Notes:

Chapter Title: only my railgun - fripside

"When I stared out across Tokyo after February 14th, 2026, I wondered how a city shrouded in dust and still burned could ever become beautiful again. Over the past four years, it had seen so much death and so much pain that it was like everything that had once made it magnificent had been turned to ash.

But I had underestimated the strength of human will and resilience. For the residents that still called this bombed-out, shell of a metropolis a city, it was still home. By the time the cherry blossoms opened their petals once more on the sides of the streets, it was recognizable again.

Should tragedy strike this city a third time, will we still have the strength to put everything else down and rebuild it? It frightens me, because I don't know the answer to that question." —Sonoda Umi

By the time Umi re-entered the bustle of downtown Tokyo, news of Izayoi Tetsu's impending arrest had already become public knowledge. As she carefully navigated her way through busy streets, it seemed to be the only topic of conversation she could overhear. She gave a sideways glance at a couple sitting in the outdoor patio of a bar, intently discussing the businessman's impromptu fall from grace. I thought the point of hiring the private military corporations was to keep this from the public? By the way Eli had phrased things that morning, it had sounded like Toujou wanted to keep news of Izayoi's arrest hidden from the public until he was locked away in the state prison. Why would she release this information now?

She passed a group of mercs who were dressed in clothes too heavily armoured for their purpose to be a night out in downtown Tokyo. Several of them eyed her suspiciously as she walked by; no doubt the bow and quiver of arrows on her back was drawing some unwanted attention, but Umi was used to it by now—the less attention she paid in return, the less likely anyone was to approach her.

Unless she wants the public to know? She could not quite figure out why Toujou would be eager to inform the public that she was arresting a very public member of the district forum and financial backer of the city's infrastructure, especially when she remembered the conversation she and Eli had had a few weeks ago.

"Murder may be illegal, Umi, but that doesn't mean no one does it."

She was sure that in his past, Izayoi had committed crimes of a similar enough calibre in order to attain his current status; while they hadn't happened recently—at least not in the four years that Toujou had taken over as the head of state from her father—it did not excuse him from his past, to which Umi was sure Toujou had access to. So why now? Why this time?

As much as she would have liked to object, Umi also knew that the violet-haired woman's agenda was none of her concern.

A small frown tugged at the corners of her lips as she approached the block where Izayoi's office was located—a crowd had already begun to gather, most of them laughing and holding drinks in their hands, despite the lateness of the hour: 2147, according to her watch. It was the exact level of shamelessness that made her twitch.

This… this isn't a show! Reaching into the pocket of her jacket, she pulled out the earpiece Eli had given her last time; turning it on, she slipped it into her right ear.

Moments later, it crackled to life. "Umi? Is that you?"

"Yes," she replied. The sound of Eli's voice inexplicably reminded her that there was another conversation waiting for her when the night was over. It took some effort not to blurt what had happened aloud then and there—Umi was painfully aware of the fact that neither of them were alone, and this was very much a conversation she would have preferred to have alone, if it had been her on the receiving end of the news she was about to give.

With that knowledge came a certain degree of apprehension. I hope I did the right thing. The morally right thing to do would have been to consult Eli first, but Umi knew the blonde well enough to know that that was a decision she would make and remake several times over the course of a few days before eventually being pushed to a final one. She told me herself: she still wants to try, even if the result isn't the one she wanted. Who knows how much time she has left to make that happen?

So Umi had taken the weight of the decision on her own shoulders, and had made it for her. If anything goes wrong, she vowed to herself, at least Eli can blame me for it instead of herself.

She put the potential ramifications of her choice out of her head, giving the locks of dark blue hair a shake. There would be a time and place to think about it, but now wasn't it.

Squeezing in between two drunk businessmen dressed in dark suits, she found a corner of the street to watch the front entrance of the tall, glass-and-metal building that Izayoi owned and worked out of. "Can you explain to me why Toujou hired so many private military corporations tonight if she's already sent the army to arrest Izayoi?"

There was a pause on the other end. "I don't know," Eli admitted on the other end of the line. "She leaked the news to the media this afternoon, so it's possible she thinks there could be trouble."

