Tokyo District 6 was a fairly up-market place, especially for the commercial buyers, square kilometres of expansive green belt interlaced with sprawling bands of suburban-style family housing. The District itself covered mostly rolling hills, which the developers had left in to add to the scenic appearance, and the foliage was so thick that from the air it gave an impression of the surrounding forest slowly invading the city. Interspersed between the trees and rows of houses were a sparse few larger buildings, all several storeys and generously large though nothing too outsized, in keeping with the more relaxed architecture outside of the city centre. They were all generally the same square-shaped grey concrete box, slope-roofed and wide windows. The Bank building was no exception; it stood comfortably beside a large main road, huge glass panel windows taking up most of the first storey front wall facing onto the road with a set of tall glass double-doors set into a gold-painted metal frame. Fluorescent lighting hung in narrow box strips from the front wall up above the entranceway, illuminating the pavement outside and spilling onto the nearby road. Yet more, brilliant white light poured out from within at all hours, day or night, and the hazy orange glow in the sky from streetlights and the swarming mass of Tokyo all around gave a strangely warm, late evening sort of vibe to the place, especially on such a mild summer night. Natsuki checked her watch again. The softly glowing green panel said it had just gone midnight. If she was going to be logical and assume that the voice on the phone had been telling the truth, then in about another ten minutes that calm, peaceful bank building across the road was going to be mysteriously evacuated. Just looking at the place, she could see no signs of warning, no indication that anyone strange was happening or that anything alarming was expected. Just inside the lobby was a wide glass-screened desk just as with most banks, and only a single very calm-looking employee sitting waiting behind it, leaning a little tiredly on the counter. Everything looked perfectly normal. Five minutes later, something started bleeping furiously. Natsuki startled out of her semi-conscious state leaning up against a streetlight and almost fell over before her balance kicked in again. It sounded like an alarm, yes, but not quite, though it did appear to be coming from the bank. Inside the building, the lonely employee was blinking and looking around, thoroughly puzzled. A second man appeared through the door behind him and started talking, to which the employee replied, although Natsuki could hear none of it. The manager, as she presumed him to be from the first man's body language, looked just as confused as did the first man and between the two of them, they exchanged unheard words and plenty of mystified gestures. Not a minute later, the bleeping stopped, though it was still somewhat unclear just where it had been coming from in the first place. Natsuki was quite completely bemused by now. An alarm, or so it seemed, had just gone off and then stopped shortly thereafter. The employee in the bank didn't seem too worried about it, beyond being just as confused as she, and nothing was really happening. She sighed heavily and leant back up against the streetlight again, watching intently for any signs of further action. At twelve fifteen precisely, down to the last second, something definitely did happen. That same beeping alarm went off again and, just as the teller was getting up to see what was going on, the ceiling started raining. That got results. In just a few seconds, the doors were open and a pitifully small group of employees, including the manager from before, came rushing out of the building quite soaked. "Wow," Natsuki muttered darkly to herself. "Some opening..." She looked long and hard over the building but, as her earlier scouting had proven, there were no windows on the others sides and the front entrance was the only way in which was at that moment being blocked by all those employees. Something bumped against her foot. Natsuki looked down for a second. There on the ground, where she really should have noticed it before was something small, square and black. She bent down to inspect a little closer and found it to be a leather pouch of some kind. When she picked it up, it flipped open like a book and revealed some sort of laminated card within. On one side, stitched to the leather, was an identification card sans picture, on the other side was a small sheet of plastic printed with long strings of numbers and free hanging between the two "covers" was a green holographic card. Natsuki checked the ID card first... "Tokyo District Materials Handling Commission?" Someone had a strange sense of humour. Well, 'act casual' the mysterious voice had told her. If nothing else, at least it was worth a try. She tucked the wallet into a pocket inside her suit jacket and then strode resolvedly over towards the building. "Hey!" someone shouted when she walked straight past the crowd. "Hey, you there! Miss, you can't go in there." She turned on her heel, making sure to toss her hair impressively without making it look like she was trying, and gave the owner of that voice a good hard glare. "I'm afraid I have to," she told him in a stern voice. "I'm from the M.H.C. and we're aware that there are a few rather delicate items in your vault. I've been sent to keep an eye on them." The manager, or he whom Natsuki had presumed to be the manager, stepped forward. "First I've heard of anything like this," he replied suspiciously. Natsuki flashed him an almost contemptuous look. "It's a classified matter," she said, as if that was as much explanation as was needed. "The vault is locked. I can't let you in there, even if you are from the Commission; some of our clients have extremely valuable property in there." Natsuki took the wallet out of her jacket and showed it off impatiently. "I have the authority to order you..." The manager shook his head. "...but that doesn't matter, does it? All I need is assurance for my employers that the items in question are safe inside your vault, and photographic proof is all they'll take." The manager fished into one of his own pockets for a moment and produced a set of keys, which he tossed over towards the woman. "The green key opens the door to the back of the building," he explained with a slightly softer expression. "But the vault key isn't on there...just in case you were wondering." Natsuki smirked back at him. "Thank you for your cooperation." With that, she turned her back to the small crowd and proceeded inside the building. