Author's Note: I'm done with finals! Yay! Extra long update celebration!
The Story So Far: Hiruma thinks he's normal, Mamori believes that Hiruma is a Sensitive, and only Kurita and Mushashi know the truth.
To table-top: I have a very good reason to be calling Hiruma a half-Succubus as opposed to a half-Incubus, it will be explained in this chapter. Thank you for your complements! Thank you for reviewing!
Hidden
By: Bar-Ohki
Chapter 5: Hidden at Work
Kobayakawa Sena found himself doing something particularly scary: confronting Hiruma about his father's plans to go to the fair the up coming weekend. Carefully, Sena edged himself into the clubhouse where Hiruma was typing madly on his laptop. Practice had just finished and Hiruma was making strategy notes.
"What do you want fucking man-!?" Hiruma snapped as he looked up from his computer, only to cut himself off when Sena was standing in the doorway, cowering. Hiruma pinched the bridge of his nose and let out an exasperated sigh. He waved Sena into the room.
"Make it quick shrimp." Hiruma instructed the runner gruffly, returning to his computer.
"Umm, well- you see…." Sena was too nervous to fulfill the request for quickness.
"I said 'make it quick' fucking shrimp!" Hiruma bellowed, looking up from his computer with a particularly uncontrolled, violent expression.
"My dad wants me to go to the fair with him this Sunday!" Sena squeaked.
"And?" Hiruma was unamused by the interruption and had no patience to draw his own conclusions from Sena's comment.
"I was wondering if we had an after game practice…." Sena explained, remarkably not stuttering.
"…." Hiruma thought about it for a moment. "You said the fair right?"
"Err, yes." Sena wasn't liking where this train of thought was going.
"If we beat the White Knights, the practice will be at the fair. If not, you can just go with your sappy little family and do whatever the hell it is your family does at fairs." Hiruma remarked with a yawn. "It'll be no different than the last fair practice we had."
"Ah, okay then." Sena let out a sigh of relief. He bowed. "Thank you Hiruma-sempai."
"…Whatever." Hiruma grunted, already putting his attention back to his laptop. Sena left quickly.
The door opened again and Hiruma looked up and glared at the new interruption, it was Mushashi.
"Here are your notes for English." Mushashi set the folder of photocopies down next to Hiruma. "You should come in a little less late next time."
Hiruma grunted in response.
"I'm off to my job then." Mushashi announced to no one in particular.
"…Don't tire yourself needlessly old man. I need you functioning at this next match." Hiruma advised (or was it threatened?) his friend.
"I won't." Mushashi assured Hiruma and left the clubhouse.
Mushashi, or Takekura Gen as his parents named him, found himself walking up to a beat up truck full of beams and tools. He hoped in the cab and drove across town to his new work place. He arrived at a tall, gray wall with a large, wooden gate. The wooden gate had metal reinforcements on the front, giving it an intimidating, Spartan look.
'Like that could really scare away the stuff their trying to keep out.' Mushashi snorted to himself. He pulled the truck up to the gate and rolled down the window. Mushashi did not have to wait long for a man in a nice suit to show up at the window.
"Takekura-kun?" The man asked and held out his hand. Mushashi, who was used to the strange routines these Mages had, put his hand in the man's and looked him in the eye.
"That is who I am." Mushashi told the man firmly.
"Good, you may proceed." The man nodded once and the gate opened. Mushashi quickly drove the truck through the gate. A glance in the review view mirror told Mushashi that the gate had closed. There were several strange bits of junk sticking out of the backside of the gate, arranged in an intricate, Celtic-knot-like pattern. Every time Mushashi looked at it, the more bizarre and pointless the pattern seemed.
"I guess I will never understand magic." Mushashi muttered to himself as he approached the skyscraper. For some presumably magical reason, the skyscraper was invisible on the other side of the wall. Mushashi pulled into a parking space and got out of the truck. With practiced ease, he hauled various tool boxes out of the back and began to make his way into the building.
"Takekura-kun, this way please." Another suited man came out of nowhere and directed Mushashi through the building to an elevator.
"What exactly am I working on today?" Mushashi asked the suited man, sounding only partially curious.
"The ceiling I think." The man humored Mushashi with an answer.
'Ah, the nice guy today.' Mushashi nodded. "Thank you."
"How was football today?" The suited man asked pleasantly.
"Difficult, we can't afford to lose this next game, so our captain's been pushing everyone extra hard." Mushashi answered truthfully. "We'll win it, I'm sure."
"Good to hear." The suited man nodded. "Here's your stop, last door on the right."
"Thank you." Mushashi got off the elevator and gave the man a small, polite bow. He then reached the designated door and walked inside to see there were no ceiling tiles.
"Or Mages for that matter…." Mushashi muttered as he inspected the ceiling. It looked like he had to do some wiring today.
"Oh! I'm sorry Takekura-sama!" A young voice gasped from behind. In the door was a young girl with big green eyes and short, red hair.
"Ah, Zeki-chan, you're working with me today?" Mushashi asked the girl with a small smile.
"Yes, Papa said it'd be good practice for me to put the charms up." Zeki smiled, proud of herself. "Papa says I'm good enough now I don't need help!"
"I don't know enough about magic to tell you how good you are," Mushashi started, "but I can say that you are a really good partner."
"Lets get to work!" Zeki dashed into the room, full of energy.
"Okay, do you have the plans?" Mushashi asked her. The girl nodded and produced a large white sheet of paper. Mushashi laid it out and pointed at a diagram on the paper.
"We'll start with this, can you do the enchantment here?" Mushashi asked her, getting an enthusiastic nod in response. "Good, climb up on my shoulders and we'll get to work."
