NSFLN1X-0.0.7C/1.14.7228

First thing I noticed were four snub barrels pointed right at me, followed by the five crisp suits bearing them. The gleaming modernity of the architecture came next and finally a jolt running down my spine as the Nanosuit's stabilisers kicked in. The sheer cleanliness of the alley is so surprising to me I'm actually weirded out by it, and that in turn weirds me out more considering all the other batshit insane things I've seen.

My mind, or SECOND, makes an assessment in less than a tenth of a second and determines based on everything I'm maybe in Asia, likely northern oriental. Based on how the scent of the sea is weak but stronger than whatever's in the alley, it's got to be a coastal city. Chilly, too, so make it winter.

Key word, maybe, because knowing my streak only Oz right now knows if this is Earth.

Right, I know, I'm being held up. I was getting to that.

As it turns out I'm right. The goons' genetic sequences match those of Japanese descent – with scant traces of Genghis Khan no less, oh baby! - and based on their clothes likely Yakuza, unless the Triad started branching out. Not a friendly welcome by any means, but it's great seeing faces I recognise.

They also looked ready to die on the spot, which is understandable: I just so happen to look like if a boulder was chiselled into a half-baked Terminator imitation, if I saw myself I would grab a torch and pitchfork too.

As bad as I usually am with people, though, there's no way a quintet of eager perforators would anticipate my arrival here. I'm clearly interrupting something, so I turn and look behind me because... well where else?

My expectations began with a standoff with rival Yakuza or armed police or, Hell, some guy with a fucking samurai sword. Instead, if I still had eyes they would've rolled into my boots because standing right there was just some kid, wide-eyed like a deer in headlights.

There's not shit about him that would warrant five gangsters to go after one high-schooler and the scan came back with nothing. Not even a wild hair colour like from one of Folsom's cartoons, he looks completely normal for a young respectable Japanese man.

It doesn't matter. I signed up for situations just like this, it's clear cut to me. I don't need a neon sign to tell me who the bad guys are.

So, I straighten up, say, "So, are we going to stand around all day, or are we going to fight," and hope for the best.

One of them, however, twitched a little too hard and let off a hot load. The 9mm slid off my dome harmlessly enough, nothing more than a golf ball could do against Reactive Nano-Fibre. But it was enough.

"Alright then."

Stepping long, lunging with my left I whip against his crown, a snap fresher than a kit kat bar rolling through the alley and throwing him back into his friends.

While the two with a dragon on his sleeve and another with sunglasses were distracted with him to the right, I targeted left. And you should've seen the look on his face when I pulled the whole upper assembly off his Beretta, all before he could even pull the trigger. It was-

Sorry, forgot about the mask. Guess we're back to that square, then?

If it's any consolation, you at least don't remind me of my last shrink.

But yeah, it didn't last long since his face folded around my jab to his nose. Scrunched up like a bowling ball going to town on a cheap paper doll.

Didn't have time to admire my handiwork, though, Dragon and Shades had forgotten about their fallen brother and were reengaging me. Mook Number Five was also getting in on the action, having finally drawn his weapon.

My boots slip on the dew, the suit converts it into a roll and follows with a fist into Dragon's chest, cracking like a cookie as he launched into Number Five, knocking him down. I followed with a slap to Shades' wrist, catapulting his compensation wand away and punched the muzzle into his solar plexus, squeezing.

The force blew right through him, liquidising tissue, cauterising lacerations and shattering bone, vertebrae shards following the bullet out with a hint of sickly iron as they showered Number Five like hail, while he abandoned Dragon as a lost cause.

Now I probably should've rushed the last guy. Not sure why I didn't, I had every cause to absolutely kick his shit in so far it launches out of his mouth. I am Golem Boy, the Slayer of Space Squids and the Bane of Androids; I could damn well do it if I wanted to and I sure as shit wanted to. But I didn't. I-

Look, you know when you're, I don't know, on the high dive board and - after all that hyping yourself up to jump, that you can jump because of a dare or some kid bullshit like that – you look down, see how far it drops and it just drops even further and suddenly you just can't. You can do other things, move your arms, legs, look around, speak, breath but jump?

Right then and there I was swamped with that feeling. But it was more than that, all my aggression, all the artificial adrenaline pumping through my brainwaves, the moment, it was all gone. I didn't want to jump him. I... didn't.

You know what this suit does, don't you?