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The little black alarm clock on the desk beside the bed was blaring away unbearably loud, filling the small bedroom up with the noise of some unreasonably lively Japanese morning radio host or other. It was impossible to tell if he really was talking loudly just to be heard over the rambunctious pop music in the background, or if it was simply the alarm itself turned up too far. A single hand reached up out of the disorderly mass of tangled yellow sheets and slapped about at the thing, failing completely in hitting the "OFF" button. Eventually, the hand gave up and whacked the radio off the desk to the floor with a loud thud, upon which it shut up. Approximately fifteen seconds later, it started again. A string of curses started from somewhere in that thick pile of bedding and didn't stop, getting only louder and angrier as they progressed, and ever more profane. The sheets slowly folded back down along the bed until a head, or more precisely a large lump of unruly crimson hair, could be seen. The head, clearly female from the shape and form of that roughly triangular face, lifted itself clear of the bed and leaned right over the edge, upside-down, trying to see the radio a little better. The owner of the head felt her feet slipping, and before she knew it she was upside-down herself, balanced on her head on the floor still half in-bed. The sudden concussive shock to her cranium did nothing to help the splitting hangover already molesting her consciousness and she groaned, long and hard, then started swearing again for good measure. The clock said five thirty. Five. Fucking. Thirty. In the fucking morning. "Midori," chided a familiar voice that the bed-bound woman knew was only in her head. "You really need to get up, already! You'll be late for school," it chuckled teasingly. "Youko..." She sighed, smiling ruefully as she did practically every morning, and went about extricating herself from the mess that was her bed. It took, unsurprisingly, longer than it had the last time, much as it did every time. Once it was all over and she stood at the foot of the bed, naked bar the cheapest shorts she could afford, Midori got the profound impression that she had forgotten something hugely important. She looked up at the wall above her bed. It was the only wall in the room still blank, no sign of brackets or posters or pin-boards or the like as had the other three. It would have been as nude as she almost was herself, had it not been for the messily scrawled symbol she had painted on it by hand; a huge red ring with a narrow gap cut out, a thick line running through one side next to said gap, and a simple red dot in the centre of the ring. "Okay!" said Midori to herself animatedly, snapping her fingers. "Today, I'm going to show those assholes who they're messing with! Right Kan-chan?" Before she could get an answer, the door opened and in barged a dark-haired young man with a huge stack of books cradled in his arms. "Midori-san!" he yelped a little helplessly, teetering over to one side. Midori leapt into action, heedless of her rather compromised state of dress, and just managed to catch the toppling pile by the very narrowest breadth. The mug of coffee that had been sitting atop the stack went to the floor and shattered, splashing luke-warm brown liquid in an uneven splodge over the carpet. She ignored the young man apologising wildly to her and staring at her breasts, and trying not to look like he was staring, and simultaneously backing out of her bedroom and bowing which only made him blush more since it put his face inches from her chest. She shut the door on him, sighed again, and then kicked the remains of the nth broken coffee mug up against the nearest wall out of the way. "Hopeless boy, really," she told herself. "I don't know why I keep him around." When she opened the first book, naturally the biggest one, and found it was actually a hollowed out box painted to look like a book, in which sat a small bottle full of some clear liquid, Midori's face lit up with a self-conscious grin. "Am I really getting so predictable?" "You've been predictable ever since we met, Midori," said that invisible voice in her head again. Determined to throw off Youko's nagging little motherly speeches in the back of her mind, the redheaded woman threw on the first sweater she saw, which just so happened to be clean, and then slumped herself down in the small metal stool next to her bedroom wall. She span and faced what might once have been a wall, now a huge mess of tangled wires, cables, mounting brackets, faced with mainly pin-boards and slate, cork boards and calendars, a few maps of various places large and small, and a few extremely inexpensive monitor screens that showed little more than static at the moment. "It's the seventeenth," she said to herself as she read off the nearest calendar, scribbling out the number with red marker pen. "The satellite should be passing over China this afternoon... Maybe by tomorrow, then..." She turned her head and continued, a little louder, "Oi! Kan-chan! You awake?" "I do not have an "awake" mode, mistress," replied a rough synthesised voice from a large stripped-down speaker attached to the far wall. Midori frowned and tossed a discarded paper cup over her shoulder at the source of the voice. "You really need a sense of humour, Kan-chan." "Emotional simulation processes are illegal by current international AI laws, not that I really need to remind you. Indeed," said the computer in what would almost have been a cynical tone of voice, had it had actual feelings. "I'm certain yet another infraction would not trouble you in the slightest, mistress. In fact, I'm sure that the Tokyo police force would enjoy watching your Interpol wanted rating climbing back up the chart again. They do seem to be rather proud of you." Midori smirked to herself and started unscrewing the top on her miniature vodka bottle. "So, I take it from your witty rejoinder that you've been working hard while I was asleep?" "Yes, mistress. I've been keeping close tabs on the worm our associate delivered for us. It broke past the cipher system with little problem at all; in fact, I don't think I've ever seen a Gellard code so elegantly applied as this one. I do feel a little jealous." "You're much smarter than a worm, Kan-chan," reassured Midori, more just out of habit than to comfort the AI's non-existent feelings. She tossed half of the contents of that tiny bottle down her throat and coughed harshly at the after-effects. "Worms can't do half the things you do." "Truly, your words fill me with joy, mistress." "But seriously now, Kan-chan," Midori insisted, shuffling the seat along the narrow rail that ran around the edge of the room until she faced a large holographic relief map of Asia. "If the code was worth what we agreed, then go ahead and pay the man." "The worm did not succeed in its intended function, mistress." Midori shrugged, a look of clearly faked innocence on her face. "But," continued the computer, "I did spot several rather interesting code fluctuations in the area around Prometheus' floating net construct. I'd be willing to hazard a guess, if I were so inclined, that the construct is precisely the multi-processor that you've been so diligently searching for all these months." Midori crossed her arms smugly over her chest, but declined the chance to boast yet again. "If Prometheus are hiding a multiple-base processor underneath a resident network AI construct, then they must be hiding it from someone inside their own organisation." Midori rubbed a hand over her forehead and sighed, again. "Which makes no sense at all. Prometheus have nothing to hide from themselves. Their security should be external not internal." "May I make a few wild speculations, mistress?" "Speculate away, Kan-chan. You're the one with the technical know-how, after all." Midori leaned back into her chair until the backrest clicked right down almost horizontal and started fiddling with a small trackball set into one armrest, manipulating the map before her to show various different areas around the world. What the little green markers meant, only Midori herself knew, but wherever something really suspicious was going on, there was a little miniature replica of that strange almost-but-not-quite-a-question-mark symbol plastered