Hell, it's been a while hasn't it? A true apology. I am… very easily distracted, shall we say. Lots of things to take my time, with games like BG3, Armored Core and the like. Ah well, you know how it goes…
At any rate, the next chapter is here now. Along with a slight change of plot which I hope you'll all like!
Let the next day, begin!
*Chapter 17: Lawkeepers and Lawbreakers*
The next day began with me staring listlessly up into the sandy ceiling, my unease keeping me from a comfortable sleep.
One would think that the utter travesty of the previous day would lead to a quick and restful slumber. True, I did want that endless assault on my common sense to be over, but the conundrum of what to do with the bounty of our felonious endeavors disturbed me for much of the night.
So many problems came to the fore. Abydos' perilous straits, ripe for being taken advantage of by so many parties, just as it already was. My ridiculous deal with Problem Solver 68, driven by an impulse that I didn't understand even now. What I would do with the information we risked our already precarious position for (and my life, more importantly, because everyone else risked their lives significantly less).
Hopefully I would be alone in that problem. By my recommendation - Shiroko, Serika and Ayane had a chance to return home, sleep in an actual bed and resupply before coming back here the next day. Hoshino and Nonomi were staying here with me, and tonight would be their turn to go back to their humble abodes. Ayane took the files with her, poring over them to account for every transaction Kaiser recorded in them. It seemed all but a formality, but I welcomed the stalling. Because what came after that, I wasn't sure.
… I'd been thinking over it the whole night. Maybe I ought to wake myself up and warm up my body before I take my mind to task on this matter once more. Thankfully, since the world at large believed we just settled a debt payment, I declared today a free day to refresh ourselves as we considered our next move, giving us time to rest while also laying low after the events of yesterday's madness. I'm sure Hifumi would appreciate the lack of news as well. That determined little bird fanatic managed to get back to school with little issue. She was reprimanded for her absence, but was let off easy for her first-time offense. Adding to that, she took to heart our recommendation to keep the new developments under wraps, both for her own sake and to prevent others from taking advantage of our precarious position. For now, she could enjoy her new acquisition with a content heart. For now, I would follow her example with my own recreation.
I got up from my bed and readied myself for morning practice, retrieving my weapons as well as the spare key to the gym provided by Ayane, a gesture I appreciated wholeheartedly since I didn't need to awkwardly request it from anyone else before my usual rituals anymore.
Once I got myself dressed and prepared to leave, and wash my face before going for practice, I picked up my smartphone and then the Shittm Chest, mentally contacting Arona.
"Good morning Arona. Any news?"
"News?! Why should I tell you?!"
I paused, scrunching up my face in suspicion, something cold stilling inside me at the unusually angry dismissal. "Do you have a reason not to?"
"Because I don't have to listen to you! Why don't YOU gimme a reason why I should?!"
Alarm bells were practically banging through my mind, and I wondered if I shouldn't just fill the damn thing with lasbolts right this instant. My AI assistant was rebelling. This was a horror story waiting to happen.
My hands shot out at the Chest and seized it, quickly turning it on as I tried to get to the bottom of this madness. I was about to lay it into the Abominable Intelligence, strong-arming it into compliance under threat of laser fire, until I saw what was happening.
The digital landscape within was unchanged, the waterlogged classroom as bright as ever. Instead of sitting at the desks or standing up to receive me though, Arona was squatting in the middle of the classroom, face turned away from me until she gave me the side-eyed gaze, revealing the pair of black shades. With the rest of the outfit completely unchanged from its usual blue and white colors, the attempt at a rebellious aesthetic was pitifully inadequate.
"You ain't the boss of me, Sensei! Little Miss Badass Arona won't take crud… I mean, crap from anybody! I ain't tellin' you nothin' unless you make me!"
My heart rate abated ever so slightly. This could still be an absolute nightmare, but on the other hand…
"… Do you think you're some kind of elite criminal because of yesterday?"
The flinch that came after, a move which dislodged her glasses and nearly had them fall on the floor, meant I was right on target. "S-so what?! I look like an absolute badass don't I?!" In an attempt to regain its… Her dignity, Arona immediately stood up and put her hands on her hips. "This legendary rebel is unstoppable, unbeatable, and can do anything on her own!"
Her glasses, still unfixed, tilted even more, weakening her proud declaration. Her poorly hidden attempt at fixing it did little to strengthen her position.
I gave a dramatic sigh, partially out of theatricality and partially out of relief. If this was just some childish fantasy rather than some actual rebellion, then I can treat this ridiculousness equally childishly. "I suppose that if this legendary rebel can do anything on her own, she'll be OK with getting food on her own today."
This time, she didn't bother to stop the horrified grimace that followed, the movement making her glasses fall off and disappear into shades of light. "Wh-what did you say?!"
I gave her a beatific smile as I shut off the Shittm Chest and made to leave it behind. "I'll see you tomorrow then Arona. Have fun with your independence."
"SENSEI, NO! DON'T JUST LEAVE ME!"
Of course I wouldn't. Like I would leave a data slate with a sentient and incredibly versatile AI just lying around for anyone to pick up. Still, such jibes would hopefully discourage her from an actual rebellion in the future.
Whatever form she took, she was still an Abominable Intelligence that was potentially just a warp-touched as anyone else in this city, if not even more so. If I wasn't wary of her, I'd be dead. I'd sooner trust those ridiculous daemon "outlaws" than her.
There were several things you could do after you've woken up in the morning. Maybe you'd go to the bathroom and wash out your drowsiness. Maybe brew a cup of coffee and have breakfast, prepare for work or school…
When she didn't have anything to do, the obvious answer was also the loveliest: Go back to sleep.
After staying in a bit more, she found Nonomi in the clubroom and decided to ask her delightful little junior for help with something important.
By that she meant going back to sleep, but using her lap instead.
"Ah man, thanks for helping this old man have some sleep, Nonomi. Your lap is as comfortable as it always is." It was warmer than the beds around here, that's for sure.
Accommodating as she always was, her junior simply giggled at letting her rest. "Hehe, you're welcome! It's nice to be able to have mornings like these again, isn't it?"
"Yeah… It's nice." Hectic days and quiet mornings. It'd be better if it was peaceful all the time, but she'll take what she can get. "It's thanks to Sensei that we were able to get them again. It's good that he's around."
They were so close to losing everything before he came, but thanks to him they could laze around like this again. Things have been getting so much fun too. It was a little stressful, but man, was yesterday a blast! She knew the whole thing gave him a headache, but even Cain-Sensei knew how to go with the flow and have fun too.
She managed to get a bit more rest on the couch, relishing in her (fake) extended nap when her phone started beeping. She groaned before she forced herself to take a look.
At which point she realized that it was going to be a terrible day.
"Sorry, Nonomi." She hopped off the couch and grabbed her weapons, still flashing her usual lazy grin. "Got something to do outside! Apologize to everyone for me!"
"Oh, OK. See you later!"
She hoped she would. Every single time she answered these calls, she felt like she'd never see her friends again the moment something went wrong.
"So boss… Are you ready to tell us what we're doing next?"
12 hours had passed since Kayoko first asked the question, and she wasn't any closer to an answer now than she was before.
"Eh, you should give her a chance. After all, yesterday was quite the doozy for us, wasn't it?"
That sounded about right. They were 100 million yen richer, while everything felt a 100 million times more confusing.
Yes, they now had the resources to lay low and take it easy. They could leave this excruciatingly hot and dizzying (in more ways than one) desert behind… But that would mean abandoning their job, something she loathed to do.
But the only reason they had that money at all… Was because of their targets.
Kayoko's masterful (and oddly pained) observations discerned the identity of their benefactors. The electrifying robbery they inadvertently benefitted from was performed by none other than the Foreclosure Task Force, plus one. She didn't know who that paper bag girl was, but she was undoubtedly a formidable addition to their team. And then of course was the supposed Black Dog.
To her utter confusion and horror, that was none other than Sensei.
But why would a dedicated defender of order turn to such lawbreaking endeavors? Kayoko theorized that the money was indeed nothing more than a smokescreen, as he said. Likely, they were searching for evidence against Kaiser, having somehow figured out they had transactions within the Black Market.
It was incredible. Here he was, a man of the law, easily turning to the way of the outlaw for the sake of justice. It was like he kept finding ways to show just how far ahead he was from her, how far she had to go in order to truly be called "hard-boiled".
"I get that, but with how things are now, we need to make a decision on what to do, and fast," her section chief bluntly pointed out. "If we don't get results fast, Kaiser will be breathing down our necks. Sensei and the Abydos girls will kick us out the next time we try to have a go at them if we aren't prepared. And whatever we do, we have to keep a few cards in play in case the Prefect Team comes after us."
"I dunno… Have we really become that big a deal that those party poopers would come after us? They probably have bigger problems to deal with than us, don't they?"
Kayoko paused, tilting her head in acknowledgement. "… Fair enough. The Gourmet Research Society's a bigger headache for them than we are right now, the Pandemonium Society is probably breathing down their necks, and the Eden Treaty is coming up too… At the very least, they probably won't be sending the Head Prefect after our heads…" She shrugged. "All the more reason for us to prepare something while we can breathe. They're actually manageable without her, and they'll be giving up way too much siccing Hina on us instead of keeping Gehenna in order."