Of course. Well, to keep it brief, it pushes you, to keep you focused on the mission and as efficient as possible. A little bit of anger? Pump up the adrenals and you've got a battlefield bloodlust. Goons in your way and they're talking hot shit? Bring up that time they used your squadmates for easy target practice. Want to find the sum to 2 and 2? Hell, solve five of the remaining Millennium Puzzles, why don't you.

The fact that wasn't happening was my first hint something was up. Either that, or SECOND was starting to develop a conscious, but I don't know if that'd scare me more.

No time to dwell on it, though. The last Yakuza was back up, bringing to bear his compensation. I could see the muscles in his arm bulge as he tried to pull the trigger, only to not. Either he was under the same effect or just having second thoughts, but his eyes said it all.

I've just proven with each one of his friends that I could rush his candy ass and tie his legs in a sailor's knot and stuff him for thanksgiving before he even knew it, yet I'm just standing here, menacingly. This chiselled demigod of death and destruction descended down from the Heavens to personally ruin a nice day of paedicide and now it's not moving a muscle. Add onto the fact bullets clearly don't work on it and I'd second guess myself too. So, what do I do in this situation?

I say, "boo!" and you know what he did?

He died on the fucking spot.

I wish I was kidding. Turns out I induced cardiac arrest via psychological trauma, predicated on a weak heart condition. Motherfucker just grabbed his chest and keeled over on the spot like... like...

What was that cartoon cat called again?

Never mind.

To make absolutely certain he wasn't going to reanimate as a zombie, or something, I nudge him with my boot. You never know what could happen when every week you end up in a different reality but so far it looks like he was staying dead.

Good.

Seven seconds. Not a bad record. Could be faster but after interdimensional translocation it's-

Would you just-

Fine.

The kid saw all of it. I realised after the fact that maybe, just maybe, it's not a good idea to expose a child to a brutal quintuple homicide. It was bad enough last time.

I face him and the kid jumps. I step towards him and he steps back. I step again and this time he holds out his hands. He isn't scared per se but it doesn't take patented Nanotech optical augments to see how much he's sweating.

"Easy, I'm not going to hurt you," I said, bearing my palms.

Instead of easing the tension, though, he shakily said, "nani?"

Of course, he would speak Japanese. Why am I not surprised?

Luckily, the evil lab the Nanosuit crawled out of decided to package it with a translator (or more likely it shoots the Japanese directly into my brain), allowing me to repeat the words in the closest analogues the language could afford me. He eased up instantly.

"Okay," he sighed, "it wouldn't make sense for a time travelling robot to try deception after killing five Yakuza in front of me." Then he shot me a suspicious look. "Or would you?"

My wrist was about to wear my face as a bracelet until he chuckled lightly. "I'm kidding," he says, in fucking English no less, and inclines his head. "I'm incredibly grateful, mister... uh..."

"Alcatraz. For the record, I'm not a robot nor a time traveller.

"Arukaturaz," he tries in Japanese, "like the prison?"

I metaphorically blink. "Yeah, just like that. I take it this is Earth, then."

He chuckles incredulously. "Why? Are you an astronaut?

"Well," I began before wondering how to best go about approaching this subject. Sure I haven't been unlucky enough to be stranded in space but I have been thrown through a tear in quantum spacetime to a whole 'nother planet inhabited with humans powered by soul magic bullshit and besieged by nightmare Hell beasts. No star-sailing by any means but it's close enough.

In the end I settled for, "Sometimes, but by day I'm a marine."

"Wow, I didn't know America had armour like that." Dopamine production increased, showing he was genuinely impressed. "It looks like it's from a video game."

"It's custom, bespoke tailoring. It cost a lot." Too much, if you ask me. "You?"

"Sorry?"

"You. What's your name?"

"Oh!" He straightened up, declining into a bow so deep I'm surprised he didn't go 180-degrees. "Kousuke Tanegashima, 16 years old and attending High School here in Tokyo. I'm currently living by myself away from home. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Arukaturaz."

"Charmed."

Maybe I should say I'm surprised, or worried, at how chipper this kid is after what he just witnessed, but... compared to all the bullshit I saw at Beacon, my shock threshold has been so significantly increased I wouldn't be surprised if lizards have taken power.

At worst, he's probably just repressing it. Probably not a good idea to push for it now.

