Nightfall (IC)

[Tobias]

Taka Nishi
April 3^rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Toriyama Bar – Back Room

The expression "I couldn't lose if I tried" was not usually supposed to be a lamentation.

Yet, this night, it had been an extremely strange curse. When he had sat at the table, Taka had been entirely prepared for the mark to be a bad poker player. That was almost a given due to the rumors floating around. There was, after all, a reason Taka expected him to be so gratified and exuberant after a win, they didn't happen often.

What Taka had not however been prepared for, was for this guy to absolutely suck ass.

He had no poker face. Every time a card he wanted hit his eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas. During the many, many times he was bluffing, he sweated like a pig in a sauna. He bounced his leg when he was drawing for a straight, he tapped his chips when he was nervous, and he never changed up his game. Under any normal circumstance, Taka and the other players would have locked eyes once, and once only during the entire game, mutually agreed to stay out of each other's hair while they slowly milked his savings dry, and all walked away with a hundred thousand yen or so for an easy night's work.

Putting the game together the way Taka had was a masterwork that should have one some kind of award. Of particular note, during one hand, after having bet entirely to much for what was obviously a low pocket pair, the dumbass had gone all in against the chip leader who had hit trips from the flop trying to bluff him out. The only way Taka could salvage had been to, through some kind of miracle of perseverance, actually bluff said chip leader himself into folding. Taka had been playing conservatively, so the uncharacteristically large bet worked. Taka ended up winning the hand, but since he had less chips then hiragami, he stayed at the table. It took more then an hour to patiently give the jackass back his chips through an assortment of "unlucky hands." Eventually he wiped out the table then had another "bad run of luck" to feed his opponent the win.

Giving him my hard earned money was still less annoying then actually hearing him brag though. Offering a good cigar, Taka had offered a glass of whisky to celebrate, and the fatass had gone hook line and sinker. Taka was trying to contemplate his approach while inwardly marshaling his best pokerface. This was to avoid grimacing at a nail's on chalkboard level annoying recap of the game, replete with guesses, offered with complete assurance of what Taka and the other player's cards had been during different hands.

Said guesses were of course so inaccurate that one could find a better track record located on the score card of a broken clock.

Finally however, the drinks seemed to start hitting, and Taka believed if there was anything to get, now was the right moment.

"you know, you got me good tonight," Taka said ruefully, lighting a cigar. "Losing here wasn't fun of course, but now I cant afford the real game that I was looking forward to."

That got Hiragami's attention. Of course it did. waving a high stakes game under a gambling addict's nose was like handing a heroin addict a filled syringe.

Taka pulled a nondescript card out of an expensive alligator skin wallet. The card was simple, listing just an address, but it was printed on expensive paper.

"I spent months getting this, months I tell you. But the minimum buy in is 1 million yen. Dammit all, 4-6 fat cat businessmen with more money then sense for the taking, and now this thing is worthless to me. I guess ill sell it, see if I can get some of my money back..."

Taka sighed mournfully, inwardly gauging the mark's reaction.

Take the bait you ratfaced bastard...

[RacingeR]

Elora Griffin & Yuu Kurogami
April 3^rd – Evening
Nakano, Amaterasu High School – Student Council room

Elora:

“Wha-“ Nanami retreated upon receiving your gaze, very clearly intending to run away from the room at top speed. Your cousin, who regarded paperwork the same way other people regarded particularly poisonous scorpions, hesitated, evidently unable to resist the pitiful eyes you were making.

“Oh my, President has used Marin Karin on Nakano and Matsumoto! It is super-effective! Nakano attempts to flee!” For some reason, Ryou started narrating the action.

“Excellent idea, Griffin. Since those two have showed up here, they could at least have the decency to help us out with these papers, right?” Sakura said, as she immediately took two large strides towards the poor girls.

“The Vice-President has used Councilor Steps! She’s attempting to catch them before they can run away!” Ryou continued, his narration becoming more impassioned. “Nakano has been caught!”

“Wait, Sakura! Let me go~!” Nanami was immediately caught by the neck of her shirt, unable to escape the vice-president’s claws. Seeing Sakura’s other hand reaching towards her, Rika instinctively attempted to dodge, transforming in a blur of motion, but…!

“Oh my god! Matsumoto has been caught mid-flashstep! This is unprecedent!” Ryou nearly jumped off his chair.

“What?!” Osamu’s glasses nearly fell as he opened his mouth in shock.

“I-Impossible…! This cannot be…” And your cousin definitely seemed to be getting too much into her assigned role. “To think your Oogami Arts have grown to this extent, Sakura…!”

“Don’t randomly make me the last boss here!” Sakura retorted. “Wouldn’t that be Griffin, anyway?!”

“For some reason, the role just fits you, you know?” Erika replied in a mocking tone that earned her the kind of glance that would have made a lesser woman jump through a window. The blonde, however, just stuck her tongue at her, causing Sakura to roll her eyes.

And then, There was a loud noise as the door got kicked with great strength, before it was opened and Kurogami Yuu busted into the room, delivering an arrogant speech… just before running into Sakura, causing both girls to trip and fall to the floor.

“Ugh! Kurogami, you!!” Was what Sakura said before she went down. It did quite sound like a final boss being defeated, but nobody dared mention that tiny detail.

“Damn! Did we unlock the special yuri event?!” Ryou wondered out-loud, as Osamu tried to plug his mouth before it was too late. It was too late.

“What event?!” An embarrassed and somewhat angry Sakura pushed Yuu away with surprising strength, before getting up and delivering a quick kick to Ryou’s buttocks, causing the boy to yelp and finally interrupt his narration.

“Anyway, what are you doing here, Kurogami?” Sakura asked her in a cold tone, narrowing her gaze.

Yuu:

The Oogami family had an extremely powerful background. In fact, it was comparable with the Kurogami family in terms of power, riches and influence, being one of the great families of Japan that existed in a sphere most commoners were unable to witness. The Kurogami and Oogami were existences in the same level. And, for what you understood, this Oogami Sakura was also a special existence within her family. You doubted anyone in this room (apart from your loyal maid) had much of an idea of how powerful their vice-president really was, a detail that Kaede apparently found quite amusing.

One would think that, given your backgrounds, you two would get along quite well, but… Sakura’s constantly serious personality and your own chaotic personality didn’t quite mix, apparently.

“Hello, Oogami-san.”

“Ah, hello, Aragaki-san.”

Although you had to wonder why she wasn’t that unfriendly to Kaede. Perhaps due to the fact that, despite the fact that she was as bad as you were, the maid was much better at disguising it.

[Vritra]

Yuu Kurogami
April 3rd – Evening
Nakano, Amaterasu High School – Student Council room

Staring down at girl I find myself straddling I smile down unaffected by the abrupt turn of events.

“Oh hello, hello little Sakura I do know how well we get along but you must be careful about throwing yourself at me.” Mhm if I didn’t take care I naturally just trample down people who stand in my way and to do that to such a, mildly, cute girl would be terrible. Yet then again I was also naturally skilled enough to cushion both my and her fall so maybe there was no reason to worry about others throwing themselves at me? A question for another time I suppose because now that we’ve found ourselves in such a position it’s only natural to follow through with thin-

“Oof.”

Grunting as Sakura throws me off before I can embrace and seduce her I mull over her animosity.

“Really, really how cold, ah! Sorry, sorry I forgot how shy you are don’t worry next time I’ll make sure it’s just the two of us ~.”

Pouting as my cute little friend denies me in embarrassment I can only shrug and smile understandingly, I’ll just have to get her back later with interest.

“Anyway, what are you doing here, Kurogami?” Sakura asked her in a cold tone, narrowing her gaze.

“Eh? Isn’t it obvious? I have a date with Elora and Rika-chan but since Elora-chan busy with all this work I’ve been left alone and thus I am very, very bored and rather annoyed! So naturally in my benevolent and boredom I realized that like I said before, I should put forth some effort because if I just do a better and faster job than you I’ll be able to get to my wonderful date faster! Giving a sharp toothed angelic and easy going grin while I clasp my hands together and begin to stretch upward I reassure little Sakura that she has nothing to worry about because now the great me is here to be better than everyone.

