Ijyou no Kyoukai (IC)

[Satehi]

Benhei Touban
Lower District
Slums – Benhei’s Apartment
6:11 AM

False alarm.

His caution had been for naught- there was nothing to be worried about from his landlord. At least, as long as he had the rent prepared. Thanks to his old man, money hadn’t become a problem yet, but he needed some source of reliable income if he wanted to keep staying here. Fixing that could come after he fixed his current problem.

He wasn’t too concerned over money anyways. As long as he had enough to feed himself, Benhei could continue to protect the city. Physical comforts were extraneous. If necessary, he could even fore go the apartment.

“Oh, it’s you. Must be tough, getting up this early to collect the rent. I’ll have it ready in a bit.” He said, before returning to the kitchen, out of sight. Since it was there that he had placed his blood bags, he figured there would be little added harm if he also happened to hide the money nearby as well. Of course, it wasn’t anywhere near the stove.

Opening a locked cupboard, he quickly moved aside some innocent enough items until he reached the back of the cupboard. Taking out just enough to pay for this month, he put the items back in their place, before closing and locking the cupboard again.

Returning to the front entrance, he held it out. “This should be enough, no?”

[RacingeR]

Kagami Akame
Upper District
Eientei Shrine’s outskirts
6:26 AM

Breaking his wrist proves to be an easy task. Off balance as he is, the man can’t do anything to avoid your strike, and with a sick snapping sound, the bone is fractured. However, his fingers don’t let go of the knife, grabbing it like they were made of steel themselves.

The other two girls try to surround him, but at that moment, his movements change. The frenzy is gone, replaced by jerky, sudden movements that turn out to be completely unpredictable to you all. All the tells recognizable in the human body are gone, and instead the hooded man becomes robotic and unnatural.

He retreats to the hallway, followed closely by the three of you. The place is not very narrow, being big enough for the three of you to stand in a row, but the big man occupies almost the whole width of the hallway by himself, making surrounding him impossible.

Having put away her knife and following your orders, Kazumi attacks first, starting with a textbook karate punch. However, she does not even manage to start her attack before being forced to duck under a knife swing. Attempts by both you and Michiko are met with the same result: the man’s movements are too hard to predict, and even though you are making a good combination, the terrain of battle greatly favors him.

However, he is just a normal human. That much you can tell. Under normal conditions, you would have been able to wipe the floor with dozens of men like him. Even with something unnatural changing his movements, he has not a shadow of a chance to survive your relentless assault. Both you and Kazumi start connecting your hits, greatly damaging his body with your strength alone. But he makes no sounds of pain, nor seems to feel it. He continues swinging his knife around, his motions unpredictable as always, even though they become slower and slower as the body reaches a limit.

And then, a mistake is made. He goes into the offensive, his knife descending in a chopping motion towards Michiko. If a certain drifter had been there, he would have easily recognized the motion. The Miko-Assassin sidesteps it with ease, and then, reinforcing her limbs, she brutally punches the hooded man in the solar plexus.

It was a strike so strong that any other human would have been sent unconscious by the mere force of the impact. To this man, whose sense of pain and preservation are dulled by something unknown, it just manages to stop his movements. The hood falls, revealing the face of a normal brown haired man on his late twenties. Blood comes from his mouth like a red waterfall, and his eyes are whited out. He looks drugged out of his mind.

But he is still standing.

This moment is enough for him to be surrounded. You position yourselves, leaving to place for him to escape, and at your signal, jump at him like one. He has no way of escaping now.

Except one. There remains a single path.

“No! Don’t do that! Stop him!” You heard Kazumi shout, and try to reach him, but it is too late.

He is too tall. His robust arms manage to delay you for one crucial moment. The man smiles, and opens his mouth, sticking this tongue out. Desperately, you jump over his left arm, as Kazumi and Michiko both fall behind you.

But it is too late. His teeth come down like a guillotine with enough force to cleanly chop his tongue out. The piece of flesh crashes against your barrier and bounces off, the blood flowing freely behind it soaking the three of you, as if you needed more.

For one single instant, the unconquerable mountain of a man remains standing, smiling with blood reed teeth. He shouts something incomprehensible (“Beware the oncoming storm”, you don’t know how you know, but you know) and then crashes down against the floor. Dead.