Hmm? Well, what can I say? He looked normal: straight black hair, hooded eyes, yello-

Sorry, olive skin and a catholic school uniform I sometimes saw in the anime Folsom used to watch. The only strange thing about him was he was wearing gloves. It is cold out, but not enough to warrant measures like that, and from the looks of things they're more formal than functional. Still, I file it away for later and move onto more important matters.

"Say, what's the date today?"

He straightened up almost like a clockwork doll. "It's a few days into 2022. You'll have to forgive me, but I don't remember the exact date."

"No, it's fine," I responded absentmindedly. "You're sure it's 2025?"

"That's right," he nodded.

That couldn't be right; I must've spent close to three years off Earth if not longer, yet here I am a whole year before the Ceph make their move. Hell, I'd be fresh out of Advanced Training and on my first deployment right now, stamping out riots in three Sri Lankan cities or in South America. I've seen too much zany fuckery in my life that critics would call it cliché but Time Paradoxes are a first on that list.

The problems don't stop there. I try thinking back to my last moments before being zapped, to get a good read on the duration I spent away, but none of my memories were consistent on the matter and they weren't subtle either. Brought to mind first was my chronic dismemberment at the paws, claws and maws of that Witch Bitch's hell spawn, only to be sprung with recollections of serving as best man to a white rose wedding just months after that. Then it's 39 years later, back on Earth and I'm holding a brunette with an AR hostage with the help of my pet rock, followed by somehow scarfing down breakfast in the company of two fine ladies and then I'm-

Prophet...

I shake off the revulsion, refocusing. I don't get it. My memory was already good before putting the suit on and it only got better after so this much inconsistency shouldn't be possible. And I wasn't stupid enough to not realise the consequences of this conflict of interest, not as a result of this thankfully: getting recruited into a strange Russian man's PMC in a Church and remotely spying on a top-secret military council meeting while patrolling a high school dormitory were both fresh in my and the Suit's memories like they were yesterday and yet there was no way they could've been because there's a 39-year gap between them. Seeing my perfected brain this complacent about inconsistencies was concerning at the least and an outright disaster at worst.

And it gets worse, as SECOND of all people decides to chime in to tell me Primary Objective: Protect Kousuke Tanegashima, Priority One.

Not that I was against the proposition, mind you, just it's fucking suspect that the suit would assign him so high a value as to warrant the ultimate security of a dimension hopping T-800. Not even any of my friends got an assignment like that when I met them and he hasn't demonstrated a strategic value as far as I can see. I pushed for an explanation and all I got was Data Insufficient. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Arukaturaz?"

"What!?" The kid jumped and looked ready to die, fear pheromones lighting up like fireworks. He apologised quickly but I shook my head. "No, I'm sorry, I was distracted. What is it?" I can mull over it later.

He swallowed. "It's just, you weren't moving for a while. I was wondering if you were all right."

"Yeah, I was just thinking. You do that too, don't you." I gestured with my left and he jumped at that too. "Man, with how jumpy you are I wouldn't be surprised if you were afraid of stepping on your own shadow's feet."

"N- no, it's not that. It's just; I'm a little unused to guns and I was about to be shot."

Worryingly, the hint didn't get through my helmet's Cobalt-Titanium coating. "Then you can rest easy, because I can assure you they've been deactivated."

"And yours?"

Now that was a new one. "What do you mean, mine?"

"The one you're holding."

I brought the hand in question to bear. Sure enough, my fingers strangled the wooden grip of a heavy revolver, though unlike my old Majestic it was genuine and not a magazine fed automatic imitation.

Looked to be break action but seeing how the foot long barrel was buried in a thick block of tungsten it didn't matter. Probably heavy enough to mitigate the recoil of a .50 BMG or maybe even .700, especially considering the size of the cylinder itself. Finishing it all was red wood furniture, with panels on the grip, barrel handguard and even a weird rail on top.

I used this to gut and powder the skulls of those gangsters moments ago like it's been a vestige of my arm since I was swimming in balls. I know that. The problem is I've never seen it before.

Now you've got to keep in mind, sometimes the Suit does just do things on its own. Ask it nicely and it'll do what it can, even if it has to borrow your body for a bit; throwing together that monomolecular sword out of discarded Ceph tech was the closest I'll get to an out of body experience in this tin can. But this wasn't that at all: the suit didn't tell me about what I was holding, not by a tactical overlay dispensing trivial information like name or manufacturer, not even by plugging it right into my head with that fuzzy sense of comforting familiarity it uses to get me picking up the optimally effective guns. This block of tungsten, when I made that crude analogy about swimming in balls earlier, I mean it, it feels like a part of me, not the suit or this thing we've become. Me.

