"Hello everyone, welcome to Yayoi-chan,"
"And Haruka-chan's,"
"Lovely Spring Corner!"
"How are you all doing? Yayoi-chan's doing just fan~tas~tic! Today's a perfect day to a perfect golden week, so go out already! The sun is so bright and so hot, and the sky, the sky! Haruka-chan, have you ever seen a sky this blue?"
"I have, actually."
"For real? You're lying."
"I'm not lying, I have seen a sky this blue before… though it may have been in a picture."
"Or a painting, right?"
"Oh, that could be. A painting of heaven, maybe?" Giggling. "Talking about pictures, I heard e~very museum in the city is having an open doors event today? Is that true, Yayoi-chan?"
"You bet! Since today is…"
Fujino Shizuru sighed, giving an annoyed look—though anyone seeing would have been unable to identify it as such—at the gushing pair of young women in the television screen. Her hands shifted the bookmark among the pages of the Konno Oyuki light novel she'd been half-reading and closed it. The clock in the corner told her it was about time for Natsuki to be up and about, but…
Lying on her stomach on the couch in her black shirt, baggy jeans and dangling bare feet, Kataoka Yumei raised her head to look at her with bored grey eyes.
"You gonna go 'n wake her up?"
Shizuru gave another look at the TV clock, then at the barely visible doorway leading to the kitchen from which Fumi-obaahan and the eldest tenant, Kasumi-han, could be heard preparing breakfast. Right on schedule, the ceiling gave a thump as one of the Imai twins completed their wake-up ritual by falling out of bed.
It would be in Natsuki's best interests to be awakened, by all means, but…
"Muuuh, Haruka-chan, you're being mean again!"
"I'm not, it's the truth—mou! Sergei-kun, you're at the museum right now, right? You can tell her I'm right."
"You're not."
"That's right, Haruka-chan, I'm at the museum, but unfortunately they don't want to let our camera crew in! " a pair of reactions, as disappointed as they were exaggerated, "All I can tell you is what people can expect to see here today, and to have them go and prove which one of you are right."
"It's me, right?"
"We'll see! Okay, first in the art wing, we have—"
…but she'd come home awfully late last night, hadn't she? Shizuru had waited for her until Fumi-obaahan sent her to bed around eleven, and Natsuki still hadn't returned until some time later. Did she really have to wake up so early? Did her partner? What had she been doing, staying up so late?
She glanced at the clock again, her face schooled carefully to conceal her indecision.
"—and finally, the much awaited revealing of Kobayashi Mitsuo's mural will happen later today in the war memorial room."
"Oh! Oh! I know that one! Haruka-chan, do you?"
"Umm, that's the room with all the tanks and the planes and the battleships?"
"Bzzzt! Wrong! That's where they show the stuff that that expedition picked up from the ruins of Fuuka island a few years ago, isn't that right, Sergei-kun?"
"Exactly, Yayoi-chan! Wow, you're right, and Haruka-chan isn't! I guess there's a first time for everything!"
"Ah! Hido~~i~~!" giggle, giggle.
Then, just as she made her decision and reluctantly put her book aside, the younger bluette finally made her entrance from the stairwell, looking like she'd barely slept at all. Her hair was disheveled, her pajamas were messy like she'd spent most of the night turning like a log going downhill, and she stumbled against the wall as she rubbed sleep out of her eyes and mumbled a barely comprehensible "mrnngh".
Shizuru stood, filled with worry. "Natsuki, are you still going today?"
"Nnh?" the younger HiME gave her a querying look, then nodded after a moment. "nn."
"But…" Shizuru hesitated for a second, gathering her thoughts, and tried again: "Are you sure you've slept enough?" She frowned; what she'd really wanted to ask was "what happened last night", yet she found herself unable to voice the question. Natsuki was not a morning person, but this went quite a bit beyond the usual.
"What were ya doin' up that late anyway?" Yumei asked, carelessly not bothering to look before speaking. Her toes drew circles in the air.
Although Natsuki replied nothing but a noncommittal noise, Shizuru guessed that something had happened, asall traces of sleep faded away from the other HiME's eyes at those words. What settled in place was hard focus. Shizuru guessed that the the younger girl's adorably stubborn determination had been given a target, and it took very little guesswork to figure out what exactly was that target.
For an instant, a very, very short instant, Shizuru felt a pang of pity for that group of worthless scum Natsuki and Tanaka-keiji were chasing.
Unusually tight-lipped, Natsuki said nothing during breakfast, except for the inarticulate noises that seemed to have replaced her whole vocabulary. Her eyes lost none of their focus, and when Tanaka-keiji finally arrived to fetch her, Shizuru saw the same hard light in his eyes. The two seemed to speak wordlessly, as if that light was a language no one but them could understand.
Something had happened, that much Shizuru was certain when she came back indoors. She frowned lightly, deliberating with herself for a few moments, then reached a conclusion with a nod to herself.
"Fumi-obaahan, I will be out for most of the day," she announced through the doorway.
It took the startled matron a few seconds to reply. By then, she was already gone.
-
My∞HiME
Book 1
Fresco
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Disclaimer: Not mine, no sue.
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Chapter 7: Violet
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"The forensics department discovered a few more details about the victims overnight," Eriko Ichidouji announced to the small audience (composed of Tanaka
Yuuki, Ishigami Wataru, Kumaji Keitaro, Kuga Natsuki and a handful of officers on Kumaji's staff) sitting in front of her in the briefing room. Standing next to her was a compact middle-aged woman with golden hair tied in a tight bun, whom Ichidouji motioned toward as she continued, "I'll let doctor Tachiki go over them. Doctor?"
The woman nodded, raised her oval-rimmed glasses on her nose and reached for Ichidouji's laptop. The screen erupted to life, revealing the gruesomely mutilated bodies of Amakawa Yuuno and Yuuko. Under the bright white glow of the surgery lights, their skins appeared as white as snow, and the partially carbonized flesh beneath was vividly red.
"First," the doctor began, "I identified the cause of death as general cervical trauma caused by their blood's evaporation. By all evidence, both of them appear to have been partially incinerated from inside, and the blood flow from the struggle wounds I found on Amakawa Yuuko indicated that it was done while she was alive. Yuuno-san shows none of such wounds, but it's likely to have been the same for her."
A grimace ran across the audience's faces.
"Interestingly," the doctor continued, "I found no trace of combustible or any remains of incendiary or explosive device in the victims. Nor did I find any fire starter, not even as much as a match. I would have had to claim they spontaneously incinerated from within if I hadn't found this…" she clicked a button and both images zoomed in, "…near the spinal cord of both victims."
Clearly visible, seared black against pinkish-white bones, danced the flame-like HiME mark.
"I can assure you that this is abnormal," the doctor finished with a roll of her eyes.
"Did you find any evidence linking the bastards to the victims?" Kumaji asked. Ichidouji Eriko was the one to reply,
"There was a fingerprint matching with Ueda Sunao's left major on Amakawa Yuuko's watch. It's them."
"Then," Kumaji declared at the audience, "as it appears the case Ishigami and I were working on and the orphan attacks are connected, and by the Chief's standing orders, I'm taking over this case. Objections?"
There weren't any.
"Good." He didn't sound like he'd been expecting any, either. "In light of the evidence we have, meaning the pair of bodies where two orphans have been used and the matching number of kidnappings, I believe it's safe to assume the thieves somehow need to use sacrifices to call up, or at least control Orphans. I want teams to check the vicinities of the previous attacks to find the missing bodies, and I want to be warned immediately if another girl vanishes. Oh, and please ask Chief Akitori to authorize sending a warning to the population. As much as possible, we want people to go around in groups to make the bastards' job harder."
"Sir," a lieutenant nodded, saluted and turned to leave.
Kumaji glanced at Eriko and the young woman saluted in spite of herself. "Ichidouji, grab all your colleagues. I want you to look at the highway feed recordings for the last few days. Also, on may second, look for a car matching with the description hauling a boat. Yuuki, Princess, you'll help them out; you're on alert today."
Yuuki nodded. A part of him wanted to yell in protest, to ask to be out there as well, but he understood Kumaji's logic; the headquarters was located pretty close to the middle of Minato-ku, making it a perfect staging point to intercept wherever the thieves would attack next, or at least a much better one than randomly patrolling and hoping to land on an attack site (despite the surprising luck that method had had so far). From the look on her face, Kuga didn't look like she was happy about it, either, but her mouth remained shut. She reluctantly nodded as well. The corner of Kumaji's thin mustache twitched, and he opened his mouth to speak again, when—
"Sir!" the exclamation was accompanied by a stream of light from the hallway; it was the same lieutenant from before, wide-eyed and waving a report in his hand like a flag, "they took another one!"
