Wise
Tying up his yukata sash in a hurry, Wise turned to see Miyabi gazing up into the moonlit sky. There was an ominous sort of aura about her, her own red yukata dark in the dim porch light. Her black hair almost blending into the dark garden beyond her.
"All right," said Wise, his voice inducing Miyabi to turn back towards him.
Her eyes gleamed in the night like Lycaon's. Wise shivered slightly, goosebumps raising on the back of his neck- but not from fear exactly. It was an anxious sort of excitement for the implicit possibilities of her visit tonight. But- there was first the matter of this dubious test.
Wise offered down his hand, and Miyabi's mouth almost curled into a smile as she accepted it with her right hand. She lifted a leg to the edge of the porch and Wise pulled her up to him, a bit surprised at how light she was. His efforts at working out were paying off- or, more likely, she had used her back leg to propel herself upward, too.
Miyabi stood before him now on the porch, her curvaceous form wrapped tightly in red silk, her red eyes focused upon his. Wise's mind was fresh with steamy fantasies and he was filled with the urge to take hold of her body, to pull her waist into his own and kiss her.
But he resisted. The vibe of the moment was off. The cast of Miyabi's normally stoic expression seemed just a little too serious. So, instead, Wise smiled softly at her and slid open the door back into the guest house.
"Shall we go inside?"
"Yes," said Miyabi immediately and she removed her shoes.
Wise led her inside, though Miyabi was surely more familiar with this place than he. The main room was mainly hardwood floor, the main furniture were cushions surrounding a kneeling table. Wise moved towards these as the only available place to sit with Miyabi.
"Can we use your bedroom, Wise?" said Miyabi softly. "We might kneel atop your futon? If you don't mind."
Wise blinked. His bedroom? Of course he didn't mind! "Yeah, okay."
So they turned and entered the tatami-floored bedroom. The prepared futon was there. It was made for one. Or… for two people who didn't mind being stacked atop one another…
Wise shook that thought again from his mind and walked next to the futon upon the floor, waiting as Miyabi walked in behind him. Her ear twitched a few times, and was that a slight blush on her cheeks? Maybe. But her expression remained stoic and unreadable.
She kneeled down on the bottom half of the futon, her sword set at her side on Wise's comforter. Wise followed her lead and knelt upon the upper half of his bed, imitating Miyabi's posture. When he settled, she reached for her sword and placed it upon the futon between them, like a dividing line between her side and his side.
"Do you remember, Wise, what I said about my Father's fear of you?" began Miyabi.
"Yeah. He's worried that I'll knock you up," said Wise, grinning, trying to lighten the mood.
Miyabi squinted at him. "What? He does not fear you hitting me, Wise. I doubt you even could. Where did you get that idea?"
Oh. Wise rubbed the back of his head. "It's a saying, Miyabi. It means getting you pregnant. Your dad wants your firstborn child to be fully Hoshimi."
"Oh. A saying? I see," said Miyabi humorlessly. Her ear twitched. "But you are correct. He would rather I mate with another Hoshimi, to guarantee that my firstborn will be able to wield this blade."
She looked away from him, a distinct blush on her cheeks. "If I were to mate with you, Wise… there is a significant risk that… o- our child would not be able to touch the sword."
Wise bit his lip to prevent himself from a too quick reaction. The idea of having a child right now seemed mildly absurd. This was their second date! But- this question of heredity was obviously super important to Miyabi or she wouldn't be talking to him so seriously about it.
"Miyabi… not all- uh… matings… result in kids. There are ways to-"
"None of those ways are utterly assured," said Miyabi quickly. "And my Father finds-..."
She stopped herself. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and her ears twitching. When her eyes opened again, slowly, she looked seriously at Wise. "And I find the risk unacceptable. I have decided that I will not break the line of my family. The cost paid is too dear to cast aside."
Wise felt his heart sink. He knew she was talking about more than a bit of steamy fun. Miyabi was talking about the base viability of their budding relationship. In plain terms, she was saying that Wise's heritage made their union undesirable. And not just to her Father, but also to her. They, as a couple, were impossible.
"I-" Wise swallowed, finding it hard to speak. It was only their second date, but he felt like he was losing a treasure he'd not even had time to fully grasp. "I see.'
But there was one tiny ember of hope still in Wise's chest. "Then- Miyabi? What is this test you were talking about?"
Miyabi stared at him a moment, her eyes searching his. Then, she took a deep breath and placed her hand gently on the scabbard of Tailess. The sword was currently quiet as it lay between them, fully sealed away in its sheath. Her ear twitched.
"If you can touch the sword, Wise," said Miyabi quietly. She leaned in towards him, her eyes focused on his. "If you can touch it and it accepts you- I'm sure our firstborn will be able to wield it, too. We could be together, in that case."
Wise blinked, a bit flabbergasted by the statement. "Miyabi. I thought non-Hoshimis die if they touch that thing."
"Yes," said Miyabi. "There is documentation of such events- but I have also personally seen a non-Hoshimi touch it and survive. That person used an imprint of me, gathered in a VR system, to protect herself. In similar fashion, I believe that if I am touching the sword when you also touch it, Wise- you will likely not die, either."
"Likely!?"
Miyabi shook her head and seemed grim. "You would be the first to try."
Try?! Why were they even thinking about this?! It seemed absurd for him to take such a risk. "Miyabi. Why are we considering this when neither of us want to have children right now? Do you?"
"No," said Miyabi immediately. "A child would be immensely inconvenient to me, at the moment."
"Right? So why are we talking about this so seriously?"
Miyabi drew back from him, becoming rigidly upright in her posture. "I see no point in a relationship if we don't share the same vision of the future, Wise."