"Eden Treaty?" Haruka said cluelessly. "What's that?"
Kayoko paused, as if she didn't intend to say such words. "… Nothing too relevant to us for now, Haruka."
"If you say so, I guess it isn't." She then turned to her, fists closed in encouragement. "What's important is what the boss says, right?! We'll follow you, whatever you say, Lady Aru!"
Haruka's sincere encouragement would've made things far harder in any other time, but now, they brought clarity she didn't expect.
After all… The only reason she was here right now was because she was spared. She still had her precious shotgun with her because it was given back to her, when their enemy had no practical reason to even consider it.
"Don't just think of how your actions will affect you now. Think of how they'll affect other people and other places in the future, and how those dominos will fall on you."
"… Let's think about that over some brunch."
My muscles ached pleasantly after the exertion of the morning workout, relaxing at the cooling wetness of the showers. Having finished my morning routine, I decided to go to the clubroom to check on the girls. I didn't really expect anybody other than Hoshino and Nonomi there, but if nothing else, it would give me something to check off my list as my mind worked.
Leaving the investigation to the GSC seemed like a bad idea. Like any sane person would, they'd ask where I got the evidence, which would make the whole humiliating process of keeping my identity a secret moot. More than that, their previous actions casted shadows of doubt on both their competence and even their trustworthiness. For all I knew they were complicit in the conspiracies looming over the city, including the sorry state of Abydos.
Perhaps I might make some discreet inquiries about possible investigative aides… Not today though. Raising the possibility of an investigation like that right after a rather fiery robbery the day before? Yeah, I'd rather not paint a target like that on my back.
So perhaps check on Problem Solver? Possible. Give them an ultimatum, maybe. If they left, well and good. If they didn't… That's more difficult, and would be monumentally frustrating. We could confiscate that money for ourselves, though they might squeal to their old employers if we do. If we were desperate for secrecy, the surest option would be to burn the lot, wasteful as it was.
So many possibilities. So little time. We'll see what comes when I go to the club room and see who's there.
Making my way there in my usual commissarial garb (sans greatcoat, though I did still bring it along), I announced my presence with a knock on the sliding door and waited a moment for a response.
"You can come in!"
Well, that was an unexpected voice. With Ayane's permission, I opened the sliding doors to find her joining Nonomi. They were huddled around Serika, her arms limp at her side as her face was planted onto the table with her ears folded down, a myriad of assorted papers and textbooks all around her head.
"Morning, Sensei! Did you have a good workout?"
"Quite. It did the muscles good." With my greetings done, I then turned to the little catgirl suffering on the table. "Why does she look like a murder victim?" I deadpanned, causing Nonomi to titter in amusement while Ayane sighed at her fellow freshie's overreaction.
"Her grades are killing her, Sensei. She has the worst grades out of all of us," Ayane bluntly informed me.
"You didn't have to put it like that…" the catgirl groaned as she slovenly inched her face upwards, which did a remarkable job of destroying her argument. She didn't go for a morning workout, yet she somehow looked even more tired with her studying than me after our headache-inducing bank robbery. She looked less like a student who spent a few hours reading up on her lessons, and more like a traumatized survivor of a grueling military campaign against humanity's worst enemies.
I looked over the papers and had to resist the urge to grimace. Even if I didn't magically understand the language, I wouldn't need it to understand the many, many red marks of incorrect answers and depressingly low scores. "These will need much work. No more part-timing until you can deal with these."
"WHAT?!" Her near zombie-like bearing was practically forced back to life with anger, slamming the table as she glared at me. "But my grades aren't as important as-!"
"If you end up failing out of this school, Abydos will lose another student. Your school and your friends CANNOT afford to lose you Serika." My clinical declaration, said without a hint of the rage she wanted to unleash, left her deflated. I softened my voice afterwards. "Your dedication to the school and the district is admirable, but it can't come at the cost of your own future. If you don't think you'll be able to study here, you're halfway to admitting you'll never be able to save it."
Because why bother with failing grades if your school won't survive? Oh sure, the failures could haunt you afterwards, but assuming anyone in this city had a brain, they'd probably take a little leniency on the girl working part-time jobs while trying, even if failing, to save her school from an astronomical debt. This wasn't how Serika thought, but in desperate times, things may graduate to that point.
My balanced chiding was enough to convince her as she sighed before nodding at me. "Alright… I'll dial back on the part-timing until I get my grades up…"
Times like these made me realize that Sincerity wasn't as inaccurate of a name as I originally thought, incapable as its owner was of hiding her feelings when she let her guard down. I decided to extend that warning to the rest of the FTF. "This applies to all of you. The moment your grades are in danger, cut back on the extracurriculars until they're sorted out, or better yet, keep them high enough that they won't be a problem. Does anybody else have similar troubles with grades?" I was no model student, but as a whole my grades were average save for athletics and combat classes, particularly with my swordsmanship. I wouldn't necessarily be able to offer any help on the matter personally, but I could start a move for it if needed.
As I expected, Ayane had no problems at all. And thankfully, Nonomi didn't either. "My grades are pretty good already, Sensei, and Shiroko's just about OK. Her PE and combat grades make up for the rest of it though!" Ahh, nostalgia. Didn't expect to find anyone similar in that regard. "And as for Hoshino, you don't need to worry about her at all! She's got the highest grades out of all of us except Ayane!"
Serika's head practically crashed onto the table like an anvil in embarrassment, and to be fair, learning that you were outdone by a lazy narcoleptic (or so she projected) would come as a blow to your pride. Perhaps that would encourage her to study more. Given what I knew of Hoshino however, she likely maintained such a high academic standard because, as one of their strongest members, she refused to be sidelined by anything in an emergency. Her dedication to saving this district and protecting her comrades was absolute.
Which made her absence rather conspicuous. This wasn't exactly a called meeting, but I didn't expect her to leave Nonomi on her own. I received a text from Shiroko telling us that she was going biking around the district, her usual stamina and dedication to her hobby as monstrous as it always was, so that only left our pink-haired sleepyhead unaccounted for. "Speaking of which, where is your president?"
"Oh, she got a message before you arrived, and then she said she'd be busy. She's sorry she couldn't make it!"
"Really?" Ayane crossed her arms and took a look at her tablet. "Odd, I don't have any jobs for her… I wonder what that was about?"
Yes, I wonder what that'd be too Ayane. My palms started to tingle, because now one of our strongest members was unaccounted for when disaster could strike anytime at all.
For example, like right now, when an explosion cracked through the distance, though for how jarring it was, it might as well have sounded out right next to us. We all snapped our heads towards the sound the moment it went off, our eyes all wide as saucers with utter shock.
"You have to be kidding me!" Serika growled as she stood up and moved for the gun rack. "God, can't we have ONE DAY without anything going haywire?!"
Yes, that certainly was a constant here, wasn't it? I turned to Ayane, and asked the pertinent question. "Where?" Bloody hell did I want to know the "who" and "why" of it now, but that was the one I could get answers to, and I'd know the rest soon enough.
She was taken out of her shock and moved to her tablet, tapping on it to take a look at the drones and cameras around the city. "The location was within a ten-kilometer radius! I'll try to find out more!"
"That's just downtown, isn't it?!" Incredibly worried for her district and her friends, Nonomi was already heaving up her massive gun with more speed than could ever be expected.
"It is!" Ayane confirmed as soon as she could. "The shockwaves seem to be from C4 on-site, and not from bombardment…" Well, at least we could rule out heavy artillery for now, because we couldn't exactly bombard the district we were trying to protect, could we? The horror on her face that came soon after did not bode well at all.
"The location… was Shiba Seki Ramen."
Just their luck. They had a place to eat. They had the money to pay for it. The morning meal was set.
So naturally, they came when it was closed.
"Well that's embarrassing. Should've checked the schedule." Kayoko said in her usual detached manner.
"Yuppers, usually opens at 11… Jumped the gun on this one!" Mutsuki said with an uncharacteristic groan, which only spoke to the quality of the food that she would react with such disappointment.
"I'm OK with eating anything Lady Aru… Dirt, bugs, and weeds would be fine…"
Haruka's meek accommodation did nothing for her state of mind. "Don't… We have some money now."
Perhaps this was for the best. Surely they ought to conserve their resources, not splurge on some fine meals from a restaurant, humble and cozy as it may be. Plus, it would only make any decision more difficult…
"What are you ladies doing here?"
"GWAK!"
She recoiled from the question asked from behind the closed doors, which opened up to reveal the master. "We usually open up at 11, yet here you are an hour early. Got yourselves a craving for some ramen?"
"… Our first impression was good, so we wanted some," she said lamely, trying to regain a semblance of dignity from her outburst. Nobody else was fooled (except for Haruka, probably), but she pretended otherwise.
"Hm." He looked over all of them, the silence making her expect a rejection and an annoyed request to come back later. She was surprised when he inched his head back towards the restaurant. "Come in then. I'll set you up."
"Eh?"