“…”

Yet while I’m swishing side to side as I stretch I begin to frown as I realize something is amiss.

Strange, strange…

Leaning in to study with my full concentration, I begin to try to puzzle out what I’ve realized.

How strange…

How could this be…

“Sakura…” My voice is heavy with the overwhelming gravity I feel as I say her name. “Is… Is it just you using a bra that accentuates your breasts more, or! Or have you once again grown when I wasn’t paying attention!?

How, how could this be! To think that my attention had lapsed so much to miss such a detail of my cute little friend, kuh to think I would suffer such a shameful regression in sloth and indifference that such important details would get past me. I can only imagine what my demon lord of a Dad would say if he found out! …Well I can actually imagine more than a few things that he might say if he was still here raising me but that’s because he has no time or interest in fun things.

…Then again he does understand the appeal of cuteness and beauty so many he’s not all bad. Such things have nothing to do the current situation but that’s just the way of it with Dad. You think of one thing then get caught up thinking about a hundred others in an effort to puzzle him out.

Wiseup

Name: Yuu Kurogami
Element: Lightning
Lost: Machi Koga
Lifelink Companion: Kaede Aragaki

Statistics:
Spiritual Rank: 1
Self: 100

STR C+
END C++
DEX C+
AGI C
SPI C
EXS C+

Traits:
Silver Spoon Stardom

A name is an empty thing, made up of interconnected sounds they are nothing more than a label used by humanity to better categorize the world around them. One could easily replace red with blue and have nothing actually change, empty, formless, meaningless, and yet somehow in complete defiance of this some names carry a very real weight and power. Kurogami is one such name.

The demonic lords of japan, the nobles, the inhuman, the influence of the Kurogami permeates throughout the entirety of japan's power structure. When they talk people listen and as someone fortunate enough to be born to this house of would be lords of the modern age Yuu’s words hold great sway over a great many things. Even though she occupies a somewhat muddled and strange niche within the family’s structure there is one thing that has never been in doubt, she is a Kurogami through and through. Having been raised as a true (if somewhat neglected) daughter of the clan and thus has naturally become acquainted with a great many powerful people. People (and resources) she has woven into a web of favors and influence through both her natural standing within the household and her own talents. A large web that stretches through proper society and, now that she has begun exploring the shadows of japan, not so proper society. It would almost make Toramaru proud, almost...

House of the Impure God:

The Kurogami aren’t human, the incessant whispers that have circulated around since they first began aiming for power during the days of ancient japan. Of course as with all such rumors they are laughably false no matter what others may think they are unmistakably biologically human ...yet if one looks at it from a different angle there is a certain truth to those dark rumors for those who fully inherit the blood of the Kurogami family are extraordinary and abnormal in equal measure. A true family of aberrations removed from the common sense of humanity and Yuu is no exception.

While possessing a minor talent for the fortitude of the soul that makes her better able to withstand the things that would corrode it the greatest thing she inherited from her family is something far more ...devilish.

A pure charisma born of her existence itself that disregards the need for extraneous facets. Rather than sincerity, noble intentions, a way with words or appearance (not that she does lack them) she entrances others by simply being around them. It is like she were a flame or a spiderweb and others were the moths flying through the night. Deep meaning is granted to otherwise meaningless words, ill intent is ignored, favor is granted even if no acknowledgment of the other party is made and everything is viewed through a favorable bias. An invitation to fall from a devil prince(ess).

Enter the Fist

A powerful mind dwells within a powerful body, the supreme aren’t not bound to excellence in a single field but excellence in all things and the remnants of their samurai traditions. For a multitude of reasons the Kurogami have long mandated a spartan like physical training as part of their upbringing. Training that Yuu has naturally excelled in but unlike her eldest sister Yuu is someone who naturally enjoys the adrenaline and fulfilment of combat. Following her bloodlust and love of thrills she met the spartan training will a hungry determination. It wasn’t enough to simply be fit she wanted more, she wanted to punch and dodge like she was main character in some high powered shounen battle series.

Determination and excitement fueled a journey to gain martial supremacy that she poured her soul into. Although her pride and ego led her to seek mastery with unarmed combat she has become able to easily match weapon touting opponents. Debilitating strikes, destroying grapples and crushing counters that leaves even the toughest opponents broken on the ground have lead to a fearsome reputation as she carved her supremacy into the bodies of countless opponents and dojo’s. From up and coming talents from the various fields of martial arts, to self confident delinquents, to criminal elements.

[RacingeR]

Masayoshi Kotetsu
April 3^rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Streets – Yamagumi Bar

You were finally making your way to the backroom. You saw the men of your organization fall one after the other, as Toucan picked them off one by one, easily taking them out while the rest tried to hit the elusive foreigner.

The girl seemed to be running out of bullets, either way, and she had increased the pacing of her retreat, limping and running at the same time. You took the luxury to look behind you. You saw that Crocodile had gotten hit in the leg, by a thug apparently a bit better with his gun than the rest, not that he had gotten much time to celebrate before Toucan put a bullet straight through his heart.

You saw the foreigner girl turn around just as you looked, point her desert eagle towards the door, and unload the rest of her magazine towards the masked ones. You saw Rhino get hit in the shoulder, falling with a scream, and then the next shot hit directly on Horse’s head, who had been just behind, blowing his brains off.

Then, not bothering to fire anymore, the girl turned around and ran like hell, passing by the both of you without even taking a glance at you as she plunged through the door into the backroom. That was fine by you, but what wasn’t that alright with you was that such an action had finally made one of the murderers discover your existence. You could practically feel Wolf’s killing intent being directed at you, knowing that you were just a few seconds away to have a few extra holes drilled into you by that Kalashnikov…

Katsuo grunted, grabbing onto you and lifting you with one hand, before just throwing you like a missile into the backroom. You landed painfully into the wood-paneled floor, and rose up in time to see Katsuo enter the room with a rather ungraceful floor. Just as the last of the Kamiyama-gumi thugs fell, no less. You stood up, stunned, only to have a bullet pass by your ear. The Masks had started to discharge a storm of gunfire through the wall.

You barely managed to see the foreigner running through the backroom, pushing through the door that led to the alley at the back, before Katsuo pulled you to follow her trail. You barely even got an impression of the cluttered place as you moved as fast as you could, gaining the door just as you heard Toucan shouting back at the bar.

“Fuck! We’re out of time! We gotta go! Someone, grab Shi’s body, we’re going to be late! What the fuck are you guys standing around for? We’ll hunt the bitch later! GO!”

The sound of gunfire ceased just as you reached the backalley, and felt your legs nearly give out below you. They had stopped firing… you could nearly hear their footsteps as they ran from the bar, followed by a short pause, then the sound of a vehicle being started and moving away at full speed.

It had been a quarter of an hour, probably even less. The whole experience had been just a few scant minutes, yet in that time, everyone else in the Yamagumi bar had been brutally killed. Only you three had escaped alive from the bar.

And soon, you’d only be two.

The foreigner had collapsed a few steps in the alley, and you could see the blood slowly pooling around her, the unloaded Desert Eagle at her side. You approached her, guided by an unknown impulse.

You could finally take a good look at the cause of the carnage that had suddenly invaded your world. She was… surprisingly young, thin and tall, nothing like the image you had formed in your head of her. In fact, you simply couldn’t imagine someone like this, no matter how well trained, being able to fire a big caliber gun so easily… and yet, she had done so.

Her longcoat had opened itself when she fell. She was wearing light clothing, and thanks to that you could clearly see the many wounds that covered her body, and the blood that was seeping out of them. The wound at her side almost made you gag: it looked as if she had been knifed repeatedly, as if someone had been trying to gut her like a fish. It was completely impossible for a human being to live after such a thing, or after getting riddled with bullets like she had been. She should’ve died even before setting foot in the bar. And yet, she had made it here, and with more ease than the both of you had.

But… still, she was dying. You could feel the life seeping away from her. She was still conscious, and had noticed you, her clear blue eyes drawn to you. It was like an electric current through your body, the sheer willpower present in her eyes almost causing you to draw back.