Wise blinked. He had no words to answer that statement. Instead, he gazed down at the sword between them. The cutting edge was in his direction, he noted, and Miyabi was kneeled on the other side. If he wanted to be with her, he would have to brave the razor.
She was asking him to risk his life just to… continue to date her? The idea was so absurd as to be silly. And yet- Wise couldn't stop himself from considering it. Yes, Miyabi was beautiful. Yes, she was almost unthinkably powerful. But she also shared a life-centric passion with him: the hollow disaster. And he somehow felt like he protected something essential to the world when he helped her. And simultaneously, there was no place in the universe safer than the spot just behind Hoshimi Miyabi. In a world where hollows might appear out of thin air at any moment, everyone valued feeling protected- none more so Wise who had lost his family as a child. To have Miyabi at his side for his entire life? What was worth risking for that chance?
"This- this is a lot to ask, Miyabi," said Wise, his mind reeling at this choice.
"I am not asking you to do anything, Wise," said Miyabi, softly, remaining distant. "But if we are to continue: You must past this test."
Wow, she was serious. Wise rubbed his face in indecision and anxiety. He might die. Might. But Miyabi seemed relatively confident that he would not- even if he failed. Whatever that looked like.
"Those people. The non-Hoshimis," said Wise, staring at the silent sword. "What happened to them?"
"Their brains swelled until they died."
"Oh," said Wise. "Great. Sounds nice and painless."
"No," said Miyabi, matter-of-factly. "Apparently, they suffered for-"
"I know! I get it," sighed Wise, a rare moment of exasperation settling upon him. "Where did you even get this idea, Miyabi? Thai test? Some Hoshimi history book, or something?"
"No," said Miyabi again, in the same tone of voice. "Tailess advised me."
Wise blinked. He stared at Miyabi, but she seemed as stoically serious as usual. He then looked at the sword. "The sword did?"
"Yes."
Maybe some of the crazy of all this was infectious, because somehow that was encouraging to hear. If anything knew anything for sure, it would be the sword itself. But- like- wasn't that thing like… super evil?! Did not that fact cast doubt upon it as a credible source of information?!
"Well," said Wise, running his hand through his hair subconsciously. "What does passing this test look like?"
"I do not know exactly…" said Miyabi, her eyes drifting from his.
For the first time, Wise had a definitive sense that Miyabi was not telling him the entire truth. "What about failing it?"
"I do not know that, either, Wise," said Miyabi, her eyes reconnecting with his.
Her expression seemed slightly sad, but it might be his own imagination. But she was serious. Oh, was she serious…
Wise sighed and stared back at her, searching her eyes for some other hint of emotion. There was none. She simply kneeled there and watched him stare at her.
Wise didn't like this situation. He just wanted to be with Miyabi. He wanted to reach for her, pull her to him, to run his hands over that red yukata and feel her body underneath. He wanted to forget all of this test business and just do that instead.
But the sword was between them.
If he touched it, and Miyabi was wrong; then he would never see Belle again. Never again feel the satisfaction of leading an agent out of a hollow safely, mission accomplished. He would never avenge his parents or exonerate his teacher. But then again, he might never do those last two things without Miyabi, either.
And the sword was between them.
Wise sighed, staring at Tailless. How many times had he risked his life this year already? And had not Miyabi saved his life a few times, too? Was he looking at this entire thing with too much caution? He did dangerous stuff all the time; but in all those situations… the risks seemed necessary- he had to act to protect himself, his allies, his sister. Meanwhile, this was a choice. That somehow made it all feel very different.
He looked up to Miyabi, still watching him stoically. She thought he would be safe with her, and had Miyabi ever led him wrong or caused him harm? Wise wanted to be safe with her, so why would he not trust his life to her now? If not now? When? If he maybe wanted to spend his life at her side? Did that not mean he would have to trust his own life to her hands? And her's to his?
In that light, it wasn't a hard decision at all.
"All right," said Wise. He took a deep breath. "Let's do it."
Miyabi looked at him quietly a moment longer, then nodded. She reached for the sword with her left hand and lifted it before them both, parallel to the ground. Her right hand came up to the pommel, her thumb over the red, square button that unlocked the blade from its sheath.
"Ready?" said Miyabi.
"Yes," said Wise, and he hoped he was.
Miyabi pushed the button, and she grimaced ever so slightly. Wise felt an immediate thrum of… something. It wasn't a vibration exactly, but that was the closest word he knew to describe it. No foxfire sprang from the blade this time, either because Miyabi wasn't in combat or maybe because the sword was restive at the moment- or perhaps both.
Wise watched Miyabi's thumb slowly move from the button of the pommel to instead caress the razor edge of the sword itself. She slid the flesh of her thumb along it, a rivulet of her blood immediately streaming down the side of the blade to drip to the futon between them. Her thumb moved away and her eyes met his.
"Do the same," said Miyabi. "Press your thumb there. Let our blood mix upon the blade."
She hadn't mentioned this! But what was one tiny cut? Wise reached his hand forward, anticipated his own hesitation, and pressed his thumb into the edge where Miyabi's blood gleamed upon the sword edge, the liquid as red and beautiful as her eyes.
Wise felt a new thrum of energy the moment he touched the weapon, this time at much higher frequency, and it seemed to ricochet through the bones of his hands and arm and into his chest. Then it petered out into nothing. The sensation of the sword's presence faded altogether, and he and Miyabi were staring at each other in silence.
Miyabi took a deep breath and her ear twitched. She broke eye contact with him and wiped their mixed blood from the sword with the sleeve of her very expensive looking yukata. Then she closed the blade with a click of the safety device.