on the map. "Well, first of all, Prometheus deal in technologies that the outside world has simply never even heard of. They would be wise to guard their secrets well even from their own employees, not to mention the industrial enemies they have around the world with the expertise to hack into their network from outside. A de-centralised networked processor capable of actual self-aware intelligence would be the find of the decade, so to speak. They could lose a lot of money." "Not to mention it'd piss off Intel. Haven't they been pouring money into floating net intelligence for years now?" "I would gladly explain why the Rörschack hybrid cell undergoes fractal degradation when they push the voltage too high..." Midori waved her hands frantically. "Too much jargon, Kan-chan! I'm not a computer like you, remember?" She chuckled. "Besides, I'm not selling you to anyone, Kan-chan. That creativity sub-processor of yours is worth more than anyone could offer." "Hopefully worth the several truckloads of liquid silver you exchanged for it, mistress," retorted the computer, and Midori could only laugh again. "I assume that's not your best idea though, eh Kan-chan?" "I think that, perhaps, just perhaps..." Kannon was silent for a few moments, which was certainly unusual, so long that Midori actually felt a little bubble of concern growing in her stomach. "Kan-chan? What is it?" "I think," continued the computer in an oddly subdued "voice," "that the self-aware AI hidden in Prometheus' network system might actually be the exact same multi-processor AI that you've been looking for, mistress; a fully conscious neural net." Midori bolted upright in her chair, then winced when the backrest snapped up and thwacked her in the back. "You mean..." she trailed off, rubbing the small of her back with one hand and frantically scrolling the map screen with the other. "Prometheus might actually have a functioning Slave unit already?" "Unlikely. They have no experience in biotechnologies or genetics. A completed Slave at this stage is out of the question unless they're already attached to another contributor who does have access to genetic reconstructive technology." Midori zoomed down over the mid-southwest area of North America until a large, suspicious dark blotch could be made out somewhere in the middle of Arizona. "Who do we know who does?" "The only viable option for Prometheus at this time would be SiltWorks, Germany. They're based in biochemical and genetics and have a small enough financial framework to appreciate support from a large organisation such as Prometheus, not to mention the technology to support an actual Slave production." Midori grinned, not her favourite kind of grin but definitely close, the grin she used whenever several large and annoying bits of the puzzle that her life had become suddenly fell into place. She cracked her knuckles. "Then let's investigate, Kan-chan! Who can we work with in Germany?" "Yes, mistress. I'll bring up your list of European based associates now..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Heat. The heat was everywhere. The heat was all around her, burning into her, searing through her, consuming her. It tore into her skin like a wild beast, ripped its way into and straight through her, flaying her apart like so much useless lace and ribbon in the face of some formless raging fury. How eloquent, she thought for a moment. Then suddenly, something cold was on her chest, latched deep into her. She was suffocating. Agony lancing into her arms and legs like needles... Nina woke screaming, wailing, clawing out with her hands and ripping the sheet apart with her fingernails. She thrashed wildly, tearing needles from all sorts of places and leaving thin, weak red trails splashing out after them. She didn't notice her blood spilling over the bed-sheets, or all those holes sealing themselves again in seconds. Her fingers clasped around the rubber guard over her lower face, and she tore that off too, yanking the tube out of her nose and retching as it passed the back of her throat. The first spasm stopped in her diaphragm but a second followed quickly, then a third, setting off a chain reaction until the semi-conscious girl was curled over, head between her knees, emptying her stomach onto the bed between her feet. When she finally stopped convulsing, her body weight drifted to one side and she fell, lying limply on her side still curled up in a foetal position, drooling down one cheek and shuddering. When she finally came to again some million years later she was soaked in sweat, sticky and uncomfortable, her feet dunked in that disgusting puddle on the bed, and her hands still wouldn't stop quivering. "Where am I," she tried to say, but her voice caught in her throat so raw and dry after all the heaving she had done. She tried to raise her head but it was so heavy, like her whole body were made of lead. An orderly found her not too long after and made a big fuss, but nobody seemed too concerned. The sheets were removed, Nina was put on a trolley and moved into the adjacent room which just so happened to be empty, and then someone sedated her again before she could protest further. She just managed to spot a large pitcher of water being left on the table by the bed before her eyelids sagged shut again. For a long time, there was nothing. Dark, empty, silent nothing. Then there was a voice. "Nina?" whispered the voice. So hesitant, so unsure of itself, like a confused and panicked young child asking after its mother. Nina screwed her face up in her pseudo-sleep and tried to ignore it. "Nina...chan?" That voice...that was familiar. She opened her eyes, very slowly since the room was filled with bright blinding white light from the strips in the ceiling, and tried to lift her head to see. All she saw was a vague, distorted swirl of coloured blobs. "Nina-chan?" repeated the voice, suddenly sounding that much more alarmed. A hand brushed her shoulder. "Fa..." Her voice broke again and she started coughing, until something large and warm buried itself against her lower chest with a wild sob. Nina blinked, startled out of her coughing fit it seemed, and tried to sit up. As she blinked repeatedly, her vision slowly started to slur together into something a little more cohesive than just jumbled colour, shapes forming vague at first and gradually sharpening. When she looked down, there was a head in her lap, thick waves of long brown-red hair flowing down either side of her legs and pooling on the bed. "A...ari...ka?" The other girl didn't answer, probably couldn't. Nina could feel dampness seeping through the thin green sheet and slicking the skin of her abdomen. Arika's shoulders were twitching up and down as she cried silently, her entire body shaking softly. She tried to put a reassuring hand on the girl's head but her arms were limp, dead. "You're...you're alive... I'm alive! But I thought..." Arika lifted her head up slowly to look her in the eye. Her face was a mess, all red and scrunched up and smeared with tears still streaming down her cheeks. There was something awful behind her eyes that hit Nina like a lightning bolt to the chest, but the words to explain it escaped her. "I'm sorry I k...killed you," Arika began as imploringly as she could. The sheer absurdity of it caught up to her before she could continue, however, and she started sniggering. "You're sorry you killed me?" Nina tried to sound as sharp and unforgiving as ever but it didn't really work. She smiled down at the ball