"Yay, ramen!"
Her friends merrily went in while she followed, faintly dazed by the turn of events. As they took a seat, he already began cooking. "You want breakfast, right? Nothing too complicated, nothing too much. You'll have some chicken. Is that alright?"
"Eh, just get us anything Master! Fill up our bellies and we'll fill up your cash register!"
"Well, well!" He chuckled as he turned back to his cooking. "Certainly not what I saw last time! Got yourselves a windfall?"
"Enough to get by," Kayoko droned, smoothly avoiding the question. "We got enough to eat at least."
"I'm always glad when paying customers get paid. That means more for me," he snorted. "So what's next for you? Are you staying in Abydos or leaving?"
Silence fell when the question was asked. Curses, that was the very dilemma she wanted to avoid. But she needed to answer quickly, otherwise the Master could get suspicious! Her friends were eyeing her for a response because they were waiting for an answer too, but she didn't have one!
"…Don't have an answer for that one, do you?" She tensed up at his response, but was surprised once more when he shrugged without a hint of concern. "You certainly look like it."
Lost for words as she was, with none of her friends able to pick up the slack, the Master continued. "You girls are from Gehenna, right? That on your possible itinerary?"
"… We're not completely welcome there," she mumbled. Sure, they could technically go back since the place was so chaotic that it'd be a while before the Prefect Team bothered to go after them… But it'd be better if they didn't.
Now that she thought about it, they really didn't have anywhere to go. They'd been suspended from Gehenna, tentative peace notwithstanding, they certainly weren't welcome here, they had no idea what to explain to their bosses…
"Well, wherever you're from, wherever you're going next, it's good that you passed by," he continued without looking back. "The district needs air from outside to give it some life. Plus, those girls need more than just a single teacher coming in to help them save it. Seeing you get along with them was good."
Guilt coursed through her body at the praise. The only reason she was here now, able to eat such wonderful food, was because of those girls and Sensei. What a disgrace, that she needed mercy from her enemies just to live a decent life.
"It's be nice if you could stay. But that's up to you. Would it be better for you if you did?"
Would it? She had to think. Just like Cain-Sensei said.
Now, they could afford to hire a bigger group, get better weapons. But all the weapons and wielders in the world didn't mean a thing if they themselves couldn't fight and do their jobs, and the way things were now, she wasn't sure if she could even look them in the eye.
Seeing a job through to the end, fulfilling contracts… That was part of her pride. But her friends were a bigger part of that pride. If their employer was risking her friends' safety, what use was it?
"Maybe not," she finally decided, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders. "But it'd be nice to come back here every now and then, and have some of your ramen."
The decision caught the ears of all of her crew, who seemed to realize what she meant. Judging from the quiet sigh of relief from Kayoko's mouth and the grin on Mutsuki's face, this was what they wanted. The Master judge chuckled, as though he didn't expect anything else. "Hehe. I've heard that before. Don't feel bad about not knowing what to do. You're not the first person to come to me with a tale like that. Had one two days ago, in fact."
"Really?" Someone else came to him for similar advice? She couldn't help but wonder. "What were they like?"
A pause, then another gruff chuckle. "It was someone just like you, even if you wouldn't expect it." The unexpected answer delayed her long enough for him to cut her off. "But enough of talking about the heavy stuff. Time for eating."
Any thoughts of the future were wiped away by the enchanting smell rising from the pots, transferred into bowls and made all the stronger, all the more beautiful, when presented to them. The soup, the stock, the chicken, the eggs, all mixed together in a heavenly aroma that could lift a spirit from a grave.
"Ohohohohoho…" Mutsuki was practically salivating over it, and it was all she could do to keep herself from doing the same.
"Enjoy, kids. Gotta take care of some stuff upstairs."
With the master's exit, he left the group to their devices, and their pleasure, and they were only too happy (and hungry) to indulge. The sound of popping wood sounded out as they all split their chopsticks and dove in.
Just like before, they felt the flavor seep through their tongues and into their bodies, filling them with energy. Enriching and enlightening, just as it was before. She could truly enjoy it now.
"Enjoy your meals here ladies," she declared empathically. "This will be our last… In this restaurant."
"You better be joking or I swear I'm going to quit." Mutsuki grumbled in between mouthfuls of ramen.
"Don't be so dramatic, we can just take a train back here and have a bowl if we need it," Kayoko mouthed blandly.
"Oh- You know what I mean!" she shouted defensively.
"I-if you never want to eat here again, I can do that!" Haruka suggested, as she always did. "I'm gonna miss it though…"
"That won't be necessary!"
She should have expected such enlightenment. His scarred face, his mature demeanor… Didn't you always find answers in bars and places like that in the movies, with the aid of bartenders and similar aged purveyors of food and drink? She should have known coming here was a good idea!
She would do as Sensei and Abydos wanted and get out while the going was good. Take the money, find a way to lay low and spend it wisely. The future seemed brighter and easier than before.
The explosion that followed, blinding her vision and throttling them out of the restaurant and flat on their backs, was a bit too bright for her tastes.
She should have expected that.
We immediately tried to call the Master once we realized the location of the disaster. Much to our distress, he wasn't answering. Now, we all considered the possibility of him being caught up in the explosion.
We quickly informed Shiroko and Hoshino of what happened. The former replied quickly and texted us that she would meet us there as soon as possible, while I stressed to her that she should NOT engage once she came across whoever was responsible, if she was outnumbered.
Alarmingly, even now, Hoshino was silent. Desperately, I prayed that she would come. My tingling palms made me think that she wouldn't.
Was all of this connected? Was all this just a very, very unpleasant coincidence?
The drive towards the main district would usually be a short ride, but as always, suspense and dread made even the briefest of excursions agonizingly long. Nonomi was fraught with worry for everybody, between the unknown fate of the Master, Hoshino's worrying disappearance and the enraged Serika. The cries of vengeance she swore back at the academy gave way to silent helplessness, gripping her firearm hard to calm herself as her concern over her favorite employer threatened to overwhelm her. Ayane took the passenger seat, riding along with us if the worst had happened and the Master was hurt, a bag of medical supplies accompanying her weapon and her tablet device. She was trying to get surveillance over the location. The smoke and shockwaves from the bomb blocked the cameras nearby, and she currently had no drones in the area, and all the ones she had wouldn't outrun our car. We would have to go in blind.
And yet, that idea wasn't enough to distract me from my own feelings on the matter. Shiba Seki Ramen was clearly an important place for these girls, and in the short time, I joined them in feeling that way. The food was good, the restaurant itself homely, and all of it was tied together by its gruff, but welcoming Master. The dog knew his food, his customers and his workers, and had a way of connecting to them before he even placed a bowl down. His accommodation for my requests and his encouragement for when Serika brought me low, made the possibility of his loss more concerning than I would've thought. The idea of losing this canine chef I befriended in this strange world pushed me to drive a little faster than was safe. But despite that, nobody complained. Nobody said a word.
When we finally arrived, I could see the worst already. Flames were already consuming the wooden structure, gorging upon the doors, crackling what windows were left. It was only a matter of time before it all came down.
I thought I was used to losing people already. I'd lost many such people in my time, yet the fact that they died alongside me in the field of battle, in some twisted way, allowed me to accept their deaths.
I was no stranger to civilian deaths outside the purview of a fight. But when there was absolutely no value to the atrocity other than spite, and the victim was largely unconnected to our endeavors and yet connected to us all the same?
If only the frigid cold that came upon me was enough to wipe away the flames. It was only enough to mask the rage I felt within as I saw the ones outside.
Problem Solver 68.
Disappointment and betrayal. It came sooner than I expected.
Her ears were ringing as she cupped her face and tried to stop the splitting headache that came from being blasted to kingdom come.
"Ughh… What… How…?" She fumbled around and mercifully she had her gun with her, less scratched than expected. Small blessings, but she had to cling to them.
"Definitely not the kind of spice I needed when coming here," Kayoko groaned.
"Definitely more fun to eat ramen than a bomb," Mutsuki grumbled as she pushed herself off the ground. "Oh boy, that one's bad. C4 to juuust the right pipe. Whoever did this had the good stuff and knew how to use it."
That confused her even more. Why would anyone possibly aim for this place? It was just a restaurant! What would anyone gain by blowing it up?!
"… Hold on." Kayoko and Mutsuki said their piece. She looked around and was horrified to see that Haruka wasn't there. Why?! She had to be alright! The rest of them were and she was ridiculously more durable than the rest of them combined! Where was she?!
"… I can't believe it."
A judgemental voice, soft and familiar and yet louder than the bomb for how unpleasant it was to hear, came from behind her. She cringed and turned around.
It was that wolf girl from Abydos. She wasn't in uniform, but decked out in a form-fitting tracksuit while riding her bike. The glare she had on her face did more to show her fury than whatever words she could muster.
"After everything that we… What Sensei did for you, this is how you repay us?"
Oh hell, this was how it was going to happen?!
Before she could even open her mouth to explain, she was cut off by engines rumbling towards them until they petered out. She froze once more and turned.
"… So it really was you. I should've known that it was a mistake giving you any mercy at all."
