojiro directed Ren.
"Here you are. Please do keep it clean, I nearly busted my back cleaning it once." Sojiro introduced Ren to his room.
It was surprisingly… nice.. most of everything had been swabbed or vacuumed. Of course, there was still some junk, but a good portion was indeed, clean.
"Guess I should be gettin' out of your hair." Sojiro announced as he prepared to go downstairs. "Stay outta trouble kid, Mr. Wright is not a cheap man."
Ren yawned as he laid down on his bed. It was a cheap, slightly rusted steel framed bed, but it was better than the floor. He had pulled an all-nighter getting to and through the maze that was Tokyo.
However, sleep failed to come. Ren's mind darted to that strange app on his phone…
Ren awoke with a jump.
"I must've dozed off." He thought.
Ren clambered from his bed, which creaked and groaned, but held.
Peering downstairs, he saw Sojiro, dressed in a grey fedora and trench coat, grab a black, small box on the café counter.
As Sojiro approached the door, he flipped the sign to closed, and absconded into the bitter cold outside.
Ren found a note on the counter as he set foot into the café from the attic.
"Be back in a few hours." It read, "Leftovers in fridge."
However, something was off. Ren took a closer look. The handwriting.
Ren had glanced at some of the recipes Sojiro had written, but the handwriting was slightly different.
"Must be old age." Ren supposed. "I hope he doesn't have Parkinson's or something." He thought.
Out of the cold dark, a car arrived inside of the United States Embassy compound in Japan.
A man dressed in grey approached, entered the building and after a brief conversation with the receptionist, was directed to one of the lower offices.
"Good evening, K," A sharply dressed man greeted as the office door swung open with a creak.
It was a dimly lit room, faintly smelling of coffee and mildew.
Overall, there was nothing really remarkable, other than it was relatively barren, only furnished to the bare minimum.
And other than the fact it was soundproofed.
"As to you, H." The man dubbed K replied, closing the door behind him.
"I have much to unpack." K explained as he sat, pulling out a small box.
"Let's get down to it then," H offered.
"By all counts, Operation Voodoo seems to be a success, the Russians are none the wiser that their man in Tokyo has been flipped."
"Really now?".
"Yes, all we need to do is to mix a little good intel with the bad bunch, so when he passes them on, The Otdeleniye will know nothing."
"So how did you do it?".
"Well, I acted as a journalist, hired a young photographer from a local school, Shujin, I believe. I got him to take some…. compromising photos."
H released a slight chuckle at the other man's explanation.
"Oh, and I've been meeting a man at the Chinese Embassy, a minor official. I'm developing him into an asset."
K opened the box, and brought out several folded papers.
"Now, I haven't done too much yet, but he did give me some leads. Remember how SIGNT detected the build-up in Eastern Europe?".
"Yes, war may be on our doorstep."
"I have reason to believe the Russians may deploy a new, psychological weapon in the event of an invasion."
K now unveiled the papers. In a large red ink stamp, were the words, PROJEKT METAVSELENNAYA.
"And they may be using Japan as a testing ground."
"...This… title," H scratched his head as he held up the paper. "This reminds of that old Reagan-Era project…"
"You don't think they got it from us? Did they? I mean, Aldrich Ames and Hanssen were active during that time…God…".
"...I need to send this back to Washington. Good work K," H declared. "As promised… here is your payment.."
H produced an ordinary looking suitcase.
Inside was seventy five thousand's worth of United States Dollars, in yen.
After analyzing the contents, K closed the suitcase, put his hat back on and prepared to leave.
"I report back in a month." K addressed H.
And with that, K disappeared back out into the cold.
That night, an unscheduled United States Military Boeing C-17 Globemaster III landed at Yokota Air Base.
"You will immediately be expelled if you cause any problems." The principal stated flatly.
Meanwhile, the woman to his left, a teacher named Kawakami, handed Ren his student identification card.
"Be sure to read the school rules." Kawakami reminded. "Any violations will send you straight to the…."
As Kawakami drawled on, Ren couldn't help but sense a slight nervous tone in both the teacher and the principal as they looked at Sojiro.
Clearly he was not what they were expecting.
"Everyone's giving you the cold shoulder kid." Sojiro stated as they walked out of the principal's office. "Well, a criminal record would do that to anyone. It is Japan after all."
Ren could only shrug. "So be it, then." He sighed.
"It's not too late." Sojiro patted Ren's back. "You're only sixteen. I screwed up alot when I was a kid too."
"Well, I guess I shouldn't have helped that lady.."
"It's too late to go back. Focus on the future. You're at a new school, play it cool and no one bar the teachers will be any wiser."
"I AM NOT A CAT! SAY IT AGAIN AND I'LL MAKE YOU REGRET IT!".
What.
Ren was struggling to process what was happening.
In the span of almost an hour, on the first day of school, Ren Amamiya found himself not at the school, but at a palace with the ruler of said palace was a demented version of his gym teacher.
He had also discovered he could change clothes without changing, at all, in the palace-world, and the clothes gave him superpowers in the form of a bird creature called Arsène, and more.