of emotion in her lap and, finally, lifted one hand up to beat her lightly on the head. "That must be the craziest thing you've ever said to me...dummy." Arika opened her mouth again and a bark of a laugh came out, followed by more. Her eyes were streaming, but at least it was an improvement on the bawling she had been doing a few hours before. "I hope you're sorry for getting my robe burned up, too." Arika started bashing one fist against the bed-frame, howling then and rolling side to side slightly, her face still buried in Nina's lap. The dark-haired girl felt her face heating a little when she finally noticed what the redhead was inadvertently doing, but it really wasn't worth ruining such a good mood. Now that she had a moment to stop and actually think about it, she noticed Arika's own robe was gone too, replaced with a very simple piece of green cloth that tied shut at the back and left most of the girl's back half bare. Not exactly something becoming a young Otome like herself. There was a really touching, emotional scene brewing up between the two, something seriously deep and meaningful, some world-changing revelations. Unfortunately, before it could happen, the door burst open and an unidentified person in a bulky white hazardous material suit complete with shaded faceplate rushed into the room. Arika looked up and blinked, just in time to get a face-full of thick beige foam from the end of what looked like a handheld water cannon. Nina was stunned for a moment, but that familiar feeling of righteous vengeance was broiling within her like a caged animal. She grabbed the redhead by her shoulders and pulled her close. As something thick and sludgy splattered against her back and started solidifying, gluing her to the bed, her lips found the GEM in Arika's left ear. "Yumemiya Arika," she whispered, which was all she could manage. "In my name, release your power!" When all that blinding light died down it was only her training robe after all, but it was much better than nothing at all. The foam shattered from her face, revealing a most determined look of rage on Arika's features. "Oh shit!" yelled a muffled and indistinctly masculine voice from behind the faceplate. "GEM system is active, I repeat, GEM system is active! I think we-.." Arika shut him up with a good solid kick to the gut that sent him toppling over onto his face on the floor, groaning and wheezing and trying to breathe in. She lifted the steel-silver baton over her head for a nice hard whack but Nina stopped her with a yelp. "Forget about that! We need to get out of here, first. Wherever here is..." She looked around at the room, at all the strange things sitting about in strange places. "I'm not even sure where we are." "This isn't WindBloom," replied Arika in a very terse voice, lowering her weapon cautiously to her side. She gave the prone man a kick in the ribs instead, just to make sure he didn't get up any time soon, and perhaps to work a little of her own anger out in the process. While Nina searched from her vantage point on the bed, Arika hefted the downed man by his legs over against one wall of the room, then cracked the door open as narrowly as she could and peeked outside. "Or Artai. Or any other country I've ever been to. I've never seen architecture quite like this..." "Shit!" Arika interrupted, slamming the door shut and fiddling with the catch, desperately trying to engage the lock with an almost panicked expression on her face. Nina glared at her a tad angrily. "What now?" "You don't want to know!" Arika turned on her heel and, having given up on the door, started looking frantically around the room. Her eyes caught on the window, barred across with narrow metal strips, and she winced. "How badly are you hurt, Nina-chan? Can you walk?" Nina felt an "oh shit" of her own coming, or perhaps an exasperated sigh; the girl could still get herself in some terribly stupid situations after all. She shifted her weight over to one side and slid her legs off the bed. "I can stand. I'm not sure about walking..." She lifted herself up, weight on her feet, and then toppled forward slightly. Slender, muscular arms were wrapped about her before she could even register surprise. "I'll just have to carry you!" declared Arika, irrationally cheerful once again. She held the dark-haired girl against her in one arm and swung her baton with the other, extending out to punch through the window. Metal twisted and snapped, splintered off, a burst of glass and steel shards showering out of the room and down on the street below. There was a thumping at the door but neither looked back. Nina was swung like a featherweight round to rest against Arika's back, arms around the redhead's collar, and held on tight as they leapt up into open space. Arika's GEM was glowing brightly as she burst out of the hole that had once been a window, the wooden door shattering open seconds behind her. More white-suited and foam-wielding figures rushed into the room only to catch a glimpse of the pair fading away into the distance over the Tokyo skyline. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Midori windmilled her arms as she toppled backwards off her chair and onto the floor with a hefty thud. Lights were flashing and sirens were blaring at her all of a sudden and the holographic map was going proverbially bat-shit. "Kannon!" she yelled as she struggled back into her seat, rubbing at her shoulder blades with one hand. "Kannon, what the hell is that alarm?" "That," replied the computer calmly as ever, "is the surveillance program you had planted in the GPS system last year." "The fuck?" Midori blinked. "Then that could only mean...something I forget." She brought the nearest bottle to her lips and started chugging. "It's picking up a short range radio transmission, a localised binary signal it would seem, of all things." Midori almost fell off her chair again. She chucked her now empty bottle carelessly over her shoulder and stared at the map as it skittered about crazily, focusing in and out. "How much did we pay for that thing? I swear, if it's going to just... Wait..." She paused for a moment while her brain switched back on, and getting a good yawn while she was at it. "You mean the sort of signal that those brand new highly illegal nano-machines respond to?" "The very same, mistress. And it's coming from somewhere in the Tokyo downtown area." Midori blinked again. "Fuck!" She leapt up out of her chair and dashed over to what had once been a wardrobe, now simply a huge mess with some clothes in it. "Then I've gotta get out there and find the bastards! If I can get photographical proof that our "friends" are playing with illegal nanotechnology right under the public's nose, it'll be one huge step closer to exposing the whole project." "Need I remind you, mistress, that it doesn't necessarily mean that the transponder in question..." Midori wasn't listening. She scrambled crazily to dress herself in the neatest pair of jeans she could find and then threw a loose green button-up sweater on over the skimpy bikini top she had rescued earlier. Her hair went back in a single rough ponytail held together with an elastic band, not the most attractive of dress styles but it didn't really matter. She snagged the plastic wrap-around gas mask from where it hung on a hook beside her bedroom door and started working it down over her face. "Kan-chan, did that fool Reito fix the damn car yet?" "Your...vehicle," the computer replied in what could almost pass for a contemptuous tone of voice, "is ready for action, mistress. I do hope you're a little more careful with it this time though." Midori grinned. "I put a lot of work into that car! It'll take more than a few little scrapes to stop her." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Natsuki was...well 'bothered' would be a good word for it. She sat back a little in the booth she currently occupied and pushed the empty glass away across the table, the last few dredges of half-melted ice cream and green lemonade (why did they even make green lemonade, of all things?) forming a sludgy greenish mess in the bottom. Her left leg rose practically of its own accord and folded slowly over her right, shifting her skirt a little higher, though nowhere quite near dangerously so just yet. The sunlight streaming in through the wide panel windows beside her was warming on the bare skin of her arms and legs and across her neck and collar, the low cut and short sleeves of her thin, sky blue top most tempting to the eyes but leaving practically everything to the imagination. The waitress came back after a minute or two and whisked the empty glass away, but not before Natsuki could molest her for a second. Or would that be her third? The green-haired young woman smiled perkily and disappeared back to wherever it was a waitress went, leaving Natsuki to her thoughts again. Bothered she most definitely was. That bank job had been easy, shockingly easy in fact. The mysterious key she had been given had opened, of all things, a small black lock-box hidden in one of the employees' desks. Inside had been a thick sheaf of papers, all of them profoundly odd. Natsuki took one of the papers out of the pocket of her skirt and unfolded it on the table, staring down at it curiously for the nth time that day. It was hand-written in a style she couldn't quite recognise, no doubt Shizuru would, or failing that her infallible secretary. Didn't the girl have a qualification in journalism? Besides the handwriting, there was the fact that "Tokiha" was buried in the stamp, signifying some possible connection to... ...that woman. Natsuki felt a strange sensation of nervous discomfort slithering up her spine at the thought of that redheaded maniac and shook her head firmly to clear it. No doubt she indeed had something to do with all this; Mai had been giving her a profound feeling of déjà vu ever since their first meeting that Natsuki found she simply couldn't throw. A sharp trilling noise brought her out of her thoughts, blinking away confusion. She reached into her pocket and swapped the paper for a phone instead, flicking open that razor-thin piece of plastic and gazing at the screen for a second. Shizuru. She pressed a button and brought the handset to her ear. "Yes?" "Good afternoon, or perhaps evening. It's been hours since Motoko let me out of my office so I can't really say..." Shizuru sounded like she was pouting childishly, as she probably was. "Whatever," replied Natsuki somewhat tersely. "I except you didn't call just to ask me to come knock out your secretary, hm?" "My knight in shining armour, eh Natsuki-chan?" Shizuru giggled softly for a moment. "Oh, I'm sure you're busy enough for yourself with that shop of yours to run, so I won't bother you with something so trivial." Natsuki sighed. "Then what is it, Shizuru?" "Well if you'd calm down first, perhaps that would help..." Natsuki paused for a moment. Yes, maybe she was a little tense. Not like her to snap so readily at people, even if Shizuru was terribly irritating at times. She took a deep breath before continuing, "Sorry. It's been...kind of a strange week." "You have no idea," Shizuru agreed in a most worryingly serious tone of voice. "I'm afraid I need your help with something, you see...well I know they're not really my patients, but the unique nature of the situation, I think, warrants our intervention." "You mean my intervention, don't you?" "Oh don't be like that, Natsuki-chan," Shizuru teased. "I only retired because you asked me to." Natsuki blushed slightly, but didn't respond. It would only encourage her further, after all. "Anyway, yesterday we received two emergency patients, both of them rather young, female, both of them suffering from dehydration and sunburn in all sorts of strange places. They looked like they'd been traipsing through a desert or some such foolish thing." Natsuki nodded her head politely to the waitress and pulled the fresh glass over until her lips found the straw. She mouthed a brief thank you and then sipped at the green, bubbling liquid hiding beneath all that thick mound of ice cream. "Yeah, I remember you saying something about that... So?" "Well one of them woke up this morning. She was very weak, but she recovered beautifully over just the last few hours. She was even talking, though she's got an accent nobody can figure out and half the time she speaks English for some reason." "Wow...sounds, er..." Natsuki struggled to think of a word that didn't sound too harsh. "...really interesting," she finally decided on. Shizuru chuckled on the other end, no doubt shaking her head. "Oh, you don't know the half of it. The other girl woke up a while later in convulsions; we had to move her to another room. When the first girl, I think her name's "Arika" actually, from what they've been able to piece together. Anyway, when she saw us moving the other one, she insisted on staying with her so we just left them in the same room together. About an hour later, the room was off limits and the management is going crazy. They're say they both "escaped" or something." "Escaped?" Natsuki fingered the straw pensively, swirling it slowly round and round and mixing the ice cream into her drink. Strange habit since she hated it when it turned all thick and gooey like that, but she found herself doing it anyway however hard she tried to resist. "What do you mean by "escaped" exactly? How do you escape from a hospital anyway?" "Regardless of that, I have to ask you a really big favour." "You want me to find them, don't you?" "Pleeeeeease, Natsuki-chan? I promise I'll make up to you for it." Natsuki shook her head and laughed softly, if a little cynically besides. "Don't be silly. This is my job, after all, isn't it?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "Well, couldn't really understand him, so I still have no idea where we are. Really though, the people around here speak so weird... It's like a whole new country I've never even heard of before." Arika sighed heavily to herself and shook her head slowly side to side. "Oi, Nina-chan!" she yelled down the alley ahead of her. "I hope you like ramen because that's all I co-" She cut off. Nina was kneeling on the floor of the alleyway, huddled back against a wall with the slightly tattered remains of that thin green robe curled defensively around her body. She was looking up with a frightened snarl towards a darkly dressed and cloaked figure standing tall, towering over her ominously, a hand reaching out towards the young girl. Arika acted on her first impulse and tried throwing the ramen bowl at the stranger. When the mysterious figure simply smashed the bowl away with the back of one hand, Arika was already leaping forward, knee up, ready to deliver a good solid kick to the gut. She may not have been immediately able to fight as the Meister she really was, but she could still beat someone senseless when the occasion called for it. Shockingly red eyes met her coming and froze the young girl in her tracks. "M...M..." she