"Was that it?" said Wise. He had barely felt anything at all. "Is it over?"
"Yes," said Miyabi, distantly. She still wasn't looking at him. "It is over."
She stood up suddenly upon the futon and seemed to hesitate, her eyes still not meeting his. Wise began to get an alarming suspicion. He shot to his feet, an icy sense of dread building in his chest.
"Miyabi…. Did I fail?"
Miyabi finally looked at him, her eyes seeming a bit wetter than normal. "Yes."
Wise had never hated that word more. How could this be true? The day had started as a second date, but up till now, they'd spent enough time together to encompass a half-dozen dates- and he'd faced down Miyabi's antagonistic father to boot! Wise had begun to feel a sense that all of this was meant to be!
"So…" said Wise, not wanting to even ask. "Does that mean? That we..?"
Miyabi looked at him, her eyes searching his briefly. Then she closed them. And when they reopened, the stoic look had reasserted itself.
"It is over. Wise. I hope we can continue to be effective coworkers."
Miyabi bowed to him slightly. Then turned and walked out of the bedroom. Wise could only blink after her in shock.
Effective coworkers!?
"Miyabi!" Wise followed her into the main room, but she was already at the front door. He ran to her and gripped her arm in desperation. She couldn't leave just like this!
Miyabi's arm was like steel under his grasp, immobile. Her ears twitched and she looked at him over her shoulder- a dangerous gleam was suddenly in her gaze.
"Take your hand off me, Wise."
The coldness of her tone and her gaze struck Wise like a blow. He took his hand off Miyabi, immediately, and with chagrin. "...Sorry…"
"Good night," said Miyabi then, apparently unruffled and eager to be gone. She opened the door, stepped out, and shut it behind her without looking back.
Wise could only blink at the closed door. His haphazard attempt at chasing her already crushed- and embarrassingly so. The chill of Miyabi's tone still lingered in his heart, hurting. He turned around in a daze, his eyes only half seeing the empty guest room, all of it suddenly chill and foreign.
Wise wandered back to the bedroom, lacking any coherent thought or objective. So, that was it? Just like that? But he hadn't even done anything! What kind of test was that? Was that racist bullshit of Souichiro actually more than rhetorical antagonism? Did the sword really think he was genetically unworthy? Was the damn sword racist, too?!
Wise stepped onto his futon and looked down. A red dot of Miyabi's blood stained the center of the fabric. The spot where their relationship died.
Wise woke to the sound of gentle rapping on the front door of the guest house. The bleak light of a cloudy morning was flowing through the windows. He rose to a sitting position, his head protesting with a mild headache. The night before, he'd spent hours tossing and turning, fretting over mistakes he may have made to cause his failure of Miyabi's test. Pointless, aimless self-torture that prevented him from sleeping: how could one surmise the decision-making of a sentient weapon, anyway?
The rapping upon the door came again. Wise grunted to his feet, tightened up his sleeping robe, and headed for the door. He opened it to find one of the Hoshimi maids bowing to him.
"Good morning, Master Wise," she said. "The car is waiting for you."
Wise blinked in confusion. "The car?"
"Yes. The car to take you back to the city? Lady Hoshimi said you needed to return to your business and arranged a car for you."
Wise blinked again, his mind going over that sentence. "Lady Hoshimi? Got me a car? Not Lord Hoshimi?"
The maid appeared mildly offended. "Yes, Lady Hoshimi, Master Wise. The car she arranged for you is waiting in the drive!"
"R- right, I'll get dressed quickly," said Wise, closing the door as the maid bowed in relief.
Wise again turned to look at the empty guest room, blinking around in mild shock. She was… kicking him out! Wake up, your car is here, Wise. Good bye. See you at work, maybe?
The self-pity Wise had been feeling since last night transformed and surged back into him in the form of angry indignation. Miyabi was just casting him away! Did none of their moments over the last two days mean anything to her? What about their shared goals? What about what they felt when they kissed? Was it all just him? Had Miyabi even felt anything at all in those moments?
Had he fooled himself into seeing what he wanted to see in her stoic expressions? Had Miyabi never felt anything at all, and only gone along with his dates out of politeness?
How big of a fool was he?! Huh?!
Well, he sure felt the fool right now! Unwelcome and unwanted!
Get out! Thanks for trying! Here is your car to take you back out of my important, Hoshimi life!
Wise ripped off his robe and threw it against the wall. Angrily, he struggled into his normal clothing, but he tried to make himself at least presentable for the waiting maid. Wise was wearing yesterday's clothing, but it was all he had. He should at least try to leave with as much dignity as he could wrap around himself.
Which wasn't much! Damnit!
But with a deep breath, Wise left the guest house amicably. He thanked the maid, and tried his best to not look up at the giant windows of the Hoshimi estate as he walked through the garden. But in the end, he couldn't help himself. He stopped a moment and looked up, tracing his gaze along the wide panorama of glass that was the upper floor of the mansion-like estate.
Nothing and no one. Miyabi wasn't watching him. Even Lord Hoshimi was absent, and Wise had expected the man to be watching and gloating. But somehow, Souichirou's absence was not a relief. Apparently, Wise was now so disregarded that no one thought it interesting to witness his departure. Harsh.
With a heart grown empty and defeated, Wise settled into the waiting car in the driveway. It was not the Victoria Housekeeping sedan, but actually a mundane city cab. Wise did not even merit the Hoshimi family car, it seemed. The car moved, the maid bowed shallowly and walked away to her other duties.
