For the sake of meeting up with Himuro’s typically cold shoulder, we made our way to the entertainment district.
The entertainment district was a shady street located behind the kabuki theatre, marked by the dazzling glare of neon signs.
Based on the information we had gathered, we had decided that this was the location with the highest probability for us to find and catch Himuro.
(If we contacted her in advance she would just run away. That’s why I’ll come straight for her instead!)
The structures on the city’s upper level blocked the sunlight here and, though it was still the middle of the morning, the surrounding area was covered in gloom, making it feel as if the area was approaching twilight.
That feeling was one made with intent, probably because it was the most favorable mood for a place built for amusement. A space style could suck in exhausted adults with the allure of comfort both day and night.
Even I, who has had the opportunity to sneak into all sorts of off-limits places to carry out my work, hesitated to enter such a place with confidence.
For one thing, this time around I had Karin and Voyager with me. And while he may be a Servant, Voyager still had the appearance of a little boy.
The barkers who pulled people in from around the street of the entertainment district wouldn’t like it if kids like us were wandering into their work space.
This, of course, was for the obvious reasons such as “It’s bad for your education” and “We can’t guarantee your safety” but… Well, that was the
official stance but, above all, anything that could remind the average person that they were being neglectful toward their family was an unwanted interruption in an adult’s playground.
Right as we were disembarking from the tram, the smell of tobacco hit my nose. Then, a powdery aroma, one that was a little sweet, the scent of white facial powder.
Next was the languid song of a chanson singer. The somewhat lonely sound of a guitar being strum. The voices of drunkards as they called out in toast, the angry voices of a fight breaking out. The sound of mahjong tiles clacking against the board.
We stuck out like a sore thumb here, and would do so regardless of whether we were wearing retro clothing or not.
In fact, we were even stopped by adults several times, who proceeded to roughly try and shoo us away from here.
But I had been born and raised in Shinjuku, so I knew how to deal with it.
If you were up against a barker, you just had to drop the name of the area’s yakuza boss to put them in their place. If your opponent was a meddling passerby, you would tell a lie that could get you enough sympathy to sidestep the encounter.
Though that kind of B.S. wouldn’t work on people who make a professional living through offering guidance to the youth. When running into one of those, all you could do was run away.
When I was being given support from the City Management AI, Caren, I could get a free pass by stating that I was a member of the Nightwatch, acting to preserve the public order of Akihabara, but I could no longer hope to have such freedoms.
….In the past I couldn’t help but wonder why such a filthy and disorderly place as this was necessary in this reconstructed Shinjuku.
However, now that I had stained my hands with the duty of killing Wayward Servants, had experienced firsthand the burning tenacity of their Masters’ desires, I finally understood how important a place like this was to adults.
I had begun to have a hazy understanding of why Chitose allowed these immoral and hollow relics of the Showa and Taishō eras to be revived via the Holy Grail in this Post-War New World.
–The only thing that could alleviate the sorrow of the people was beauty.
It took us some detours, but our group eventually ended up face to face with its destination.
Our objective was known as “Reijinza Kaikan”, or “The Belle’s Gathering Hall”-- In the Showa style of speaking, a café. In modern style… a hostess bar.
“A café?”
“A cowfee?”
Upon hearing the name of the location, Karin and Voyager tilted their heads in sync.
“If it’s a café, does that mean it’s a coffee shop? So what, they serve drinks here or somethin’?”
“This isn’t just a coffee shop, it’s a…
café, as in a… Well, you’ll understand when we go inside. Wait, bringing Voyager in probably isn’t a good idea… Maybe we can have him come in Spirit Form?”
“Spirit Form…” A look of bewilderment appeared in the boy’s blue eyes. “Enter Spirit Form… Right… How do I do that? I… don’t know how to do it.”
“...Eh? You can’t do it? What!? Wait, you’re just telling a little lie, right!?”
It was certainly true that he had not once yet attempted to dematerialize his body and enter Spirit Form.
In Mosaic City there were Servants who were extremely reluctant to enter Spirit Form, but in the end they would always obey their Master’s will.
I had assumed that Voyager was a part of this group as well, and that such a thing was just in the nature of certain Servants. My thinking was that, with our contract bound by my Command Seals and our pact laid out by the Holy Grail, the situation would simply resolve itself.