stuttered more than just a little surprised as she relaxed back into a passive stance. "M..." "Good afternoon, Yumemiya-san," said a very familiar voice from under the broad black wide-brimmed hat perched atop the stranger's head. "It's most fortunate that I found you both so quickly." Nina looked towards her redhead companion, then back to the mystery individual several times, blinking rapidly. "Wh...what's going on? Arika?" "Miyu!" yipped the redhead, and tossed herself at the considerably taller, older woman. Miyu's other arm appeared as if by magic from beneath the long flowing folds of her cloak and together they encircled Arika snugly, holding the girl tight against her front. "I'm so glad to see you, Miyu! I thought something strange had happened or something...but if you're here, then-" "-I'm afraid there is no time to explain," interrupted Miyu. "I have to leave you now, for reasons you should not yet know. I promise, I will see you both again very soon." Arika pulled back away from the enigmatic blue-haired woman and nodded firmly. "Mmm! I'll take good care of the both of us till you get back!" Miyu reached deep into her cloak and pulled out a small cardboard tube. "You cannot stay here. It isn't safe. Take this with you and buy some clothes." She offered the tube to Arika who gladly accepted, and then followed with a small folded piece of paper. "Find this place. Go there. You'll both be safe, at least for a while. I will see you again there when the time comes to move again." Arika nodded again. Then she tossed her arms around the android yet again and squeezed tight. "Thank you, Miyu-san!" When she let go, Miyu was smiling that strange little miniscule smile of hers again and looking down at the redhead with an almost maternal expression. "Goodbye, Yumemiya-san," she said, turned, and with a whoosh of air she was gone. Arika turned, opening her mouth to speak, but something collided with her mid-section before she could say anything. She looked down and found Nina with her arms around her waist, face buried against the redhead's stomach, trying her hardest not to cry by the sound of it. She blinked. Well, just what exactly could she do? "Damn it," muttered Nina, still sniffling. "Stupid...I hate this place. I feel so powerless now...so helpless..." She trailed off with a whimper. "I...I was...scared." Arika put a hand on the dark-haired girl's head, but resisted the urge to comfort her. "This is so annoying! How can I be such a lost, stupid, helpless little..." She trailed off again, bursting out into tears this time. As such, she didn't notice Arika's arms returning the encapsulating gesture. "Don't worry, Nina-chan," the redhead tried to say in her most reassuring voice. "I'll just go ask where this-" "-NO!" Nina's fingers dug into her companion's hips until her nails started biting into the skin. "Don't...don't go, please...don't leave me behind again..." She cursed her voice for making her sound so pathetic, but it was true. And Arika was the only one who could actually use her GEM, after all. By herself, Nina knew, she was practically defenceless. To her surprise, the arms around her own body shifted again, grasping under her shoulders and lifting her up gently until she was on her feet again instead of collapsed down on her knees. She looked up and found those big blue eyes looking down at her affectionately, which must have taken quite some effort on Arika's part after their recent climactic altercation. "Don't worry, Nina-chan. I won't leave you, I promise." Nina slumped down against her front again and started sobbing gently under her breath. Arika's arms closed around her and held her upright. "From now on, I'm not going anywhere without you." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The scene; the throng of gathered journalists and pedestrian crowd, the calmly stoic police presence around the building, the scattered fragments of glass still dusted about the ground. Such controlled chaos, and somehow so in keeping with the setting. The hospital certainly had seen more than its fair share of crises and the huge debacle that the media were attempting to make of the broken window was being mainly ignored by the residents and staff alike. The public, of course, felt obliged to stop and stare for some reason or other as the public always does but the crowd had died down considerably in the short time since the incident itself. As the last few glimmers of orange-red sun in the evening sky trickled lethargically away into darkness, the gathered presence was growing ever sparser. Shizuru negotiated her way deftly around a cameraman with one uncomfortably heavy bag under her left arm and her notebook bag dangling from her right shoulder, putting as much effort as she could into maintaining her usual dignified, elegant appearance just in case a camera or two spotted her. Thankfully, they all seemed to be more interested in harassing a poor young uniformed officer who was at that moment stammering her way, admirably Shizuru thought to herself, through what was clearly a half-baked "official" explanation of the events earlier that day. Something knocked sharply against the small of her back and she turned to identify the offending elbow, or at least what had felt like an elbow to her, only to find a large, stiff black rectangular bag at least two feet in length hanging from a rather burly shoulder. It was clear from the shape of the bag that the only thing inside was a large square box, of some rather stiff material, that took up almost every breath of space within. The zipper was half-open and brushed gunmetal grey lurked beneath. The figure with the bag disappeared into the crowd before anything more could happen, taking that bag and its most intriguing contents with him. No, it had most definitely been a man, she could tell that much from his build alone, what little she had seen. Shizuru threw it to the back of her mind and continued towards her car waiting patiently for her in its usual spot. Predictably, fate intervened. A gasp rushed through the crowd, then cries of alarm and surprise, confused murmurs, soon turning to a profoundly disturbed sort of noise as a dozen voices all clamoured for attention. Someone screamed, probably that poor over-worked young policewoman, and Shizuru turned on her heel to see what all the commotion was about this time. She just had time to see a gorgeous cherry red convertible come rushing up along the road, back end swinging out with a screech as the driver pinned a brutally sharp turn and brought the thing up toward the pavement where Shizuru stood. She did not jump, for angry red convertibles did not run down Fujino Shizuru, and as well they did because the one in question just barely skidded to a stop half a metre from her knees. A woman in her early thirties, though she may just as easily be a college student, with hair as red as the car itself leapt out hurriedly over the door. The rather dashingly handsome man in the passenger seat reached over and plucked what looked like a horrible fusion of a child's water cannon and a fire extinguisher and hefted it by a thick black strap over one shoulder before following her. Together the two dashed across the paving straight past a rather irritated Shizuru, towards the focus of considerably more attention. Well that was just plain strange. Where there had only shortly before been a nice clean, ordinary wall with one rather destroyed window, there was now a most horrendously alien monstrosity growing over