Wise slumped down into the seat and took out his cellphone, mostly out of habit rather than from a desire to talk to anyone. No notifications. No calls. No texts. Nothing new on the Inter-Knott. Nothing to distract him. He sighed and put the phone back in his pocket. Not that there was anything in all the world he was interested in.
Except for Miyabi.
Wise sighed and put his head against the car window, thoughtlessly watching the world pass by. The Hoshimi gardens gave way to the narrow streets of the fancy part of the district, which then gave way to the shopping and commercial parts of the district. Then, the car climbed up a long ramp and was on the Inter-Quarter highway system, taking the toll roads to Janus Quarter.
Were the Hoshimi's paying for this cab? This ride was going to be like two thousand dennies! Wise sighed. Probably not, but he didn't care anymore. He didn't care about anything anymore.
The taxi was passing over the Vulcan District. Below the overpass, a large stadium seemed to be filled with people. Some sort of sportsball game was happening, and a big one, too. The parking lot was packed. Who was playing? What sport was it? Wise couldn't seem to remember anything- but then again, he didn't really pay attention to ball sports. He usually forgot they existed until suddenly the news websites erupted with news of who had just won the year's championship bowl of whatever.
Then, Wise's eyes focused on a strange, dark dot in the sky.
He thought it was a blemish on the car window, but when his finger revealed it was not on the glass, but beyond it- Wise sat up. A purple black orb was hovering in the sky over the stadium. Was it a balloon? Why wasn't it rising? Perhaps it was on a string he couldn't see?
Just as he had the idea to use his camera phone's zoom feature, the balloon exploded. Or rather, expanded explosively. The purple orb became a purple boulder, then it became a purple blimp, then it became a purple cloud; its perfectly spherical black surface was glowing with a sickly purple, oily sheen. The skin of a hollow.
"Oh, shit," said Wise as he realized he was watching a companion hollow take form before his very eyes.
In another few seconds, the hollow's growing shape met the ground and it sat like a dome over where the packed sports arena had been. The taxi swerved slightly, as if the driver had just realized what was happening outside his window. Wise barely noticed the movement of the cab. Thousands of people were just gobbled up! How many of them had low ether resistance? How many would corrupt within a half an hour? Less?
"Take the next exit!" Wise ordered the driver. "I want to get out!"
"Here! Are you crazy?!" said the driver. "That's a fresh hollow, kid!"
"I know! Just do it! Then drive wherever you want to go!"
Wise took out his cellphone as soon as he confirmed the driver was indeed taking the exit off the highway. He would still be far from the new hollow, and it was likely still expanding, but there wasn't much he could do on his own. But he could call the police!
"Hello, PubSec, please state your-"
"A hollow just appeared in the Vulcan Quarter! It ate up the stadium!" said Wise quickly.
"...all right. And your name, sir?"
"Forget the name! Just get PubSec to the Vulan Quarter stadium! There was a game on!" Wise disconnected the call. The call center would be obligated to confirm, so he didn't need to say anything else.
Next, Wise selected Belle from his phone's contact list.
"Wise?" said Belle groggily. It was only eight in the morning. Belle didn't usually wake up until close to noon.
"Belle! Get the portable HDD in the car and get over to the Vulcan Quarter arena! A new companion hollow just appeared! I just saw it happen!"
"...What?!"
"Yeah! A whole stadium of people is in there! Bring Eous! We need to start building carrots for the first responders!"
"Ok!.. uh… OK!" said Belle with the sounds of her getting up. "I'm on the way! Be careful, Wise! Don't do anything until I get there."
"Right. Hurry!" Wise disconnected the call so Belle could focus on getting dressed.
At the bottom of the exit ramp, the cab driver was not interested in getting any closer to the hollow, so Wise was forced to get out of the car and continue on foot. He forced himself to walk towards the looming dome of the fresh hollow. Wise thought of all the people in there and wanted to run, but without a bangboo or the HDD, there wasn't anything he could do to help the people inside that new hollow anyway.
If Wise went in without a carrot, he would be just as lost and trapped as everyone else- another helpless person in need of rescue.
So Wise tried to stay calm and ignore the fact that hundreds of people were probably turning into ethereals right this instant, and hundreds more were becoming those ethereal's first victims. About the only thing Wise could do was find a good parking spot for the Random Play van. Something close to the edge of the hollow's event horizon, with good transmitting properties, but not in easy view of responding PubSec forces- which even now were beginning to arrive, thankfully.
He found an old, three-story parking garage and climbed the stairs to the top. It gave him an excellent vantage of what used to be the stadium's parking lot. The new hollow had eaten half of it, a large number of cars partially consumed by the event horizon. And it was growing, ever so slowly. Maybe less than a half-inch a minute, but it was growing. Look away for a moment and then look back and more of any given car was gone.
PubSec vehicles were stacking up at the edges of the lot. Wise could see a small squad of their bangboos already fidgeting in formation. A few human officers were lugging a blue box towards the edge of the hollow, a long cable dragging behind it. Wise knew they intended to shove it through the event horizon and into the hollow.
That box was their sensor suite that would serve to gather internal hollow data for carrots, which the PubSec bangboos would then use to guide civilians to rifts out of hollow-space. That cable was the only way most people could get data from inside a hollow, through the event horizon, and out to their analytical computers- and then back again to transmit to their in-hollow forces.
In fact, Wise and Belle were probably the only people in the world able to link directly with their own bangboo wirelessly, through a hollow, and effectively analyze it in real time. That technological gap between himself and the public authorities was a guilty point for Wise.
Theoretically, Wise could share their private tech with the world, and the increased capabilities it offered could potentially save lives. But then he'd be arrested and imprisoned and would never find out who started the hollowfall. So for now, Wise and Belle had decided to keep their private tech to themselves.