"Gotta hand it to the bastards," Kuga finally said a few minutes after she and Yuuki got themselves settled for a long (long, long, long) day watching cars travel down streets and checking the plates of every black van they saw, "they got guts."
Yuuki made a vaguely agreeing sound, his eyes on the screen, on which was a section of highway he couldn't identify (Tokyo's skyline still confused him). He was tempted to use another word than "guts", but he had to agree that it took a certain twisted courage to kidnap a girl in front of a high-class girl's middle school at seven-forty in the morning, in the middle of the morning rush. It wasn't much of a surprise that word had gotten to the police that quickly, then, nor was their increasing overconfidence out of character for them. What wasn't a surprise, but was rather worrying was exactly how arrogant this indicated they were becoming; clearly, they were so certain of their own invincibility they were willing to do anything. How long would it take them to realize there were much more lucrative ways to make money with their summoning... Technique? Method? They could probably have demanded an insane ransom with reasonable chances of getting it; the police would have a hard time trying to interfere with the threat of having the victim turned into an Orphan and used against them.
They'd stolen a little money, some luxury goods, then a lot of money, and now… now what?
Logic stated that, as they sought economic gain and they'd been so successful last time, they'd try to hit a bank again.
Logic also stated that anyone who pulled heists while wearing clothes like those would get caught within seconds, so he wasn't so sure it applied to this case.
A black Toyota Hiace sped down his screen. He didn't bother looking at the plate number; there was a big tattoo shop ad on the back.
"I just hope we're on time to save her…" Ichidouji's eyes dropped and a sigh flowed between her lips. "Those poor girls…"
"We'll just bust it out of their faces when they're caught," Kuga growled, sounding remarkably like her Child at that moment (and remarkably little like the child she only looked like). "Nothing we can do 'bout the dead ones now."
Ichidouji gave her an uneasy look, but nodded tentatively. Yuuki couldn't help but frown, wondering if he really couldn't have done a thing to save them. Maybe if he'd have taken them more seriously, if he'd focused a bit more on catching them than on Kuga and keeping his job… Hell, he hadn't even considered taking so many of the station's resources on this case, even after the Chief had given it first priority.
And as a result, at least four little girls were dead now, and a fifth one was in danger. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He wasn't a little no-name detective in a small town anymore, damnit!
"AH!" Ichidouji suddenly noised, fumbling with her screen's remote control. "I think—Yeah, here it is! That's them!"
Yuuki froze his screen (freezing the long-haired woman sitting on a lonely overspeeding motorcycle) to look over. Sure enough, it was them, on May second, at 3:07 in the afternoon, going south on the 316th's upper lane. Natsuki reached to look from the other side; standing behind Ichidouji, her chin barely reached over the woman's shoulder.
Ichidouji unfroze the image. The car resumed its way, swinging down traffic with complete disregard for the other drivers (who couldn't see it to complain anyway; it was a miracle (shame?) that they hadn't wound up in an accident yet). Before vanishing from view, it took the next exit left.
"Where is that going?" Yuuki asked.
"There's only one thing that way, and that's the rainbow bridge," she replied.
"'goes to Odaiba," Natsuki added for his benefit, which he responded to with a grateful nod. "The chopper flew over it a few dozen times already and didn't find crap, though." Ichidouji shot her a scolding look, which she pointedly ignored.
"It also goes to Koto-ku," the blonde researcher pointed out, "that's technically outside our jurisdiction, but it shouldn't be a problem—you'd need to tell the Chief where you went and what you did afterward."
"I see," he hummed. It was nice to know red-tape wouldn't get in the way, at least. "Can you give me the feed on the other end of the bridge?"
"Ah... yes, it's on this screen—hold on, let me just..."
Once he had the feed in front of him, finding the thieves' car again had been a matter of fast-forwarding to the right time. The bridge apparently led to a T-shaped interchange, which the thieves' car took to head southwest.
"It's Odaiba," Natsuki, who'd been looking over his shoulder the whole time, chirped while pointing. Her finger left an incriminating print on the screen.
"There aren't any cameras looking further down that way," Said Ichidouji, crossing her arms under her ample bosom.
"I see," Yuuki repeated, frowning thoughtfully. One of his hands fished in his pocket and grabbed his notebook.
May second was the very day the boat had disappeared from its parking area, and the timing meant that this was a very, very short time afterward.
None of the abductions or attacks had occurred in Odaiba. None of the abductions had occurred at that time, either. That had happened... uh... Friday and Saturday, April 28th and 29th respectively, but the first attack hadn't happened until a day after, on April 30th (why had they kidnapped two? Enigma one), with the second happening the next day, on May First. The next day, Tokiichi's boat goes missing (why did they take it in the first place? Why then and not at the start? Enigma two), and their car gets spotted going down to Odaiba… without their boat.
The day after, they take the twins, to summon two orphans at them the next day, yesterday, where their car was at the site of the attack.
Considering they had a stealthed van to hide into, Yuuki's initial deduction had been that they'd remained in hiding somewhere inside the van, but these thieves were unusual in many ways; far from fearing the police, they instead saw themselves as some kind of supervillains (if the costume and the way Ueda Tetsuo had referred to him meant anything), and supervillains didn't camp out in stealthed vans, no. They always had those big visible hideouts where they had their climatic battle against the superheroes (here his mind derailed when a picture of Kuga wearing Batman's (well, woman's) costume and posing on top of a building assaulted his brain).
The scary thing is that he could see it happen.
He made a mental note that he looked awful as Robin.
He shook his head and scolded himself. Following that train of thought (the thieves, not Superheroine thirteen years olds and their sidekicks), what made sense was that their hideout was in Odaiba; most likely, someone else was driving the boat to wherever their hideout was at the very moment, with the car probably carrying mooring supplies, or…
Well, he was drawing a blank. It made very little sense for the car to be going down that way, but then actions that made very little sense made sense with these thieves, if that made any sense.
He felt an ache starting to grow between his temples.
So anyway. Their hideout had to be big, somewhere that could be reached both with a car and by boat, and was most likely deserted otherwise they would have been spotted a long time ago. That meant it had to be…
…yes, it couldn't really me anything else, could it?
"Fast forward a bit," he told Ichidouji, "try to catch them on the way back. I need to give a call to Kumaji."
"Hm?" Kuga voiced up, "What'cha got?"
He told her. She blinked, then slapped her forehead.
"I feel stupid."
Accessible by road and boat, highly visible yet completely deserted and mostly isolated. There was indeed such a place in Odaiba.
Back in the nineteen-fifties, during a peak of Orphan hysteria, a set of highly armored warehouses had been built near the southern end of the artificial island to reassure merchants that their cargo would be safe from even the most powerful attacks. Unfortunately, hurried plans with more intent toward public relations than usefulness had led to a shoddy construction that, while incredibly solid, was unfortunately impractical for freight handling, and as a result the warehouses saw practically no service until their retirement in early nineteen-eighty. Only two warehouses had remained standing by nineteen-eighty-four when the population of Odaiba had used them as cover during Princess Week, after which too many people owed gratitude to the old buildings for the deconstruction to continue; the protests had been so intense and mediatized that even he, the hick from the woods, so to speak, had heard about them.
Hence, there were two very big, very tough and also very abandoned building sitting near the coast, with access to the sea wide enough to welcome a whole freighter, never mind a private recreational trawler; the ideal kind of place for their supervillainous thieves to hide into.
"I don't think it's very likely," Kumaji replied after Yuuki had told his thoughts, "but it's worth checking out. Come, and bring Princess with you."
And so, just ten minutes later, he and Kuga were aboard a squad car speeding down the highway with sirens blaring. There was a relative silence in the vehicle, but it wasn't uncomfortable at all; he was far too busy focusing on the road, and she… well, he really focused too hard on the road to look at her. She could have been making rude gestures at passersby and he wouldn't have noticed.
About halfway there, the radio crackled to life, and Ichidouji's voice came through.
"Station to Tanuki, do you copy?"
He gave a quick look at his partner, who nodded and reached for the radio with a small hand.
"Princess here," she replied, then a second later added "ten-two" for "Good reception" as an afterthought.
So she referred to herself as that?
And wait, since when was he fine with that ridiculous nickname?
"I found the time they left Odaiba, it was the day after, around thirteen hours."