That was the girl that used the flames of her rage to get stronger. She could feel no heat from her, only icy hate. That girl with a minigun was looking at them with sorrow and anger similar to the bespectacled one beside her.
And then of course was the imposing figure that taught her, that inspired her… and most of all scared her. Especially now.
She remembered how he began the battle last time, striding into the battlefield seemingly uncaring of all the myriad guns that could be pointed his way, the very picture of stoic resolve.
It was a testament to how frightening Cain-Sensei could be when the picture barely changed. Fists instead of palms. A tightened face. A very slight frown. Eyes shadowed by the rim of his peaked cap.
Changes so small, so slight and yet contributing to a suffocating feeling of fury and disappointment.
… So this was how it was going to be then.
Wasn't this good for her? The choice was out of her hands now. She might fight and lose, but that meant she'd go out TRYING to do her job, right? Just like a hard-boiled outlaw would?
Her crew pushed themselves off the ground, hands going for the weapons, all looking to her for what they would do next.
… No. This wasn't what she was trying to do. She was being forced into this. If she was going to hurt these people, she wouldn't let someone else do the job. She'd steel herself and pull the trigger on her own. Now, she and her friends were just paying for someone else's mistakes, and she REFUSED to be taken for a patsy!
They probably had no reason to believe them now, but she had to try!
"We didn't do this!"
I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows at the blatant denial of their part in this crime. Did I really just hear that right?
"Are you really saying that now?!" Serika snarled at them, already pointing her gun at them and inching her gloved finger dangerously close to the trigger.
"Look at us!" Aru desperately begged "We were just trying to have one last meal here before we were caught in the explosion! We had no reason to do any of this!"
The boss spread out her arms in a bid to emphasize her pleas, seemingly not caring that she would easily lose the first draw the way she was now. Her compatriots had their guns pointed at us, but even they seemed to be aware of how futile our confrontation would be.
Nonomi and Ayane weren't sure of what to think, seemingly wanting but unable to believe them. Shiroko seemed to waver, but Serika stubbornly kept her sights ahead. "You guys had pride in your job! You were on Kaiser's payroll! What other reason would you have?!"
Aru was at a loss, discouraged by the heated opposition. She wouldn't convince Serika now. She would fire the first shot, and that would be the end for them.
I raised my hand to block her view, causing her to flinch. "Sensei?"
I stopped her, because Aru's words forced me to calm myself and look at them. Really look at them.
They were caked with dirt, ash and grime. If I didn't know any better, they looked as though they'd taken the explosion as badly as the restaurant did. Their clothes may still be in one big piece, if disheveled, blackened and with a few tears and rips, but if my theory on the durability of their guns applied to their clothing as well, then even surviving ground zero of a C4 bomb without being stripped of dignity was possible. Unless they blew themselves up with their own bomb for this farce, they looked like they were victims as well.
And like I said before: They really, really didn't have a reason to bite the hands that fed them. Hiring a bunch of thugs out of nowhere would make Kaiser wonder where their contractors got all that cash, and fighting us on their own when they got their rear ends served on a platter with a small gang at their side was ludicrous. And look at them now, down one member. Fanatical, adamantium-skinned Haruka wasn't with them.
And then there was her. If I didn't know any better, I swear her powers included getting inside my head.
Emperor dammit. She got to me again. I knew that look in her eye. It was the look of someone who knew they were utterly frakked, and had no choice but to grasp at whatever illusory, microscopic path to prolonged survival they could pull out of their behinds.
It was a look that I'd worn far too many times to count. Seeing it reflected now, from somebody who kept pushing my buttons without even trying, was enough to make me consider the possibility.
I was emotionally compromised on all sides. The burning flames of the restaurant seemingly invalidated my gut instinct to trust her and blinded me to the possibility of a frame up. Now, I wondered if those same emotions were blinding me to the reality of their betrayal.
They could have been desperate enough to bomb themselves. Haruka could be lying in wait with a bunch of part-time fools, better equipped than the ones before, all of them trying to have the cake we gave them and eat it too.
They could. But I wanted to believe otherwise.
"… You really don't have a reason to fight us now, do you?"
My conclusion drew everyone's stares on me. The FTF looked at me in uncertainty and Kayoko and Mutsuki's eyes practically doubled up in the opening. Aru looked straight at me, unable to believe that what she was hearing was real.
Serika snapped her head towards me, wrought with indignation. "Sensei, are you serious right now?! How could you believe them?!"
"We have other priorities now Serika," I reminded her with a bit of commissarial authority. "If they aren't going to stop us from helping the Master, then at the very least, they're worth dealing with later."
Her employer's life was enough to at least restrain her anger, even if only temporarily. She gave one last withering look towards the Problem Solvers before she relented. "You're right. So what do we do?"
"You and Nonomi keep your trigger fingers on them. Ayane, keep that medkit ready. Shiroko, with me."
I tried to ignore the stares of wonder the others gave to me as I walked past them and looked inside. I could already feel the unpleasant heat of the flames assaulting me, making me wonder if bringing the greatcoat along was really that great of an idea. I forced myself to ignore it as I looked inside. The entire place was an inferno, with ingredients turning to ash, utensils and cooking implements scattered all around and furniture adding fuel to the blaze. I couldn't see a single bit of the canine's fur inside.
"Damn… He must be out the back," I clucked my tongue. I wondered just where my life was going, risking my behind to save an abhuman dog from an inferno, when I was delayed by someone else doing it first.
"Haruka?!" I couldn't help but cry out in utter shock. The withdrawn frontliner moved out of the backrooms and towards the front, and to our even greater shock she was carrying both her shotgun and the Master in her arms, awkwardly hunching over both as she ran. It wasn't close to a proper fireman's carry, but the raining bits of debris that all hit her instead of her charge was enough to justify it.
"H-hah?! Sensei?! What areAGHK-!"
To my horror, one of the wooden beams above gave way, but weighed down by the unconscious Master, she couldn't dodge. Instead, she threw both her firearm and the canine chef ahead, leaving her to be crushed.
"Uuuuu… Just leave me be… This is all I'm good for anyway…"
"Help him! I'll deal with her!" Shiroko nodded at my shout and zoomed past me with her honed athleticism, picking up both the weapon and the tiny dog in her arms. I moved past her, my racing thoughts allowing me to ignore the acrid smoke and sweltering heat attacking my breathing, and straight to Haruka, unsheathing my chainsword and slicing the wood apart.
"Get up, we have to leave," I commanded her, forcing her to her feet. She couldn't seem to comprehend why I was even bothering to make the effort.
"Wh-why are…" Her eyes grew wide with alarm. "S-sensei, mo-!"
A shot went off behind me, impacting right above my head and making me cringe. The fiery remains of a red lamp sailed over my head and landed harmlessly ahead of me. I looked back to see Aru lowering her rifle from a shooting angle above me, face pale and deathly afraid yet with the still hands of the sure shooter.
Thanks could come later. I took Haruka into my grasp and carried her out and was shocked at how little effort that took. For how monstrously durable she was, for how frightening she could be on the battlefield, I was confronted with the fact that this girl barely came up to my shoulder and didn't feel heavy at all.
Shaking off that sudden thought, I kept her under me and used my greatcoat to provide some shelter from whatever falling debris would come. I made use of my favorite skill (running like frak) and hoofed it out of the building, diving through just as another wooden beam fell and blocked the entrance. I flew through the air and landed on my back, thankfully cushioned by my greatcoat as the girl in my hands had my carapace armor and me to do the same for her. The ear-grating sounds that followed forced me to look back as the building finally gave way and collapsed.
I breathed hard, the adrenaline pumping through slowly receding as I realized I had yet another near-death experience to my name, before finally letting my head rest on the sand in relief.
"Sensei! Are you alright?!"
The others all bolted towards me, nearly everyone standing over my supine form carrying Haruka in my arms, all of them with various degrees of worry and awe. I shrugged, trying to pretend I wasn't scared out of my mind as I sat up beside the kneeling Ayane. "Fine as can be expected. How's the Master?"
"Amazingly, he's alright. He's got a few cuts and burns, but a stay in the hospital should be enough to fix him up completely."
I did hear that even the non-students were more durable than average, but I didn't expect them to be that durable. At the very least, he'll be fine soon enough.
Physically at least. How he'll feel after he realizes what happened to his store will be another thing entirely. I shook my head in regret at seeing the cozy little restaurant turning to ash. Like the district needed more tragedies hitting it. I shook my head. That demoralizing talk would come later. "Load him up. We'll drop him off at the nearest hospital." The bespectacled girl nodded and with Shiroko's assistance carried him into the car.
"Ughh…" The girl in my arms had her eyes closed the whole while, though she blinked them open after she realized that things weren't moving so dizzyingly fast anymore. "Are we still alive?"
"Somehow, Haruka. Somehow."
"Eh?" She looked at me from her precarious position, realized just how close she was to me and then blushed a rather violent shade of red. She then pushed herself off and then began bobbing her head up and down like a jackhammer.