"Is she expecting trouble?" Umi asked, unease sharpening her tone as she unconsciously shifted her grip on her bow. "Be honest with me."

Eli hummed thoughtfully in response. "She doesn't do things without a reason," she finally said slowly. "I would be careful, if I were you. She's not offering a ridiculous stipend for tonight because she thinks he's not going to give the army trouble."

"And he's just been sitting in his office the whole day?" Umi clarified, trying to peer over the heads of taller members of the crowd as several soldiers lined up in front of the glass entrance into the foyer of the office building. "He hasn't made any attempt to leave, or contact anyone?"

There was the sound of tapping on the other end of the line. "Not as far as I'm aware," Eli told her. "It's possible that he's been in contact with someone else off of Tokyo's network or his own, but it would have to be done locally—device to device only."

Doubt sent a shiver of ice down her spine as she watched the neat line of soldiers advance into the foyer. "Something's not right here," she muttered, half to herself, half to Eli as the uniformed men disappeared into the elevators at the back of the entrance hall. Why would he make that kind of attempt to hide his involvement only to come in quietly with the army? It makes no sense.

She half expected the building to erupt in flames or gunfire to split the silence that had settled over the watching crowd, but there was nothing.

Ten minutes later, Izayoi appeared, flanked on either side by at least a dozen soldiers dressed in white. Several angry, mocking shouts exploded from the mob of people gathered on either side of the street, but for the most part, it was silent, as though shock held most of their words prisoner.

The soldiers escorted the man to a waiting car, and in the darkness, despite the light cast by the streetlights illuminating the roadside, she could not make out Izayoi's expression as he was led to the armoured vehicle. The progression of vehicles slowly began to move, parting the members of the crowd who had stumbled out onto the road to get a better look at the disgraced businessman.

In the deepening royal blue sky, the line of vehicles had barely reached the end of the block with a bright flash on top of a building several hundred metres away caught her eye. That's— She was running almost before her body had time to react to what her mind already knew she had seen.

The shot from the sniper bullet blew a hole in the window of the car that Izayoi was in, scattering glass fragments across the smooth pavement and sending the vehicle in a steep swerve before it recovered, righting itself before colliding with the curb. The screech of tires against asphalt grated against her ears as the car veered around the military vehicle at the corner of the closest intersection before speeding out of sight in the darkness.

"Eli," she hissed into her earpiece as she ran, pushing past throngs of people with her bow drawn. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the other mercs and bounty hunters dispersed in the crowd were doing the same.

"Already on it," her friend replied; Umi could hear the rapid click of fingernails on a keyboard as she kept her eyes on the dark corner where the car had disappeared. She skidded to a stop at the intersection a few minutes later, panting hard as she scanned the area, weapon in hand, but nothing to shoot at. "He's on the phone with someone," Eli reported in her ear. "I'm patching you in."

There was a short burst of static from her earpiece. "…consider yourself lucky," someone was saying. She narrowed her eyes—the voice had obviously been voice filtered and there was no point in trying to decipher who was behind it from its quality alone. "I do not tolerate carelessness well, Izayoi-san."

"I know." Umi recognized that voice as Izayoi's; an unnatural tremble of desperation was present in his normally vociferous tone. "Just tell me what I need to do."

There was a brief pause. "You will meet Aohebi at the appointed place and time. Don't let the police catch you." The line went dead.

A small crackle of static announced Eli's return.

"Who was that?" Umi asked, knowing that there was no way to know the answer, but she did not like the cold sweat that had replaced the heat of her run nor the sense of foreboding thatgripped her stomach.

Eli ignored her question. "I'm tracking him with his phone's location. Listen to me, Umi. Whoever that was is probably the one who set up that sniper. There's no way he doesn't know—or realize— that Izayoi's phone line isn't secure. Whoever Izayoi works for could've already given up on him and is trying to lead whoever's after him into a trap. Be careful."

"I know," she reaffirmed grimly, the fingers of her right hand tightening on her bow. "Where's he going?"