"Understood," Yuuki replied in thin air. From the timing, that had to be around the time they'd gone out to abduct the twins.
"Got it," Kuga replied in the radio, giving him a playful look. He snorted silently. Cheeky brat.
"We're looking ahead to see when they returned," Ichidouji continued. "I should be back in a few minutes with more intel, over."
He gave Kuga a nod.
"Ten-four," the young girl replied in his stead, then reached again to hang the transmitter on the dashboard.
It remained silent until the car stopped next to Kumaji and Ishigami's, who hadn't been waiting long.
The hulking frames of the gigantic armored warehouses dominated the southernmost point of Odaiba and were indeed visible from pretty much everywhere around Tokyo Bay, but it was only when standing right next to them, or at least close enough to throw a rock at them, that their sheer size could be properly registered. Built to protect massive cargo boats from supernatural levels of abuse, each were several hundred meters long and stood twice as tall as the neighboring container piles, themselves impressive. Their metal and concrete walls, although barely more than a decade old, had not taken well to the environmental abuse of Tokyo bay and the criminal activities of Odaiba's low-lives; their walls were chipped and cracked in many places and despite the security guards and the fence surrounding their land-accessible areas, a psychedelic coat of graffiti, two or three layers thick in places, covered them nearly completely.
A few, usually the biggest, were colorful gang tags, but the vast majority were messages, and considering the nature of the memories associated with the buildings, Yuuki found it a better idea to walk between them and Natsuki, lest the little girl explode in a fit of righteous anger.
Except the sea, the only way to access the buildings was through a claustrophobic street, a "one and a half"-way turned two-way simply because there wasn't enough room to build another road going in the other direction. The street would have usually led directly to a short pier and a cold bath to a careless and hopelessly lost driver, but today...
"What the hell's going on?" Natsuki asked.
...today, the street was blocked around mid-way through the second warehouse by a large, bustling crowd. The ordinarily dreary street had been livened up by colorful garlands hanging from the lamp posts. Several tents had been put up on the unkempt grounds and a handful of workers were busily doing their best to wipe away the graffiti with a high-pressure water jet. A hanging flag told him what the crowd was about.
Right, it was that time of the year, wasn't it? Princess Week Memorial... evidently, this year, the organizers had decided to start the parade here.
He glanced down at Natsuki, who was staring at the preparations with a decidedly unfriendly eye. Right, better expedite things, then.
A young woman wearing a yellow hoodie with the sleeves pulled high above her elbows walked up to them, a curious glint in her eyes.
"Ah, hello, may I help you?" she asked with a very thin accent he couldn't identity and a tired but excited wheeze in her voice. Her brown skin was glinting with sweat. "If it's about the noise, we're already doing our best to—oh, sorry, I'm Katou Miyako, the organizer—well, one of them, anyway. I'm in charge of down here all the way to the Statue of Courage—you know, where Yuuki Hanako was sh--"
"Ah, yes, yes, thank you," Yuuki interrupted before the apparently nervous, excited and endorphin-doped woman could say something that would trigger a Kuga explosion (there were little sparks floating around the girl's hands, although no one else seemed to have noticed). "Thank you, but we're not actually here for the parade... did you notice anything unusual around here lately?"
"Within the last week or so?" Ishigami added.
"Ah... I'm afraid I can't help you there," she replied with a shrug. "We've only been here for three days, and I've been so busy setting everything up that I just don't have time to--"
"Wait, three days?" Yuuki interrupted.
"Y~es?" the woman answered in a confused drawl, "well, more like four days, but we only put the material here and had a look around on the first day... like I was about to say, the security guards can probably tell you more; wouldn't rely on them too much, though," she added with a glance at the graffiti-plastered walls, "looks like they've been sleeping on the job. It'll take forever to get all this shi—er, stuff," she added with a glance at Kuga, "off the wall."
"I see," Yuuki replied. "Just in case, you wouldn't happen to have a HiME in your crew, would you?" It was highly unlikely they'd have seen anything of value without one, unless someone happened to have a camera handy.
In response, the young woman shot him a flat look. "Of course not." From her tone, it was obvious she now thought he was an idiot.
"I see. Thank you, Katou-han. "
Thus excused, the young woman returned to the crowd. Yuuki turned to his colleagues and partner.
"Well, that explains the boat. They must have settled themselves in those," he motioned at the warehouses with his thumb, "only to get surprised when all of a sudden they," another gesture, this time at the construction workers, "suddenly show up and their little hideout isn't so hidden anymore. The timing matches."
Kumaji frowned. "You're assuming they were in here in the first place. Why would they have holed themselves in there when they have a car that can turn invisible? It makes no sense."
"It makes sense," Yuuki retorted, "because they're supervillains. In their heads, anyway—besides, there's one easy way to make sure. Let's check inside, shall we?"
Kumaji looked at him for a few seconds, then made a noncommittal grunt.
The security guard in place was an old officer close to retirement who spoke slowly, walked slowly and had a loving light in his eyes whenever he gazed at the dilapidated buildings he was failing to look after. After answering their questions, essentially the same the manager had been asked, with similarly negative answers, he unlocked the entrance door of the southernmost building with a grunt of exertion; the lock had remained essentially untouched for many years and was in great need of oil.
"You don't check inside?" Kumaji rumbled as the older man led them through a claustrophobically tight passageway that ran alongside the wall for a few dozen meters.
"This is the only door, except the garage gates, and those are still sealed with the same concrete from back then," he explained. Anyone going in would have had to go through me."
"What about through Tokyo Bay?" Yuuki asked.
"Sealed too," the old man replied, then grinned. "Well, you'll see. It's right beyond this door..." another bout of struggling later, the door was open and the four policemen walked in the main room, Natsuki trailing behind.
Yuuki made an appreciative whistle as he got his first real look at the warehouse's insides. The first thing that got to him was the ceiling; in all honesty, he couldn't recall having ever seen a bigger, wider or taller ceiling. Massive rail-mounted cranes, at one time used to unload or load docked ships, were now useless, salvaged of their usable parts and solidly secured to the roof by thick steel cables. The next thing he noticed were the huge engine-powered winders; apparently too unwieldy, the devices originally used to tug the ships out of the sea and secure them inside had been stripped of their useful parts (such as the engine and the cable) and left to rust along the ledge of the pier.
Barely visible in the dark of the room's far end where sunlight couldn't reach was the reason why the old man had been sure no one would enter through Tokyo Bay; the entire wall was made of huge metal panels like some horribly oversized pair of sliding doors. Final point of interest, and more interestingly, were the three garage doors on the far right wall; it was easy to tell that they had been the main reason for the warehouse's abandonment. They were barely wide enough for a truck to drive through, and just thinking of how long it must have taken to load or unload the several hundred containers a cargo typically carried made him shake his head in disbelief. Just as the officer had said, they had been, at one point, blocked away, but...
"Sealed with concrete, huh?" Kumaji rumbled.
Because, indeed, to the surprise of the old security officer, one of the garage doors was most certainly not sealed. From the pile of materials around it, it seemed like someone had used raw strength and a pic-axe—ah, and there was one right there, on top of the pile—to clear it off. Yuuki reached over to one of the sealed doors and touched the "concrete"; it was brittle and weak, and an entire chunk remained in his hand when pulled away.
"Whoever made this concrete did the worst job ever," he noted.
"W—Well, it happened during that time," the old man protested, visibly shocked. "The materials... we worked with what we had, it—it was solid back then, really solid! How could I—"
"Hm. That's something, I suppose, "Kumaji replied, ignoring the blabbering, "but it doesn't mean our thieves were here. There's no way they could have opened those doors to hide their boat inside."
"Haah?" Kuga, forgotten in all this, suddenly made a startled noise and stared at Kumaji oddly. "Uh, they're open."
"What?" Yuuki wasn't sure if it was he or Kumaji who spoke first; he looked at the doors and saw them all closed.
"They are!" Kuga insisted. "Well, that one on the far right is, anyway—how else would we be seeing anything? It's not like there are any lights or windows in here..."
And suddenly, he realized she was [b]right[/b]! There were absolutely no windows, as expected of a glorified bunker, and what lights he could see were dead as doornails without electricity, yet the entire warehouse was bathed with the mid-day sun's light. Even then, however, when he looked at the far wall, he still couldn't see it.
"Do you see anything else? Anything unusual?" Yuuki pressed on, then turned toward the old man, "could you bring a camera in here? Please?"