“Help… me.” Her consciousness was rapidly vanishing, her eyes growing glassy. It was difficult for her to speak, but through some feat of willpower, she did. “My… pocket…”


Shiratori Kaguya
April 3^rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Streets – Near Yamagumi Bar

You had spent the whole incident lying in the street, trembling in fear, hoping the whole thing would end soon. Thankfully, nobody paid the four of you any attention, the masked gunmen standing guard outside barely even bothering to look at your general direction.

Finally, the sound of gunshots subsided, and you saw from your position the masked men retreating from the now wrecked establishment, carrying four wounded into the big white van they had come from. You noticed, then, with a churn of your stomach, that they had deposited a dead corpse in the sidewalk, that of one of their comrades, the one that had been wearing the horse mask, who seemed to be missing…

You closed your eyes for a moment, before looking away from the corpse and towards the actions of the masked ones. They seemed to be arguing something, but you were too far away to hear them. Then, the Toucan-masked one angrily told them off, before taking out what seemed like a glass bottle, and carefully dripping some sort of liquid over the corpse of his comrade. Corpse that, under the surprised gazes of you four, started to rapidly melt before vanishing in a burst of smoke. Toucan muttered something in a low voice, bowing his head towards the place the body had just been, before getting into the van as well. And soon enough, they drove away.

All of you sat in the street, without a word, too stunned to talk or to even stand up, not comprehending what had just happened, without realizing yet that your world had been shattered and that things would never ever be the same. Everything had been so sudden and bizarre, nobody was able to process it.

“These trash, I can’t believe they’re unable to kill off one girl with fourteen fucking dudes.” Suddenly, you noticed some dangerous-looking people standing at the side. The one who had spoken was a knightly-looking woman in a suit, with a sharp tone and crass words that had destroyed her dignified image before it had even formed. Her green eyes ran across your small group, looking at you like you weren’t even human, before turning her gaze away towards the bar.

“I wouldn’t blame them. They were just taking their chance with a quick strike, they just ran out of time. I guess that Wright girl got some tricks under her sleeve.” The one who answered, shaking his head, was a seemingly emotionless well-built man who gave out a steely and steady feeling. Like the young woman at his side, his eyes didn’t even seem to acknowledge you as an human, or even as a being that existed, staring at you for a moment with the same clinical detachment a rancher stared at his cows. “They really messed up this time, but at least we can confirm they didn’t have a Gigas with them. Otherwise, they’d have already used it.”

“Used it outside of a distortion? Even they are not that stupid.” The woman snorted, annoyed. “Should we go take a look?”

“Pointless.” The man shook his head again. “We’re just here to watch the fireworks. Stick with the mission. We’re running out of time, too. We have to make our way to Tokyo Tower as well.”

“Forget that for a moment!” A sudden loud, brash voice interrupted the conversation between the duo. You saw a tall, overly muscular brown-haired man, brimming with hostility as his eyes fell upon you and Laura. There was something very scary in his gaze, some hate mixed with lasciviousness and aimless aggressiveness just waiting to find an adequate outlet. Laura shuddered, and grabbed you, pulling you towards her.

“You fucking pervert!” The woman spat, in a fury. “Don’t you get that we’re tight on time? Has your brain rotted off or something?”

“But, Sherry, they’re…” the man protested, but got ignored by the woman. Sherry, that was how the man had just called her, took another look at your scared and confused group, still too stunned to say anything towards the whole situation.

“Hm… interesting, their spiritual ratings aren’t bad at all, they could probably Awaken… and a Distortion will be here any moment now.” Sherry’s green eyes narrowed. “Maybe we should just…”

“You are truly a pair of idiots.” A lazy, ladylike voice floated through the air, instantly causing the trio to shut up. A cold feeling started to run through your spine… and the four of you, at the same time, turned your heads to look at the black van these people had just come from.

And you wished you never had. You desperately wished you had been just looking at the violent brown-haired man. Despite it all, it was still much better than this. At least, it was something comprehensible.

An arm lazily flicked out of the van, unfolding a parasol against the evening sky, the setting sun, as if intending to stop even the most minimal ray of light from ever touching its owner. Then, out came a thing shaped like a young girl. Blonde locks of hair, pale skin, piercing blood red eyes, a gothic black dress… this being, who looked like a dressed-up rich young lady took a few strides, holding the parasol over her, her figure cutting against the setting sun… and her shadow.

Just looking at her shadow nearly caused you to lose your mind.

It defied any description, anything you could pull into words. Your brain simply couldn’t comprehend it. It was absolutely bizarre, absolutely alien. Eldritch. It was as if this girl existed in more dimensions than the normal ones, and all that part of her existence was crammed into her shadow, creating something that was completely out of this world. That was the only approximate way you could describe what you were witnessing. It was nightmarish. You heard Rei emit a low scream, and Laura mutter in dismay, her arms around you trembling like mad. Even the three strange persons at the side looked somewhat scared and stiff, as if even they feared this girl.

You barely noted the presence of the thin figure of a hooded, silent woman orbiting around this being.

“We have no time to waste in some mangy dogs of Izanami. We merely were here to watch the little show of fireworks… and now that it is over, we should be all going towards Tokyo Tower.” The girl’s red eyes first looked towards the ruined bar, and then back at the other three. She spoke with a tone that was, at the same time, both cheerful and cold, childish and adult, full of malice and boredom.

“””Understood, Miss.””” The three replied at the same time, and started to make their way back to the van.

“How boring… this was much less interesting than expected. Where is your Gigas, Yuki-chan? Do you truly think you can fool everyone~?” The woman muttered to herself. “What a waste of time…”

She turned around, taking a step towards the vehicle, only to suddenly stop. Her blood-red eyes fell upon you, a very uncomfortable sensation: it was as if she could see through your everything, as if your soul was naked before her. Yet, even had you wished to run away, you would’ve been unable to. A strange, tyrannical power was pushing down on the four of you, rendering you immobile.

“Hm… you. You are truly quite interesting, little puppy of Izanami.” The girl smiled to herself contentedly, like a cat who had found herself an amusing little mouse to play with. “Investigating the strange incidents around Tokyo, right?” She asked, revealing that she had managed to hear your conversation despite the distance.

“Want to come with us, and see them for yourself, Shiratori-san?” She said, smiling at you, not hiding at all the amusement and malice practically dripping from her smile and attitude. And also, a little seed of interest.

You realized, startlingly, that you were the only one of your group who could talk. The rest could only look at you with anxious eyes, unable to move even a muscle.

[Mormarth]

Masayoshi Kotetsu
April 3rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Streets – Yamagumi Bar

Our steady retreat from the room continued, as I simultaneously attempted to shield my abused ears and also keep an eye on the senseless waste of life around me.

We were beginning to draw tantalizingly close to the door when the gaijin, apparently deciding to eschew the fighting part of a 'fighting retreat' turned and booked it out the back door.

Now, this normally would not be too much of an issue, except for the fact her path lead her attacker's eyes directly onto our position.

A depressingly high amount of angry looks fell on my form, typical women, talk a bunch of game and then leave me with the bill.

A phantom harisen lurked in my mind's eye at that grousing, so I cut to the chase and settled for scrambling forward, nails scraping in a verminous motion as I was bodily lifted upwards.

Ah, Katsuo-san finally choosing to make use of his over-developed muscleheaded self at a dramatic time.

I was then tossed unceremoniously into the back room, flopping painfully on the disappointingly unpillowed floor.

Katsuo then followed suit, doing a combination dive/slide/leap into the room, landing rather ungracefully.

A strange detail to note, but I was coming close to hysteria, so I allowed my mind to have its fun.

The blonde foreigner continued forward, and I was unpleasantly informed that the walls in the bar would need some additions upon refurbishment, as a stream of lead tore through the wooden barrier.

We skedaddled on out of there pretty quickly after that.

Thankfully, the 'hunters' as I heard one of them identify themselves, had decided they were out of time, and retreated back from whence they came, presumably a van out front from the sound of it.

I checked my watch, scarcely a quarter-hour had gone by, if that.

I sighed, and then looked a few steps ahead of me, massaging my ears gently, hope I wouldn't get hearing damage from this.

"Katsuo-san, are you alright?" I glanced down in front of me as I did this, noting the supine third member of our surviving triad.