"I'm sending the coordinates of his car to your phone," Eli told her. "The other private military companies are headed there too." She lowered the volume of her voice. "I'd let them get there ahead of you and scope out your surroundings, if I were you. That'll also give me some time to see if I can't get a site map of wherever he is."

Umi nodded, before she remembered that her friend couldn't see her. "Agreed."

Shattered, burned out husks of buildings loomed over the water on both sides, their gaping empty eyes glaring down at her. Away from the bright illumination of downtown Tokyo, heavy shadows draped over the manufacturing district. While it remained part of the city that had been rebuilt, piles of rubble had been left everywhere, the bare windows and open doorways of half-rebuilt buildings not uncommon in an area of the city most of its residents never visited.

Umi spotted several military vehicles already, parked near a deserted lane that led down to the businesses that had long closed for the night. The gate was deserted and unguarded. While she did not scare easily, she knew the implications of the sight: either there was no one left to guard the waterside location, or there was no need to. Neither one appealed to her at the moment.

Warily approaching the olive-green vehicles, she found them long empty. It had taken her longer than she had expected to get to the manufacturing district on foot; the mercs that had occupied these vehicles would have had at least a half an hour head start on her. That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but… The silence unnerved her. Mercs had an unfortunate habit to shoot anything that moved in front of them the wrong way, and the absence of gunfire was possibly more unsettling than the quiet itself.

"No one's here," she reported quietly, keeping her voice low in case there was something—or someone—lying in wait for her.

"Okay," came the reply. "I've got the site map of this place. Take a look."

Her phone buzzed in her pocket a few moments later; pulling out, Umi scanned the layout of the avenue ahead of her. For a business in the manufacturing district, it was small—just a few warehouses surrounded by a small office block. "If you find a computer," Eli continued in her ear, "I can probably get you onto their security network."

Umi gave her a grunt of acknowledgement as she made her way to the open gate, its lock clearly having been shot off when the mercs had forced their way through. She shook off the feeling of dread that accompanied the rusted whine of metal as she pushed open the chain-link fence just wide enough for her to slip inside. She didn't bother closing it behind her as she moved forward in a near-crouch, darting from cover to cover in case the sniper that had made the shot from the top of the building into Izayoi's car was watching the entrance.

No bullets came flying at her, though, as Umi entered the shadows cast by the low office buildings, glad to be out of the bright moonlight. Concealing herself around its corner, she peered down the avenue, scanning for movement and finding none. Her sense of unease heightened as she made her way forward.

Fifty metres down the rubble-lined pathway, she found her first casualty. A merc's body lay in one of the deep ruts left behind by travelling vehicles, a dark stain of blood colouring the ground beneath him. She checked him briefly for a pulse, but found none. He had been killed by a single shot to the head, although to her, it did not look like a shot from a sniper rifle. It was likely that his squad mates had simply left him there and moved on.

Umi tucked herself into a crevice formed by the narrow gap between two buildings. "Anything?" Eli's voice seemed unnaturally loud in her ear in comparison to the silence that wrapped around her like fog.

"No," she responded. "I found one merc killed in action, but no sign of his company or anyone else."

"Hm. The building to your left should be their reception office. See if you can get in there and get on one of their computers. I'll be able to know more then."

"Got it."

Sidling forward, Umi kept her bow in position as she peeked around the corner of the building into the glass windows. Moonlight streamed in through the glass, but she couldn't see past the dark silhouettes of furniture that lined the windowfront. The light from a computer winked at her from the very back of the reception area, and she set her sights on it as she crept up to the door to the office.

The door handle was unlocked when she turned it, and Umi had perhaps a second to respond to the automatic fire aimed at her head the moment she stepped through the threshold. Dodging forward, she tumbled behind a worn sofa. I knew it.

The insulating material of the couch would not shield her for long as she drew her bow from a crouching position, narrowing her eyes when another spray of bullets missed her by a slim margin, some of them being absorbed by the soft cushions of the sofa. Using the sound to pinpoint the location of the shooter, she popped her head up from behind cover long enough to shoot back.

A pained shout told her that she'd hit him, but the scuffle of boots on floorboards meant that the shot hadn't been lethal. Umi let a second arrow fly before the man could reload. This time, her arrow found its mark as her assailant slumped to the ground, motionless.