it, a wide black circle over five metres across spreading to cover a large part of the wall, a swirling maelstrom of deep purples and reds and bright pinpoints of light. From the eye of the storm, as the crowd and the media watched with growing amazement, emerged a single bold point; a gleaming silvery-gold spike the size of a grown person's forearm or even bigger. Bigger indeed, as the thing drew forth even further, until the spike was a metre in length at the very least and attached to the snout of a pointed, snake-like head covered with narrow yellow plates over inhuman orange flesh. "Shit!" The redheaded woman turned to her companion with what seemed to be an expression of unrestrained delight on her face. "Are you recording this, Rei-kun?" Her tall, dark-haired male friend did not answer, but instead was busying himself pressing random sequences of buttons on a small keypad built onto the back of that strange device in his arms. "Fucking...don't say the damn thing's broken again..." Midori turned back towards the emerging beast with a very angry scowl, stamping her foot. "Piece of shit!" The creature roared screamed a reptilian scream as its broad serpentine body slowly emerged from the depths of the twisting nether within the portal. Midori answered with an enraged yell of frustration, though the crowd was too busy running away to really notice her. The stuttering young policewoman was sitting dazed on the ground staring up at the thing, and one suicidal reporter in particular was still standing in front of her camera team frantically chattering into the microphone as she gestured with her free arm to the beast behind her. A van was already pulling up at the far side of the parking lot, on the other side of the building just visible behind all the chaos. Shizuru spotted it, and Midori spotted it too. Shizuru felt a sudden overwhelming urge to "not be there" very quickly, and preferably immediately. Right now. Midori ignored the brunette woman hastily retreating into the relative safety of her own car and gave Reito another angry growl. "Fucking thing...give it here!" She whacked one fist hard against the side of the device, leaving a shallow dent in the already battered metal skin, but at last, the lights on the front end flickered to life. With a whining buzz the whole contraption juddered to a start and the three narrow prongs arrayed in a triangular pattern around the front nozzle began to rotate slowly, static crackling between them. The creature screamed again, drawing Midori's attention back mid-ecstatic exclamation. By now it was almost completely free of the portal, which itself was shrinking away rapidly. It body, almost ten metres long in total, was covered in those same yellow plates interspersed by that same orange flesh, and a broad triple row of back-swept curved spines running along its back. Five narrow green eyes peered out from the gaps between the plates covering its facial area, and a slit opened in its head, pivoting open like a snake's jaw to reveal saliva-dripping fangs the size of meat cleavers. "Hurry up, damn it," urged the frustrated redhead to her would-be partner in crime. "It's gonna get away already!" She left him to his own devices, which hopefully he could tend to on his own, and rushed over to the young woman in the police uniform still sat on her backside gawping up at the terrifying vision above her. "What...w-w-w-what is that thing? Who...who are you?" Midori put a hand on the other woman's shoulder and tried to look as reassuring as she could. "Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine, just stay right here." "Well Midori, you wanted nano-machines, you got yourself an eyewitness." Reito chuckled a tad ironically. "And an Orphan in public...lucky girl." The machine in his hands started bleeping wildly at him, hogging his attention away from the immediate goings-on. Between that strange contraption, the Orphan and the terrified policewoman, nobody noticed the seven figures gathering in the nearby parking lot, all in bulky white body suits and carrying strange objects themselves. Just when everyone though it was going to be one of those "inexplicable strange thingy from another dimension eats a local policewoman" stories, Armitage arrived. Not only did she arrive just in time, she arrived in style, just as she always did, because that was part of the job. "Stop right there!" bellowed a commanding female voice. The first thing the camera saw when it swung up towards the source of that voice were her boots, those thick, heavy metal green boots so reminiscent of some ancient medieval armour suit that sank into the concrete beneath her like it was sand under her feet, leaving the grey ledge shattered from her heavy landing. The cameraman panned up slowly, dramatically, though the fact that from that angle her skirt was slightly ineffective didn't hurt the matter. Unfortunately, the mysterious feminine figure was perched atop the hospital building itself just above the creature, with the sun behind her, eclipsing whatever hid beneath that skirt from view and making her a dramatic (not to mention rather curvaceous) silhouette on the camera's eye. By the time the light compensator kicked in, the green-garbed mystery woman had launched herself up into the air to come soaring down towards her apparent adversary with her fist cocked back behind her head, fingers glowing bright yellow. "Beware, vile creature!" bellowed the mustard-haired heroine. "I, Armitage, will not allow you to ferment this city's innocent inhabitants!" Somewhere nearby, Yukino put her hand to her face and sighed, "Haruka-chan..." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The early evening air was surprisingly cool and gentle given how bright it still was outside, the midsummer sun streaming down through the thin cloud cover onto the city. A thick waft of steam billowed out of the bathhouse through the door as it opened, and out stepped Mai with a delightfully satisfied grin on her face. Mikoto was practically clinging to her arm, pouting harshly and making a terribly irritating whining noise. Her face was tinted a light pink right through her cheeks from all the hot water. "See, Mikoto-chan? I told you it'd be fun!" The youngster pouted up at her elder and stuck out her tongue. Mai just chuckled and knocked Mikoto gently on the head with one balled-up hand. "Doesn't it feel better to be clean again? I bet you're glad really," she persisted in a most definitely jovial tone of voice, her lips curled into a rather feline smirk. She held the back of one hand over her mouth for a nice long yawn, her back arching upward, her eyes rolling momentarily shut. A quick bout of blinking followed to clear the sudden drowsiness from her head, her gaze wandering lazily up to the sky. "Wait...what's that?" Mikoto looked up at her curiously, cocking her head to one side. "Eh?" Mai raised her hand and pointed a finger up into the sky at a small, dark blob silhouetted against the clouds. "You see that, Mikoto-chan?" "Hm?" The young girl followed her finger along and stared for a while. After a moment or two, she tensed, her hands squeezing around the redhead's forearm. "Orphan," she hissed. Mai blinked again. "What? But...so soon?" She pouted, not too unlike the young black-haired girl's own expression barely a minute earlier and whined quietly. "We just got done getting rid of one last night! Why can't we have a break for once?" To answer her question, so it would seem, Mikoto yelped and squeezed harder on her