"...What do we do?"
Ren swiveled his head, he swore his vertebrae went pop.
Right, he had met Ryuji, his new friend?... It was getting too complex, friend it was.
And now, they were in the midst of deciding if they should free this, 'Not a cat', cat creature from the palace dungeon.
K strolled down the street, with the cold wind biting him as he did.
He checked his phone. He was nearing a small park. It was an oasis of green in a concrete jungle that was Tokyo.
K spotted a young woman, wearing a sailor uniform with a black backpack. She sat on one of the park benches.
He stood by a lamppost, and waited until he was sure the woman had seen him.
K then proceeded to remove his sunglasses and wipe them down.
Upon seeing this action, the woman left her backpack behind, and walked off.
Immediately, K approached the backpack and seized it, hiding it under his coat to avoid drawing attention. Then, he too disappeared.
"You have returned to the real world. Welcome back." The phone announced.
"The hell's going on!?". Ryuji barked. Who could blame him. Ren could barely absorb it all himself, the personas, the 'not a cat' named Morgana the meta-
"What's with the yelling? Are you students of Shujin?". Two police officers approached.
Ren Amamiya suddenly found himself pouring sweat…. It was that night all over again.
"Cutting classes are we?". The police questioned.
"W-w-we were t-t-trying to get to school, and we ended up at this weird castle-". Ryuji stammered.
Internally, Ren was hoping the fake blonde would grow a brain and shut up to avoid digging a deeper grave.
However, a woman suddenly approached the officers.
"Excuse me officers, I just saw a student leave her bag. I tried to find her, but she's gone!". She spluttered out, panting. Evidently, she had just ran to get the officer's attention.
"... We'll look into it, do you have a description of the student?".
"Yes, she was wearing a sailor uniform, she had brown hair in twin tails and carried a black backpack, until she left it that is."
"And where is the backpack?" An officer asked.
"It's on that bench over the-". And then the woman's jaw went slack as the bag was gone.
"..No! It couldn't have been stolen that fast!". She said incredulously.
"We'll take care of this." The officers said as they walked to the park with the woman, leaving Ren and Ryuji behind.
Ren laughed lightly at this stroke of luck. Was it a nervous laugh or a joyful one, he didn't know.
"...F-for real?...Let's get the fuck out of here." Ryuji said as he processed what happened.
And like possessed men, they ran to school.
K had made it back to his residence. Was it his home? Well, for someone who worked in his profession, no single living area was 'home' for long.
But it was cozy enough, and an excellent area for his operations.
He went behind the counter and into the backroom, where he opened the package drop from the backpack.
It was parts and mechanics, similar to what constituted a radio. K read the note and immediately knew what this was for.
As he prepared to build the device, the phone rang.
Ren strolled through the cold back to Café Le Carré.
The door creaked, then chimed to signal his arrival.
"Hey, I got a call from the school." Sojiro told Ren.
"Are you cutting class? Remember what I said about playing it cool? one wrong step and you are done, kid. You do know what probation means, right?".
"...I do." Ren sighed. "I promise I won't do it again."
"Good." Sojiro replied. Even with sunglasses, his gaze was stern and uncompromising.
"Anyways, hey, what's up?". Sojiro shifted to a softer and more amicable tone. "Was I too harsh? Sorry, had a busy day."
"Well, it was the first day of school, it's always rough." Ren answered.
"..I know it kid." Sojiro spoke. "Let's wind down a bit."
Sojiro flipped through radio stations, moving from a few classical, pop and rock stations.
He happened to pause on a news station.
"In the latest news, a young woman was killed in a hit and run incident ." The voice crackled. "She remains to be identified due to the severity of wounds, but according to police, she was wearing a student sailor uniform and had two twin hair tails at time of the incident. The driver has yet to be found..."
Ren winced at this morbid news, but it was nothing new in the string of accidents that plagued Tokyo these days. However, he noticed the usually cool Sojiro freeze for a moment at this mention, before returning to his usual demeanor and switching to a Jazz station.
"It's getting a bit late, rest up for tomorrow, and be on time, okay?". Sojiro smiled at Ren.
And with that, Ren headed upstairs.
K was busy assembling the machine. It was a detector of sorts, and it was massive.
A SPEKTOR, it was called. The SPEKTOR's assembly was nothing too challenging, he had done such things time and time again.
According to his handler, The SPEKTOR was a device that could track and trace the presence of PROJEKT METAVSELENNAYA.
Since it was devised from an American project, the SPEKTOR was not too hard to create, although the urgency demanded that those who did needed to pull all nighters.
K scanned the instructions again, everything seemed right.
"And…on." K activated the finished device.
The SPEKTOR worked somewhat akin to radar. It deployed invisible 'waves' of a sort, which bounced back to the device whenever and wherever traces of PROJEKT METAVSELENNAYA users were detected.
K expected no results, after all, in his residence, signals wouldn't be good, he needed to get to more open areas for results to happen.
Instead, the SPEKTOR detected traces right above his head.
One must come in from the cold eventually. It is only natural, of course.
-Joesephi