She reloaded her bow as she stepped around his fallen body. It was tempting to go over to the computer now, but instinct and experience told her that sweeping the entire building first was the smarter plan, just in case there were more hostiles in the building that hadn't been drawn to them by the sound of gunfire; Umi had absolutely no intention of being snuck up upon.

The stairs that led to the upper level was at the back of the small reception area, and Umi winced slightly when the first step creaked ever so slightly under her boot. She froze, but there was no sound from the floor above. Keeping her steps as close to the edge of the stairs as possible, she lowered her body so that she was half bent as she approached the top step.

Peering over the ledge, there was no sign of movement in the narrow hallway that was flooded with moonlight from a small window at the very end. Three closed doors led off on either side of the passageway as she slowly moved towards the first one, pressing her ear against the wood for any source of sound within. When she heard nothing, she decided it was safe enough for her to open cautiously.

Not lowering her bow with her right hand, Umi slowly inched the first door open by a few inches and held her breath. Nothing rushed out at her, and no rain of bullets peppered the wooden doorway, so she let her bow lead the way as she pushed her way through the door.

The office area was deserted, the neat piles of paper that had been stacked in various cubicles fluttering gently to the floor as she strode by them, checking every one for signs of hostiles and finding none.

Closing the door to the first room, Umi made her way to the second. This time, it was locked, and she could hear the steady hum of a boiler behind it. The doorknob seemed to be jammed and she left it alone; trying to force her way through it would cost her more time than the trouble it was worth.

The third door furthest from the stairwell, was slightly ajar. As she moved up to it and pressed her back against the doorframe, she could hear the sound of the night breeze whistling past an open window inside. She pressed her hand against the wooden door to silently push it open all the way before stepping over the threshold.

Moonlight filtered in behind thin, gauze-like curtains that flapped whimsically in the breeze, their movements in stark contrast to the three bodies lying around the singular, large desk that occupied most of the room. Umi swallowed at the sight of the crimson liquid splattered on various pieces of furniture as she picked her way around the bodies—two of them were dressed in military garb, and the other was dressed in all black.

Behind the curtains, the large window was smashed, glass fragments winking innocently in the moonlight as Umi stared out the broken window. "Three bodies up here," she reported in a rough whisper into her earpiece. "Two mercs, one from whatever organization we're dealing with."

She heard the sound of inhalation from the other end. "Anything else?"

"No," she replied. "There was a computer downstairs. I'm on my way back down there now."

Umi took care to keep her footsteps silent as she retreated back down the stairs, in case someone else had snuck in while she had been inspecting the upper floor, but the reception area remained as deserted as she had found it. She quickly slid into the chair behind the computer at the desk, turning it on and winced slightly at the brightness of its screen. Sliding an OSD into its port, she picked up her bow again as she waited, not intending to let her guard drop for even a heartbeat.

"Nothing," Eli said in her ear a few minutes later. "I have shipping manifests, shift reports and a visitor list. Nothing that connects Izayoi to this place other than the fact that he owns it. If he's communicating with someone right now, he's doing it through radio."

"Would you be able to crack that?" Umi asked her as she let herself out through the glass door of the building and back out onto the avenue.

"If I had one of the transponders, yes," was the reply. There was the sound of rapid typing on the other end for a minute or two. "Okay. I've got access to their security system now. Let me see…"

Umi stuck to the shadows as she made her way forward. Movement flashed in the corner of her eye as she spun around, ducking quickly behind a pile of rubble to avoid being hit by a bullet coming from the next alleyway. Her own shot missed, clipping off a sizeable chunk of brick from the side of the next building as she reloaded, dropping down on one knee to conceal what she could of her body behind the rubble. There was a shout of triumph not too far from where she was crouched—judging by the response it got, there was more than one hostile lurking just around the corner.

Her heartbeat picked up as she darted across the exposed block and behind a k-rail just in front of the alleyway where she'd been fired at from. There was a distorted laugh from up ahead. "I know you're there," someone called out, sinking a round of bullets into the concrete surface of her cover.