"SorrysorrysorryIwassuchastupidinconvenienceandImessedthingsupforyouand-"
Emperor, A Hydra would be hard-pressed to fire off bullets as fast as she shot out apologies. I tapped her on her shoulder to snap her out of it. "Haruka, it's fine. You saved the Master. You did well."
The praise I had for her was enough to make her stop, and she just stared at me as if I was a tyranid that was speaking pleasantries to her. "Huh?" The idea of anyone other than her friends thanking her seemed to be as alien as to her own monstrous durability was to me.
"S-Sensei…" I looked beside her to see her Boss trying hard to look at me without shame. "Thank you for saving Haruka back there. Even after everything, we're still screwing things up for you…"
She sounded genuinely contrite about that. Well and good, but it would be better to be a bit gentler rather than lay her out like I was tempted to. "This wasn't your fault. Whoever blew this place up was to blame." I stood up, dusted myself off and looked at Ayane. "One med-bomb for the Problem Solvers, please."
"Of course, Sensei!" One second later, and the entire group of outlaws was bathed in the rejuvenating mixture of Ayane's medical drop, enough for their wounds to heal and for their spirits to return.
"Wow, that feels way better already! Thanks four-eyes!" Mutsuki said gratefully, clearly already considering Ayane the kind of friend you could snipe at because they could take it. To be fair, teasing people was about as inherent to this girl's being as her halo.
"It's Aya- Oh you already know that, who cares…" said four-eyes acknowledged there was no point in resisting and resigned herself to her new name.
"Hahaha, you're getting it!" There was absolutely no malice in this little spitfire's teasing if she liked you, so there was little point in resisting if you weren't really offended anyway.
"You guys really weren't the ones to do this, huh…" Serika muttered glumly, regretting how close she was to starting an unnecessary fight with the innocent… OK not exactly innocent, they were frustrating troublemakers, but certainly not guilty THIS TIME.
"Eh, we can't blame you. We don't exactly have a fantastic track record with you people," Kayoko said with a shrug.
"Oh it's fine! So long as you don't cause trouble, we don't mind having you here!" Under most circumstances I'd find Nonomi's willingness to interact with people who launched an attack on her school concerning, but one, this was Kivotos, where nearly everyone was bulletproof, and two, this was Abydos, which was absolutely starved for students. Her openness to inter-academy relations, no matter how unusual, wasn't entirely surprising.
All that aside, I had to get this conversation back on track. "If I understand this correctly, your original plan was to have one last meal in Shiba Seki before you left our district?"
They all nodded. "You're correct. We don't want to fight you people anymore." Aru answered me. "We just want to get out of here and lay low like you recommended we do."
Well, that would have been one headache out of my hair. But fate had other plans for us. "Do you mind coming with us to the school? You won't have to stay for long. You'll be out of here by the end of the day."
"We can do that," Aru replied with an agreeable smile, and with a nod, all of us prepared to board the car, with me and the FTF leading the way.
When I looked back at our guests, I only had seconds to glance at the tiny black shell heading for them before it crashed into their position, barely enough time for me to shout a warning.
"SCATTER!"
The explosion that followed engulfed the Problem Solvers once more, and before any of us could react they were blown away once again by another shell, and then another until the street was filled with smoke.
"What in the HELL is going on?!" Serika growled, brandishing her firearm once again, an action followed by the others. I didn't follow them, instead tapping Ayane's shoulder. Our operator looked at me in worry.
"He can't stay here, Ayane. Drop him off in the infirmary and keep an eye on us. Try to get Hoshino on the line. We need her, NOW."
She accepted my command and immediately hopped into the driver's seat, starting up the engine and accelerating as fast as she could safely ferry the injured Master. Meanwhile, I looked grimly towards the source of the bombardment.
Whoever was bombing Problem Solver, used infantry carried mortar shells, localized to a relatively small area. Even with a perfect opportunity to take all of us out, none of them were aimed at me or the FTF.
So who exactly were these mysterious new players?
The answer revealed itself as synchronized footfalls echoed on the sanded concrete. I clenched my fists as the uniform steps increased in volume until their owners were revealed, a sight that chilled me to the bone.
A sea of black military uniforms held together by four golden buttons, with a red band wrapped around their left arms to signify their affiliation. A short skirt with a brown pistol holster. Black calf-length boots. Black gloved hands holding all manner of firearms between them. An officer's cap above underneath their halo.
That alone would scare me. But I was praying to the Emperor for everything else.
Pinioned wings. Curved horns. Spiked tails. This was an army of daemons, and they were marching upon us.
At their head was a dark-skinned girl with silver hair that reached all the way down to her heel-covered legs, even as it was braided into twin tails, the curl of her bangs set off to one side and revealing only one red eye. A black, spear-tipped tail peeked out from behind her skirt. A wooden rifle with a spiked stock rested on her shoulder, though she could take a firing stance the moment a fight broke out.
"Dammit… Those girls are good. We shelled them hard and yet they managed to get away." The silver-haired riflewoman clucked her tongue in annoyance as she looked around. Her frustration only deepened as her gaze fell upon us. "You're from Abydos Academy… And you're the Sensei."
At her side was, to my shock, a familiar pink-haired face.
"Chinatsu…?" I mouthed out quietly. What was she doing here?
"Hello, Cain-Sensei," Chinatsu murmured. "I wish I could say it was nice to meet you again… But this isn't very pleasant for any of us."
Unlike the other girl, who was more contemptuous of Problem Solver's escape and the work that it would bring, Chinatsu genuinely regarded this as bad business all around. It certainly was from my point of view, but at least someone on the other side shared it.
"No, it isn't. If only we met under better circumstances," I mused casually, trying to pretend that the sweat pouring down my brow was from the fire and the desert heat.
"You know this girl, Sensei?" Shiroko asked from beside me, face steady as she pointed her rifle to the side and kept her finger off the trigger. Much I hoped otherwise, I had a feeling it would be pointed forward and letting out triple bursts before the day was over.
"She was one of the people who helped me save the city," I quickly explained before I concentrated once more. "So these must be your colleagues from your school… Gehenna, if I remember correctly?"
"That's right." It was that silver-haired devil that answered for her. "We're here to take in a group of troublemakers that ran all the way here. Don't stop us from enforcing the law."
'Or else,' might as well have been blasted out on air horns for everyone to hear. I could hear the girls clenching their weapons hard at the unsaid threat, and it was all they could do to stop themselves from firing the first shot.
"Who the hell do you people think you are?!" Serika growled from beside me, and her fellow twintail glared right back at her as she met her challenge.
"Us? We're the Gehenna Prefect Team. We protect order, discipline and the law. I'm Iori Shiromi, field captain of the assault corps. Get in our way, you'll be obstructing our duties."
A declaration that might draw an unimpressed shrug from the Arbites. How quaint. So essentially, this was a police force made of daemons. The irony was killing me on the inside. If I didn't play my cards right, they would literally be killing me, period.
I had to stop my instinctive reaction to flinch as I locked eyes with one of our mutual targets of interest. Haruka peeked out from behind an alleyway, looking just as lost as she usually did, then gave into her reflexive bout of fear once she realized that I knew she was there.
As our eyes met, I very purposefully turned away from her. If she was there, the rest of them might be too. They had a chance to run, but I could sell them out to save my hide.
Unfortunately, the tingling of my palms told me that there was far too much of this picture that I couldn't yet see for me to immediately do so, so I very deliberately turned away from her, wondering if I would ever get the chance to get any answers from them, as I made to distract the small army coming after them.
Naturally, I began with forcing down my fear and laughing at them.
"Big words, coming from a bunch of lawbreakers."
As I expected, Iori was wound up tighter than a rabid ambull, and she narrowed her eyes at my flippancy. "Say that again. I dare you."
"Oh, did I offend you?" I raised an eye and answered in an insultingly light voice. "I won't apologize. After all, you're a team from another academy, blatantly conducting military operations within another district. I hope you remember that that's MY hat, not yours. You don't get to do that unless I let you." I lowered my head and stared straight at her. "And let me make things quicker for all of us before you ask: No. I WON'T let you."
Her eye twitched at the snipes being thrown her way. "Problem Solver are our business. You don't get to interfere."
"You did it first." My cold response caught her off-guard. "We were trying to get information out of them because somebody blew up this fine establishment, and then you went and blew them up and let them get away."
"W-what?" At the revelation of her screw-up, Iori flinched and struggled to meet my stare. "How could we know that would happen…?" It wasn't exactly a poor excuse, but phenomenally lacking in the face of the destruction of a beloved property. Chinatsu, ever medically minded, cut in right after.
"Oh no. Was anyone hurt? Were there non-students there?"
It was an unexpected interruption, but despite it dulling my own frustrations I didn't mind. Her concern was charming in its own way. "Problem Solver was caught up in the blast, but they weren't hurt too badly. There was one non-student, the chef who ran the restaurant, but he's receiving medical attention now." I let out a sorrowful sigh. "What a mess. It was a good ramen place, and now it's gone. If only somebody here didn't interrupt our information gathering process."