The old man nodded and left as quickly as his tired legs would let him. Kuga, meanwhile, had taken to look around, pointing at whatever she could see—most of which he could see as well, but then...
"...the ropes here next to the book, and the box over here," she pointed at something right next to her... where he could see nothing but the concrete floor. He and Kumaji both reacted at the same.
"Open it," they chorused.
"Huh?" Kuga blinked. "You mean you don't see that one either? But you," he pointed at Yuuki, "just walked around it, so I thought... uh... right. I'll just... get on with the opening of stuff now..."
And she reached over in mid-air, grabbed something—
because suddenly there [b]was[/b] something where he could have sworn there hadn't been before—and sure enough, he realized he'd been walking right into it and had somehow avoided something he couldn't even see.
"How the hell are they doing that?" Ishigami hissed. "It's just not normal."
How indeed... it wasn't invisibility, since no amount of invisibility could hide a door being open... It looked like some kind of notice-me-not spell...
He cut himself off there. THAT would imply magic, which would open a whole new can of worms he didn't feel comfortable with. He was already afraid of what his report would look like; better to assume it was some kind of doohickey with whatever Orphans were made of.
It was a big box of wood painted in white which he felt should recognize, but the nature of which escaped him at the moment. The cover was apparently too heavy for the little girl, but now that Kumaji could see it, he wasted no time in reaching over to pull it open. Belatedly, Yuuki realized this was a fish box, where a fisherman could store his catches.
There were garbage bags inside.
And inside those damnably familiar garbage bags was money. Lots and lots of money, every bill of it stolen less than twenty-four hours prior.
"...well I'll be damned," Kumaji sighed. "Looks like you were right, kid."
Yuuki probably shouldn't have felt as proud as he did.
"Still," Kumaji continued with a glance across the abandoned vastness of the room, "that still doesn't tell us where they are."
Yuuki deflated a bit, then grudgingly admitted so with a nod.
"We know they were in Takanawa less than two hours ago," Ishigami spoke. "Maybe they got caught in traffic?"
Kumaji made a bear-like grunt. "We didn't, so why should they? Even though this is a Friday morning, this is Golden Week. So many people are taking their breaks around this time you'd have to look for a traffic jam to find one."
"So they should have had more than enough time to get here, then?" A nod from a somewhat sheepish Ishigami was Yuuki's reply; he made a mental note to learn Tokyo's topography as soon as possible. "Then there's two possibilities. A: they came here and left already, or B: they're still out there."
"Why would they have come back?" Ishigami asked.
"Every other time, there was at least twelve hours between the kidnapping and the actual attack. I don't know why they would, but I'm pretty sure they came back here every time."
"You're assuming again," Kumaji warned, but Yuuki shook his head.
"I'm not. It makes sense if you try to think how they do; they're supervillains, right? I know it sounds silly," he added quickly, raising his hand against Kumaji's interjection, "but following that line of thought led us here. They came back in their super-secret hideout to plan out their nefarious plans every time."
"What, they went back here and planned to attack a fruit shop?" Kumaji snorted.
"It wasn't the fruit shop they wanted, it was the jewelry in front of it. And they did just that the second time."
"But their van is invisible," Ishigami interrupted. "It's a hell of a lot easier to hide into than this," he waved his arms at the gigantic warehouse's volume.
"Ah, but they're supervillains," Yuuki emphasized. "What kind of supervillain camps out in a van instead of a giant evil fortress in the middle of nowhere?"
"That makes no sense," Kumaji grunted.
Yuuki shrugged. "I know. That's why it makes sense."
"Well, it'd explain this, anyway," Kuga, forgotten in the discussion, suddenly cut into Kumaji's most likely scathing answer, and the three officers turned her way. The young girl was kneeling next to the book on the floor which she'd opened, and which the rows upon rows of names and numbers identified as a directory. The page Kuga had turned to had been earmarked by folding three full pages in halves. "These are all jewelries, and there's their addresses on them..." She made a pensive hum while Yuuki moved closer, peering over her shoulder. "It kinda looks like there's a bump here... see?" she pointed, and he had to kneel next to her to notice.
Indeed there was, so minute he would have overlooked it; something thin but not sharp had hit the page just over the name of a shop apparently built on Kashiwagi street. Frowning, Yuuki took a quick glance in his notebook; the first attack had occurred there.
Come to think about it, that bump was about the right size to be one of Ueda's throwing cards...
Kuga wasn't done, though. "And then there's this," She reached next to the book and grabbed the ropes—taking care to hide her hands in the sleeves of her hoodie first, Yuuki noticed with a touch of surprise; perhaps he should have expected her to know how not to damage a crime scene—then held them to him.
"This is a warehouse, and a dock. Of course there'd be ropes." Ishigami told her gently before Yuuki could, but there was something distinctly condescending in the way he shook his head at her.
Far from growing angry, the girl raised a blue eyebrow. "A rope this thin? Plus, it's a hell of a lot newer than anything else in here."
Once again, he realized she was right, and as he took it in his hands, he realized the rope was actually made of natural fiber. In a cold, dark and damp environment like this, this rope should have fallen to rot a long time ago. There was simply no way this rope could have remained here for fifteen years. He raised an eyebrow, impressed, and spotted an appreciative nod from Kumaji in the corner of his eye.
"Plus, it doesn't smell like them," Kuga concluded. At Yuuki's confused look, she clarified, "my nose isn't as good as Durhan's and this place reeks, but I kinda doubt any of the bastards use floral shampoo, if they've even approached a shower in the last week or so."
Kumaji rolled his eyes. "Alright. Let's pretend you're right, kid. If they come here every time and play patty-cakes for half-a-day every time before hitting their targets, then why aren't they here now?"
That was actually a good question. They had their victim, and their MO should have brought them back here so they'd start planning their next move. If they hadn't come here, then that meant...
That meant their next move was already planned. If that was the case, then that they weren't here meant...
"...shit." He turned to Kuga. "We need to get back to station now."
They didn't make it.
"Hm... well, it's good enough. It'll make a nice ending for the visitors—a final bang to close the show, if you get what I mean."
Yamato Yukito, better known as his painter's pseudonym Kobayashi Mitsuo, did not like the curator. He didn't like the man's face, he didn't like the man's voice, he didn't like the way the man chuckled to his own joke—a joke that was, considering the subject, in horrible taste, in Yukito's opinion. Mostly, though, he didn't like the man's arrogance; he walked among the halls of "his" museum—financed from public funds—while sprouting his high-handed, faux-connoisseur judgment of "his" showpieces regardless of who was listening (visitors excluded, of course).
At sixty-two years old, Yukito was on his last legs and anyone with eyes could tell. His hair had started receding years ago and what strands of it continued fighting their inescapable fate formed discrete, sickly tufts on his temples which only seemed to enhance his situation. His breathing was labored, but he held it strong by sheer force of will, just like he'd survived to his terminal lung cancer for all this time.
Yukito was dying. Some might be sad, but in his mind, he was really just rejoining his island of birth, the land of Fuuka; he would die from the same thing that had murdered everyone he'd known prior to the age of eight; it had only taken him longer than them. This was to be his tribute, his way of forcing people to remember them before he left this world. The fresco might have taken only a few months to complete, but in reality it was the culmination of his life.
And this idiot was treating it like a doodle on the wall. The thought was maddening! And as for how much money said idiot would be making off exposing what possessions they'd brought back from the ruins of his friends and neighbors' homes, the thought was forcefully shoved down lest he became tempted to grab the nearest remotely pointed object to insert it in his fool's eyes. It wasn't like the display paid any kind of respect to the victims, either; the torii that had once stood over the entrance of the island's only temple had been taken—cut off at the base with a chainsaw—and given a fresh coat of paint, complete with a handful of tasteless ofuda, to make it bright, shiny and eye-catching. Yukito had no doubt that it had been as blackened as everything else on the island.
"I'm glad you like it, sir," Yukito replied with deliberate diplomacy.
"Well, 'like' is a big word," the idiot replied flippantly with gestured commas, giving a critical lookover at his work. "It could have gone with brighter colors, not all this black and gray. Maybe a flame or two?"
'What, do you know what a mushroom cloud looks like better than I do?' he was tempted to speak out loud, but held it in.
"And the bottom is... well, I thought it was supposed to represent the nuclear strike at Fuuka? Shouldn't there have been an island at the bottom?"
'There is; under the smoke!' "I thought I'd go with a more symbolic representation," is what he said either, lying liberally. "This room is like Fuuka itself, and the mushroom cloud at the end... see?"