Unfortunately for the man, shouting only helped her pinpoint his location as Umi poked her head out behind cover long enough to draw her bow completely, burying an arrow into his temple. In the second it took for her to reload while running, the two men that had been accompanying the first were after her.

She hissed in pain when something sharp grazed her cheek, but there was no time for her to assess the injury as she let go of the arrow already loaded into her bow, the thump behind her telling her that it had found its mark as she swerved around a parked car to use as cover.

Panting slightly, Umi listened for the sound of approach as she hastily swiped at the cut on her cheek. To her relief, though her fingers came away sticky, the cut was not deep and it had almost stopped bleeding already. By the sound of his footsteps, the third man wasn't far from her and knew exactly where she was hiding. Using the crunch of boots against gravel as an indication, she lashed out with a kick the moment he came into range, knocking the shotgun out of his hands as he reeled back.

A fist swung by the side of her head as she rolled forwards, driving the handle of her bow into his chest as he turned around for a second attempt. The force of it was enough to push him back a few inches, but his greater height and weight allowed for much quicker recovery than she had originally anticipated as a rough hand came into contact with the base of her throat.

She let out a short gasp; choking at the pressure on her neck, adrenaline forced its way through her veins as Umi kicked back, the heel of her boot finding purchase in his groin. She was free in an instant as he doubled over slightly, trying to fight against it, but the lowered height was enough for her and she grabbed his shoulder with her free hand, lifting her arm and driving the steel curve of her bow into his back. The man collapsed on his stomach, and a quick debilitating kick to his neck gave her the time to draw an arrow from the quiver on her back.

By the time the man looked up at her again, the point of her arrow was only an inch or two away from the tip of his nose. "Who do you work for?" she demanded hoarsely; her voice not yet fully recovered from earlier.

The man did not reply. Instead, he snarled at her as he made an attempt to get up and reach for the shotgun lying a few feet away.

I'm not going to get an answer from him. The realization was sharp in her mind as Umi let go of the string on her bow. Breathing hard, she stared at the three bodies she'd left behind as she massaged her throat.

"Umi! Are you okay?" Eli's panicked voice broke through her haze of concentration for the first time as she straightened.

"Fine," she ground out.

"Listen, Umi. Don't go near the warehouse."

The order seemed strange, especially considering the warehouse was probably the first place she would have checked. "What?"

"I went over the surveillance footage from earlier," Eli told her tersely. "They set up a kill zone in there and lured most of the mercs inside. That's why you haven't heard or seen anyone else."

Umi resisted the temptation to curse out loud as she sucked in a ragged breath. Damn. "Anything else?" she asked.

"Yes. I spotted Izayoi on a few cameras. He went into the site office down the block to your right. I'm still looking through some of the footage, but I haven't seen him come out yet."

"Okay," she acknowledged. Checking the tension on her bow and restringing it quickly, Umi picked her way amongst the rubble down the avenue, sticking to the shadows on the right side as she made sure every alleyway and building entrance was empty before stepping across them, not wanting a repeat of what had just happened.

As she rounded the corner to the last building, she spotted the site office a few hundred metres to her right, half hidden by the bulk of a larger structure that resembled a loading bay. "Anyone up there?" she asked, hoping Eli would be able to give her a heads up before she stumbled across more unwanted attention.

"No one I can see, but the cameras don't work as well in the dark as they should. Stay sharp," Eli informed her.

She darted across the moonlit open ground between the two buildings, instinct scratching at her nerves not to stay out in the open for too long. Umi edged along the side of the loading bay once she'd reached it, ears straining for some sound that didn't belong in the stillness of the night and finding none.

She slipped into the darkness of the bay, thankful that its roof shielded her from the moonlight outside as she scanned the area carefully, bow at the ready. The empty, cavernous space was silent as she crept along the side of the wall until she reached the end.

An open door into the next section of the loading bay greeted her in the darkness as she made her way over to it, scowling slightly when, unexpectedly, she stepped on the crinkle of some sort of fast food wrapper. The sound of scrunching plastic seemed to echo in the huge space, and Umi held her breath in case she spotted movement on the outside, but no one came running.