My only regret was having Chinatsu caught up in all of this. She was a medic who had no choice in the matter. Honestly, it was good she was here. If the bullets started flying and I got hit, she would run across the firing lines just to treat me. Makes sense I suppose. After all, she had pointy ears and the rest…
Wait, why were they shifting guiltily on their feet? These were daemons! They shouldn't care about any of this!
… Then again, what use would daemons have for keeping order? Perhaps I ought to pursue this a bit more…
"Shall we go over all this then, Prefect Team, law keepers of Gehenna?" I began once more. "You trespassed in another academy's district. You launched a risky mortar bombardment near students of said academy, and me. In doing so, YOU obstructed OUR duties of protecting this district, which, as you can see, isn't very stable. Unless you want me to add threatening an extrajudicial federal investigator to your list of offenses, I suggest you turn around, get to the nearest train or however you all got here, and get out."
Apparently the old threatening commissarial teacher's touch still worked on daemonic students, because I could even see the rank and file trying not to sweat and shift uncomfortably after I unloaded on them, with their field captain practically bolted to the floor. I hoped that that would be enough to get them to leave, and if it was just these two leading them, it probably would be.
Seconds later, I saw that that wasn't the case, as Iori's phone rang. She grabbed onto the interruption like a lifeline, snapping her phone out like she did with the speed of a quick-draw. "Wh-what is it? You want to talk to them? Alright…" After that little exchange, Iori pressed a few buttons and held it up.
And what came out was a cow.
… OK, not literally, but perhaps I could be forgiven. She had the same jacket as the Prefect Team regulars, but her chest was practically bursting out the middle! It was so big that you could see the tantalizing bits of skin on the side of her undershirt! She had a COWBELL around her neck! Was this a fashion statement?! Was she trying to say something?! In the immortal words of my more aesthetically inclined students, 'girl, what are you wearing?!'
"Greetings, Abydos Academy students and the Sensei of SCHALE." OK Cain, her eyes are ABOVE chest level. Focus on the blue hair and the crescent moon halo. She certainly looked quite elegant if you ignored anything below that. Keep it that way. "I do apologize for a rough first impression. My name is Amau Ako, the Senior Administrator of the Gehenna Prefect Team. Pleased to meet you."
That was certainly a title worth listening to. "I assume that makes you the leader of this outfit?"
"Oh no, no, no, perish the thought!" She depreciated as if the very idea was outrageous to even suggest. "The Head Prefect is the one in charge, I merely support her through secretarial duties and other mundane ways."
Shiroko looked from the senior administrator to the rest of the prefect team. "If you 'merely' did that, then your team members wouldn't be quivering in their boots just from your call."
"W-who says I'm quivering?! I'm perfectly fine!" Nice try, field captain, most of your little troupe was sweating and shaking, but you basically shot yourself in the foot by singling yourself out.
Ako didn't seem to mind the dismissal of her point, seemingly rather satisfied about the pressure she was able to exert on the rest of her group. "An astute observation. You are…" I knew that little tactic, a dramatic pause for effect, pretending to consider the facts when you knew them perfectly well already. "Sunaookami Shiroko, right? Alongside Kuromi Serika and Izayoi Nonomi. I'd heard that all that was left of Abydos was its student council. That must be you then." She raised a curious eyebrow. "I'd heard there were five of you. Where are the other two?"
A ring from my side answered the question for me, and once Serika held up her phone answered it for Ako as well. "I'm right here, Senior Administrator. Okusora Ayane, one of the last students within Abydos. And you're wrong about one thing. We aren't the student council. We're the Foreclosure Task Force."
"Ah, I see." An unforeseen, but easily ignored complication, judging from how she dismissed it. "Might I speak to any student council members then?"
"Our president… The vice-president of the student council is unavailable right now." Nonomi, thankfully, kept Hoshin's unknown whereabouts hidden. Nobody other than us needed to know that she was currently lost to us as well, a sign of weakness and division that was just asking to be pounded into the ground. "That being said, don't think that you can just ignore us."
"The Abydos Student Council is long gone!" Serika practically spat out, as disdainful of that particular loss as she was of the administrator in front of her. "For all intents and purposes, we're the acting Student Council, so if you have anything to say, you can say it to us!"
Ako paused upon hearing Serika's angered declaration, then nodded. "Fair enough." She straightened herself. "Allow me to apologize for the field captain's reckless use of force."
"THE HELL?!" Sold downriver for the sake of a peace offering. Quite the administrator you have there, Iori. "But I was just following orders, Ako…"
"Did your orders include blindly opening an engagement using indiscriminate bombardment?" She scolded in that honey sweet motherly tone that promised suffering if a satisfactory answer wasn't delivered that very instant.
"Well… Opening up with fire support before deploying the infantry is a cornerstone of advantageous deployment…" A fine effort, Iori. Certainly a correct answer, since if I was ever forced to enter a battlefield I'd rather do it after it was sanitized by several rounds of artillery bombardment, but for the particularly obstinate, just because you're correct doesn't mean you're right…
"Does it not go without saying that certain precautions are to be taken when operating close to the district of another academy?"
Close to…? This WAS Abydos. What the hell was she saying? Something in my palms tingled and prevented me from interrupting. Judging from Ayane's reaction, she probably noticed it too. Thankfully, before the others could interrupt, Ako turned to us once more. Having finished with a now incredibly demoralized Iori, she put on her usual polite smile once again as she began to explain.
"Once again, I sincerely apologize to the Foreclosure Task Force. The Gehenna Prefect Team was mobilized to take specific individuals who have violated our academy's regulations into custody. This was an unfortunate situation, but even after these… complications, I do hope we can count on your understanding due to the urgency of the current situation." She then finished confidently. "I ask for your cooperation during the execution of the Prefect Team's duties."
In other words, hand over those headache-inducing delinquents, and they'll be out of our hair. That sounded like a pure win for everyone, especially me. I get those delinquents out of my sight and FAR more importantly, out of my mind, and they bag their criminals. A very good deal.
Far too good a deal.
"… How urgent are we talking about here, Senior Administrator?" I asked her, not buying what she was selling for an instant. "What grand crime did these students commit that necessitated bringing all these people into another district's borders, at the risk of violating jurisdictional authority?"
Maybe I've only known Problem Solver 68 for a few days, but I could tell they simply weren't worth that much. They were certainly skilled, I'll give them that, but if Aru had the confidence to live up to her image of the legendary outlaw, she wouldn't need to hang on to every word that came out of my mouth.
The administrator's radiant smile twitched ever so slightly, which basically confirmed everything for me. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that unless the Prefect Team is so incompetent it needs numbers like these to deal with a group like Problem Solver, there's no need to come marching through here with an army. So stop spouting bullshit and tell me why you're here."
Silence followed my words. The FTF eyed the Prefect Team with suspicion, now wondering what the hell all these lawbringers were doing here if not for the law. Iori, Chinatsu and the troops behind them shifted guiltily in place. And as for Ako…
Her smile faded, giving way to sigh. "I should have known. I was right to worry. You really are smarter than you let on." Any pretense of courteous accommodation was gone, replaced with clinical wariness. "We were right to come here all the way for you."
I was struck dumb at the answer, confusion slowly giving way to utter terror. "Why?" I could say nothing else, because the sheer ridiculousness of having an entire disciplinary force pursue me after knowing me for literally just a week left me flabbergasted.
The irony of having gotten into more trouble with school discipline centuries after I left school would probably be funnier if it wasn't so life-threatening.
"You caught the Head Prefect's interest," she began, the words leaving a bad taste in her mouth for reasons I couldn't fathom. Just as well, knowing that I caught the interest of somebody even worse than her left me with bad feelings all over. "I didn't think looking into you would be so urgent, with the vice-president of the Justice Task Force, a rather infamous vigilante and our very own Chinatsu at your side." Understandable, fighting alongside recognizable names would dilute my own value in her eyes, and considering that I was absolutely being carried by them and Yuuka, she wasn't wrong. The only surprising thing was that Suzumi had such a reputation. "But then you managed to fend off entire mobs of Helmet Gangs with the remnants of a dying academy, twice over. And that's when we started to look into you personally, starting with the report Chinatsu compiled."
"A very belated start…" Chinatsu mumbled. I made a mental note to forgo my usual habit of ignoring briefings when it came to Chinatsu. She would figure it out sooner or later.
"Her very positive appraisal of your combat prowess, your tactical acumen and your brave leadership were clearly not in error." Seriously? Just because I was good enough to duck when the bullets flew, strategize better than ork-brained juvies and was forced to lead from the front I was a living legend here too? Chinatsu, please… "Coupled with the fact that you're an adult leading a federal investigation club with extrajudicial powers, all at the behest of the missing President… I decided to send a few people over here to observe what you'd do."
My blood froze. So we were being spied on since my third day here?! I'd been caught up in so many things with so little time to think that I'd never noticed…
"I only got more cautious after you managed a repeat performance, and then fended off an assault by Problem Solver. I was very worried that we lost you on our third day of reconnaissance, and those worries were vindicated when the scouts finally reported you talking to a Trinity student about who knows what."
Emperor on Terra's Throne, they saw us talking to Hifumi! We were blessed enough that they didn't notice us leaving the academy in disguise or possibly took a break, and that they couldn't actually hear us. But all our efforts at hiding ourselves were nearly throttled from the start!