[RacingeR]

Lily
Lower District
Old House – Bedroom
Friday - 5:55 AM

“Oh? It is simple. I just want info on her location. What ya might already know, and what ya manage to discover. I mean, ya can go and help me fight her if ya want, but it is not really necessary. I just want information.”

At that point, it dawned on you that Jonathan believed that you knew where Midori was, very possibly misunderstanding thanks to the fact that you had been former classmates in the Clock Tower, and were hiding in the same city. At the very least, he seemed to believe you had information you did not have, and was asking you to investigate more on top of it.

“So, what do ya think? Deal?” The Enforcer’s voice sounded amused, and the gun was still pointed directly at your face.

[Plue]

Lily
Lower District
Old House – Bedroom
Friday - 5:56 AM

Oh good, he doesn't expect her to actually fight. While it would provide her with a chance at his back the risks were far greater.

Lily dips her head in a sharp nod, "That's fine. A trade, for the knowledge I posses on Midori I won't be sealed."

She feels a faint pang of regret at this. Not for giving away the bare hints of information she might know about her former classmate, but rather the sealing of all her work. The loss of research of someone the Clockwork Tower had deemed worthy of a sealing designation is tragic.

Terms of her agreement settled she throws her blanket around her loosely as she stands, "It will take several hours for me to collect the information I have on her." She would have to search through the archive she had stolen as she fled. "Please knock when you return."

Even if the bastard left now she wouldn't be getting back to sleep, between checking the archives, preparing some stronger essences and readying her escape from this city she didn't expect much sleep at all for the next several days.

She pauses, a treacherous thought coming to mind. He was likely good for his word at least, that he wouldn't seal her himself in return for her information, but was Blake here alone? Not another Enforcer waiting for her to reveal her information and then Seal her? Enforcers were rare, but truly it wasn't paranoia if they were out to get you.

[RacingeR]

Detective Josuke Watanabe
Lower District
Slums – Crime Scene D
Friday - 6:10 AM

The old forensic moves aside to leave you space. You proceed to activate a certain skill of yours, and examine every single detail of the scene.

Blood has been splattered everywhere, but you can note a lot has been washed away. Still, something about the blood itself bothers you, although you can’t quite put the finger on what. You remember having the same feeling when you examined the other crime scenes. You needed to get the info on those when you got back to the station.

You can notice there are very faded blood splatters leading to both alleys, but there is not much info you can discern from them. You are possibly the only one that noticed the splatters that were on the left alley entrance, while the ones on the right alley were already marked.

On the body itself, it was a young man, of maybe 21... no, 20 years of age. Black hair, wearing a cheap suit, so probably a worker of some kind, a bit more taller than you were. His face was pretty unremarkable, but his body looked like it had received some kind of training, as he had at least some muscle. Some kind of martial arts? You were pretty sure that the victim could defend itself pretty well, at least. Taking a closer look to certain details of his blood soaked clothes, it was very clear that the body had been searched by the killer.

The order of the wounds he had suffered was not hard to discern. First, the victim had been blinded, you were sure that before he could react. The single cut that had put out both of his eyes was very deep, so it was done with incredible strength. It was also a surprisingly clean cut for something that had cleaved through bone with absurd ease.

The next wound had been the arms. It took only a look to know they had been ripped off with strength that was beyond human, both at the same time, and before the victim’s death. And the killing wound had been without a doubt the slashes and stabs to the neck. Though this could be easily accomplished with a knife, it gave you the strong impression of an attack executed by a wild animal. It was just that brutal.

You suspected the killer had starting carving the man’s chest while he was at his death throes, but most of the wounds on the torso were post-mortem. The stomach and below were a mess, but it also looked like it had been ripped off with superhuman strength.

Just like in the other scenes, it was surprisingly ‘clean’, which indicated that the murder had been short and brutal, executed in a relatively small span of time. It was, however, the first murder scene that felt so... superhuman.

[Mormarth]

Josuke Watanabe
Lower District
Slums - Crime Scene D
6:10 AM

I grunted and stood up, stowing away my notes in my coat pocket, the blinding cut was clean, a bit too clean, probably came from the front, which makes me think a sudden attack from someone the vic was meeting with. Or maybe just a really fast mugger. And the stomach...

Majority of the wounds there were post-mortem, meaning either the killer just went apeshit on this guy, or.. they were looking for something. I frowned in thought, and something about that blood was... off, like the rest of the victims on the case.