Still, the current authorities with their current tech were not helpless. Hollow disasters were, unfortunately, somewhat routine. Once the carrot data was gathered by the sensor box, all those PubSec bangboo over there would become independent actors and would move into the hollow as directed, though they lacked much of the intuition and ingenuity of the human officers who were to enter the hollows at their side. But while those bangboo/officer teams were not as efficient and as effective as Eous was when Wise was controlling him- there sure were a lot of them and only one Wise and Eous. The rescue potential of a well-organized PubSec response unit could not be discounted.
Wise watched as the PubSec operation kicked off, the officers and their bangboos finally marching into the event horizon to vanish from view. He was ancy to do something other than watch but until-
His phone buzzed. Belle was here! He sent her the directions to the top of the parking garage, and as he hit submit, he noticed a large, black, armored jeep arriving at PubSec's staging area.
That was a H.A.N.D. vehicle!
Thoughts of Miyabi returned to Wise's mind as he stared at the distant arrival. The black jeep came to a stop and people dressed in green emerged: A thin man, a little blue oni, a regally tall woman- and Hoshimi Miyabi.
Wise's heart jerked in his chest. Even at this distance, it hurt Wise to see her. He watched them have a short conference of some sort and then, as one, they turned and jogged into the hollow- one little bangboo in a green hat trailing shortly behind them. Meanwhile, frantic and terrified people began appearing from thin air in small groups at various points in the parking lot below Wise's position.
PubSec's rescue operation was fully underway and people were being led to exit rifts- Wise was impressed. PubSec moved quickly! They had their own carrots already! Thank goodness!
But there were thousands upon thousands of people to go. Not to mention those who were becoming corrupted. And there was always the big ethereal to consider, the leader, the main force of the hollow itself. How that thing came to exist in a companion hollow was still not understood, but it would be in there already, even now, likely rampaging through hundreds of defenseless and terrified people.
Wise heard a car horn beep and he turned to see Belle driving the car up the final ramp to the roof of the garage. He jumped and waved his hands so she could see him over all the parked cars, and she was soon driving in his direction. Luckily there was a parking spot still open, but they would have just parked in the lane if they had no other option… Parking rules were hardly something that needed worrying about right now!
Belle brought the van to a jerky stop and Wise immediately ran around back and popped the trunk. He began powering on the HDD system while Belle worked the controls in the driver's compartment to raise their transmitting antenna and focus its dish on the nearby hollow. The siblings didn't need to speak to each other. They both knew what to do.
"Fairy," said Wise as he checked various devices. "Can you get us the carrot data that PubSec is gathering?"
"Affirmative, Master" said Fairy from Wise's phone in his pocket. "I am in their stream."
"Start looking for the source ethereal. Leave the exit mapping to them for now."
"Affirmative. Processing. Additional data will be required."
Meanwhile Belle was taking Eous out of the back seat, the bangboo's vision plate displaying wide, attentive circles. Eous seemed ready to go. Wise lifted the HDD VR headset to his head.
"What's your plan, Wise?" said Belle.
"Miyabi is in there already," said Wise, shoving the headset onto his face. "I'm going to lead her to the source-ethereal. When she kills it, everyone will be saved at once."
"Right," said Belle from beyond Wise's vision. "I'll watch the feed and see if any more of the agents we work with show up."
"Ok," said Wise. "Here I go."
He snapped on the VR headset and, after a few seconds of load time, the dark screen before his eyes faded away until it seemed he was having an out of body experience. Wise was looking at himself in the headset, from Eous' perspective. For all practical intents and purposes, Wise had became Eous.
He stood himself up on top of the car, hopped to the earth, waved at Belle, and sprinted off down the parking garage's pavement. For such small things, bangboos could actually run pretty fast. Eous/Wise went down one level, the parked cars towering over him in his diminutive form, and then he leaped off the second story to the lot below. A drop of that height was no problem for Eous' tough shell. He bounced and rolled and urged Eous' little legs towards the event horizon, dodging a small group of recently rescued people as he did so.
Eous's audio microphones crackled as Wise neared the edge of the hollow. He ran through without hesitation, ready for the brief darkness inside the headset as the bangboo transitioned to what was effectively another dimension of existence. Visual returned, and Wise gaped at a chaotic labyrinth of tiered stadium-style seating.
Stairs and seats. Stairs and seats. Everywhere. It was below him, beside him, above him, behind him. Every which way there were stairs and empty seats and cement columns! And somehow, in that weird way of hollows, every which way also looked to be uphill!
"Processing new data," said Fairy in Wise's ear. "Seeking source ethereal. Please stand by."
"Plot me a path to Miyabi and Section Six," said Wise.
"Affirmative, plotting course to: Agent Gulliver."
Bangboos were easier for Fairy to track in a hollow, and the bangboo known as Agent Gulliver would be in the thick of it with Miyabi and the rest of Section 6. Map data entered into Wise's H.U.D. and he was off, bounding his way up endless stairs.
Wise crested a ridge of stairs. Before him, on a strange flat space, a viciously spiked ethereal was chasing a goat-thiren woman who was carrying a small child. There wasn't much Eous could do in combat, but Wise bounded in that direction all the same. He needed to save that woman! As he neared, he engaged Eous' jumping mechanics and flung himself into the ethereal's head- which was more a weird glass orb than a head.
Eous bounced off the ethereal impotently, Wise's universe spinning as the bangboo tumbled to the ground and rolled down a few levels of tiered seating. But the distraction had worked, the ethereal was flailing around for the source of the attack on its headcore. It was not chasing that woman any longer!