The foreign girl was thin, tall and graceful looking, wearing some sort of silly cosplay get-up, now pretty much soaked through with blood and assorted interior fluids.

I noted the extremely large amount of wounds littering her person like a child'd drawn on her with a red marker. The harshest one, and likely the one that had left the trail was a gouge at her side, jagged and rough, like she'd been stabbed multiple times.

In summation, I was looking at a corpse, but one that had decided to not die, though, clearly not for long by the look of her.

Hm.

I didn't really want to get involved in this any more than I already was.

Ah.

Too late.

Her blue eyes, glazed over with weakness and pain, but still filled with a surprising, or perhaps unsurprising, determination, glared into mine.

...

“Help… me.”

A girl, alone on a hill.

I spat out something unrepeatable, Katsuo-san giving me a look out of the corner of my eye.

“My… pocket…”

Well, I supposed I couldn't just leave now.

I sighed again.

"Fine."

I knelt down next to her, fishing through her pockets, smoothing my face over to be calm and confident.

"Katsuo, mind the streets, would ya? Don't want someone sneaking up on us again, I'm all surprised out for the evening."

I wasn't sure if I should approach this like a doctor or a tailor, given the holes.

[palad1n]

Shiratori Kaguya
April 3^rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Streets – Near Yamagumi Bar

Ah...

She doesn't even know or understand what is going on anymore.

It's too much. For Shiratori Kaguya, who had lived a safe and fairly sheltered life, this is simply too much. Even the smell of blood was enough to make her stomach churns, let alone the sight of a corpse being dumped in the sidewalk; and despite this horrible sight, Kaguya was sure that the inside of the bar is even worse, and as if to shatter her world even further, the Toucan-masked one melted said corpse with drops of a mysterious liquid, before it completely vanished in a burst of smoke.

Even as the men drove away, Kaguya could do nothing but sat in stunned silence, dully noting that Laura, Rinko and Rei were in similar situation as herself, completely speechless and unable to comprehend what just happened.

At least it was over, she thought to herself. At least the four of us are safe.

But fate only laughed at her naive thought.

More people were suddenly there - a sharply-dressed woman and an emotionless well-built man - talking about things that she couldn't understand, things that means nothing to her, until a giant of a man interrupted them while looking at herself and Laura; even with her naivety and her mind still in shock, Kaguya knew that the man is bad news if his scary gaze and Laura pulling her close in a protective gesture was of any indication.

But all of them doesn't compare to what comes next.

A voice silenced all of them, and a figure stepped out of the van - a figure that, from a glance, seems like a cute gothic girl, the only one among them to even look remotely harmless.

Until she saw 'her' shadow-

-And her mind nearly broke in the process.

Her mind immediately took preventive measures as she immediately averts her eyes, replacing that memory with Rei's low scream, Laura's greatly trembling hand, and a silent, hooded figure of a woman orbiting around that being. Anything to erase that memory from her mind.

As such-

“Hm… you. You are truly quite interesting, little puppy of Izanami. Investigating the strange incidents around Tokyo, right? Want to come with us, and see them for yourself, Shiratori-san?”

-She immediately latched on to the being's question.

Truth to be told, it was immediately clear that any sane person would reject that offer, and as one of the most normal and sane humans out there, Kaguya would normally reject the offer without a second thought.

However, today's event had changed everything.

She was scared. She doesn't want any more of this. She just wants to go home and try to forget everything that happened, returning to her safe and normal everyday life...

But Kaguya knows that that is no longer possible.

Whether she liked it or not, she has "changed." The experience of this day will, without a doubt, stays with her for the rest of her life, and she's sure the same applies to the three girls around her. And for a girl like Shiratori Kaguya, who had lived a truly normal and safe life up to this point, if she were to return and act as if nothing had happened...

Then she would definitely break. Haunted by this memory for the rest of her life.

She doesn't want that.

That's why to keep herself together, to stay true as "Shiratori Kaguya," she focused all of her attention to the original purpose of why she had come here: to investigate the strange incidents in Tokyo and stop it so that Minato would be able to wake up.

And the being had offered her to see them for herself.

That's why-

"Yes. Please take me with you."

-She could give such an answer.

Rather than avoiding insanity itself only to be haunted by it, Kaguya had instead chosen to plunge head-first into that insanity. Tackling the madness head-on in order to stay sane herself.

Perhaps that is merely another form of insanity itself.

However...

"B-but that is merely my answer alone." She quickly added, unable to hide the tremble in her body or words. "D-don't take my answer as... as the answer for all of us. Just leave them alone and... and... let them go."

Despite her trembling and stuttering, a clear sign of fear...

Her gaze remains resolute as she said those words.

At the very least, this side of Shiratori Kaguya would not be easily broken.

[RacingeR]

Mizunoue Mizuki
April 3^rd – Evening
Shibuya, Otonokizaka High School – Literature Club room

“Um… well…” Inoue brought her two index fingers together in a shy gesture, clearly very nervous at your questions. “I was kind of desperate, and nee-chan had made some strange comments before, and she likes to keep track of stuff in her diary, so…”

“I-I mean, if your own siblings had fell into a coma all of a sudden, you guys would try to investigate every other option, right?” She asked, her eyes going from you to Touma. You could tell she was being sincere with this, at least.

“Dunno, don’t have siblings.” Was Touma’s gruff answer, as he eyed the girl with some suspiciousness. Evidently, despite her sincerity, his opinion of her had changed a bit. That, or he seemed to be figuring something out.

“So, what was the real reason you sought us out? It was not just to ask about your sister, right?” Touma asked, staring down at the younger girl.

“W-well… you know… I, the school year just started, and I’m new here, and I’m really no good at talking with others and I-I read nee-chan’s diary a-and now I’m very scared of going home by myself…” The volume of her voice sunk as she said the last part.

So, it seemed the main reason she had sought her older sister’s friends was for this. You saw Touma open his mouth to reply something, perhaps a negative, or just to play hard to get like he always did, but then close it upon realizing he had impulsively promised to help her moments before.

[RacingeR]

Amano Kaede
April 3^rd – Evening
Bunkyo, Sakurai Apartments – Room 500

“Hm, yeah, other leads, although I don’t know how much I can trust these, or if there’s anything to them, but…” Ed continued speaking, after you had calmed down and the mood had simmered down slightly. He had become a bit more cautious after your episode, it was clear to him that the air was still tense, but he seemed decided to speak out his mind regardless. “My partner was apparently pursuing various avenues of inquiry, I’m not too clear on which, but I did find some quite interesting things when cleaning her desk after she fell into a coma.”

“The first, and the most interesting one being a list of names. Matsumoto… that’s my partner’s surname, Kurogami, Oogami, Reiken, Shiratori, Aragaki, Tennouji, Shikienki, Ikeda… there were a few more, I took the list to my house and I don’t have it with me right now.” You frowned slightly at the odd sounding surnames.

“They’re mostly part of the great families of Japan. Very rich and powerful, usually not the kind of names a common person would know of. The odd names are probably because most of them were associated with the more spiritual side of Japan. Mizuki once told me she came from a very old lineage of shrine maidens, although I wouldn’t describe her current family as being anything other than normal.” Ed made a pause, rubbing his eyes in a gesture that clearly expressed his tiredness. “You probably recognize the Kurogami surname, though. That girl the nationalist conservative politicians have been pushing for the position of Tokyo’s Governor, Kurogami Yuki, is part of that family.”

Right, that was a name you recognized. It had been mentioned a lot lately whenever people talked about politics, and seemed like a name that was growing in popularity. It was quite odd for the most sexist and gerontocratic part of the political spectrum to be using a young woman as a figurehead, to the point it was perhaps as bizarre as all the strange happenings around the city, but if the girl had such an important background, it would explain things somewhat.

“Apart from the background of some of those families, the main thing in common that I found is that all of them are involved in the Izanami Zaibatsu, one way or the other. Heck, my partner’s older sister even works there. The other families seem to be mostly stockholders or be involved with the upper levels of management, for what I could learn in the few days I’ve been following this trail.”

[Airen]

Elora Griffin
April 3^rd – Evening
Nakano, Amaterasu High School – Student Council room

It was easy to move silently when people were making a ruckus.