Hrn, might be a link, hell, might be the killer's for all I know.

I frowned down at the corpse, something was fishy. I turned to the old man, "Might have something, don't know what, might just be nothing, but..." I shrugged, "Nothing we can go on for now. I'm gonna head over and chat with the rook. Later."

I strode quietly through the gently falling rain, over towards the lady officer, she still looked a bit green around the gills, but more steady then when I'd arrived.

I smiled at her, "Hey, Detective Watanabe, heard you were the first on the scene." I grimaced, sympathetically, "Rough, yeah? But, could you please tell me, as much as you can clearly remember from when you arrived. There's no need to hurry, go easy on yourself."

[RacingeR]

Shea Fujou
Lower District
Suzaku Plaza
6:32 AM

It only had been two minutes since your shower had finished when Makie entered the room, and you told her your idea, which made her frown slightly.

“I have been told that the police is closely associated with the Onmyo-ryu magi in the city. I think the police chief is a magi.” There was a certain displeasure in her voice that made clear that Makie disliked the Onmyo-ryu, or at least held a certain distaste for it. “Well, we lose nothing by trying, so let’s go to the police station next.”

She quickly got out of her clothes, again ignoring your presence there, and walked towards the bathroom. At that moment, you observed a single, long scar on her back that went from below her neck to just above her butt, healed a long time ago. The mark was very noticeable on her skin, and you briefly wondered how deep the wound had to be to leave such a mark before Makie disappeared from view.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lower District
Streets
7:10 AM

The acquisition of some umbrellas had been a good idea, now that the wind had calmed down a bit. Still, it did not take long for your new change of clothes to get soaked as well. You had the feeling that sooner or later you would end up catching a cold.

The police station was in the city’s upper district, which was at a great distance from your current position. For what you understood of Midorizuki layout, the city was divided in three districts: Upper, Lower and Western. Or, what is the same, Rich, Poor and Comercial.

The city was very big, and confusing. You doubted you would get lost by just walking around, but the layout was messy and unclear. Makie was even worse than you when it came to this city, so soon it was concluded that you would take a cab to get were you wanted.

It happened when you were searching for the cab in the busy streets. You were walking a bit behind Makie in the sea of people, when you tripped against someone. A chilling feeling invaded your mind and paralyzed your body. Your instincts warned you of danger, a terrible threat, but your mouth couldn’t emit any sound, and your limbs refused to obey your commands.

Something peered at your thoughts, and at your memory. A creeping fear rose in your interior, an unnatural, foreign sensation that did not come from yourself, but menaced to overwhelm you anyway. The feeling of prana was heavy in the air.

And then, as soon as it had appeared, the appalling sensation was gone, as were all traces of anything you had felt during the last ten seconds. You found yourself on your knees on the sidewalk, umbrella fallen on the floor, and the rain pouring over you. Makie hurried to your side, putting her umbrella over you and trying to get you up from the floor while asking what had happened and voicing her concern over you. You looked behind, but the passerby that had tripped with you was completely gone.

The skies seemed even darker than before, if that was possible.

[Katie]

Kagami Akame
Upper District
Eientei Shrine’s outskirts
6:26 AM

They raised me to be a coldblooded killer. Nothing was too disgusting for me, they would boast...

But why do I feel like throwing up?

...The tongue could have touched my face. It could have, but the barrier stopped it. But it could have. Never have I been so glad that barrier magecraft keeps you clean and untouched by the most disgusting of things. Were it not for my specialty, I would have killed myself long ago. I'm not suited to creating messes like this, the Iron Lady was insane to send me here...

I sigh and avert my gaze away from the corpse.

"There is still... multiple assailants that attacked that miko. And this is only one of them. There are also two of our side that have not been confirmed to be dead. Keep an eye out and look around." I sign for Michiko to get my point across. If we could have gotten information, this situation could have been worth the effort. But for now, we would have to hunt the rest of them and look around for the rest.

Numbly, I point at one of the paths we have not taken and start walking.

We would have to find the truth somehow.

[RacingeR]

Yamashita Kanezane
Lower District
Alleyways
6:00 AM

You pull up the girl with ease, noting that she was very light. She still seems to be in a state of shock, and does not seem to understand very well what is happening around her. At least, she seems to see that danger has passed, as she is not as frightened as before, and does not reject you when you wrap your hoodie around her.