Wise sighed in relief and moved on. He could only hope a PubSec team found that thiren mother before another ethereal did- or that Miyabi could slay the source of this hollow even faster.
"Master," said Fairy in his ear. "I have located the source-ethereal. Here is the data."
"Thank you, Fairy! Good work!"
But now: Miyabi needed to find that ethereal! And thanks to Fairy, that was where he, Wise, came in!
He was Miyabi's- damnit! Her efficient coworker!
The interiors of hollows did not obey the paltry limitations of their own event horizons- often the interior was far larger than the exterior would indicate. Or perhaps hollow-space itself became so folded that the hollow just made it seem like it was larger than its true volume. Either way, Wise moved Eous as fast as possible but found it all to be a frighteningly large, alarmingly abandoned sports stadium.
Where were all the people?
As Wise neared Agent Gulliver's position, he heard the unmistakable sounds of combat. Eous bounded up to what amounted to a hill in this weird terrain, and Wise looked down into a bowl-like arena made from the joining slopes of stadium seating. In the bottom center, there was a patch of the pitch itself, short green grass. And in the middle of that grassy space were three of Section 6's members, all of them surrounded by a horde of ethereals: Human-sized ethereals.
Even as Wise watched, a new horde of ethereals crested the hill all around him and surged down towards the pitch. None of them seemed interested in Eous, which was a common ethereal behavior- they generally only attacked living beings and intelligent constructs. Bangboos perhaps being under some breakpoint of intelligence? No one really knew. But most bangboos seemed beneath the attention of ethereals, unless the bangboo actively tried to interfere with said ethereal's activities.
Wise ran Eous down the slope after the attacking horde. Electrified arrows exploded into the stadium seats nearby, blasting apart monsters and scattering rubble and disintegrating ethereal pieces into Eous's path. That was Harumasa! Wise could only hope that the sickly archer didn't hit Eous with an arrow through random chance! Wise jumped and dodged and pushed Eous' frame to the limits of its agility.
Ahead of him, a large ethereal loomed. One of those odd giants. But a blue flash cut its way through the thing's body and it fell to pieces. Deputy Chief Yanagi came into Wise's view as the ethereal crumbled, the pink-haired woman adjusting her glasses slightly. Her eyes noted Wise's approach.
"Proxy?!" said Yanagi with surprise. "Is that you?"
"Yes!" said Wise through Eous' speakers. "Where is Miyabi?!"
"Well-" began Yanagi.
But as she began to speak, the air was suddenly filled with a roar of wind and the high-pitched clacking of solid things being struck by another solid thing. Hoshimi Miyabi suddenly skidded into view, her heeled boots churning up the turf of the pitch, her sword going back into its sheath, the blade still awash in soft blue flame.
All about them all, the remaining three dozen or so ethereals were falling to pieces like collapsing puzzle pieces.
"Nice one chief!" cheered Soukaku, the blue and cheerful oni girl whom Deputy-Cheif Yanagi had adopted from somewhere.
Harumasa looked grim, his golden eyes scanning the rim of their current valley. "A great many of the audience must have had poor ether resistance.."
"Chief!" said Yanagi. "Your Proxy is here!"
Miyabi's head turned in surprise, her ears twitching. "My proxy?"
Her red eyes focused on Wise and somewhere back on the parking garage in the normal world, Wise's body shuddered with a confusing chaos of emotions: relief, anger, loss, pleasure, and disappointment.
Miyabi stepped forward to stare down at him, her expression was her usual stoic mask, but her ears seemed to be twitching more than usual. Wise wasn't looking to talk out his feelings with Miyabi right now, anyway. There were people to save!
"Miyabi! I know where the source-ethereal is!"
Miyabi's ears somehow managed to become more erect. "Lead me there, Proxy! Now!"
"Right!"
And Wise oriented Eous in the correct direction, fully intending to run off and lead Miyabi behind him. But then Eous' gyroscope alerts went off and Wise saw himself being lifted off the ground. Miyabi was picking him up!
"Just point me there!" said Miyabi, her head currently out of Eou's field of view. "The rest of you, follow as you can!"
"But chief-" Yanagi began to say as Wise lifted Eous' arm to point Miyabi the way.
It seemed to Wise like he was a bullet shooting out of a gun. Miyabi carried Eous so fast that Wise barely had time to see his own map data and move Eous' arm before Miyabi had already reached the next point of navigation. Twice he had to call on her to stop and reverse course because they had passed some intersection of arena hallways- shooting past them before Wise's map information even updated on his H.U.D. Miyabi did not complain or seem frustrated, however. They had done just this several times before.
"In there, Miyabi! In there!" Wise pointed Eous' arm down a long tunnel- some fragment or mirror of the pitch tunnels that players used to arrive on the field.
The bullet-in-a-gun feeling intensified as Miyabi somehow managed to increase her speed down the long tunnel, its corridor stretching weirdly before them, as if their destination was trying to flee from Miyabi's approach. And then, suddenly, in that odd way of hollow-space, they were there: a sportsball pitch stretched out before them, empty and abandoned.
Miyabi skidded to a stop at the edge of the grass and set Eous on the ground. Wise looked up at her. Miyabi's vulpine ears were rotating about, trying to catch the sound of something or other.
"Are you sure this is the-" began Miyabi.
A creature dropped suddenly into the middle of the pitch, the impact of its body causing the ground to shake. A cloud of dust puffed up. Miyabi's ear twitched.
The ethereal was difficult for Wise to classify: a sort of… giant praying-mantis-spider-centipede? But all of its legs and arms seemed to end in sharp metallic tips and their edges gleamed like razor blades. And: mostly concealed within its long neck, behind the segments of even more bladed appendages, glowed the ethereal's headcore.