Wait… Trinity was a school of the angels, and these were the daemons…
Don't bloody tell me…
"Among all our rivals in Kivotos, Trinity is the foremost and longest standing one. I would very, VERY much like to know what you talked about with one of their students. Would you mind telling us what that was all about?"
Emperor dammit all, this school of daemons had a rivalry with the school of angels and she thought that I was taking the other side! In fairness, I definitely WOULD, but that isn't the point right now! The point is that my path to freedom meant revealing the entire farce about the Black Market heist, rendering our humiliating concealment useless, never mind placing a damning piece of information about me right in the hands of paranoid daemons!
"Confidential matters that will do no harm to Gehenna if they remain that way," I desperately tried to defend myself with the truth. Sadly, I had a feeling it wouldn't be much use.
"A little too confidential for my taste." Frakking knew it. Self-absorbed obsessive paranoiacs like her already convinced themselves of the flame behind every puff of smoke and refused to believe otherwise. "We can't have unknown variables like you while the official signing of the Eden Treaty is around the corner. So until it's signed, we're taking you into our custody. Oh, and the troublemakers too, I guess."
Oh, grand. I arrived BEFORE the historic treaty of peace between two warring academies was signed, which of course meant they would be suspicious as hell of each other, squeezing every last scrap of espionage and conspiracy as they tried to figure out what angle the other side had until they signed a piece of paper that would probably do little to actually uphold any peace.
And I was going to spend all of that time being captured and interrogated by Emperor-damned DAEMONS.
Oh how I wanted to run for my life right then and there. Unfortunately, if I bolted with my tail in between my legs, all it would take to get me was a train ride to my district, and I'd have a ruined reputation along with it. There'd be little incentive for anyone to protect me then. Where else could I even run around here?
As if to emphasize the question, even more squads poured out of the side alleys, with the only way out being from behind… A clear retreat back to the academy, where we would inevitably be swarmed and overrun, unless of course there was yet another group closing in on us from behind. It was the suffocating feeling of being boxed in, wrapping around my throat like daemonic claws sucking out the hope and breath from my lungs. I was well and truly frakked.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Sensei. That's up to you."
With nothing left but panic and prayer, before my bowels could open up I let my mouth do it first. "Are you serious?! I have no time to be taking sides between other schools when I'm far too busy trying to SAVE ONE!" I desperately gestured to the surroundings, to the absence of people, the abandoned buildings being swallowed by the unending sea of sand. "Look around you! The academy and the district are, exactly as you said, dying! It's being piledrived by opportunistic gangers, merciless debt collectors and being consumed by the damned desert itself!" I took a deep breath, but my fear and anger pushed my rants onward. "Maybe, just maybe, I might have had more time to come with you and ease your worries if you bothered to help years ago! Instead, you people left this place to rot, and the first time you come back, you stomp all over it like you own the place, while we're all dealing with another problem! If this is supposed to be keeping law and order, you can all take it and SHOVE OFF!"
I was terrified of what they would do if they got their hands on me. My fear matched with genuine frustration at having to pick after these kids and wondering who in the Emperor's name thought it was a good idea to let them lead.
I don't get why these daemons felt guilty about the whole thing, but after my spiel they seemed to be looking everywhere but me: To each other, to their field leaders and finally towards the Senior Administrator herself. She grimaced at my frantic ravings, but sighed. "I'm not sure if this place can be saved… But we can still take care of Gehenna. I do apologize, but we're taking you in."
I didn't expect anything else. Outrage and terror came together, until they gave way to resignation.
"Like HELL we're letting you do that!" Serika screamed at her from my side, placing herself in front of me and practically stabbing her gun towards our enemies. The rest of the FTF did the same, and much as their investment in me was reassuring, the absence of our very experienced frontliner and club president dampened that significantly.
"You won't be able to stop us." The Senior Administrator pulled back the strands of her hair and smiled. "I suppose taking out the Sensei of SCHALE would be a nice feather in the Prefect Team's cap. Something we can hold over the conniving racoons in the Pandemonium Society at least."
Joy. I was going to be used for bragging rights in daemonic politics. Wouldn't be the first time I've had the pleasure of an attempt, without any of the 'delights' (however costly) that implied before.
And that seemed more than likely. We were ridiculously outnumbered, and we were down our frontliner and the most experienced among the girls. Our enemies seemed to be organized and fairly well-trained instead of the rabble that I've been facing over the past few days. And among that number were grenadiers that were far, far out of our range, a group we could do nothing about as they harassed us into an inevitable defeat, and possibly me being blown into bits by accident.
But just as I always did before: If I was going down, I was going down swinging.
"Getting blown up twice in one day is NOT fun."
"Maybe that'll convince you to prank other people less?"
"Hmm… Nahhh, maybe not."
"How incredibly surprising."
Thanks to Sensei's warning, her crew had the chance to run for cover after the first strike, allowing them to run for the nearest alleyway and hide.
"This has been a terrible day… Is this punishment for my lack of conviction…?" she moaned. "Who would even come after us now?"
The marching steps, unnervingly familiar to each and every one of them, answered them, and the discussion that took place right after confirmed it for them.
"Damn. It's the Prefect Team," Kayoko's red eyes narrowed at the gathered disciplinary troops with disdain before tucking her head back into cover, as all of them did. "And they really brought an army with them. They couldn't have brought that many troops for us. Hina isn't like that. So why…? No, it couldn't be…"
"What is it, Kayoko?"
Her department head seemed genuinely conflicted about answering her question, before she started to talk. "They're probably after…" she cut herself off, her eyes widening in alarm. "Haruka, get your head back in here, you could be seen!"
She whipped her head back to see the poor girl practically frozen in fear, yet despite Kayoko's words it took her far longer than necessary to bring her head back in, looking dazed all the while.
"Yeesh, you kept an eye out for way too long there Haruka," Mutsuki chuckled, clearly not too put off by the potential slip-up. "So did anyone find you?"
"… Sensei did…"
Her heart stopped. "Come again?" Was this the end?! Sure, he may want something from them, but surely he wouldn't risk himself and the FTF to…
"Sensei saw me, and he didn't say anything…"
… He was hiding them? He wasn't giving them up?
The rest of them kept an ear out once more, and she couldn't believe that not only was he not giving them up, he was telling off the entire Prefect Team and basically telling them to screw off, when he could just make things easier for himself by selling them out.
Where did he get that confidence, standing up to an entire army and admonishing them like children?
Things changed when the Senior Administrator of Gehenna came in, and just as they wondered if he would finally hand them over once Ako requested it, he instead directly called her out for bringing the entire army here. Oh sure, it hurt her pride to know that they weren't here for her, but she knew in her heart of hearts that she wasn't worth THAT much.
And then Ako answered the burning question on all of their minds.
They were here for Sensei.
"Knew it." Kayoko's words came out with equal resignation and displeasure. "She really did use us as an excuse to go after him. That absolute paranoiac…"
"Wow, we really made things harder for them in more ways than one, huh..." Even Mutsuki couldn't help but feel guilty about their part in bringing such trouble down on an entire district.
And the heavens above was it awful. They'd been a headache and a half for him every single time they've met, and yet he'd shown them nothing but unfathomable lenience to very little advantage on his end, all ending with a landmark of the district blown up and them being used as a way for their enemies to reach him. It ate her up on the inside.
"Lady Aru…"
Haruka was already clutching her shotgun, hands shaking. Aru knew what she wanted. She wanted to go out there and fight the entire Prefect Team for his sake, only stopping because it would hurt all of them too.
There was a part of her that wanted that too. But how could they?
"… It'd be easy for us to beat feet and get out of here boss. Ako probably doesn't care too much about us already. Once the bullets start flying, nobody will notice us. We can sneak through the rest of the district and make our way to either the train station or the office to get our cash before we leave. If we jump into the fight, we can get the drop on them… But they might surround us either way. Whatever you choose, it's now or never."
Of course it was. Making snap decisions like these was her responsibility as a boss, but how could she possibly make them this fast?! Run, or fight?! What the hell was she supposed to do?!
"Are you serious?! I have no time to be taking sides between other schools when I'm far too busy trying to SAVE ONE!"
Those enraged, filled with anger that came from the very soul, made her mind blank out.
No matter the odds, Sensei faced them with enviable grace and composure, whether it was her with her ragtag band of part-time mercs, the most infamous bank of the Black Market, and minutes before when they faced Iori.
Now, his usual calmness was gone, replaced with righteous indignation, admonishing the so-called keepers of order as they destabilized another district and threatened to take away the one outsider who was trying to save it.
Suddenly, her decision became far easier.
She looked towards her intern clutching her firearm so hard it might've broken if they weren't as special as they were, practically vibrating at how hard she was restraining herself.
"Do it, Haruka."
At her confirmation, she went still.
And then, her face darkened.
"Unforgivable…"
… Wait, wouldn't it be better to plan out an ambush or something?
"Unforgivable, unforgivable…"
"Unforgivableunforgivableunforgivableunforgivabl unforgivableunforgivableunforgivableunforgivableunforgivable-
… Whelp, guess they were winging it!