Then, you turn back and make a certain comment. You can almost see how her eyes fall down to her exposed lower body, and just stare for some seconds as the biggest blush you have ever seen spread through her face, getting her cheeks even redder than the blood that now covered your right hand.

Letting out a small scream, she steps back, almost stumbles with her own feet, then pulls up her skirt in a flash. Now you can feel her staring right at you, with her hands between her legs as if still covering herself up... and she seems really pissed off.

“S-stop saying stuff about my underwear and my thighs, you pervert! W-who said that I needed your help anyway?!?” She says that, but she is still huddling on your hoodie. While you ponder her really odd reaction, she adds something else while pointing at you and maintaining her distance.

“And don’t assume things! I did not run away from home!” You look at her face, and you can tell you hit bullseye with your earlier guess. This girl ran away from home, alright, and is a terrible liar. Your comment must have triggered this outburst. That, or she just needed to scream out something. While she seemed to have snapped out of her state of shock, she also does not look very stable or rational yet.

The rain keeps falling on top of you without letting up. You calculate it will be two hours, maybe a bit more, until the sun is high enough for the darkness to clear up a bit.

[Snax]

Yamashita Kanezane
Lower District
Alleyways
6:00 AM

Twirling a lock of his hair nonchalantly through her outburst, Yamashita gauges her responses. At least she seemed relieved enough to start yelling in order to hide her embarrassment. which is a good start. She did run away from home - also something he could use.

After she stopped yelling, Yamashita turns slowly approaches the girl, his smile wider than ever. His hands are in the air, waving around in a jokingly, nonthreatening manner.

"Haha, sorry, sorry - all men are, of course, somewhat perverted - also it's not a sight you get to see every day in real life, ya know, but I'll drop that subject. Point is - "

Yamashita stares straight into her grey eyes, his own pale pupils meeting them as if they were to bore into her soul -

"-did you really not need any help?"

He suddenly put on a serious face and a serious air around him - pressuring her to face the truth, the reality of what had just happened. In his books, he was pretty sure that if she had the power to break out of such a situation, she would have done so before she had been stripped of her skirt.

"You know better than me what would have happened if I was just another passerby scared of getting mugged."

It's cowardly of him to say this, but reality doesn't change.

"Well, not like I could have left a damsel in distress anyway. Hahaha!"

However, that was only for a spell - a few seconds of staring ended, reverting Yamashita into his past cheerful attitude. He makes to pat her head with his hand, but he saw the red on his right. Extending his right into the rain, he washes off the worst of what had been smeared on - while patting the girl's head gently with his left, as if trying to console her.

"Don't push yourself. If it was scary, say it was. If you want to cry, let it out. It's not good to keep your feelings bottled up all the time, it merely gets things worse. Ok?"

Smiling warmly, he uses his clean left hand to gently pat her head while ruffling her hair a bit.

"Now then, I'm hungry and cold. I presume you are cold, too, although I don't know if you're hungry or not. I'm going to the convenience store to warm up using their heater, and get some food. Got 2000 yen."

Grinning, he jangled his coins.

"I'll probably be sitting there warming up and drying out for a while, and being alone would be boring. Would you care to join me for a early morning coffee time, my lady?"

Playfully, he drops a small bow and extends his left hand to her.

[Bloble]

Lower District
Streets
7:10 AM

"My... head," Shea gasped. "Something, someone looked inside!"

She forced herself to her feet, looking around wildly for whoever had struck her. The nausea quickly faded, but there was no sign of the mysterious person. In the first place, she hadn't been able to get a good look, making recognizing her assailant almost impossible. There was only the ever shifting crowd.

"Couldn't get his scent," she whispered as her eyes flew over dozens of people per second, futilely looking for the person who'd attacked her. "But that had to be magecraft. I couldn't move for a good ten seconds."

She looked at Makie and sighed, then frowned. "Fuck," she concluded. "Well, now we know we're not alone. And unless our mark can peek into someone's head, we've got a completely new problem on our hands. Sorry." She felt a familiar rage welling up inside. Someone had just fucked with her, and she wasn't about to let it happen again. Still, there was nothing she could do at the moment. The only thing she could do was continue pursuing her quarry using whatever means were necessary. The smart move was to ignore the unknown and focus on getting to the police station.