Miyabi walked towards it, leaving Wise behind. His job was done, and now he could only watch as Miyabi drew her sword, the flame of foxfire leaping up from the weapon's bare steel. Her short frame was entirely dwarfed by the ethereal. Wise judged it to be larger than that amalgamation of corrupted construction machines he'd encountered while working with Belobog- perhaps twice as large.
Could Miyabi really handle this thing on her own?!
The creature's head bobbed about on its long neck, its many arms twitching weirdly. It made high-pitched chattering noises that made Wise's distant human body shiver with goosebumps. This was easily the most disturbing ethereal he'd ever had the misfortune of seeing- this and maybe those weird plants with legs.
The giant beast suddenly skittered forward with alarming speed, sword-like legs tearing up a vast swath of soil. But Miyabi simply wasn't there. The framerate of Eous' "eyes" was not high enough for Wise to even see her movements, but when Miyabi landed an attack or changed directions, Wise could see her briefly. To his perspective, Miyabi seemed to be teleporting all about the body of the creature, slashing it with her blade, lopping off an arm here, a leg there- but the beast had plenty to spare.
Miyabi suddenly materialized on the front of the thing's long neck, one of her hands grasping its spines, her other arm preparing to drive her blade like a stake through the protected headcore. But just as Miyabi's body twitched to drive the blade home, the little protective arms which covered the front of the headcore suddenly sprang open like a reverse bear trap.
Miyabi screamed shrilly and there was blood in the air.
"Miyabi!" shouted Wise, shocked. He'd never heard her make that sound before!
Belle's voice intruded from the 'real' world. "What?! What's happening Wise? Is Miyabi okay?!"
Wise couldn't respond to Belle. His attention was transfixed by Miyabi as she continued to dangle from the ethereal's neck, the giant beast trying to figure out where she was exactly all the while, huge bladed arms dancing all about, the tiny headcore blades opening and closing repeatedly, if if trying to cut Miyabi again, but she was just out of their path now.
Miyabi's left arm barely held on, but her sword arm was empty. Wise felt increased dread in his gut. Where was her sword?! Wise used Eous to scan the pitch and saw it ahead of him, embedded in the soil, point down. He moved Eous in that direction at top speed.
Meanwhile, Miyabi collected her legs under her, leveraged her feet against the ethereals neck, and sprang away, going invisible to Eous' camera- but not before Wise saw her torn clothing, her bleeding wounds.
She needed her sword! She had no chance against that thing without her sword! Wise had to get it for her!
Eous reached the blade and Wise struggled to manipulate the bangboo's flipper-like arms to get a grip on the weapon. Bangboo really were not designed for this sort of thing, but if he could get Miyabi her-
"Wise!" shouted Miyabi from somewhere in the arena.
Wise angled Eous' camera up and found the P.O.V. entirely blocked by the giant shape of the mantis ethereal. And it was looking right at him. It had noticed Eous! This ethereal could pay attention to bangboos!
One of the creature's arms shot forward and Wise commanded Eous to leap to the side. Eous' microphones picked up the crunching sound of a huge amount of soil moving all at once. Eous landed face first into the grass only a short hop away. Wise could only see soil and grass now. He frantically tried to get the bangboo back to its feet when the feed went dark.
"The connection is lost, master," said Fairy as Wise blinked into the sudden darkness of the HDD VR helmet. "Eous reports catastrophic damage."
Damnit! Miyabi! Wise flung off the helmet. Belle was staring at him with wide eyes.
"What happened, Wise?"
"It got Eous!" said Wise, his mind distracted, frantically thinking of some backup plan. They didn't have another bangboo right now! "Miyabi lost her sword!"
"Oh! What about her teammates?" said Belle hopefully.
"She's alone!" Wise cursed. "She's always going off alone!"
That wasn't true. Miyabi usually had him. But now he was stuck out here and he couldn't help her.
Or could he?
"Bell! I'm going in to help her!"
"What?! What do you mean: 'you're going in?!' Wise? Wise?! Are you crazy?!"
Maybe he was. But Miyabi needed help and he might be the only one who could get to her in time. Maybe he could distract the beast, or get her sword, or… something! He wouldn't know unless he tried!
"Wise?!" yelled Belle as Wise sprinted across the parking lot.
He headed for the parking garage stairs, rather than the ramp, and clomped his way down to ground level. As he went, he took out his cellphone.
"Fairy! Can you find me a rift that leads to Eous' final position?"
"Processing," said Fairy with the calm of an emotionless A.I. "One such rift exists. Approximately 523 meters in a counter-clockwise direction from your position on the event horizon."
Over 500 meters! Well- at least there was one at all! Wise sprinted across the arena parking lot. It wasn't long before his breath was ragged. He was used to sitting in a chair, not running full tilt. But Miyabi might not have the seconds to spare if Wise slowed down. Wise pushed his body as hard as he could, the eerily black skin of the hollow dome just to his left- he could feel a sticky, sort of static energy coming off the edge of it as he ran nearby.
After a long, exhausting run, Fairy spoke up: "You have arrived at your destination, Master."
Wise stumbled to a stop, breathing deeply, then steeled himself, and stepped into the hollow. His world spun, his vision bubbled crazily, and suddenly he was in the arena. The giant mantis creature was in the middle of the pitch, spinning about crazily, its various arms and legs stabbing into the earth at a darting, dodging green streak: Miyabi. Under the creature's body, defended adamantly by those dozens of legs, was Miyabi's embedded sword and the crushed body of Eous.