While she had been sitting easily up until now, the sight, or rather the sound, of someone slamming open the council door again was an action that brought a thin line to the young council president's face. Of course it was only for a moment, and seeing the culprit, the feeling that she perhaps she should have seen this coming in the end was one that appeared on the surface of her thoughts, however...

It was a failure she could take in grace.

Failing to stop Yuu was like failing to deflect a hurricane, or some other unfortunate natural disaster; of course, the Griffin Code dictated that one actually could deflect something of that sort if you put all of your will into it, but those were the sorts of battles that should be picked and chosen as important, not something that was particularly worth spending the energy on if no one was going to get hurt as a result.

So she doesn't even sigh, she just stands as the struggle between the others continues and walks towards the door.

Inspection of damages.

While people liked to slam these sorts of things, the reality was that it wasn't good for the health of the door in question. Things could break, people forgot that a lot, and when things broke, money disappeared from funds, when money disappeared from funds, meetings about those funds got more and more stressful, paperwork tripled in both quantity and complexity, and ultimately it all just comes crashing down as a rolling snowball of despair and resentment from the student body.

It seems fine though, so she lets out a sigh of relief even as she reaches for the doorknob and...

*click*

Locks the door.

It's a sound that carries quite well, a very decisive, final sound that draws attention simply due to how odd it was, but...

"Alright, that takes care of that."

Clapping her hands once as if to signal the end of things, when the council president turns around, it's with a cheerful smile that nevertheless feels like ice, and declares-

"Looks like we have another volunteer for paperwork, an eager one too, so I hope you're truly ready for the task Kurogami!"

-That escape is no longer possible unless diving out of windows was your preferred method of travel.

"Also, I cannot overlook the method of your entrance. Excited as you may be, please treat the school doors and locks with more respect; I have been tolerant up until now, but I'm afraid the next person who goes around slamming things open and closed will have to be punished accordingly. Please consider this a general warning to everyone."

Saying it all with a smile that makes it hard to tell if she's just joking around, and a cheer that is somehow both warm and cold, that young woman...

"Now, let's all sit down and get started with this, hmm?"

Shows a different sort of 'boss' persona than her vice...

[RacingeR]

Taka Nishi
April 3^rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Toriyama Bar – Back Room

You noticed Hiragami’s eyes widening when he saw the card and heard your words, and you knew the braindead idiot had easily taken the bait. You wondered if he was truly this stupid, or he was just that addicted to gambling. Perhaps it was a mix of both. One had to wonder how someone like this guy made it to this tier of politics, but maybe it was just the power of a decently affluent family. A family that would probably be bankrupt in a month tops should this guy be left to bumble around unchecked.

Not your problem, either way, but you couldn’t help but feel that there was something iffy about the whole thing. But you were already too far in this dance to back down empty-handed.

Hiragami adopted an expression that he considered adequately cunning and suspicious, playing hard to get, trying to appear a more rugged man that he was, accustomed to shady deals in the backrooms of gambling dens. He failed spectacularly.

“Name your price.” He said. You could smell the alcohol in his breath from here. “This… game you speak of may be relevant to my interests.”

[Katie]

Mizunoue Mizuki
April 3^rd – Evening
Shibuya, Otonokizaka High School – Literature Club room

“I-I mean, if your own siblings had fell into a coma all of a sudden, you guys would try to investigate every other option, right?”

Her breath hitched. Her lips twitched. Just as quickly, she had defaulted back to her cold, neutral expression, but the damage was done. She had hesitated, if only but for just a moment. After all, the answer to that question…

It was one where her distinct, unshakeable conviction faltered.

“Mmm.” A meaningless noise, neither confirming or denying the question. Still, the sound left a bad taste in her mouth, but thankfully, Sakurauchi had asked for another question, one that would allow her to turn her thoughts elsewhere.

The question, however, only makes her sigh. Sakurauchi-san was a well-adjusted, outgoing girl. For her sister to be an utter wallflower seemed… rather bizarre. She supposed sisters could quite well be opposites—the thoughts of her own fresh and biting—but her childhood was not a proper frame of reference. Most importantly…

“My apologies, but you do know that Tendou-kun and I live in the opposite direction from your sister’s house? Asking us to do that would be rather inconvenient.” This wasn’t flat out rejection, but it was to see how selfish the first-year was. Perhaps the reason Tendou-kun had hesitated was this very fact. Not only that, but while Sakurauchi-san was a very agreeable and accommodating person, Mizuki thought she would not have wanted her sister to be unable to fend for herself.

“If you live your life in fear, you’ll be too afraid to do what matters,” she added, making her reasoning more transparent. She was not merely being cruel. Cruelness was a kindness of its own.

[RacingeR]

Masayoshi Kotetsu
April 3^rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Streets – Yamagumi Bar

“I’m alright. Fuck…” Katsuo let himself fall on his butt as he replied your question, and then started to recite his whole list of curses and expletives. You decided to briefly ignore him as you centered your attention on the girl, and ended up heeding her request.

“Kotetsu, you really shouldn’t…” Katsuo started, and then paused, shaking his head. “Ah, whatever, you do you, but we oughta make like a tree and get away soon.” He moved to the corner of the alley to keep an eye on the other access, since you doubted anyone would be coming through the bar anymore.

Searching through the girl’s pockets gave you as a result a bunch of magazines for her gun, and what looked like a normal off-brand white wristwatch. The girl seemed to focus all the life she had left on her body on talking, taking one step closer to death with each breath. “Press… the watch…”

Somewhat confused by her words, you pressed your thumb against the watch and…

You felt it again. That feeling of unreality, as if you had jumped straight into the world of a movie, or a book, or just… something that was not real. Like some sort of disconnect in reality.

You pressed on the watch once, and then, from that watch, as if being pushed out of some pocket of space, came out a syringe filled with a strange blue liquid. You barely managed to grab it before it fell against the ground. You noticed that Katsuo had looked back at you just in time to witness the little magic trick, and his jaw had almost hit the ground. Evidently, you weren’t as surprised out as you had imagined.

However, you had little time to be surprised.

“My… wrist… vein.” the woman’s eyes were glazing over completely; her consciousness was almost cut.


Shiratori Kaguya
April 3^rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Streets – Near Yamagumi Bar

“Excellent.” The strange girl nodded to herself, giggling, greatly pleased by your answer. Your later addendum does nothing but amuse her even more. “Seems like you have quite a strong Self, Kaguya-chan! The others are free to do whatever they want.”

The girl’s free hand is suddenly extended towards you. Your body trembles when you notice her approach you, initiating physical contact when she grasped your arm. Yet, the contact does not feel strange or weird in any way whatsoever. In fact, the hand grabbing you feels exactly like a normal human hard. It is a warm feeling, as if the pressure that had been weighing down upon you before was now enveloping you like a shield. In fact, you briefly have the impression of a golden aura being emitted from the girl’s body, but the illusion soon disappears.

“Ah! Kaguya…!” Laura finally reacts when the strange girl easily rips you off from her arms, taking you with her towards the van, followed by the hooded figure which seemed to be keeping an eye on her surroundings.

Laura’s mind was a completely burnt out mess. First, the incident, the shootout, witnessing a human’s dead corpse for the very first time, and then seeing it melt apart into a burst of smoke. And then, these strange people and their cryptic dialogue, the brown-haired thug, and then the thing in the shape of a girl, her mind nearly breaking upon seeing that horrible shadow. And now, that monster had snatched her best friend straight from her arms. The best friend she was supposed to be there to protect, to keep anything from hurting her, and yet she had been unable to protect her at all during the course of this strange evening, overwhelmed as she was by the event and the sheer violence at play.

“No!” She screamed suddenly, latching on your other arm. She does not try to pull you away, she understands that the monster will not let you go and that she is far stronger than both of you combined. She meekly lets herself get dragged alongside you. She has the feeling that if she lets go of you, that if she lets you go into this alone, she will truly break and her mind will descend into oblivion and madness.

Laura’s sudden action seemed wake Rinko up. Unlike the both of you, who seemed to have somehow kept part of your wits about, the delinquent’s eyes had completely glazed over, while her friend had been rendered into an absolute sobbing mess, eyes still wide open.