"We should keep going," she finally said. "There's nothing to be done here. I'll deal with this when there's something I can do about it. Unless you've got some charms to resist mental intrusion on you, any meeting with our mysterious magus would probably end the same way."

[RacingeR]

Benhei Touban
Lower District
Slums – Benhei’s Apartment
6:12 AM

You gave Natsumi the exact quantity of money needed to pay for the rent. She quickly counted it, and nodded happily to herself.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I always wake up early anyway!” You couldn’t help but to pity your neighbors who must have been sleeping when she came to ask for the money. With the rain still falling constantly, you doubted anyone was in the mood to go out this early in the morning.

You noticed that Natsumi was still standing there, clutching the money in her hands, and looking at you meditatively. You were about to ask her what was the matter, but she spoke first. “Tou-chan... you still are jobless, aren’t you? I may have a decent job for a though guy like you for today.”

The way she addressed you... had become even more informal.

[RacingeR]

Lily
Lower District
Old House – Bedroom
Friday - 5:57 AM

“Well, that is okay with me.” Blake shrugged and the gun disappeared from his hand as he rose up from his chair. His black eyes never stopped staring straight at you, and it was obvious that he had not put his guard down at all. However, he had stopped threatening you.

“That said, don’t try to escape. I have my ways to track ya, and lemme assure ya that I am pretty good at it.” Nope, he hadn’t stopped with the threats.

“I’ll be back at 5 PM. That should give ya a nice 12 hours to work on this. I got some other business in this city anyway.” With a shrug, the Enforcer walks towards the door of your house, without much of a hurry. However, once he is in front of the door, he stops, and turns back to look at you. His expression is hidden on the darkness, but you can still feel his piercing stare on you.

“Hey. From a magus to a magus... how would you define ‘

Ijyou

abnormality

’?”

[Satehi]

Benhei Touban
Lower District
Slums – Benhei’s Apartment
6:12 AM

Work. An adequate solution for his current financial predicament.

Investigating his current condition naturally took priority over financial troubles at the moment, but there was little he could do to investigate at the moment. He only had roughly 2 hours of night time before the suns effect on his abilities would be too much to fight off anything he encountered. No particular clues either. It would be smarter to wait until the sun went down again to search, which meant he had free time for the rest of the day.

It also wouldn’t be a great idea to reject his landlord’s generous offer, even if it wasn’t needed at the moment. And there was no harm in at least trying to hear what the job was about. As long as it didn’t overlap with his nightly patrolling or investigating, he was okay with it.

“Actually, I might be a bit busy tonight. Something came up that I’d like to get resolved soon,” Benhei said, trying to keep his nighttime hours open. “But it’s true that I’m still jobless. If I don't have to stay up too late to do it, I'm fine."

"Care to share some more details?" He asked.

[RacingeR]

Detective Josuke Watanabe
Lower District
Slums – Crime Scene D
Friday - 6:15 AM

“Ah... ehh” Upon approaching her, the policewoman seemed slightly startled, and then she proceeded to straighten her back like a soldier about to salute her sergeant. Now closer to her, you could see her features more clearly: a young woman of 20 years or so, short bluish-black hair, pretty good looking, the type of girl you imagined that got hit on a lot by the opposite gender. Not the type you usually saw becoming a policewoman, anyway.

“I-I am Officer Inokuma Asako, sir.” She finally managed to say after some seconds. “We received a report on someone attacking a man in the alley here, and as the closest unit, we sped up to here. Once we entered the alley, w-we found the body as it is now.” There was a small pause, and for a second, you feared she would just start throwing up again, as her face paled when remembering the body. The first time seeing a murder like that was though for everyone.

However, color soon returned to her face. You figured out that after 2 hours she might have had more than enough time to get over it, but it was not the first time you saw a rookie being affected for a long while.

“There was the figure of a person moving towards the passage to the right. Me and my partner took out our weapons and called it out, but it ran away very fast. We chased it for a bit, but it disappeared from view soon after. My partner thought it must have slipped by any of the other alleyways, so we returned to... to the place where the body was to wait for reinforcements. I think he is still out there with some policemen searching the alleys for the figure.”

This was... somewhat troubling. The alleyways were a labyrinth so complex that the station needed to have a map of them to navigate it. You doubted the search party would find the mysterious person they had spotted, but maybe they would find some clue or some kind of trail. Definitely not something to put your hopes into.