The man made an impressed sound. "That's an interesting way to see it. Very interesting... though you really should have suggested it to me before now; the effect you wanted just doesn't come through, but that's where a bit of clever scene play comes in handy, right?" the man chuckled, and Yukito felt a bit like he was standing in front of an incoming train.
"Yes... yes, let's put the model of the village right here, in front of all that smoke. That will make a nice closing statement. Perfect! I didn't like it that much near the entrance, you know... too much niceness to start with. This way will have a much better impact!"
Yukito, or was that the curator, found himself rescued when a panic erupted from the front of the building.
A pair of calm, elegant crimson eyes narrowed.
Sandal-clad feet left the street.
"A museum?!"
"Yes. The Metropolitan Historical Museum, in fact. Get there ASAP; the on-site reports we're getting are pretty bad, and there's no saying how much irreparable damage that thing can cause."
"Alright. Ten-four." Yuuki put down the radio set at the same time Kuga reached over and flicked the siren switch.
A museum? What?
In her seat, Natsuki grit her teeth and clenched her fists.
They'd been too late again.
The Orphan was one of those medium-big ones, noted Natsuki as the patrol car came upon the devastated scene and the monster came into her view. It stood about one and a half stories tall on two hoofed legs, swinging oversized arms tipped with ugly mace-like protrusions and a similarly tipped tail with every ungainly step. Its head, almost imperceptible between its overblown shoulders, was that of a worm, a hole like a chimney filled with serrated teeth from which erupted a constant gargling making up most of its volume. The whole thing was covered by a puce-colored leathery skin which glittered with a slimy sheen.
By luck, their heading had put them within only minutes of arriving to the scene, but even then the damage it had caused to the avenue in front of the museum was considerable; it was probably only a matter of luck that it hadn't tried to get in the building itself. The pavement was cracked at multiple places and littered with potholes the size of manholes. Several stores had found their fronts shattered, and a few had even collapsed on themselves. Abandoned cars were smashed, flipped, some were burning while others were screaming their alarms futilely. A handful of lampposts had been uprooted, and even as she disembarked from the patrol car, she saw it smash a massive fist into another, snapping the screws holding it to the concrete like twigs and sending the massive pole flying off in the air to crash into a deserted bus.
And that's about the time Natsuki noticed the bodies. A man, lying broken near the entrance of the museum. A woman's skirt-clad legs, immobile while the rest of her lied crushed under a car. Another man, this one wrapped around a lamp post.
A girl, just a year or two younger than her, burned inside-out somewhere, murdered to bring that [b]thing here...
"DURHAN!" she yelled, and felt her righteous anger mirrored in her Child's mind as he materialized. First, she'd kill that thing, and then she'd make the bastards regret ever being fucking born, she decided. She gave a sideway glance at Tanaka; the officer was looking at her questioningly.
She shook her head and glanced at the museum.
'I won't need help. Get the fuckers.'
He nodded and, without even glancing at the monster, ran straight for the museum. She turned her attention back to the monster, which had just grabbed a lamp post and was tentatively sliding it down its gullet. It looked like one of those dumb types, so maybe if...
"Do you mind very much if I take care of this, Natsuki?" came a sophisticated, calm, and in fact cheerful voice from behind.
She recognized her before even turning around. "Shizuru? What on earth are you doing here?"
"I was doing groceries for Fumi-obaahan when I heard the disturbance," explained the older(barely!) girl, dressed in the same brown yukata as this morning and a crimson cardigan over her shoulders, gave her one of those infuriatingly imperturbable smiles. She brandished a plastic bag from which a handful of spring onions stuck out as evidence, but even then Natsuki was pretty sure she was lying.
"Won't Tanaka-keiji need your help?" she continued, and Natsuki hesitated
"Ah... well... um..." he would, she was pretty sure. She gave a glance at the monster, which had discarded the lamp post and was now trying to eat a block of concrete. She wanted to hurt it. The urge was overwhelming. But the bastards...
She nearly jumped out of her skin when Shizuru's hand gently touched her shoulder, as it was only because she was used to the other girl's idea of skinship that she didn't at the feeling of her other hand caressing her side.
"Aren't those responsible for this a better target for Natsuki's wrath?" the girl asked, her smile never breaking. "Don't worry, I'll make this as unpleasant for this beast as possible."
Natsuki froze, glanced at the monster again—it seemed to have noticed them just now—then at the museum doors... and made her decision.
"Please." And, breaking out of the other girl's loose hold, she ran for the museum, Child following loyally.
Shizuru watched her leave for a moment, enjoying the warmth in her chest the younger HiME never failed to raise within her. Then, her crimson eyes turned toward the otherworldly beast. Her smile never fell, even as a blood-colored naginata materialized in her hands.
"Now then. Shall we teach this one some manners, Kyohime?"
In the depth of her shadow, several sets of golden eyes shimmered with gleeful malevolence...
The beast gargled a challenge...
...and all around them, the shadows answered...
A museum.
It made no sense, Yuuki decided as he stalked silently among one of the museum's deserted showrooms. With a glance at a painting of some old feudal lord he didn't recognize, he mused that there was plenty to steal, if one was really willing to get caught, but there was no money to be made hitting a museum, unless one had a buyer. And these thieves didn't, as far as he knew. Amateurs they might have been, but even they had to know a museum's security measures were intended on keeping thieves in, not out. It didn't escape him that this was a golden chance to catch them; if they made so much as a single mistake, the cage would close behind them, and without a victim to sacrifice, they couldn't spring an Orphan on him; they'd be trapped and at his mercy.
...That is, unless they violated the laws of physics again and broke another bulletproof window with a plastic chair.
His handgun felt heavy on his belt; maybe he should just shoot and claim it'd been self-defense, and damn the cameras—
[b]Thump![/b]
His heart nearly jumped out of his chest. What was th—
[b]Thump!![/b]
The sound came again, this time with something that sounded like a shout of pain. He grinned as he realized he knew that voice; it was Sunao Ueda. They were nearby! But which way? The museum was a bit like a maze; most rooms had access to two or three hallways or staircases, which led to more rooms and more hallways. Complicating things were that the damn rooms were so cavernous that there reigned a powerful echo, which made tracking them by sound just about impossible. This room was no different; excluding the path behind him, there was a single staircase on the left wall, a single hallway on the wall in front, and two on the right wall, one of which was sealed to visitors; the sign dangling from the thick cable claimed it was for a new exhibit, something about the ruins of Fuuka.
Hm. They'd hit something, twice, and strong enough for the imposing man that was Sunao Ueda to hurt himself. He would have guessed they'd tried to force a door, but it hadn't sounded like any door he'd ever seen... maybe one of the glass panes covering the smaller exhibits? But something like that would have been guaranteed to trigger the alarms, unless... unless...
...unless security measures hadn't been set in place yet!
Tentatively following his deduction as being his best guess, he drew his gun and slipped under the rope.
The voices up ahead became clearer. He grinned.
The first thing Natsuki did after bursting through the museum doors on wolfback was order Durhan to find Tanaka's trail. A few whiffs later, though, she revised that order; on top of the panicked smells of the already dispersed crowd—where had they escaped to? The Orphan was blocking the front door... a back door somewhere?—and alongside the now familiar scent of Yuuki were three highly recognizable stenches; the bastards were in here, somewhere.
Judging that she'd either end up saving Tanaka's ass or getting first crack at the thieves (the thought of which brought a brutal grin to her young face), she ordered Durhan to follow their trail instead which, sensing her own bloodlust and taking it as his own, he did gladly. Tracking them proved to be very easy; the three hadn't so much as touched a shower in some time, which made following them by smell a simple, if unpleasant, experience.
The trail was confused and serpentine, as if they themselves hadn't been sure of where they had been going. It walked right through a room full of jewels—she couldn't quite read the kanji, but apparently they'd belonged to some lady in the twelve hundreds (or at least, she assumed it was a lady)—took a wide turn around a samurai armor in the next room, turned round and round in the war-era section's medal displays, tried its luck opening the locked door to one of the storage rooms and failed, then crossed a rope blocking the way to a new exhibit.
That's around the time she heard their voices. She grinned.
All things considered, Blade was having a lot of fun. Who knew life as a supervillain could be so great? Although he would have preferred to be a superhero like Spiderman or Superman, or a good bad guy like Deadpool or Gambit (kinda), but the problem was that there were no other supervillains to fight, and ordinary crime was just too hard to find (not to mention boring) to make a superhero career out of. Either way, though, the real thing was so much better than the comics or the movies! Even if he wanted a shower, and the food wasn't that great, and the girls kicked sometimes and it hurt, it was still a lot better than spending their time going through his collection over and over while pressing the little button with the red circle and the other button with black square like aniki wanted him to (though that was fun too, in its own way). What aniki did with the cassettes after he was done watching, he didn't know, but he trusted aniki, because aniki was smart.