To begin with, a Servant comes in the form of a Heroic Spirit– a being summoned through a ritual in which the summoner communes with the dead, the ghost of a person who properly lived out their life in a different axis of time from the one they are summoned into.
From a magical perspective, their Spirit Forms would be more like a flat, natural state of being.
Then there’s the situation in Mosaic City, where the overwhelming Magical Energy supplied by the Holy Grail allows for the manifestation and materialization of an unprecedented number of Heroic Spirits.
Like some kind of idiot, I had been so lost in the joy of Summoning my very own Servant that I had forgotten to check that he could perform such basic abilities.
In my more detective-esque activities, overlooking such a weak point would have been a fatal error.
“...Aw damn it.”
As I began to turn pale, Karin stepped in and offered a solution with a happy-go-lucky demeanor.
“What’s even the problem here? You can’t go into your Spirit Form, right Voyager? If that’s all, why not just watch how Momi does it? I’m sure she could even teach you how to do it too!”
“I… see… Miss Kōyō… could teach me…?”
That’s a good idea!
…Is what I thought for just a moment, before quickly finding my mood turning back to disappointment.
How would she even teach him how to do it?
Kōyō is a Berserker, so she can’t speak a single word.
There was no way the Mystic Code app I had installed to translate her nonverbal communications would be able to express how to go about entering Spirit Form with the same level of concrete detail as an individual with actual experience in the act explaining it would have.
And then we find the one person who can telepathically communicate with Kijyo Kōyō in Karin, someone who wouldn’t even have the Magical Knowledge OR vocabulary to explain such a concept to anyone else!
–That’s when it happened.
From a back alley nearby, an unknown person leapt from the pitch black darkness with great power.
(Karin–!)
She was on the collision course of this unknown person, but hadn’t noticed them at all.
Using the enhancements on my legs, I pushed myself in front of her to give her cover.
But even faster than I could move was the thick tail of a dinosaur that surrounded Karin and I, protecting us from the danger.
(Kōyō!)
“Woah woah woah!” The tall figure leaping towards us stumbled just before they collided with it, somehow managing to stop their movement in the nick of time.
“Wh-What the heck!? What’s the matter Momi?”
It was a brief materialization.
Leaving behind nothing but a low and menacing growl, Kōyō had disappeared again just as quickly as she had manifested.
“Sheesh, you kids really need to watch yourse– Wait, aren’t you guys…?”
Completely out of nowhere, a man we all knew had appeared on the scene.
A man with blue eyes and disheveled black hair, wearing a Hawaiian shirt that was completely out of place for the atmosphere of Shinjuku.
There was no mistaking it.
We had met this musician at the plaza in Akihabara!
“Kuchime…? That IS Kuchime, right? Well ain’t that a coincidence, ya oldie!”
In spite of Kōyō and I’s concerns, Karin’s face lit up with a sparkle.
It seemed as if we had run into him in a really REALLY bad place… the upset attitude he turned towards us with gave me that impression.
The man’s mouth twitched a bit as a wry smile appeared on his face.
“I’m no damn oldie! …Tch, so it really is you lot. My bad, but I’m in kind of a rush, so–”
“It definitely looks like it. You seem to be breathing rather hard.” I responded coldly as I confirmed that Voyager’s presence was behind me.
“Look, ditching you the other day was my bad, but I’ll make it up to you some time.”
“Hey, what’s the big rush? We just ran into each other, where the heck are you running off to?”
“No wait, I’m seriously sorry but– See ya!”
With a wave of his hand he went to take off, and as he did his neck was–
Like a snake, a red cloth that was both thin and long coiled around him with a
fwish.
The man struggled against it in a desperate attempt to escape, but the cloth continued to entwine itself around his upper body, tightening itself as it went.
“--Huh? K-KUCHIME! What the hell’s going on!?”
Karin tried to help untangle him from the strange cloth, but was too weak to do so.
She was too late.
Pulled backwards away from us, Kuchime was dragged into the deep darkness of one of the back alleys nearby.
The man was like caught prey, whose fate had already been sealed. His struggle against the strength of the pull was swiftly brought to a halt.