You noticed Asako had finished reporting, and now was staring at you nervously, still in that position that looked like a soldier about to salute, probably asking for any questions on her meager report.

[Plue]

Lily
Lower District
Old House – Bedroom
Friday - 5:59 AM

“Hey. From a magus to a magus... how would you define ‘

Ijyou

abnormality

’?”

Lily considers the dark haired man's question. "Abnormality. A deviation or undefinable set within a system." She recites as though reading from a dictionary.

"Is that not our ultimate goal? To find the system that has no abnormality?" Pure eyes stare through him. "Or have you forgotten what it is you seek in your work as a dog, hunting down what the Tower cannot define themselves?"
Her words lack any sharp inflection, tone devoid of hostility and uncolored by emotion.

"That amount of time will be sufficient for what I need to do." Lily continues right along, not caring for Blake's response even if he has one. "However if you insist on loitering longer, I will require more."


We already have our agreement, hurry up and leave. You're keeping me from my shower and breakfast. Lily complains internally, not letting it show on her face as she waits for the other magus to leave. At the least it would be interesting to see how he managed to avoid her bounded fields... and give her valuable information on how to patch that hole in her defenses. It was obviously linked to that muffling effect he had upon himself, but for that to completely bypass her defenses alone seems unlikely.

[Mormarth]

Josuke Watanabe
Lower District
Slums - Crime Scene D
Friday - 6:15 AM

I took out my notebook and looked at her seriously, "Alright, Officer, tell me about the report you received, anything particularly odd about it? The witness, anything? And what can you tell me about the figure you saw running from the scene, anything that stood out to you?"

There was a small pause, and for a second, you feared she would just start throwing up again, as her face paled when remembering the body. The first time seeing a murder like that was though for everyone.

I half-smiled at her, wryly "I remember the first time I saw a cadaver."

I could almost see it, he was strung up from a light pole, naked all the way to his socks, he'd been carved open like a takeout box, shoulder to waist in a big 'X', organs were all gone, along with his hair, eyelids, lips, ears, some of the muscles on the front of his legs, and, of course, the crown jewels.

I shivered, probably just the early morning chill, and shook my head vigorously, "That first time you see one, it, ah, sticks with you, y'know? So if you just want to sit down and have me stop bugging you, say the word, and I'll go bug your partner, what's his name, by the way?"

[RacingeR]

Kagami Akame
Upper District
Eientei Shrine
6:28 AM

Once you start walking, Michiko stops you and signals you to wait. Without waiting for an answer, she pulls out a scroll out of her hakama, and opens it, revealing many strange writings contained in it. She bites her left thumb, and then places it on the center of the scroll.

The strange scripture starts glowing blue, and the individual words start floating out of the scroll at dizzying speeds, casting an eerie light in your surroundings. Then, with a sound not unlike glass being broken into a thousand pieces, the individual letters started floating away and vanishing from sight.

Michiko waits for a second, then negates with her head, before making more signs with her hands. You notice that the scroll she had just used had been turned into ash.

‘There is nobody in the main section.’ Then, she points to the path you were about to take, and starts going there, again without waiting for an answer. You and Kazumi follow her in silence, having more or less understood her intentions.

The shrine was a bigger place than it appeared at first. It had many different rooms, although the destruction caused blurred them together. Not a single piece of furniture had been left intact in the whole of what Michiko had called the main section of the building, where most of the different rooms necessary to live were concentrated.

The rest of the shrine could be roughly divided on a left wing and a right wing, with the courtyard outside with a very big shed standing on a corner, somewhat disguised by some tall trees around it. The left wing seemed to have been the living quarters of the magi, and had been completely trashed. Blood was everywhere there, and you could feel faint traces of prana in the air.

You suspected some of the magi had been assaulted there, and had defended themselves before being killed, and their bodies transported to the main room. The big bloodstains at some spots indicated that some of the attackers had died in the fight, but there were no corpses to confirm this thought. In regular intervals in the wall, someone had carved figures that resembled very closely a pair of eyes, sometimes with the center painted with blood. They gave the eerie and creepy sensation of following you as you walked along.

The right wing was untouched, and had not been searched. It pretty much consisted of a simple room with six beds and six wardrobes, where the miko in the shrine had lived. The additional three beds must have been prepared for your arrival, as you were to use this shrine as a base of operations.