Miyabi was obviously trying to get to her sword, and until now, the creature had managed to keep her at bay while trying its best to kill her. But it had not yet noticed Wise's appearance. He had his chance!
Wise sprinted forward, all his energy returned with a surge of adrenaline and fear. Man, this ethereal was huge! If it saw him…
Wise shook the thought from his mind. It wouldn't see him. He could get the sword, get it to Miyabi, and she would kill the thing- just like all the other ethereals they had ever seen. Wise just needed to get her that sword!
With a desperate dive, Wise made it through the skittering razor-tipped legs, rolled on the earth, and sprang up towards the sword. He reached for Miyabi's weapons and froze.
Wait. He couldn't touch this thing! Not without Miyabi touching it, too! It would kill him! That was a stupid thing to remember right now! As the giant ethereal spun around above him, chasing the darting form of Miyabi.
Well- if he couldn't move the sword, maybe he could move the beast! Wise fell to his knees at Eous' electronic corpse. Was the battery intact? Yes! Wise ripped certain wires off their connections, changed up the order, reconnected them- and he was rewarded with a pronounced increase in heat coming off Eous's circuits. He only had a few seconds now!
Sorry Eous, but you're backed up in the cloud, yeah?
Wise crouched on the balls of his feet, gathered Eous into his arms, and then flung the bangboo upwards into the underside of the giant ethereal. Eous' trajectory halted and began to fall- but Wise was already running away as the bangboo suddenly exploded, the battery energy feedbacking upon itself enough to cause a combustion cascade.
KOOM!
The ethereal chittered loudly in what Wise hoped was surprise and pain, but it was honestly hard to tell. Was it enough of an opening for Miyabi? Wise wasn't sure. He needed to make sure. He opened his mouth to yell loudly, to draw the ethereal's attention to himself as he ran out from under it.
But in that moment, something impacted the back of Wise's thighs from behind and he fell to the ground.
Wise blinked into the grass, realizing he couldn't feel his legs. He lifted his body with his arms and looked behind him. Wise's conscious thought whited out into pure shock.
Feel his legs? He didn't have any legs! At about that moment, the pain hit- the most intense pain he'd ever felt in his life. Wise screamed in fear and agony, rolling over onto his back- his hips the only thing left of his lower body.
Wise's eyes were drawn upward from his own truncated form, the mantis ethereal was looming high above him- time slowed to Wise's perception. High above the head of the mantis thing, Miyabi was falling down upon it, her reacquired sword plunging downward. But a bladed arm of the mantis was descending toward Wise, too, and it was going to win the race- Wise could see it.
The etheral's arm plunged into Wise's belly, pinning him like a moth to the pitch. Breath gusted out of his mouth, and a lot of blood came with it. Agony surged through Wise's body with such intensity that his brain couldn't fully process it. It hurt, but no more than he'd hurt a second before.
Meanwhile, as Wise's vision began to darken, he saw the tip of Miyabi's sword explode out the underside of the ethereal's headcore. She'd done it! She'd plunged her blade through the back of its head, striking the core through the top.
Wise had distracted it long enough! Just long enough!
She was safe. Miyabi was safe… The people in the stadium… whoever was left…
…were safe…
Wise's universe went dark.
Wise opened his eyes with a yelp of fear and he jerked backwards, falling upon the soft fabric of a futon. Miyabi's eyes widened in surprise. The slightly unsheathed katana in her hands was gleaming with a soft blue flame- except where a dark liquid stained the pristine blade. At that point, the flames burned a soft pink.
Miyabi shoved the blade back into the scabbard with a click, extinguishing the flames of both colors.
His chest heaving, Wise's eyes roved his surroundings. This was… this was the Hoshimi guest house!? With frantic panic of his hands, Wise patted at his own belly and at his own knees. No hole! And he had legs! He wasn't dead!
"Wise?!" said Miyabi with concern. "Are you well?"
Wise blinked at her, still not daring to believe. "The test!? That was the test?!"
Miyabi's brow furrowed. "You were tested already?"
"Already?!" said Wise. His head jerked towards the bedroom window. It was black outside. "What time is it? How long have I been gone?"
"Gone? You only touched the sword just now."
"Just now?!"
"Yes," said Miyabi, her eyes narrowing. "Why? What did you experience?"
Wise shook his head, the memories of his experiences already fading from him like a nightmare.
"I… I'm not sure now. But did I pass, Miyabi? Did I pass the test?!"
Miyabi smiled softly. "Yes. I was told that pink was the color to look for."
The color to look for? Who told her that? Well, at this moment, Wise did not care, at all, how Miyabi knew that. He flopped onto his back, hands on his own face, trying to rub the after effects of fear and pain and despair from his mind with the friction of his palms on his skin.
It was all just a nightmare. It wasn't true. Relief spread through Wise's body like a painkiller.
And then he felt something else on his body. Something soft and warm and pleasantly heavy. Wise moved his hands away from his own eyes and found Miyabi's face above his own. She was blushing, her eyes half-lidded as she looked down at him- her body was now stretched out atop him. Wise's arms grasped Miyabi's form on pure instinct, the smooth silk of her red yukata felt wonderful on his skin, and the warmth of her body underneath was an exciting delight.
"Hello…" said Miyabi, her left ear twitching.
Wise blinked and smiled. "Hi…"
Miyabi's mouth descended to his. The warmth of her lips caressed him. The scent of her enveloped his nose. The taste of her enticed him to want more. Wise's tongue moved upward, cautiously, and Miyabi's mouth opened eagerly in response, her body surged against him as she inhaled deeply through her nose..
The final shadows of Wise's trials evaporated in a surge of passion, heat and desire.