“That cloth– It’s–!”
That linen cloth, dyed in a brilliant scarlet hue and engraved deep within my memories– retrieving that was the objective of my visit to Shinjuku.
(It’s the Holy Shroud…! That’s my teacher’s– That’s a memento from Caren!)
It was a first-class Holy Relic, a Mystic Code that targeted men in particular. Alongside the Holy Lance and the Holy Nails, it was a true model of an Artifact from the world of Magic.
After the incident at the Colosseum, Chitose had ordered it to be recovered alongside Caren’s body. The new owner was to be the one who would inherit the role of supervisor of the Caren Series, the AI Caren Himuro.
And the only thing left in my hands were my teacher’s broken glasses.
“That person… was the guitar man, right? Woah… That looked like it hurt.” Voyager seemed to have some instinctive fear toward the Holy Shroud. His alarm was vaguely expressed through his emotion.
“...Let’s go.”
The three of us moved towards the deep section of the back alley with a gulp.
After our eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, we discovered that there was someone there, as expected.
However, the person standing before us, clutching onto the end of the Holy Shroud, was not the woman we had anticipated.
“This ain’t some kinda show. Get outta here, brats.”
She dismissed us in a low, cold voice.
Dressed in a three-piece men’s business suit that fit her form perfectly was a hardened looking adult woman. If you subtracted the height of her boots, she probably wouldn’t have been much bigger than I was.
And yet, her presence came off with such intensity that I could not get such an impression from her.
In this moment it was even more impactful, her body poised like a statue of Bishamonten as he tramples evil underfoot in exorcism.
And as far as I could see, she only had one opponent.
Not Himuro, not even from the Caren Series. Who could she be?
At any rate, the woman was not a Servant. She was absolutely a human being, that much I was well aware of.
Because if she isn’t the Servant, I have to be ready for her Servant partner’s surprise attack.
Entirely oblivious to my caution, Karin rushed towards the fallen Kuchime.
“Holy CRAP this is bad! Can’t you see his eyes are turning white!? Are you okay old man!? Are you still alive, Kuchime!?”
“.....” The woman in the suit narrowed her eyes in annoyance at the one who had ignored her warnings. “I didn’t kill him. Not yet at least. I need to make him cough something up first.”
“Y-You can’t keep doing that! Look how much you’re hurting him!” As she objected, Karin pulled out her phone and began to call the authorities.
“Tch.” The woman clicked her tongue in annoyance, raising the middle and index fingers of her still-free left hand.
She made a small chopping motion, as if to cut something with them.
“Ah! What the heck did you do?” Karin looked at her phone screen in astonishment.
The emergency call she had been dialing had lost its connection, and the phone was forcibly returned to its basic screen.
“She just used Higher Communications Authority–!?”
People who possessed Higher Communications Authority were capable of secretly intercepting or jamming communications between citizens from behind the curtains. I myself had been given the opportunity to temporarily utilize the Authority as a part of my investigations in Servant-Hunting, when the need arose.
Without authorization from the City Management AI it was extremely difficult to do such a thing–
In other words, this isn’t a mere lover’s quarrel or some kind of lynching being done by a violent gang…!
Close by the side of the miserably sprawled out Kuchime, Karin’s reason seemed to dim as she raised her head towards the woman manipulating the flow of the Holy Shroud.
(Yeah, this is bad, this is really bad… is Karin planning on bringing Kōyō out here!? To think she would get THIS angry…)
“Wait– Wait a second, Karin–”
“WHY should I wait!?”
Putting my hand on Karin’s shoulder, I could feel their tension from her anger and nervousness.
“Listen to me. That man… Maybe he’s the bad guy here.”
“You think he’s WHAT!?”
I understood Karin’s confusion but…
Please don’t make me.
You absolutely cannot let me, of all people, have to hunt down a rampaging Kōyō.
“Excuse me! Are you… this city’s detective? No, that’s wrong. Are you possibly… the Nightwatch here?”
“...What’d you say?” She had a distinct reaction to the term “Nightwatch”.
(--Now I get it. It’s just like I thought.)
Originally Posted by ryugasaikyou
Reply With Quote