In each place you visited, Michiko used one of those scrolls to search the surroundings for hidden enemies, and every time she negated with her head, indicating that nobody was there.

The last place you visited was the big shed on a corner of the courtyard. As you approached it, you saw that the trees had been damaged and defiled. The same sigil of two vigilant eyes was carved on the bark of each tree, as if to stare down anyone that approached the door.

The door itself had a steel lock that had been cut and thrown aside. However, it remained locked, and resisted any and all attempts to open it. Even after Michiko used two different scrolls (one to confirm there was nobody inside, another to try and open the door via means you did not quite understand), and Kazumi fired a powerful concussive blast of magic towards it, the doors and walls did not budge. You could detect some kind of unknown boundary field in the shed, and it was clear from the marks around the building that the unknown attackers also had failed in their attempts to get in.

You returned back to the right wing, followed by your two partners. You couldn’t stand the sight of the bodies in the main section.

You needed to decide what to do from now onwards.

[RacingeR]

Yamashita Kanezane
Lower District
Alleyways
6:02 AM

After being admonished with you, the girl remained silent, clearly sulking. For a moment, you thought she might scream at you again, but the expected reaction never came. She did not let out a single noise out even when avoiding your pats in the head. The girl had some good reflexes, you had to admit.

Only when you invited her to go to the convenience store, she finally reacted.

“Momiji.” She said suddenly. When you shot her an inquiring look, she shrugged. “My name. Don’t call me ‘my lady’ or stuff like that. It gives me the creeps.”

--------------------

Lower District – Center
Convenience Store
6:20 AM

The employee in charge of the store hadn’t batted an eyelid when you two had entered the store, completely soaked, and trembling due to the intense cold. Fighting with sleepiness as he was, he had managed to sell you two bentos and two cups of coffee, before directing you towards the heather, where you had started drying off a bit. Surprisingly enough, Momiji had paid for the food with her own money, and now was sitting a bit away from you, while happily eating the contents of her lunchbox, and sipping her coffee.

“I think I didn’t catch your name...?”

[Snax]

Yamashita Kanezane (Kanezawa)
Lower District – Center
Convenience Store
6:20 AM

"My name, huh..."

It wasn't like he didn't expect the question to come. After all, he had become acquainted to her, but it just felt...off. Perhaps this was because his past few years had been somewhat distant from what normal people would call 'normal discourse between normal humans'. Of course, this clause still failed due to the fact that he wasn't normal anymore. Or were they both abnormal? Who knew. He didn't care.

"Well, I've been called all sorts of names at some point...but I 'go by' Kanezawa. First name basis, eh?"

Lying through his teeth and jokingly adding the last phrase, Yamashita grinned like a hyena. Not like he held around any birth certificates - as far as he knew, his identity was pretty much impossible to figure out, and he didn't hold any kind of identification apart from fake forgeries. One of them actually held the name 'Kiyama Kanezawa', so it wasn't a 100% lie. For now, he was 20 year old Kiyama Kanezawa, dropout from a certain unimportant college and looking around for employment, not knowing what to do with his life apart from being a hobo. Yeah, that was really original. Whoever the dumb fuck that prepared that certain forgery was, Yamashita had made sure to introduce his face to a particularly thick wall of bricks.

Yamashita took another bite out of his food. It was pretty good, even after considering hunger is the best spice. It was, after all, a while since he had a good hearty meal. He stretched out where he was sitting, not caring if he was dripping water all over the establishment. The part-timer could take care of that. It sure wasn't fun, being a part timer doing the early morning shift on a 24 hour convenience store...Yamashita remembered the few part time jobs he had taken for no particular reason at all apart from food.

Recalling his past brought a quirky smile to his face, considering all that had happened. Not like he was the type to sit around and reminisce about the 'good ol' days', but it would occur like daydreaming, out of the blue.

And it made him twitchy. In various ways.

"Anyway, Momiji, do you have any plans for the day? I sure as hell don't, since I'm pretty much an unemployed dumbass with nothing better to do than try to get some living expenses on a daily basis. Still, I don't think I should be leaving you on your lonesome, as that sorta thing happened and they might be coming back for blood."

Shrugging nonchalantly, Yamashita traces fingers across the cloth-wrapped knife he stuck behind his belt.

"Well, fuck that, I'm cold. First things first -drying up. It won't do being soggy as a wet napkin."