Suddenly, I'm wishing for the simplicity of the nightmare Hell beasts again.

It goes from worse to fucked when my ears (metaphorically) twitch at the sound of sirens. Distant and subdued, not close enough for Kousuke to hear but it was getting closer. Still too soon to know if they're headed our way but I can't take any chances.

The kid agrees with my sentiment.

First course of action was procuring a disguise. Cloak is useless in crowds and as secure as I am in my perfect figure, strutting down the street dressed in my new clothes wouldn't go down well in the long run. Even if Back to the Future lied to me I'd still be enemy number one and the hottest game on the planet; any indication of a rogue Nanosuit roaming would be enough of an invitation for CELL and I've had enough of those zealous businessmen.

Naturally, I dumpster dive and pull out a grey hoodie with a ragged hood, a blue puffer and pair of canvases so faded you'd be surprised they're not giggling. It's the only shit that fit and even then it was still a size too small, limiting my movement unless I wanted to show off like Johnny Bravo.

Still, it'll have to do for now, and I pocket one of the pistols for safe keeping.

Item number 2 on the agenda was getting the hell out of the crime scene and discretely at that. Sure, I stick out like a sore me even in mimesis but hey, who pays much attention to a homeless man walking down the street? I can tail Kousuke at a comfortable ten, fifteen metres or more and get home safe. Anyone who knows the kid wouldn't suspect a thing and make the situation awkward.

But like a gift from my ex, as soon as I come up with the thought SECOND decides to chime in and shoot it down.

Maintain Proximity with Kousuke Tanegashima.

And give me one good reason why, you amoral toaster.

Data Insufficient.

Of fucking course.

And last was to talk with no one. My stay at Beacon opened up a lot of free time to research into getting back to Earth, at least until Colonel Sanders' number one fan contracted me for security, and while it wasn't one-to-one, much of the principles and theory were the same. I won't bore you with the fine print because otherwise we'll be here all year, but to keep it short I'm pretty sure my presence in this point in time violates the conservation of quantum information and too big an impact could...

Well, boom to say the least.

Now I'd love to disobey an order from BonziBRAIN, just this once, but you've got to believe me when I say it's not a democracy in here. Instead, I'm right up next to him, hunched over like a nobody trying to be not at all be suspicious.

Can't help it, this hood has as much coverage as the Senate hearing on domestic lead-poisoning. I just have to hope we don't run into any friends of his. But if we do, well...

We improvise and hope for the best.

Hmm? Oh right, you don't know. Apparently, that gun just disappeared as soon as I let go of it, disintegrated into blue sparks. Doesn't exist according to the suit, never did and it came back as soon as I gripped for it. Convenient, especially considering all the or are you just happy to see me jokes I'll miss out on.

But before long the trek home grates, like my brain is being scratched along a chalkboard. I'm not paranoid like Leavenworth to expect kill squads, assassins and nightmare hell beasts to jump out from the alleys, store fronts, parked cars and even behind other pedestrians but the blinding modern architecture, autistically clean streets and quiet people glaring aren't doing me favours: it's too safe, too predictable even for peacetime, especially after the high from earlier. I need a distraction.

Thank God Kousuke decided to talk.

About the suit no less.

"A rare medical condition? So, you'll die without that suit."

"I just said that, yes."

"Huh. Though I don't think I've head of a chronic respiratory lapse." He scratched his chin "Or a pulmonary nervous breakdown. But you have been to another world, so I guess I wouldn't have."

"I've seen things you wouldn't believe," I chuckle.

What? Obviously, I had to keep him in the dark, you know damn well what he's been through. The last thing he needed is knowing he's rooming with an undead man-machine mutant monstrosity from beyond the stars in more than one sense. And that reminds me, "so why were you being held up by the Yakuza, anyway? Aren't you a little young to be making reckless life choices like that?"

"Well," came a shaky start, "I don't know."

"You know I know that can't be it."

"I mean it. I was just walking home when they forced me to come with them somewhere quiet. And that's when..."

He trailed off. "I arrived. Then, you're just as in the dark as I am." I sigh, loudly. "I can never get a break."

The conversation dies out after that. I was waiting for the kid to continue or start up another topic but after a whole minute of silence following an energetic conversation there's nothing, and after another minute I'm getting antsy again, so I push for one instead.