But not as smart as Beru-kun, though, Ueda "Blade" Sunao thought with an outward chuckle that went ignored by both of his companions in crime. Beru-kun was a university graduate! That meant he was really smart. He'd also made a lot of things, like make the Dark Roller invisible to people, and the Dark Floater invisible too, and hid the door of the Dark Hideout, and gave him this really nice knife which made their hostages—the word made him chuckle again—burn and called up a Orphans. And he'd made all that just from reading part of the book the scary boy with the eyes had given aniki, too!
Blade didn't like the scary boy. Blade knew he wasn't very smart, but he could tell when people were looking down on him, and it made him angry. And the little boy was looking down on all of them all the time, even Beru-kun and aniki. That made him angry, and when he was angry, Blade liked to cut things. But he couldn't cut the scary boy, because the boy was scary and had the eyes. Just thinking about the eyes made him scared, and that made him angry, because he didn't like to be scared.
But scaring people was a lot of fun, though!
"Oh, shut up already." That was Beru-kun. He was really smart, but he complained a lot. And right now, he was using a weird tool the scary kid had given them to try and cut a hole in the glass Blade had tried to break open just a few minutes earlier.
His hand still hurt. That glass was really hard.
"Aniki and I weren't talking," Blade replied plaintively.
"You were chortling and whining to yourself like an imbecile. If you—"
"Oi, Berzelius. Watch what you call my little brother."
"...Yes. Whatever. I apologize. Now if you would both be quiet, I need my concentrati—"
"FREEZE!" the bellow nearly scared Blade out of his wits.
"Oh, what now—oh. [b]Oh.[/b]" That was Beru-kun.
"Damnit." That was aniki.
Blade looked. There was a police officer in the back entrance! But this one didn't have a big scary rifle; he had just an ordinary handgun, so he couldn't be a superhero, which meant he wasn't dangerous.
"Yes, freeze. Literally." THAT had come from behind! Blade turned again, and—
It was a little girl... and she was riding a really big metal wolf with really, really big guns on its back. SHE had to be a superhero!
The girl took a few steps forward, walking under the big red gate at the entrance like in front of temples...
And that's when things went, in Ueda Sunao's own words, really wonky weird.
The first warning Natsuki had that something was wrong was a sharp, powerful stabbing pain on her side as soon as she crossed the torii. Later, she would intellectually realize that the pain had burst from her mark to spread over the rest of her body like lightning, but at the time, the only thing she realized was that she hurt.
The second thing she realized was that Durhan was howling in similar agony...
And the third thing she realized, with shock, was that she couldn't feel his thoughts anymore.
There was a sound, like shattering glass, as her fingers clenched around her suddenly fragile gun and broke it into insubstantial shards. There was another sound, like water being rapidly frozen, and Durhan stopped howling.
Natsuki felt it happening more than she saw it. First, the steadying arm she'd kept around his back cannon suddenly tightened further as the pressure became enough to crack the suddenly frail metal. Then her balance lurched as Durhan's front legs collapsed under their weight, quickly followed by his hind legs.
Then there was a loud crack, and suddenly Natsuki was falling through his empty, broken back as her Child fell apart like a castle of cards, becoming countless shards of ice and metal.
She felt no pain. She felt no terror. She felt something that was so far past horror it couldn't be described. She reached for a part of her brave, loyal and beloved Child's muzzle and felt it break in her hand, the shards shrinking and becoming as insubstantial as mist...
Her scream—was she screaming?—was cut off when she was roughly yanked off her knees. Someone yelled something, right next to her ear. She didn't understand it. She saw Tanaka yell something. His gun was pointed at her. Was he going to shoot her? Shouldn't she be afraid? A kind of emotionless mist was shrouding her mind; it wasn't quite shock. She knew shock; she'd seen and felt it herself and had been told what it was. This was worse, a kind of blanket which left her mind confused and focused upon the most irrelevant thing... such as the nature of the blanket itself.
Tanaka was slowly lowering his gun.
Something thin was pressing against her throat. Someone was shouting in her ear again. It hurt.
She frowned.
It hurt.
She didn't like that.
Who was grabbing her? Tanaka was lowering his gun. He was in front of her. It couldn't be him. The only other people here were the thieves...
...so it had to be them.
Something thin was pressing against her throat.
A blade? She was being held hostage?
Her reaction came from instinct more than thought.
She was being held hostage? Her?! Those fools had no idea what they were dealing with.
She willed for her guns. Her hands remained empty. She reached again. Same result. Her nose felt numb. Her ears dull. The hand around her body felt impossibly strong. She struggled against it anyway; it held. Even Kumaji's arms hadn't been this immovable.
And that's when the realization finally ran through her dulled, shell-shocked mind that she didn't have her powers.
Incensed by her struggle, her captor pressed the blade into her throat again. She winced as her air was tightened and relented, and to her relief the blade's pressure lessened. She was jostled as the man grabbing her—she recognized the dirty cloak covering his arm now; this was the Kaito Kid wannabe, Ueda Tetsuo. His breath ran on her ear like a warm fish. The stench floated in her nostrils and, for the first time, she felt glad her HiME enhancements seemed to be gone.
Tetsuo yelled again. Something about a gun? His voice was shaking a bit; was it excitement? Nervousness? Both?
The blade pressed against her throat again. It hurt; it choked her, instead of cutting. Awfully dull, wasn't it?
In front of them, Tanaka looked like he had swallowed something incredibly sour. He lowered his gun to the floor slowly, like the movement was causing him pain.
Tanaka couldn't shoot. She was in the way.
They were using her as an hostage...
...to force Tanaka to lower his gun...
...and guarantee their escape.
They were going to use her to make their way out to hurt more people.
Her.
Shock faded into fury.
Oh HELL NO!
She forced her head forward...
...the blade DUG into her throat...
...and then threw her head backward with everything she had.
[b]CRACK!!![/b]
Oooh~ maybe that wasn't such a great idea... owowowow
They weren't carrying anything had been the first thought that crossed Yuuki's mind after seeing them. The observation remained in the back of his mind like an insistent salesman even as other, far more pressing, thoughts jumped to the fore.
Namely, Kuga getting herself captured.
Had he been less worried, he would have cursed whatever god was in charge of his luck; there was something irritating about getting bad lucked or reality hacked every time the damn thieves were in his hands, and it seemed that this time, it was Kuga herself who'd found herself a victim of circumstances. Whatever had happened to her Child seemed to have given her quite a bit; her head was wobbling drunkenly even though Tetsuo Ueda was holding one of his bladed cards to her neck.
"Put down your gun, or she gets a new breathing hole!" Ueda was ordering.
Having your partner held hostage was a nightmare situation for any cop. In this case, it was made even worse by Kuga's youth, and it was with very little hesitation, if a lot of anger, that he bent to put his gun on the floor, keeping eye contact with the grinning, victorious thief—
—when suddenly Kuga moved—
[b]CRACK!![/b]
—and slammed the back of her head in the middle of her captor's face. Immediately, the man released her, bringing both hands to his rapidly bloodying face.
"Sod of a [b]bidj!![/b]" Ooouch, that had to be a broken nose.
Kuga tried to throw herself away, but whatever was wrong with her seemed to still be affecting her; she tripped on her own feet and fell to the floor after crossing a little more than a meter. It was enough, though, and Yuuki brought his gun back up.
"Oh shit, RUN!"
Blade didn't understand.
He didn't understand why his aniki had tried so hard to get the police man to drop his gun instead of just knocking it out of his hand with a throwing card. He didn't understand why the superhero girl had suddenly found enough strength to hit aniki, or why the hit had been strong enough to draw blood. He didn't understand why Beru-kun told them all to run after the police man got his gun back, but he listened anyway, because Beru-kun was smart. Maybe it was some kind of super-special gun which could hurt supervillains?
The policeman yelled again. They didn't listen. Blade saw his brother's face and saw it was scared. He saw Beru-kun's face. It was also scared. He was starting to feel scared too. He didn't like to be scared; that made him angry. And the police man wasn't like the scary kid. He wasn't scary.
So Blade turned around and took out the knife Beru-kun had made for him. He would be fine; he had a bulletproof vest. Plus, he was a supervillain.