“What the fuck are you two doing? Are you fucking retarded?!” Perhaps the sheer display of recklessness had managed to make her disregard everything that had happened. Upon seeing you two willingly follow the eldritch monster, she can’t help but to react and grasp on Laura’s legs… and as a result, she gets dragged alongside her.

“Wait! Don’t… don’t leave me alone! I’m scared!” The crying Rei also ends up grasping onto her friend, not that it does anything to stop the inexorable force that drags the chain of four people towards the van. Too late the delinquents notice the cruel smile playing on the being’s lips, and too late do they discover that they’ve already made their choice, that now they’re on this with you…

“Miss! But they’re from Izanami’s families!” The brown-haired man sees their Miss carrying the four of you with her, he’s quick to raise an objection.

“Oh, shut it, you’re annoying. Look, I’ll go get you a schoolgirl to have fun with later, okay? Now shut up.” The girl rolled her eyes, ignoring her subordinate as she approached the bulky black van.

“Miss, I didn’t mean that! I mean, they-“ The brown-haired man shook his head, denying her accusation, trying to defend himself, but…

“Enough.” Calmly dropping that word, the girl’s body twisted elegantly, landing a powerful kick on the man’s torso, that sent the muscular body careening straight inside the van with a resonant exclamation of pain. Her parasol didn’t even tremble as she executed the movement, before she also led the four of you inside and shut the door behind her, folding the parasol at the same time.

“Taiki,” She said, addressing the dark-haired man on the driver’s seat. “Drive us to Tokyo Tower. I’ll be in the back taking care of the newbies. You’re in charge meanwhile.”

With that, she pointed towards a door that separated the back compartment from the rest of the vehicle, and the door suddenly swung open.

“What are you waiting for? Get inside. Now.”

With little to no option left, the four of you practically crawled into the back of the van, prepared to have to squeeze together to fit inside… only to find that the insides of the van were definitely much bigger than the outside. In fact, the back of the van consisted into a luxuriously furbished room, covered in a red carpet, with tasteful and luxurious furniture spread around the place. In fact, the room wouldn’t have looked out of place in a western-style mansion, except for the metal walls. There were no windows here, the light being provided by some electrical lamps hanging up in the ceiling, but you noticed a series of monitors in one wall that would probably let whoever sat in here look at the outside.

“Right, let’s get started.” As all of you fell on the carpeted floor, the girl entered behind you, followed by the hooded woman, who closed the door behind her. “Six-chan, if you would do me the favor…”

The hooded woman nodded, and extended a hand, gesturing towards the four of you. Then, a strange force suddenly ripped off the phones from your pockets, making them travel towards the hooded woman, stopping in front of her, floating in mid-air. Both you, Laura and Rinko tried in vain to catch them, while Rei didn’t react, busy as she was crying up a storm.

“Stop crying.” The strange girl suddenly ordered in a harsh and malicious tone as she suddenly extended a finger that pierced through Rei’s phone as if it was made of wet paper. The supernatural feat of strength was enough to cause Rei to let out a frightened sound and suspend her weeping fit almost immediately, so scared she was that she didn’t dare to move a centimeter.

“Good, that’s how I like it.” The girl calmly took a seat at a couch chair near the door, while the hooded woman pocketed your phones away. “The moment you entered here, you entered my world. Here, my word is law. If you want to keep your lives, you will obey me. Do I make myself understood, little puppies?”

[Ayakashi]

------ Mizuhara Mitsuki April 3rd – Evening Nakano Streets Spiritual Rank: 1 Self: 100

Letting go of Kaori? Of course not, who would do such a thing? In situations like this... I'd do the very opposite, I'd just hug her hard and not let anyone take her away... not even you, strange lady!

But... even though I felt like my feet were glued to the floor, maybe I wasn't really scared of her. It's like I wanted to know, a strange, annoying curiosity that kept tugging at me, telling me to talk to this person, telling me to ask her questions... yet I couldn't, because I feared -- I feared for Kaori. This woman's words echoed with me even more when she told me to never let go of my good friend!

Now... Miss Lin Yu was it? I would be lying to say if I still wasn't curious... but... wait...

the sky... what the hell?

"Kaori, am I seeing things once again or is... uh... there something strange up above?"

Why are so many strange things happening? Am I actually dreaming? Is my sickness getting worst? I'll be waking up soon, right? Maybe this is just a really bad nightmare while I fell asleep in class... yeah... Kaori will be waking me up anytime now and scolding me... ehehehe~

[RacingeR]

Mizuhara Mitsuki
April 3^rd – Evening
Nakano, Streets

“Something strange in the sky?” Your friend lifts her head, looking up towards the sky, confirming your suspicions of you being the only one capable of seeing the strange phenomena.

No, worse than that, you weren’t only seeing the strange phenomena, you were seeing it expand. The large crack in the sky was growing, slowly but surely, growing in length, and multiplying into more branches, as if reality itself was nothing but a pane of glass cracking under great pressure.

“Mitsuki! Get a grip!” Somehow feeling your strange mental state at the moment, and how weirded out you were by everything that was happening, your friend quickly hugged you again, this time in an attempt to calm you down and soothe you, not caring about any stares that may be directed your way. “Please, tell me, what are you seeing?”

You notice concern in the face of your always serious friend, as well as fear. Perhaps seeing Kaori being so expressive is one of the strangest things in this very bizarre evening. It is clear that while your friend would like to dismiss this as some sort of hallucination being caused by your visual condition, the scene with the strange lady, Lin Yu, had completely upturned any presumptions about reality that she may have had before.

[Mormarth]

Masayoshi Kotetsu
April 3rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Streets – Yamagumi Bar

Katsuo-san, as expected, took the developments well, reacting with the recommended amount of foul language and a minimum of throwing things around and being linked to unnecessary amounts of property damage that were assuredly the result of freak gorilla escapes from the local zoo.

He was, of course, a model citizen.

In keeping with such, he followed my request without too much complaint, as I fulled turned my attention to the first ever opening of the Kotetsu Clinic for the Banality Disadvantaged in at least a few days.

I fished through the pockets that carried a number of magazines for that metallic penis politely addressed as a handgun, and as she said, a smallish white wristwatch, not even name-brand.

"Press... the watch..."

I poked and prodded at the watch obligingly, and blandly noted the syringe, complete with injection, appearing from thin air and falling into my palm.

Hm.

Well, it was just that sort of night, wasn't it?

What next, was I supposed to fish out her compact so she could call up the Senshi?

Or was some overly cute mascot character going to pop out and erase our memories and reduce us once more to background characters, unsuited to this show that would be filled with porn bait for pathetic lifeless otakus who pined after mirages.

But I am getting off track, I should be more sympathetic to those who were not as fortunate as I to find the most amazing perfect woman in all the world.

Sucks to be them.

Haha.

Ahem.

As I segued into complaining about the state of affairs in my homeland, I took note of the bizarre, out-of-place feeling I was feeling earlier, within the bar, moments before the attack.

I glanced over at Katsuo's side of the alley, noting his own, bamboozled reaction to the fucking magic bullshit in my hand.

Well, I wasn't being shot at yet, so I may as well keep going.

“My… wrist… vein.”

I wasted no time, and brush away bits of debris from her arm as I tapped against it in rythmn, feeling for that weak, fading pulse.

I found something that seemed close enough, so I narrowed down the area as best I could, lowered the syringe, and pressed down on the injector.

[palad1n]

Shiratori Kaguya
April 3^rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Streets – Near Yamagumi Bar

The moment Laura shouted and grabbed into her other arm, Kaguya's eyes widened, surprise clearly written on her face...

Before it turned into a smile.

Even as Rinko and Rei got dragged along following Laura's action, Kaguya couldn't help but to smile, even as tears started to form on her eyes. She knew part of it was because of guilt, horrified that all of them had chosen to come despite the obvious insanity in doing so, but the other part of her, the all-to-human Shiratori Kaguya, was glad that she doesn't have to do this alone.

They might be powerless, true, but...

Just by being accompanied by people that she knew bring forth courage in Kaguya's heart.

"Thank you, Laura-chan." She softly murmured. "Thank you, Rinko-san, Rei-chan. For coming with me."

A heartfelt gratitude.