"How is it you know English so well, anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's not that normal for a kid to be bilingual. What gives?"

Hints of serotonin flushed through his system. "My father worked internationally, and he wanted me to know it, so," he shrugs, "I do. I don't get to use it much outside of helping in English classes. But apparently everyone thinks it means I know everything about America as a result."

"Right. Speaking of your old man, he won't mind me rooming with you, will he?"

"Rooming?"

"Bunking, residing, renting, living with. He's cool with that, right?"

"Uh, maybe, but why? I thought you would want to go to the American embassy and-

"Oh kid," almost laughing, "that's a whole can of worms you don't even want to hear about." Feeling the tension, I clear my throat and continue, "anyway, for reasons I don't understand myself, I'm now your personal bodyguard."

"Why?" I give him what I hope is an incredulous glare. "Oh, right. I'm honoured, I suppose."

"Yeah." And suddenly I'm pulled back into the past. I see... Ruby. When she went off on me, her innocent face stricken with grief and rage, for doing my job the wrong way, taking unnecessary lives just to get her back. Even though it was completely justified because they were batshit insane terrorists, she wasn't wrong, some of those lives weren't even active threats to me, Hell they were retreating and I shot as many of them in the back as I could. Why? Hell if I know, normally I'd blame the Suit but these days I'm not too sure. Whatever the case, the extravagant brutality I dished out not 10 minutes earlier was in the same vein and that...

"Is something wrong Alcatraz?"

I'd stopped and hadn't noticed. It's now or never, "Kousuke, about what happened... I'm sorry. I'm a Marine first, so in that situation I only did what came naturally, but it was disproportionate. I can't promise it won't happen again, but I can promise you I'll do everything in my power so it's a last resort."

He's stunned, brushes the back of his head. He thinks for a second before opening his mouth only for another voice to fill the air, "hey, Tanegashima!"

A group of two guys, one girl. They give casual greetings on the approach while throwing subtle glances my way, beginning interrogation of where Kousuke was, who I am, if he's okay. Kousuke stammers, flustered like the Gestapo's watching over his shoulder, before mumbling something about the train, meeting someone, home and-

Okay, I'm not being too charitable on the kid: he's got a good poker face and isn't flubbing too much, but underneath it all he's screaming like a cat with its balls trapped in a door. His story is going to fall apart as he goes and everything's going to be harder to explain then, so I step in. "Hi, I'm Kousuke's father." Yeah, likely story but what else could I say? His bodyguard? Cute, but we're no Tony Stark. "Are you all friends?"

Even though I have to put on a shoddy at best rasp like a walking emphysema tumour in an effort to mask the Nanosuit's modulator interference, the kids seem to buy it hook, line and sinker. They even straighten up. How about that?

"Yes, we are, Mr. Tanegashima," said the tall one, all smiles and begins introductions. "I'm Hachirou Abe, this is Nori Okabe and this lovely lady is Mariko Nakagawa."

"Oh stop," she chided, even though dopamine was lighting up her brain like overzealous Christmas decorations.

Not even this suit helps me understand women.

I nod, maintaining the friendly front. "It's nice to see Kousuke's made good friends. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Oh well, we were going to all meet to discuss our work but, well Kousuke suddenly needed to meet you, so." He looked at my feet. "You don't have any luggage?"

"Yeah, it was stolen on the way; I don't know when."

"That's unfortunate," Nakagawa said, looking sorry for me. "I couldn't imagine having to wear the same clothes for more than a day."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Okabe said, though without much energy to indicate true sorrow, promptly receiving Abe's elbow to his ribs in response.

"Well," he beamed, "how about we show you a nice place where you can get some new clothes?"

That caught me off-guard. "Oh, I, uh," I started, trying to come up with an excuse but he got there first.

"Please, it's the least we could do to welcome you to Tokyo, especially after the exhausting trip you must have had. Come on, we need to get there before the store closes."

They set off before I could object, having to begrudgingly follow alongside Kousuke with Nakagawa to my left. I had hoped to preserve the timeline as closely as possible by keeping unnecessary interactions to a minimum but now that plan's flying free. But if Back to the Future has taught me anything, then intervening back there and saving Kousuke has already airbrushed me from any family photos.

Until I start to fade from reality, though, I'll keep maintaining the charade.