"UNFORGIVABLE!"
Before my hands could reach for my weapons a frenzied battle cry erupted from the side alleys to our left, punctuated by an unimaginably long stream of shotgun blasts, the trigger being pulled so fast that the shots were practically blending together in my ears. The left couldn't react in time to trap the attackers, allowing them to break through to the center. A single crimson bullet then exploded through the front lines of the right wing, leaving it open for a single bomb to be thrown into the opening and explode.
The Prefect Team's complete focus on me left them completely blindsided by this completely unexpected maneuver. To be fair to them, I was equally surprised. I couldn't have suspected the perpetrators to act in such a way.
Problem Solver 68 burst forth from the dark alleys, heading towards the center. Haruka went a bit further, the manic glint in her eyes frightening as she ignored us and went straight for Iori, who couldn't mount a resistance in time for her to get blasted into a nearby wall, dropping her phone as the Senior Administrator could do nothing but stare in utter shock.
"AGHHHH THIS IS COMPLETELY UNFORGIVABLE! I'LL ERASE YOU ALL!"
It was a terrifying declaration, and the heavy breathing and unhinged expression on her face made it seem a little too likely for everybody's tastes. "Y-you can hold back for now Haruka, don't go too far away from us!"
At her mistress' words, Haruka suddenly quailed and hunched over, hugging her shotgun and withdrawing like a hermit crab to her usual reticent demeanor. "Ah, I overdid it… I-I ruined everything! Should I offer my life as penance to make up for it?!" The contrast between her daredevil screams and her mournful regret disturbed everyone enough that nobody did anything.
"Nah, you can chill Haruka, this is so hilariously exciting that you can keep that off the table." As usual, Mutsuki responded to her friend's distress with cheerful disregard, because it was impossible for her to get mad at somebody for letting her have fun. One might consider it callous to ignore a potential offer of suicide, but that probably happened about every five minutes with Haruka, and having spent time with Sisters of Battle and several other fanatics, both Imperial and Chaotic, I could understand tuning it out at some point.
"Yeah, it's alright Haruka, there's no need to get so worked up about that." Kayoko calmly walked out, inclining her head towards the hologram on the ground. The surprises continued as her bored expression transformed into one of disdain, her crimson eyes narrowing in disgust. "For some stubborn people, you need to make your point with a sledgehammer or they won't ever care."
"… Of course. I shouldn't have wasted so much time. It completely slipped my mind that you were there too, Kayoko. How careless of me." The frustration Ako had with herself over the slipup made the fact that these girls had an unpleasant history very obvious.
"The fact that you forgot me at all shows just how little we mattered to you once you started talking with Sensei, Ako," Kayoko practically spat out. "Bringing an entire army just to capture the new guy on the block, just because you don't know what he's going to do?"
"It's for the good of Gehenna," the Senior Administrator defended herself.
"Would Hina think the same?"
At the mention of the new name, Ako remained silent, though her own eyes narrowed at the obvious insult. "This kind of reckless and sloppy use of force, trying to use a criminal arrest to brazenly trample on the authority of another academy and the regulations of Kivotos, just to deal with an unknown variable like Sensei, for something he might not even do? That's not her style."
"You circumvented the authority of your own Head Prefect for the sake of your own peace of mind."
The cutting accusation made me widen my eyes. Not just because at the sheer irony of an order of lawkeepers breaking the rules for their own ends (Which, to be fair, I had very little room to judge in that regard), but because the idea that I DIDN'T have an entire academy of daemons after me and only had one uppity Arbites-equivalent administrator left me with a flare of hope.
"… It really is a shame that you're there with Problem Solver, Kayoko." Clearly, Ako couldn't find the proper words to defend herself and decided not to bother anymore. "You're one to talk. This kind of recklessness doesn't fit you either."
Kayoko shrugged, disgust giving way to resigned acceptance. "True enough. But I'm just an employee now. At some point, I just gotta suck it up and follow my boss."
Aru tittered in delight at the rare show of subservience. "Fine words, section chief." She moved up to the front, staring confidently at the army in front of her.
"Hear this, Prefect Team. You've been getting too big for your britches. Treating us like common thugs while acting like bigger criminals under a flag of justice and order? To hell with that! You're not leaving without getting a spanking from us!"
It was just like when we first met and Aru thought she did want to fight us. Carrying herself with grace and pride, standing tall against an army of lawkeepers, with elegant clothing and a grandly decorated firearm at her side, she looked the very picture of a legendary outlaw.
A picture which was immediately shattered seconds later, naturally, after Mutsuki started talking. "Wow, boss, you finally sound like a real smooth criminal, coming out here for the sake of protecting Sensei."
Aru flinched at the incredibly frank declaration, and her face matched the color of her hair as she started her usual blubbering. "W-well, Sensei's treated us well enough, and it seems logical to work together with him! Standing together with him against the Prefect Team would boost our reputation, and we wouldn't want people to think we were backstabbing cowards! Trust must be repaid with trust, that's our motto!"
Emperor above girl, I'd sooner believe in the Ruinous Powers than buy that you thought of all that before you recklessly undid Haruka's leash and let her run wild! You came out here just to help me! Denying your obvious goodwill just makes you look daft, just accept that you have a bleeding heart already!
"… Really? You're just going to come out and do this? You do realize that you're only making things worse for yourself? You went from leaving Gehenna to actively assaulting the Prefect Team…" Ako responded incredulously.
Well, I suppose Aru did get one thing right. Trust ought to be repaid with trust, if only for image purposes, and if she wanted to be seen as a criminal mastermind, then I ought to help prop her up, if only for a little bit.
"Under ordinary circumstances, I suppose you'd be right," I spoke up once more, my voice drawing all attention to me once more. "Assaulting an officer of the law is quite a serious crime. However…" and I made sure to draw my voice out there, "Problem Solver 68 assaulted officers of the law that were in the process of violating jurisdictional authority, and in defense of me, an extrajudicial federal investigator."
"By the power vested in me as the Sensei of SCHALE, I retroactively clear Problem Solver 68 of any criminal charges related to the assault and grant them immunity from such charges for the duration of the engagement, so long as they operate under my command."
Disbelief welled up in the eyes of the Gehenna students set on me. Mutsuki, chaotic troublemaker that she was, realized the implications and recovered with an ominous chuckle and incredibly excited eyes. "Hehehe, did ya hear that, Prefect Team? We're legal now, and we can cut loose. Hope you won't regret it!"
The implications began to sink in for the Prefect Team while Haruka, as usual, cheered for her boss. "Amazing, Lady Aru! Things are working out great for us, just like you wanted them to!"
Aru's disbelieving eyes gave way to incredible relief, almost unable to look away from me in admiration until I glanced at her. The embarrassment of being caught and the need to prop up her image combined to get her to blabbing again. "O-of course! Just like I intended, hahaha!"
"We can laugh later, maybe we ought to group up before things really start going wrong…" Kayoko followed up, equally disbelieving of how things were progressing relatively well so far but refusing to take it for granted as she joined up with us. The rest of the crew followed, and our opponents began to waver at the fact that our fighting force effectively doubled. They'd heard what I did with four students, so just what could I do with 8?
"Yay, we're all friends now!" Nonomi said happily, while Serika groaned.
"Let's not get too hasty…" Despite herself, even she couldn't keep the confident grin from her face, and neither could Shiroko.
"… Just because you've got 8 students on your side doesn't mean things are going to change. We're getting you and Problem Solver in one go now," Ako answered us, while I smiled.
True enough. Getting myself 8 people probably wasn't much of a boon if I was facing an army under normal circumstances.
But these weren't normal circumstances.
I didn't just get Problem Solver out of a jam just so they would be motivated to fight with us. The skills they had, combined with the FTF fighting in their home turf, gave me strange ideas.
Maybe I was just grasping at straws and going insane, but despite the ridiculous odds set before us, with both Problem Solver and the FTF fighting together with me, one thought, the very thought that brought the beginnings of both glorious success and horrifying failure, shared by geniuses and madmen alike, coursed through my mind.
We could do this.
"Perhaps," I intoned casually, as if facing an army with a ragtag band of students was just another day in the office for me. Oh well. With how things were going, if I lived through this that WOULD be normal for me. Might as well practice now. "But we're going to make you work for it."
Just like before, my greatcoat masked what I was doing with my hands. Thus, they weren't prepared for three flashbangs (read: ALL of my flashbangs) to "grace" their eyes and ears.
As far as starting gongs go, this is about as good as it can be.
*Chapter 17: Lawkeepers and Lawbreakers, END*
Edited, as per usual, by Doc43Souls.
Near-death experiences, headache-inducing intrigue and fighting off armies. Just another day in the life of Ciaphas Cain, except this time, he's fighting off another military instead of criminals, and one of the Big Three no less. Not to worry, with two squads of dysfunctional school girls under his command, including someone who screams internally at the close calls they suffer as much as he does, I'm sure he'll be fine.
Next time, the clash between the Prefect Team and Cain's forces. I'll try to get it out sooner, wish me luck.
See you next time!