Clambering up the steps and through the door, she dropped down on the other side. It was almost identical to the space that she had just left, with the exception of the military car that Izayoi had escaped in parked haphazardly in the opposite corner; she could see the smashed window and ruined paint from where she was standing.

Quickly, she made her way over to it, wincing at the sight of the broken bulletproof glass with cracks that spread like spiderwebs, dotted with blood. The glass had been made to withstand shots from a pistol or a rifle at close range, not a powerful shot from a sniper rifle hundreds of metres away. She spotted the bodies of the driver and soldiers that had escorted Izayoi piled in the backseat—it was obvious that he had taken advantage of the situation's confusion to either hijack the car or blackmail the driver into cooperating.

A flash of black cloth on top of the site office caught her eye as Umi inched past the car. There was a figure dressed in all black perched on top of the small, low building, but whether he was waiting for someone to approach the office or for someone—perhaps Izayoi—to emerge from the doorway, she couldn't tell.

She was sure, however, that he had not been there when she had entered the loading bay, because he would have been easy to spot from a distance. The fact that Eli hadn't alerted her to his presence meant that he had some knowledge, at the very least, about where the security cameras were.

The thought made her uneasy.

Inching into a standing position, she drew her bow, adjusting for wind and compensating for the difference in angle as she straightened. The point of her arrow drove into the man's neck and Umi watched him fall to his knees, halving the brief remainder of his life by pulling it out. She spared no time to grieve for him; her disgust at who he worked for did not allow her to feel pity nor regret at his death.

She hesitated for a brief moment at the metal door to the site office, listening intently for sounds within but hearing nothing apart from a soft electrical hum. She deliberated for a few more heartbeats when the doorknob didn't budge before she kicked the door in.

The small space was crammed with computers and monitors, all deserted, though there was evidence of them having been recently disturbed. The electrical hum grew louder as she approached them. She spotted few pistols lying on a desk, complete with ammunition shells lying about carelessly before she noticed a door that led into the back room.

There was no point in being discreet, given how she had entered the office, and Umi kicked open the door with her bow raised and ready to shoot before she took in the sight before her.

Izayoi Tetsu was slumped over the single desk at the very back of the small office. He was sitting in front of a laptop whose screen was still on, reflecting the small pool of blood that surrounded his head like a halo. The window behind her was smashed, glass shards littering the carpet from a small circular hole in the glass where the bullet had entered from. There was a radio next to the limp fingers of his right hand as she cautiously approached him.

She held a hand up to the earpiece in her right ear. "Eli, I found him. He's dead."

"What?"

Umi picked apart the scene before her, inspecting the rest of the desk's surfaces and the corners of the room before she spoke again. "I don't know. There's a laptop still here that might have some information on it, but I don't want to touch anything. You should tell Toujou-sama to send in the army so they can pick this all up." She stared at the radio in his hand, noting the way his fingers were curled around the small object and looking back at the window behind her. "But he was speaking to someone before he died—I don't think he knew they were planning to kill him."

On the other end, Eli inhaled sharply before letting it out slowly. "Right." There was the sound of a scuffle, as though she had turned around to speak to someone else and it was a few minutes before she returned. "Are you safe where you are?"

She cast a glance around at her surroundings. "I think so." At the very least, Umi was confident that she would be able to deal with any threat that could potentially walk through the doors, especially if Eli was still keeping an eye on the security cameras outside.

"Okay. Stay put then. The army's on its way."

Umi closed the door on the body of the dead man as she re-entered the main office. Somehow, Izayoi looked much smaller in death than he ever had in life, and she wondered if he had even known the true purpose of what he had thrown away his life for. She remembered what Eli had said to her the previous day over the phone.

"He sits up in his office all day and he makes more in an hour ordering people around than I do in a month, just like he used to do before all of this ever happened."

Why? she asked in her head, as though his corpse on the other side of the door could give her the answers she wanted. What could have possibly made him so desperate to throw away the lifestyle that millions of people in this city would—quite literally—given anything to have? What could be worth making an attempt to kill all of those people, only for it to end like this?