Still, this might not be so bad. Ideally, I can get an outfit that works and after all the awkward questions about my dress sense, what brings me to Tokyo and "the funeral" I can get these kids' opinions on current world events.

"What are you talking about?" came Okabe's response. "Sri Lanka doesn't have riots. Well, not yet anyway."

"You sure?" I shot back, just as confused. "It sure sounded that way last I heard."

"I'm sure. Although the way things are going, it's a real possibility. I wouldn't be surprised if a revolution happened later in the year."

"Maybe it's that Mandera Efecuto you hear sometimes," Nakagawa said. "People misremember things all the time because of that."

"No, it's definitely not." Okabe shot back. "The Mandera Efecuto describes large amounts of people misremembering a specific detail, not one person misremembering a current event. And besides, the original theory posited that it's because we unconsciously cross over to different universes constantly, which I highly doubt has happened to Mr. Tanegashima."

He's right but that still hits way too close to home. I try to brush it off with a chuckle. "Like I'd be lucky enough to live the life of an action hero," and hope my nerves aren't obvious.

Nakagawa giggles, leaning forward. "You know Mr. Tanegashima, you kind of look like an action hero yourself with your hood like that."

Abe butted in, looking back right as I was about to dispense obligatory thanks. "Actually, I've been meaning to ask, Mr. Tanegashima. Why are you wearing your hood so low? I can't even see your face."

Why are these kids so nosy?

"It's cold outside and my skin is sensitive." I answer quickly. It's boring and blunt enough he only says, "oh, my apologies."

"Yeah." I think about what Okabe said. Sri Lanka isn't a stable nation by any means, don't get me wrong, but compared to the sheer lack of unrest I'm hearing I could've sworn we were talking about fucking Switzerland. I did clean-up for food riots over there and it was messy – my god was it messy – but I'm just supposed to believe that it's not collapsing? What about the rest of my tour, what about burning out epidemics in South America? What the Hell am I even doing right now?

I would be happy, you know, that based on this minimal information the world isn't going to shit, maybe God decided I'd suffered enough in this gauntlet of sci-fi schlock and actually got off his lazy ass to do something about the evil in the world for once but...

You know, that's obviously not the case. I've seen shit go from a crawl to light-fucking-speed enough times to know when I'm going to be facing pure hexagonal bullshit. The fact the conversation shifted to rumours about magicians fighting in the street just compounded the feeling.

What you have just read is the unedited report of mister Alcatraz's account. I had planned to simply utilise the transcript of his account as material to incorporate into and supplement my own report, in the vein of my usual journalism. However, any attempt to work his account into my typical format proved to be lacking compared to the raw sample and unworkable.

I will therefore continue to present his account au natural, while fulfilling any gaps with those of others to provide a comprehensive deliberation of events. Here is one such account:

Police had assembled at the scene of the crime seven minutes after the culprits had fled. The assessment was routine and reasonably expedient: the site cordoned off, two cigarette butts, an expended bullet casing, four assorted 9mm handguns – one partially disassembled, one suspected missing - had been appropriated as evidence, positions and conditions of the bodies noted before being delicately carted for autopsy. The operation took a little over 2 hours.

I'm told the officers were puzzled over the scenario: the amount of Yakuza dead and their arms indicated a shootout, yet there was a suspicious lack of deceased opposition and only one casing was present. Furthermore, the health of the bodies was completely incongruent with a shootout, as all demonstrated few to no perforations and instead sported significant blunt trauma akin to that of being struck by a van at 60km/h. Add the fact they had not even a potential suspect nor witnesses and the chief investigator doubted they would ever uncover the perpetrators.

Late into the day, however, shortly before checking out of his shift, Officer Shinoda was greeted by an unexpected sight: a foreigner, dressed sharp and slim to match his rake thin build, crested by a matching hat and scarf, flanked by a woman all in black. I'm told the sheer contrast of her skin almost made her face appear shining.

"Hello," said the man on approach, in smooth Japanese, "I'm Detective Inspector Cain, and this is my partner Junior Detective Gauss. We're here on behalf of Interpol as part of an investigation. We would like to see the five deceased Yakuza, please."

Shinoda didn't so much as blink. "Identification, please."

The man produced a booklet, bearing his picture, name and, most importantly, the symbol of the Earth speared by a sword. All the holograms were genuine, and it was in date. It was all good, except for one thing.

"We, uh, didn't receive any notice of your arrival."