In this situation, that is the only thing that she could say before all four of them entered the van at the being's behest.

To her surprise, the inside was far more spacious than what the outer appearance might suggest, not to mention being positively luxurious even by her standards. There's nothing that she - or any one of them for that matter - could do aside from falling to the floor and watched as the being ordered the hooded woman - Six seemed to be her name - ripped their phones out of their pocket with some sort of a strange force.

After all that happened today, Kaguya wanted to say that nothing would surprise her at this point.

But as if to prove her wrong, that blatant display of the supernatural just now - along with the being's casual gesture of piercing through Rei's phone as if it's made of wet tissue paper - immediately broke that notion.

“The moment you entered here, you entered my world. Here, my word is law. If you want to keep your lives, you will obey me. Do I make myself understood, little puppies?”

At the being's words, Kaguya could only nod silently.

There are so many questions she wanted to ask, like why they are called 'from Izanami families' or why the being called them 'puppies of Izanami,' about this strange incidents in Tokyo and why they knew about it , or about those masked men and why they suddenly starts shooting people...

She also wanted to comfort the now-quiet Rei, to cry herself to Laura's arms and to go home safe and sound...

But Kaguya restrained herself.

They are at the mercy of this being, and one wrong move could mean their death.

So she kept quiet, biting her lip while making sure to avoid gazing into the being's shadow.

[Tobias]

Taka Nishi
April 3^rd – Evening
Shinjuku, Toriyama Bar – Back Room

It was a testament to Taka's self control that he allowed himself no outward show of success, not even so much as a carefully concealed grin through a sip of whiskey.

Hooked him. now to real him in...

"Lets see, how about five and a half million yen?" Nishi stated, grimacing ruefully. "Or a ticket to the north pole, you got either of those handy?"

At the incredulous look, Taka began to elaborate on the carefully crafted story he had spent most of the poker game developing.

"Here is my problem. I had been having a poor run of luck about a year ago. So, I went to a few folks I probably shouldn't have to borrow some seed money with. Just enough to gamble and get turned around. Worked out fine really, I was making my monthly payments, was keeping my head above water...I mean, sure, things got dicey every once in a while but I was making things work. Things didn't even change much when some hotshot lieutenant for one of the local family's came in and started buying everyone's debts either. Instead of paying 10 guys once a month I was paying one guy. NBD."

"But then the...whaddya call them...lost? They fucked us all proper." Taka turned away behind a long drag of his cigar as if recalling a bitter memory.

"This fucker who probably dropped a billion yen buying up half the city had one client in particular. Don't know all the details but he was some big business tycoon, Riki, I think his name was. The contract was worth more then I could win in a thousand years. And now the piggy bank is closed, because that house hole Riki had to go and slip into a coma. Its all under the table, so its not like the yakuza can go and sue the company or anything. So instead, in order to make up the difference, he is riding the rest of us. Instead of an easy monthly payment, I am paying twice as much, every week. Me and every other poor bastard caught in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Taka shook his head warily, then as if overcome by misery, thwacked his forehead onto the bar. "Everything went to hell when Riki went under. If he woke up, my debtor would probably calm down, I could lay my hands on some extra cash and get myself clear with a few good games."

Taka was particularly proud of that little embellishment. Of course, a miserable debtor who was hoping to go deeper into debt to gamble himself clear was a foolish man who would soon drown in sorrow and bills, but such a man Hiragami. Taka's plan matched his own desperate strategy. This would make them a kind of kindred spirits. Even more, as Hiragami had "beaten" Taka, he would very likely have feelings towards him much the same as an arrogant older brother.

"If I only had some kind of name, something to look into, that I could take to..." Taka swallowed, as if overcome by nervousness "...Him...I could get his boot off my neck. Mine and every other sorry bastard about to get his dick cut off. If there was a reason to think this Riki asshole could get up, or be brought back, I could trade it for some extra time. Maybe even renegotiate back up to once a month."

This part of the scam was something in the nature of a double down. Of course, the story went well enough on its own, but if Taka was lucky ...and he usually was, someone Hiragami had borrowed money from recently had announced a rate hike. That was why Taka was assiduously avoiding giving a name to the mysterious finger breaker. Hiragami would see a way to influence his own difficult situation without having to get his hands dirty, as Taka would have presented himself on a silver platter as a cat's paw.

From beginning to end, the scam worked like this.

Break the ice with a win, get him feeling superior to Taka, as the easiest person in the world to con was someone who thought he was smarter then you.
Booze.
Bait the hook with the invitation.
Shake his nerves by first placing a price that was untenable, in this case, five and a half million.
Sob story to build rapport, and finally...

"I appreciate the offer, really" Taka said, lifting his head off the table. "But that car was my last shot to get enough to square things away. Since I cant afford the entry fee, the only thing I can do his take it and trade it straight to the yakuza. See if they will give me a month or to leeway while they send someone to go clean house."

Reel him in.

Taka slowly reached out again towards the invitation, as if intending to take it back.

Wise Up!

Poker face: The second skill of The Gambler. This might be called the talent of deception. Someone with a skilled poker face can present themselves as if they are in an unbeatable position or alternatively, lure an opponent into a trap through overconfidence. An exceptional talent for misdirection and manipulation.

[Ayakashi]

------ Mizuhara Mitsuki April 3rd – Evening Nakano Streets Spiritual Rank: 1 Self: 100

“Please, tell me, what are you seeing?”

O-oh... Kaori surely is lively today... ahahahah... wow, maybe that so many things happening aren't bad after all!

But... then this thing in the skies is really, uh, looking bad I guess. Does the sky usually break into thousand of pieces?

"The sky is... breaking? I don't know how to describe it, but it's as if the heavens are being sundered... maybe something's coming out? Like a chick out of its egg?"

That's the only thing which kind of makes sense to me. Still, why am I still not waking up? Maybe I should set up the alarm clock to ring earlier, I've been struggling lately and have even turned it off by myself and went off to sleep again... ehehehe...

But then, if I did properly wake up, I wouldn't get Kaori waking me up! Though she's grumpy and always looks at me meanly when I oversleep, at least I get to have her wake me up... hehehehe...

Uhhh... well, anytime now I guess. But let's keep going and pretend that this is part of my normal life!

Maybe if it keeps going I could even phone that strange person from earlier. Yin Lu or something?

[Erlkonig]

Amano Kaede
April 3^rd – Evening
Bunkyo, Sakurai Apartments – Room 500

"The Zaibatsu, huh..." Kaede's face fell into a frown. Well, that's not very good news. "What does that mean, then? Are you telling me that your hands are tied?" She clicked her tongue. "There's no way you can get to investigate a freaking Zaibatsu, they might as well be unimpeachable. They're too good at the bourgeoise thing not to be."

At that, Edmund rolled his eyes. Not the first time that Kaede chose to add in some political commentary to her complaining.

"But... The way you're making this sound like..." She suddenly shifted in her seat, her fingers fidgeting with the armrests of her seat. "It does sound kind of something like that? Connections to all the big families in Japan, some spiritualist thing... Isn't that sort of like one of those conspiracy theories about an Illuminati sect?"

Edmund laughed at that, and reminded Kaede that the fact that his partner had a list of names did not mean that all of them were necessarily related, only potentially so. At that, Kaede sighed.

"But even if they're not all involved, they're all still related by having stocks or ties to the Izanami Corporation, right? There's no way you're getting cleared to do any kind of meaningful investigation regarding that..."

And so, Kaede got to the crux of the matter. She quickly understood why, from what Edmund had said, the man was so frustrated and unable to get even a wink sleep. He must have been scratching his head to find some way to pursue this lead, but the fact that it was such a big fish almost untouchable in a political and economical spectrum made him hesitate.

Kaede, however, had no such compulsions.

Whoever was responsible for this, they had taken her little brother.

Political immunity didn't mean shit, when the girl was willing to kill for the sake of her only family.

"...So," Kaede replied, voice quickly cooling down. "What are we going to do?"

[RacingeR]

Elora Griffin & Yuu Kurogami
April 3^rd – Evening
Nakano, Amaterasu High School – Student Council room

“Hmph!” In answer to Yuu’s declaration, Sakura crossed her arms, before sticking her deadly weapons forwards, a very proud expression in her face. After all, she was the owner of the biggest chest in the whole school. “Look, Kurogami Yuu, and despair! You will never have ones like mine!”

