The eighth round of the rank wars has finished with an astounding victory for Tamakoma-2. With away team selection starting in two weeks. Tamakoma-2, Kagerou squad, and Suzunari-1 are all extensively training. Meanwhile, Tamakoma-1, and Tachikawa are playing cards again.
Down one of the many halls of Border HQ loud shouting can be heard by passing agents. Most of the B and A rank agents ignore the noise and continue on their ways. The C rank agents for the most part quickly turn around and take a different route. One poor soul pokes his head into the room and takes a few minutes to process the chaos of the top A rank agents. "Uno!" Shouts Konami jumping up from her seat. Karasuma sighs before placing down a red 2. Grinning Tachikawa places a red reverse card returning the turn back to Karasuma. "Wild draw 4, color blue." "No way. It's impossible. You played that same card twice in the last four turns!" She jumps up again and points at Karasuma. "You must be using some kind of trick!"
"It's true. Tachikawa has them hidden in his hair and every turn he drops one into my hand."
"EH?!" She goes over to him and starts rifling through his hair. "There's no way, how could they not fall out?"
"I lied." Konami froze, then throttles Tachikawa while seething "How dare you lie to me?" Bzzz. Bzzz. Reiji checks his messages. "Chika and the others would like us to join them for a celebratory dinner later." oof After being released by Konami, Tachikawa lands on the floor narrowly missing the table. At this point Reiji notices the C-rank who has been observing this chaos. "Are you looking for someone?" "No…" the agent sheepishly replies. "I got lost but then heard a lot of noise coming from here. How would I get to the exit of the building?" "The elevator is down out the end of the hallway. I'll escort you through the forbidden zone. They are changing shifts soon." Replied Reiji.
In the forbidden zone
It's a relatively quiet night with only a couple of gates opening. The only things that came through were a couple of marmods and one bamster that apparently one of the lower B ranks finds absolutely adorable. On the other side of the forbidden zone not a single gate appeared all night. "All clear here." Kikuchihara reports. 'It's slow tonight.' And with that being said the rest of the defense shift proceeded quietly. As he walked back to Border he suddenly heard some footsteps ahead followed by "Hey Kikuchihara, do you want a rice cracker?" "No." He dryly replied to Jin's question.
Gate Activity Detected EeeeeeiiirrrrroooooooooEeeeeeeeiiiirrrrrooooo!Several gates sparked into existence. "Seventeen gates detected in the forbidden zone." Kikuchihara activates a scorpion along with Jin. "Looks like this will be interesting." Two more gates activate right on top of them. Kikuchihara slides out of the way of one skreee 'another one is behind me, tch' landing right in the other. Boom. Boom. A couple of blasts narrowly fly past Jin's face. Taking a step back to avoid the third explosion that is about to occur he fails to dodge the unusual gates.
Static brzzzzz brzzzzzbrzzzzzbrzzzzzAll gates close leaving behind an empty space. "Agents Kikuchihara and Jin have disappeared." Kazama runs to their last location rendezvousing with other agents patrolling. They start surveying the area but no traces of the agents or the gates remain.
On the other side of the gates
Splash Jin barely manages to take a breath as he lands in the cold water. Twisting his body, he reorients himself and starts swimming towards the surface. The dark water hides the sky. Only a sliver of moonlight beams down through the murk. Slowly he kicks his feet and surfaces with a gasp. Popping up a few waves away Kikuchihara takes a few large gulps of air. After regaining the helpful ability to breathe, the two start towards the shore about 50 meters away. The currents worked in their favor, so they were able to easily chat to pass the time. "Did you foresee this?"
"Most of the futures were either mild trion soldier attacks or the gates closed almost immediately after opening." Bzzt. Bzzzt.
A third gate opens over the water behind them. Someone dressed in white falls from the gate. He actives a grasshopper immediately over the water and starts bounding towards the shore passing up Jin and Kikuchihara. "Jin-san!" He excitedly shouts waving from the shore. After swimming for a few more minutes the two finally meet Midorikawa on the shore.
"You weren't on patrol so why are you here?" Kikuchihara drawls.
"Yuma-senpai told me that Jin-san was getting off patrol soon. I wanted to challenge him to a solo rank battle before Tachikawa-san got to him again." He pouts. Jin pats Midorikawa on the head, "Now, now. I believe I already promised you a match." Midorikawa just huffs in reply.
With every passing second, Kikuchihara grows more irritated. He rubs the back of his head and loudly sighs grabbing Midorikawa's and Jin's attention. "This is going to be a problem." "Oh?" "I haven't been able to reach HQ since we fell through that gate." Jin pulls out his phone. There is no signal. Looking back at the other two a flash of possibilities runs through his mind. His eyes widen and he calmly states, "We are no longer on our earth." "We're in the neighborhood? Cool!" Midorikawa shouts. "Not exactly."