"We like to surprise our friends," Cain responded. Shinoda was bemused. "We'll be seeing those bodies now."

Cain and Gauss passed by the reception and the officer scrambled to keep up. "Wait, you can't just do this, I need to authenticate your presence and-

"You don't need to worry about that. We'll be in and out before you can say a Scar or Wrath's full name and those things can be really long. Oh, look at that, we're already at the morgue."

And they were, showered in harsh white light, a sharp scent of pickle and greeted by three men. Two were lying on the available tables while the third was stood staring right at them, in the process of pulling sheets over their heads.

Cain walked right up to him, mumbling something and pulling back the sheet, eyeing the collapsed skull. He stayed like that for only a moment, then...

He turned, strolling out of the morgue without another word, his partner following close by. Shinoda scratched his head, wondering what just happened.

I hear you. It's just I could've sworn you distinctly told me to recall all the possible details I-

Who's fault is that?

No, really I-

Sure.

Anyway, nothing else happened. I got the clothes and then we split. Not a bad fit, though, I can see the kids would've killed for it: dark jeans, tawny jacket and matching gloves, plus a complimentary red hoodie so I can cry myself to sleep at night.

Out of sorrow or joy? Why don't you decide.

We arrive at Kousuke's place. I step over the threshold and pass the kid as he announces his return to no one in particular. And his apartment? Normal.

Well, as normal as it gets with a killer robot in disguise standing in the middle of it. A small lounge with attached kitchen, low table in the centre and opposite a TV perpendicular to the balcony windows. Back in the antechamber, there's at least a water closet and I assume bedroom.

It's surprisingly generous given the kid lives alone.

Now I promise this is important. I turn on the TV, set to a local channel showing a cartoon of spider tanks fighting a bigger, shinier spider tank and cuts to a red-haired man rambling about his brother. I figure it must be the Oriental cartoons Folsom used to watch.

Whatever. I switch over to the news, of a dull woman swamped by text talking about the tsunami from a few days ago to the rising energy cost and "another" gas leak. Nothing I expected to see, I flip through until I land on another news channel and throw the remote away.

There never is anything on but the fact the news is only about trivial matters and not the world going to Hell keeps giving me more questions.

I hear water start to boil, turn to Kousuke as he pulls something out of a cupboard and I see-

"Oh, you've got to be shitting me."

His gaze snaps over his shoulder, bearing the wide, eye-popping glance that you'd see on a child with their hand glued to the cookie jar. "What?"

"What the fuck is that?"

"It's curry flavour Cup Noodles. I'm still not that good at cooking and these are the only things I can affor-

"No, not that. What the fuck is that tattoo?"

"Oh." He brought the back of his hand to bear, staring at it. He'd taken his gloves off coming in so I'm just now getting a good look at his hands and I am almost surprised to see red ink covering most of his yellow left hand; there's not a lot of detail to it but it looks kinda like one of those satanic crosses or a sword with a rose head behind the short end, split into two floating hemispheres.

Is it Saint Peter's? I didn't know, my mom always went off on anyone she saw wearing it so I-

Right. Sorry. The kid was silent for a moment, probably mulling over how to explain it but he's taking too long, so I try pushing him. "Look, I know I'm not really your father and I don't care what you do, but I didn't take you for the kind of guy to get something so obvious much less a tattoo."

"That's the thing, I didn't get a tattoo."

"You're telling me it's a stick-on? You know my vision is augmented, right?"

"No!" The kid huffed and puffed for a moment until his adrenals started to calm down and resumed his dinner making ritual. "I can't get a tattoo, otherwise I wouldn't be allowed into bathhouses anymore."

I know he's telling the truth but I almost chuckle at the absurdity of it. "So, what, did you trip in a tattoo parlour or fall asleep first at the sleepover?"

"No, it just appeared."

Neither of us said anything after that. Kousuke was leaning on the counter waiting for my response but I was still stuck on what he said, unable to move past it, rolling around in my head endlessly as I tried and failed to make sense of it. So, I said the only thing I could.

"What?"

"I don't understand it either, but two weeks ago it just suddenly appeared. It wouldn't come off under water and when I tried," he faltered, sheepishly rubbing the mark. He didn't say it but it's clear he resorted to desperate measures.

"The damaged parts grew back, right?" I got a nod in response. "Well, that explains the gloves. Any other kicks to the mouth I should know about?"