Then the police man fired.
It wasn't like in the cartoons at all.
It wasn't like in the movies at all.
In the movies, the gunshot is always bright and fiery, accompanied with a long, singing sound.
Yuuki had already fired a gun before, so he knew reality was different. The sound was short and monotone, like a pop. There was little flash, just a lot of acrid-smelling smoke, a few sparks sometimes, and the intellectual knowledge that somewhere in front of you, a small piece of lead had just been thrown at lethal speeds. Regular Japanese police officers didn't carry guns; he had only fired enough to become familiar with recoil, which unfortunately hadn't allowed him to improve his aim all that much.
It was also the first time he had ever fired at a fellow human being.
In the movies, someone who gets hit by a bullet ends up flying back, legs kicking, arms flailing and head bobbing like a crazed puppet. If they were important enough in the story, they might get a slowdown, a dramatic moment where they whisper their final words to the hero, or an equally dramatic moment when they remain standing, looking down in shock at a spot of blood rapidly spreading on their clothes.
Reality wasn't like that.
Although he had aimed for the center of mass as he had been taught, Yuuki's aim went foul, partly because of Sunao's surprising actions, partly because of his own lack of experience with firearms; instead of going into Sunao's body, it went high into his arm. Although this might seem like a good thing, it wasn't; the chest has a certain amount of natural protection, and while the abdominal region doesn't, stomach wounds usually aren't immediately fatal. The shoulder houses the axillary artery, through which blood flows strong enough to empty a man within a few minutes, and their relative volumes mean that a bullet is much more likely to hit it than to hit one of the more numerous chest arteries. Therefore, all things considered, Ueda Sunao had been exceptionally lucky.
Fired from a range a little longer than ten meters, the bullet ran effortlessly through his clothes, as the "bulletproof vest" he'd been wearing had been little more than a pair of filthy camisoles badly sewed together with pillow stuffing inside. It then went into his upper arm where it missed the artery, thinner there than in the shoulder, by a good half centimeter, glanced off his bone with minimal chipping, then almost left his arm but failed in piercing the skin, thus leaving only one open wound and later allowing easy extraction through the other side.
That didn't mean Sunao felt lucky at the moment, though. With a shrill cry, he collapsed, clutching his rapidly bloodying wound.
"Aniki! Aniki!!" he cried, eyes reaching tearfully for his brother.
But Tetsuo kept running, whimpering as Yuuki's second shot ripped through his cloak and dug into the floor. Before the detective could line up a third shot, the thieves both turned the corner and ran out of his line of sight.
"Go after them—Go!" Kuga barked hoarsely, one hand on her throat and the other against her head. "Go!!"
And he did, bursting into a sprint. Unfortunately, the museum's snaky hallways wouldn't give him a clear shot, and in a show either of brilliance or of desperate luck on their part, they steered clear from the long showrooms that would give him what he wanted. Opportunity finally came at the entrance hall, a two-story room showcasing a massive sculpture of some abstract form; from the upper floor, he caught them just as they were dashing through the front doors as if the fires of hell were after them. He took aim as well as he could and fired—
"ARGHH!"
And the bullet cut open the other brother's sleeve and upper arm. Sadly, Tetsuo was made of sterner stuff than his brother (or was so doped up on terror-borne adrenalin that he didn't feel it as much) and continued running all the way outside. Yuuki followed desperately, running nearly a half of the room's width to reach the staircase, but even as he slid down the stairs' ramp he knew that even if he made it, he wouldn't get more than one other shot, if he was lucky.
"GodDAMNIT!" He snarled, dashing through the entrance; the door he shoved out of his way nearly went back to smack him in the face.
He looked left, then right, then left again, and with a snarl and a frustrated hand running through his hair, he realized he'd been too late.
They had escaped. Again.
They hadn't escaped unscathed this time, though, thought Yuuki with satisfaction as the paramedics left with Ueda Sunao's still sobbing body—"Aniki... Aniki..." he continued to mumble drunkenly through the painkillers. They were one man down, and the other had a wound that would require medical attention. A message had already been sent to every hospital in the city to be on the lookout for a man with a wounded upper arm and a broken nose; it was only a matter of time until Tetsuo fell into their hands. Konishi would still be a problem, but on his own, he would break and give himself up soon enough.
Not that he had any intention of waiting. The scene had been left as found, and his eyes automatically went to the display he'd found Tetsuo and his merry band of criminals gathered around. The glass-cutter—a professional tool, how in the world had they gotten it?—was still glued to the pane, pointing out their intended target just as well as a flashing arrow would have. And that target had been, in all appearance, a necklace. And not a very elaborate nor expensive-looking one, either; just a simple purple glass bead with yellow disks made of wood, held together and made a pendant by a simple string. It was completely worthless.
"What's with you?" asked Kuga suddenly. At first sight, it seemed like she had completely recovered from whatever had happened to her, but there were a few tell-tale signs, such as the way she held herself, which told him it wasn't quite true. Fujino hovered protectively next to her, and Yuuki purposefully avoided looking into her red eyes. She'd been most cross to hear Natsuki had been hurt, but the mean reason was...
The street, which had been bad before, now looked like two raged beasts had fought to the death here. Lamp posts, trees, traffic signs and power poles had been snapped like twigs. Massive body-shaped craters littered the fractured pavement, the stairs, the cars, even the [b]walls[/b]. One had even been smashed into the greek columns at the entrance of the museum, and from that crater came a set of furrows, like those left behind by the claws of a massive cat being dragged away, carved into the ceramic floor. It was only as he was considering the vast spread of flickering green flames, which seemed to be everywhere, that Yuuki realized the craters were all the same size, which meant they had all been caused by the same beast being flung around like a ragdoll.
It hadn't been a fight. It had been a [b]massacre[/b].
The largest piece of the Orphan was lying next to a shattered car, being devoured by dancing green flames. And on top of the car stood Fujino, who gave him a gentle, charming smile, blood-colored naginata still in her hand.
"Gokigenyou, tantei-han," she greeted calmly.
Some unrecognizable piece of the creature collapsed and fell off the burning mass.
Oh yes. Fujino was one scary little lady. He pitied whoever decided to try and cross her, in the past, present and future. She had, of course, seen the thieves leave, but she'd had the presence of mind to realize just what a bad idea it would have been for a HiME to chase an invisible car in the middle of a busy street, especially around this time of the year.
To Natsuki, he asked, "what do you see here?" while pointing at the device on the glass.
"A glass cutter?" Natsuki replied uncertainly. "I mean, it looks like it."
"It is. And where is it?"
"...in front of that bauble."
Surprised that she knew a word like bauble, he continued, "Right. And what's around us?"
"Uh..." she looked around. Making up most of the exposition were personal belongings of the victims, things one would expect to find in a ruined fishing village. There was really nothing of value to be found here. "...junk, I guess."
"And is that the only thing in this museum?"
"No," she replied immediately. "There was jewelry a few rooms back. And they must have seen it; I followed their trail. Which means... they're really stupid?" she guessed.
Yuuki chuckled. "No. It means that among everything that could be found in this museum, they wanted this specifically," he corrected, pointing at the pendant. "Which means they'll be back to take it, and—"
A sound startled them. A small, mousy man stood at the entrance. His nose was pointy over a short Chaplin mustache, his small black eyes had a nervous look about them, and his lips were small and pinched. He was dressed in a brown, white and red ensemble which did very little to hide his protuberant stomach, and had a nametag on his breast. A perfect coiffure—which was, in all evidence, a wig—completed the look.
"Who are you?" Natsuki asked bluntly.
"Ah—I... I'm—I mean, my name is Kobayashi. I'm the curator here—did something happen—" his eyes widened in horror, "is this blood?!"
"Ah, yes. I'm afraid someone tried to break in during the whole commotion," Yuuki explained calmly. "Luckily, my partner and I made it in time and they didn't manage to steal anything."
"Ah—ah, yes, that's.... good. Can we get rid of... uh..." he pointed to the crimson puddle in which Ueda Sunao had lain just a few minutes earlier.
Yuuki shook his head, but Natsuki was the one to answer: "Nope. Don't mess with the crime scene 'till the evidence is noted down as-is." At the surprised looks she got from Yuuki and the curator, she shrugged, "Kuma-jiji hammered that down my head."
"Good rule to follow," Yuuki nodded. "Until forensics get here, I'm afraid I can't allow anyone inside. Kuga, can you go get the tape?"