The final boss had entered her second form! Osamu was quick to plug his ears, as to avoid receiving too much stimuli from what was about to come. After all, he was a high school boy who had spent as many years as he had without a girlfriend, and was thusly in a delicate phase. Ryou, however, seemed quite interested in the conversation.

“Haah, you sure got it good, Sakura-san. I thought Japanese girls were supposed to be flatter!” Erika sighed with envy. “I wish I had gotten the foreigner genes for the big breasts, instead of just the blonde one!”

“You are one to talk…” Kiyoko sighed, depressed. “I too have only managed to inherit the hair color, but not the assets of my ancestors…”

“And yet Akane-chan looks like she’s about to take the throne for the second best in the Student Council…” Erika pointed out sharply. Kyoko let out a shocked sound as her mind took damage and her Self nearly hit zero, while Akane let out an ‘eep’ and blushed, covering her chest.

“Erika-senpai, please don’t say such things in front of a boy! Aren’t you supposed to be the Discipline Committee’s head?” Akane replied, blushing fiercely while glancing at her friend.

“Now that I think about it, our juniors are quite stacked, aren’t they?” Nanami intervened into the conversation, suddenly groping a very startled Ayako. “Oh my! You’re not bad either, Ayako!”

“Awawawa!” The brunette reacted with a blush and a struggle, trying to escape her clubmate’s predatory claws with no avail.

“I swear, you’re the envy of the swimming club’s locker room, although then again, the girls there are quite slim… keep working hard, Ayako, one day you may even surpass nee-san~”

Osamu closed his eyes and started reciting a Buddhist chant while Ryou noticed he was perilously close to having a nosebleed and immediately started counting numbers to himself. Even quite a lot of the girls in the room coughed awkwardly.

“Uwaaa! Save me, Rika-senpaaai!” Finally, Ayako managed to escape from Nanami, and quickly ran around the table, hiding behind Elora’s cousin, who patted her junior’s head.

“Come on, Nanami, don’t bully your juniors.” Rika was quick to speak, crossing her arms as she stood in front of Ayako (who quickly stuck her tongue at Nanami’s direction). However, that gesture proved to be a mistake.

“Now that I think about it, you and Elora ain’t bad in that department either. Maybe I should measure you girls as well…” Nanami’s expression revealed certain wickedness while Rika’s eyebrows raised.

“What, you wanna test yourself against me again, Nanami?” Rika smirked. “What will it be this time? Arm-wrestling, or another race?”

“Guh! No, not another race, this time it will be arm-wrestling! The loser will-“

And then there was the sound of the room being locked, like a bell sounding in the ring, indicating the end of a round…

“Ugh! Yuu! You defeated the final boss, but you failed to defeat the man behind the man!” Ryou shouted, pointing straight at Elora. “The true final boss! Elora Griffin!”

“Wait… does this mean that I have to work too?!” Aragaki Kaede, loyal maid of Kurogami Yuu, immediately noticed a problem. Namely, that she had made a mistake when entering this room in the first place…!

“Am I… the one with the flatter chest in this room?” And Kiyoko still hadn’t recovered from her shock. She kept on taking mental damage.

And thus, despair invaded the Student Council room…

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Amaterasu High School was an ancient institution that had existed since quite a while ago. Originally, it was a girls-only school that was destined to educate future shrine maidens and their descendants. You heard that the school’s naming had been derived from there later on. Afterwards, it had made the transition towards a prestigious girls-only high school, and then, as modernization marched on, it had become co-ed around five years ago. It still had a much more numerous population of girls in comparison to boys.

It was not a very strict school, despite what its prestige would make one think. The rules were somewhat lax, and pretty much everything that had to do with clubs and quite a lot of functions one would associate with the staff’s duty was left to the Student Council, although they still had to make detailed reports to the staff. This led to the Student Council being inordinately powerful, but also led to a lot of busywork and quite a lot of paperwork.

At the start of the year, however, most of the paperwork was about the club budget for the year, and the sheer flood of requests you would get was simply overwhelming. Especially since you’d end up rejecting most of them anyway, and Amaterasu High had quite a lot of clubs, and you’d need to deal with other requests and regulations and-

It had been very early in the evening when you had started, and when you finished with the stack of paperwork, despite no less than twelve people helping with it, the sun was already setting.

“Ah, before we finish, we should look at the student request box.” Kiyoko pointed out as the exhausted participants finally dropped their pens and cursed the boardgames club for submitting ten differed budget requests, all of which would need to be rejected. Osamu had nearly burst a vein.

“Ah, right, let me get on that.” Ryou extracted from somewhere a bunch of papers, forms filled with requests to the council, which currently was grimacing as a whole. At least there weren’t many here.

“Hm, let’s see, requests for club creations… we’ll leave that for tomorrow.” Ryou started sorting out the papers, pushing a sizeable stack aside. You doubted any of those clubs would pass inspection, but it was still necessary to do so. Was going to be a lot of extra work, for sure. “Oh, and complaints about the newspaper club, again. They sure didn’t take long to get into trouble. We’ll have to deal with that at some point, Erika-san.”

“Yeah… we’re going to have to have a talk with them later this week, they’re really getting out of hand.” The blonde sighed, rubbing her eyes. “Right, Elora, if you could give me a hand with them I’d appreciate it, these guys are a pain to deal with.”

“Those are complaints about the state of desks and some classrooms, stuff like that.” Osamu also started working on the pile of papers.

“Ah, we’ll forward those to staff.” Sakura nodded, emptying her drink. “Although it wouldn’t surprise it if they put us in charge of repairs next… just how lazy can they get…”

“Oh, here’s a big one.” Erika took a random paper from the stack and started reading it. “The swimming team has filed a request and complaint about a possible peeping tom, denouncing that there were strange movements around the club, and that some girls felt observed while changing.”

That caught the attention of the rest of the room.

“Hm, that’s weird, I don’t remember hearing any of this from either of you, Nanami, Yamaguchi.” Sakura frowned, looking at her best friend.

Nanami scratched hear head, nervously. “First time hearing about it here. But it doesn’t quite surprise me.” She showed a wry smile. “I mean, quite a lot of girls that come to this school come from girls-only middle schools, so they’re not very accustomed to contact with boys and can be very paranoid. Some of them are quite spoilt as well, you know? What with the female swimming team winning a lot of awards and contests and so on. So I bet it could be nothing.”

“Maybe it’s just a ploy to get the Student Council in swimsuits again.” Ryou commented, making most of the girls present smile wryly. It was well known that the swimming team, the student council, and the (practically girls-only as well) Shiratori clique were pretty much a gathering of the school’s beauties. It had let to quite a lot of jokes. You remembered a publication of the school’s newspaper last year about how the Student Council was your harem that had given you quite a lot of headaches and had started a lot of wild rumors.

“However…” Nanami’s expression turned serious. “There’s been a lot of weird things happening lately, so the girls are on edge. Some have mentioned feeling like they were being followed, and we have had garments disappear… I mean, we are forty-plus people in there, so it’s not that weird that things get lost. But well, there’s that.” She shrugged.

“So the possibility of there being a pervert involved is not that farfetched.” Rika was, predictably, the first to react, cracking her knuckles. “We should go take a look next time the swimming team meets, Elora.”

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t get involved, but we have to notify the teachers first, you know?” Sakura raised an eyebrow at Rika. “Either way, that’s not the main issue. With all the strange things going on, the students are starting to be really on edge. Especially with the classmates that aren’t coming back due to… various reasons.” You were sure she was about to mention the Lost there, but had caught herself in time. “Especially with all the disappearances going on out there. We should make a statement towards the students both to calm them down and to make them aware of their own security.”

“Especially the security issue.” Kiyoko chimed in. “For what I’ve heard, most of the disappearances lately are of schoolgirls. Even some students that go here have disappeared.”

Both you and Rika exchanged a glance, as did Yuu and Kaede. You knew about the students from Amaterasu High disappearing, but it was the first time you had heard about the majority of the disappearances being schoolgirls.