The comment seemed to confuse him but it didn't stop him from drawling his next sentence. "I don't know. Since it appeared, nothing else has really happened except for today."

"Of course." There's no way I could get anything else out of him, so I turned away and focused back to the news.

"Although, it does feel strange."

I snapped back. "Strange how?"

"I don't know. It's like it's excited but not itchy, full of energy but not like it'll burst. It's weird."

He's right. I was getting weird readings radiating off his hand, specifically the marked parts. It was faint, very faint, which explains why I didn't pick it up earlier, but more than that it wasn't anything I'd seen before; there was no waveform, no frequency, not even a hint it belongs to the electromagnetic spectrum, this planet or the Ceph but it was sure as crayons to be eaten that it interfaces with something.

And yet it was totally familiar, SECOND even denied any abnormality regarding its nature. I pushed for more information and wasn't met with Data Insufficient for once, but I didn't get much more than a record of the Suit passively observing it within the environment over the last three hours.

No. Not observing it. It wasn't picked up by just the sensors, it was streaming into the suit and went deeper than I expected, deeper than even the deep fucking layers where it decoded the Manhattan Virus. More than that, it was like the suit was actually a relay, transmitting to who knows where. And that's where the breadcrumbs end.

First I materialise on an Earth to save some kid about to be dealt with by the motherfucking Yakuza, then SECOND personally assigns me as his bodyguard, my memory is all screwed up and now I'm Bluetooth linked to his fucking left hand. I swore to myself right then if I ever find the son of a bitch behind the catastrophe that is my life, I'll fold him in half so far they'd make a sequel to the Human Centipede about him.

Then an idea hits me. It's so crazy and far out that it should be impossible, no way it could ever check out in the real world. But come on, you've read my wacky adventures, you know about the squid aliens with entropy guns and parasitic nanotech, the kids that fight exclusively on recoil and the killer gynoids in more ways than one. Why wouldn't this work?

"Kousuke." I step closer, more to emphasise the gravity of the situation than anything else. "Do you know anything about magic?"

The kid blinks, a hint of some shame in eyes. "Well, my family," he begins. But as promising as it sounds he's too slow, as my attention is immediately stolen by the presenter on the TV. By no means because of any inherent charisma, he has much less draw than the rocks I used to keep me company back in the Soviet Union but it's the news that catches my attention and I tune in to what he's saying.

"...ile initially rumours, video footage has appeared on the Internet that show anonymous individuals fighting in Nerima." Hold on, comes a thought, isn't this what the kids were talking about? "The footage is rather unclear and possibly faked, however, multiple eyewitnesses do attest to being present at the site of the following footage."

The broadcast switched to shaky cell video (I would say how antiquated that is, considering everyone should've moved onto iBalls by now) of two weirdos jumping, flipping and clashing in a way normies would confuse for fighting, one that looked like a French maid with pink hair and a tiny sword, the other a golden robed figure with clues of green armour peeking underneath.

There wasn't anything too unusual about them by my broken standards, except for the latter's sword: the blade was two-pronged and white or transparent, tapering at the tips while bulging at the based, completed by a vertical grip. I don't remember where I've seen it before, not sure if I even have but I knew that wasn't right.

And while the quality wasn't good it was nowhere near potato cam quality either and from what I saw I knew it wasn't faked.

Here I am back on Earth, either at risk of blowing a hole in the space-time continuum or trapped in an alternate reality or who fucking knows what. I just know I have nothing else to go off of, nowhere to go, potentially under threat of a visit from a Japanese Godfather and I knew, without the goddamn suit telling me, that this was the only lead I had to uncover just what the fuck is going on.

Too optimistic? Yeah, I thought so too.

Next Time - Chapter 2: Security Concerns

Author's Note: I'm not going to copypaste the entire note that you can easily see on my Wattpad, so I'm just going to stamp out whatever comes to mind right here. First of all, this site is hard to use. Second, this has been a rather difficult project for me. It began in August 2022, when I started imagining how certain characters may look if they were to appear in Fate, but then they started getting uppity and interacting without my permission; and yet, what I saw was good, I saw a story forming and knew it had to be told. I set to work, resurrected an old idea, vigorously planned the plot points and decided most of the cast over November. One year later and I finally have three chapters to post with two more well on the way.

What a work ethic.

Nothing else to say other than I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. And to everyone who saw the initial fuck up, I'm terribly sorry, I'm new around these parts, I honestly don't know how that happened.