His partner nodded and left. Fujino followed, and for a moment Yuuki wondered what he would do if she tried to come back. Technically, she shouldn't have been allowed on the scene in the first place, but...
As it turned out, he hadn't needed to worry. Fujino seemed to be as aware of police realities as Kuga and had excused herself once outside. At least, that's what Kuga told him when she returned. Soon after, the place swarmed with officers, and the only thing that remained was to do his report and show exactly where his shots had landed—heaven forbid management ever losing track of a single bullet.
"It's a plot," Ishigami told him when they crossed each other near the entrance; the lieutenant had Sunao's knife in his hand, sealed in a plastic bag. "They don't want you to use your gun, so they'll torture you every time you do."
It certainly felt that way.
This room gave Natsuki the willies, and she wasn't quite sure why.
There was just something about it; it made her feel as if she was walking on Fumi-obachan's flowerbed. It wasn't the junk being exposed; there was nothing scary about a tin pan that had spent the last fifty years in an irradiated wasteland. It wasn't the blood; she'd seen plenty of things scarier than a little blood. The general atmosphere of the room was actually quite pleasant. The torii... the torii was creepy, and she didn't know why, but it wasn't what made the whole room creepy.
She could feel Durhan, in the back of her mind. He didn't like the room, either, but then he didn't like anything she didn't like.
She didn't know what happened back there, but it seemed to be going away, ever so slowly. Her ears were starting to pick up the conversations of the officers inspecting nearby rooms, and her nose was just starting to taunt her with a strong scent of paint that she knew would be overwhelming quickly. She gave a harsh glare at the gigantic mural of a nuclear mushroom clooud, which she just knew was where most of that stench was coming from.
"Impressive, isn't it?" An aged voice startled her. Somehow, some kind of old decrepit geezer had managed to sneak up on her. She blamed the whole wonkiness of the room and her dulled senses.
She gave a glance at the atomic mushroom, and shrugged. "I guess."
The old man chuckled. She noticed he also had that scent of paint about him. "It was even more impressive in person."
"You drew that?" She asked. He nodded.
"It was hard at times... in many different ways," he replied. Natsuki suddenly knew she'd made a mistake as the old man smiled a sickly smile and continued talking. "There was working here, for one; I never had the kind of calm and silence I've grown used to in my studio. The shift workers were always yelling, moving the furniture around—you wouldn't believe the racket they made—and they really couldn't have cared less about me and my work..." there was an irritated tone in his voice as he continued, "as if it wasn't hard enough. Do you know what this type of painting is called, young lady?"
"Uh? Huh..." she frowned, thinking hard, wracking her brain with everything she knew about painting, and finally shrugged. "Graffiti?"
He laughed.
"I'd like to think I'm a little better than that, young lady!" he replied mirthfully while she tried to keep down her embarrassed blush. "This is called a fresco."
"Huh." Natsuki noised, trying to make it obvious without making it obvious that she didn't really feel like listening to him.
Sadly, he didn't get the signal. "It comes from Italy, because that is where this art form was really used. Some of the frescos they have over there..." he sighed with a far-out look in his eyes. "They are masterpieces. Incredible works of art. But I didn't chose this medium because of them. It's because a fresco lasts forever."
"Huh." Same attempt.
Same reaction. "This was just my way of coping, I believe," apparently, the old man had lost track of his audience, as if he just wanted to get that off his chest and share it to everyone. "A way of making sure this, all this wouldn't be forgotten. That the mistake wouldn't happen again..."
"Huh," Natsuki noised. This was fine and all, but as far as she was concerned, the wall just stunk to high heavens. She was pretty sure he wouldn't like her saying that, though, so she kept her opinion to herself.
He shook his head. "But I digress. Where was I? Oh, yes, frescos. You see..."
He continued talking, something about asekko or something like that, but she had already stopped listening; to her, painting sounded as interesting as... well, watching paint dry. Instead, she let her vision roam around, judging Tanaka's theory against the facts. Among the things found by the expedition and which she hadn't noticed at first sight was a katana, bright, shiny and in excellent shape—probably refurbished. At the base of the handle was written... well, she couldn't read the first name, but she recognized the last two kanji and read them as "Minagi".
Some kind of ancestral blade? Either way, it had to be worth more than the bauble they'd tried to take. And about that...
She walked to the pendant, still sitting undisturbed in its glass case. It was locked tight, but she really felt like inspecting the damn thing, to see if it really was as worthless as it looked. She looked around for Tanuki. He was nowhere to be found. Kumaji... gone too. Damn. Even Ishigami was gone. She knew the faces of most of the officers present, of course, but she'd never talked to them, or at least not enough to get them to open the case for her.
"Can I do something for you, young lady?"
!!!
It was the cu... the co... the museum manager, Kobayashi. And somehow, he'd managed to sneak on her too.
'Can't wait until my ears are back to normal,' she thought irritatedly.
"I just wanted to have a look at that pendant, but... well, I don't have any gloves, and it's locked in," she explained with a shrug. "No big deal, I'll just bug Tanaka after."
"Ah—I have gloves, ah..." he dug in his pockets nervously, and pulled out a pair of clean white satin gloves. "And as for the key, it's right here." and it was in his other hand.
"Hm... well, let's have a look then," Natsuki smiled, putting on the gloves.
She inspected the pendant carefully, but found nothing special about it. The text in front of it said it had been found in a sealed room behind the island's only temple, wherein multiple pieces of a mural had been found. If it was to be believed, the amulet was part of some kind of secret worship the inhabitants of Fuuka had kept to themselves. She rolled her eyes at the clichéd and romantic story.
"Psh. This is junk." she concluded.
"It certainly is," Kobayashi agreed immediately. "But it's part of this exhibit. Here, give it to me, I'll put it back in."
Shrugging, Natsuki handed him the worthless trinket and went to the entrance to find Yuuki. She still wasn't sure his deduction was right, but hey, he'd been right so far, that had to count for something.
It took nearly a quarter of an hour before an officer finally noticed the little pendant was missing.
"He did what?!" Yuuki exclaimed.
"Exactly what I said," replied Ichidouji over the police radio. The public radio channel, in the meantime, was relaying the alarming announcement airing from the arrays of the most popular station in town.
"...message for public attention toward the infamous Orphan Summoners. It reads: 'I have what you want, come to me at midnight at the following address..."
"He stole the pendant from his own museum and wanted to just hand it to them," Ichidouji continued. "I guess he must have figured out they wanted it, and he didin't want them to attack his museum again."
"He overheard us." Yuuki sighed. "I take it he's already been caught?"
"Yes, we caught him in his own house. The pendant is currently at the station."
Yuuki snorted. "He panicked and acted on a half-assed plan."
"Because of the search order, it's public knowledge that they go around in a van," Ishigami noted, a few meters away from the patrol car. Kuga was at his side, puffy-eyed and sulking. "That's why he went for a radio station; he figures they're probably listening. Obviously, a story like that is something those vultures would jump on." he made a noise, considering the little girl at his side, "It would have seemed suspicious if he'd opened the glass himself for no reason, but if it was for Princess, then it's more normal, since she's with us."
"Sorry." Kuga grumbled. She seemed absolutely furious, both in herself and in the curator.
"Don't be," Yuuki told her, then rectified himself at her hopeful look. "I mean, you still screwed up, but this might play in our favor. If they heard it, we know where they'll be at midnight tonight. That's our chance to grab them. And if they didn't, well, the situation hasn't changed, and we have what they want."
Kuga blinked, then nodded with a wolfish grin.
Overhead, the sun painted the sky in oranges and reds. And far, but rapidly approaching, dark clouds darkened the horizon, heavy with rain. Two pairs of eyes saw them approach, one, crimson, with excitement, and the other, mauve, with apprehension.
Akuma-sama's notes:
Before you ask, no, it's not that Haruka in the opening scene. Look up Idolmaster Xenoglossia and be enlightened in the ways of girl-robot love if you haven't already. Or just plain Idolmster if you feel like watching a teen sing and dance in conservative—or far from—costumes and call you Mr Producer. And fall in love with you, I guess. Your mileage may vary.
Next chapter is the last one. Expect a bit of exposition, about Natsuki's past and the why of the way she is now, and a bit about Yuuki too.
Oh, and the world, too. Just a bit. The one part you can't possibly figure out with the clues I've handed out, at least. :P
Japanese notes:
Tantei: Detective.
(kinda forgot to take note of the words I was using this time, so yeah. Google is your friend. Until they become your overlord, but hey, shit happens.