The girl climbed up on Mushashi's shoulders with a piece of chalk in one hand. Mushashi climbed on a ladder with a specific toolbox and some wires. Both went to work on their respective tasks.
After finally getting a particularly obnoxious wire to cooperate, Mushashi paused to watch Zeki at work. She drew very precise, complicated loops, while chanting. Once the loop was completed, it would light up briefly. When the light faded Zeki would giggle and move onto making the next pattern. Watching the Mage work reminded Mushashi of a question he'd been meaning to ask for a long, long time but never had the chance too.
"You've been studying magical creatures right?" Mushashi asked Zeki.
"Uh-huh!"
"What's the difference between a Succubus and an Incubus?" Mushashi asked politely.
"Uh… Succubus are all girls and daughters of the moon, I think." Zeki answered. "They are really dangerous 'cause they can suck out someone's soul by just being around them."
"Ah, okay." Mushashi made a point to memorize that factoid.
"Incubus are all boys, sons of the Sun." Zeki continued to explain. "They have to eat souls through real things. I don't know what that means exactly, but my teacher said that an Incubus is more likely to bite you than anything."
"That's okay Zeki." Mushashi assured her. "I learned a lot, you're a good teacher."
"Really!?" Zeki squealed.
"Yup!" Mushashi grinned.
"Why'd you want to know that?" Zeki was full of innocent curiosity.
"My best friend's dad had an encounter with either a Succubus or an Incubus, and I've been wondering what the difference was." Mushashi explained.
'Its not exactly a lie, but its definitely not the truth….' Mushashi didn't like the thought of lying to a child, but he didn't want to needlessly draw attention to Hiruma's heritage (it seemed to be a very sensitive subject for Mages).
"Oh I see! It must have been a Succubus then, 'cause they only go after boys. Incubus only go after girls." Zeki smiled when she realized this.
"Wow! Thank you!" Mushashi pretended that the information was news to him.
'So Succubus and Incubus are fundamentally different creatures, that explains the distinction and a bit about how Hiruma's magic-eating works.' Mushashi mused.
"Hey look at that, we're done!" Mushashi grinned as he pulled his hands down to examine his handy work. Now the floor above was properly wired and (hopefully) properly enchanted.
"Yay! I'll go get Papa!" Zeki announced as he clambered down Mushashi and rushed out the door before he could protest.
Mushashi let out an amused snort, then began to stretch his back and neck muscles. He did not have to wait long for Zeki to return with her father.
Genkei Samuru was a large, heavy man with a balding head and a scruffy gray mustache. He had small, piercing green eyes. Currently he was wearing a disapproving frown along with his dull, gray suit. He looked at the ceiling with a careful eye.
"Good work." Genkei announced after several minutes of tense silence. "Zeki, you may go and play in my office now."
"Okay!" The happy girl bounced and skipped off. Genkei leveled his gaze onto Mushashi.
"Report." It was a order with no room for argument.
"There hasn't been any change from last week." Mushashi announced. "Though, Kurita believes that Hiruma unconsciously chooses what he eats magically."
"…Why does Ryoukan-kun believe that?" Genkei asked after taking a moment to think about what Mushashi had just told him.
"It's the parts that get eaten, its random apparently. Hiruma is one of the most intentional people I know. He wouldn't eat magic randomly if he was aware of it." Mushashi explained.
"I suppose you are right; you are one of the two people he actually trusts." Genkei glared as he said this.
"Its not just me and Kurita sir," Mushashi corrected the man, "he trusts all of the Devil Bats, even Anezaki."
"Anezaki?" Genkei's eyebrows raised up in alarm. "Did I hear you right boy?"
"You did." Mushashi quirked an eyebrow back at the man. "She's our team manager, doesn't seem to be affected by Hiruma's presence any more than anyone is."
"Oh, okay then." Genkei let out a small sigh of relief. "We try to keep the number of people that are aware of Youichi-kun's heritage at a minimum as you know."
"She's not aware of it, sir." Mushashi assured him.
"You are done here, leave." Genkei told him sternly.
"Have a good day sir." Mushashi wished the man (with no real sincerity) as he left.
"…." Genkei watched Mushashi disappear into the elevator, frowning deeply. He walked down the hall and entered a dark room. Three people were within the room already.
"It appears as though the thing has decided to make a few more connections amongst the non-magical." Genkei reported to the dark room.
"So it is impossible for the thing to connect with it's food." Another voice, this one belonging to a woman, remarked dryly.
"Not entirely," Genkei corrected her, "it appears the Anezaki daughter somehow slipped through the cracks and is now attending school with the thing. She's even befriended it."
There was a communal gasp in the room.
"That non-magic brat we just had in here just reported that she's obvious to the thing's eating habits." Genkei continued to explain. "It appears as though the thing does not consciously choose its food."
"That is very dangerous." The woman commented.
"And explains a great deal about the patch-ups I've had to do after its been by." Hiruma Yuuchi groaned.
"I think that also explains why it will not eat Hiruma-sama's magic." Genkei added as an afterthought.
"Tch! As if I want another connection to that atrocity!" Hiruma hissed.
"My fellows, this is a golden opportunity to gain a potential means to control it," the third person, a man, explained, "just imagine the possibilities if we had it under control…."
"The Western Councils certainly have been! Do you know how many times I get a request for its blood!?" Hiruma groaned. "Fucking Americans."
"We wouldn't share it with the west, this is our monstrosity after all." The third man said smoothly. "I know you might not want it around, Hiruma-sama, but it has the potential to be such a useful tool."
"I can see it now, all of the magical world bowing before us in fear." Genkei grinned.
"Can't we all?"
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