arm. "Something else!" "What? What is it?" "A person! Someone...can't tell." Mai looked down at her young charge with a serious expression. "You mean...someone like us?" Mikoto nodded gravely. "Think so..." She was interrupted by a rather tall and burly man of some inconsequential description barging past them along the street just in front of the bathhouse, carrying a large rectangular black bag slung from one shoulder. Mikoto yelped and Mai shouted angrily at the man, but only caught sight of the back of a long black overcoat before he turned down a nearby alleyway and disappeared. "Jeez..." Mai turned up her nose in a show of displeasure. "Some people are so inconsiderate these days." Out of sight and out of earshot, where any wandering passer-by or certain important persons were unlikely to see or hear, the strange man let the bag fall to the paved ground and shuffled it up until it was half hidden between two large dumpsters parked in the alleyway. He reached into a pocket in his coat and withdrew a small square device with a screen and many very small buttons on one side. He pressed a few, and the screen lit up. "Scanner one in place," he muttered in a deep voice. "Do we deploy?" "Hold," the device hissed back at him. "Hold until ordered. Be ready for immediate deploy." "Roger." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "Excuse me, sir?" The man blinked. That certainly was one of, if not the, very strangest accents he had heard in a long time, to say the least. His brain actually took a few seconds to put all the syllables together to the point it all made sense. "Yes?" he replied in his best formal introduction voice. "How can I help you, miss?" The young red-haired girl in the cheap blue sweater and pastel skirt shuffled her white sock-clad feet from side to side a little as she looked up at the tall and very smartly dressed man before her. "Well," she began hesitantly, "I was just told to come to this place. She said we could stay here..." The porter shook his head. "Dear me, I'm afraid I really can't understand you..." Arika frowned, screwing up her face again. "I'm sorry but I...it's hard to...erm..." Her companion, a similarly youthful girl with dark navy blue hair, draped in a thick brown overcoat that reached down to her feet, put a hand to her forehead and groaned. "Do you speak English, sir?" The porter let out a relieved exclamation. "English! You speak English, yes, good! My English is...decent." Nina nodded. "Well then," she said, trying not to speak too quickly, "we were told that we could stay here. What is this place exactly?" The suit-clad man gestured around himself to the clean, polished marble flooring and the wide bay windows, and all the ornate, decorative fixtures adorning a surprisingly expansive room. "This is the lobby, miss," he explained. "This is a hotel, of course. One of the best in the area, I might say." He gestured over to the huge semicircular desk in one corner of the lobby, at the handful of cheerful and similarly dressed staff chattering away to various customers. "Are you here for a stay?" Arika nodded emphatically. "We need a room, or two, or whatever! Just any place to stay for a while, that's all." She paused, holding a finger to her lips and humming in thought. "Though...Miyu didn't really say how long we should stay, so I don't know..." Nina sighed and waved a dismissive hand to the porter, who was looking a touch lost with Arika's sudden rapid outburst. "We'd like a room please. Anything you can, as long as it's cheap." Arika nodded again, grinning widely and, she hoped, cute too. She could certainly do it when she tried. The porter shook his head and gave a soft laugh. "Well it all depends on how much you've got, but I think we have some rooms empty." Arika reached into her pocket and pulled out that short cardboard tube, from which she produced a whole roll of notes. The porter went a little wide-eyed and then started gesturing wildly. "Wait miss, now...I get the feeling this isn't quite what it looks like." He shot a questioning look towards Nina, who winced slightly. "We're...new here." She took the wad of money from her companion, ignoring the pouting and the yipping that brought, and showed it to the man. "How much is this anyway?" "Better than enough for a room," he replied, smiling reassuringly. "You could rent one for a whole week if you're lucky. I'll go and find a cheap one for you." With that he bowed politely to the two young girls and then strode off over to the reception desk in the corner, leaving Nina to collapse back against Arika's side with a deep breath. Arika yelped and flailed to catch the darker-haired girl in her arms before they both fell over, holding tight to keep Nina on her feet. One of the receptions staff, a modestly attractive brunette woman in her late twenties, or so she would seem, smiled knowingly up at the porter. "I see you made two more friends, Take-kun." "Takeshi, you're too much of a nice guy," interjected a considerably younger man from the other end of the desk, smirking mischievously. "I told you to stay away from those two." The porter replied with his own all-knowing grin. "And I told you that there was something unusual going on, didn't I?" He turned to spare a quick look back at the two girls, now wandering across the lobby towards bar area where the orange-haired girl was guiding the purple-haired girl into a chair. "Dressed in something like that, any of you lot would have just kicked her out. But I know when something's a-miss." The receptionist shook her head, giggling amusedly, and switched back to her typing. "So then, my dear Rumiko, could you see if any of the second storey rear rooms are empty?" "You mean the really cheap ones, yeah?" She suppressed another laugh as her fingers flew over the keypad with practiced expertise. "Well, we do have one or two left. Two-seven-eight and two-nine-five. I dunno...you want both?" The porter shook his head. "I think they'd prefer to stay together, somehow. Call it just intuition." "That'd make you a mother yet, Takeshi?" There followed another brief round of laughter across the desk, to which Takeshi himself only grinned and bowed again, as he always did, running a hand over his slicked-back short silver hair. The receptionist tapped away a little more and then finally, from one small slot in a whole array of them set into the very surface of the desk beside her, out popped a thick plastic card no larger than a few centimetres along each side. The porter snapped it between forefinger and thumb before she could reach for it and held it up to his face. "Thank you so much, dear Rumiko. I think I owe you again for this." With that he dashed back to his two would-be clients, effortlessly concealing his haste with years of practice. Arika was puzzled, but happy to bow until she started feeling dizzy while Nina took the card for herself in exchange for a measly few hundred yen. "I have arranged your room for the night. If you want to stay longer, just call the front desk and you can pay when you leave." Nina nodded affirmative and thanked the man quite briskly then moved to stand. The attempt did not quite go as planned, but Arika was at her side before she knew it and slender, sturdy arms winding about her body helped to lift her up to her feet with little difficulty. The pair followed the porter to an elevator and then together navigated the corridors of the hotel until they found their designated room. It was a small room, perhaps, but not too different from the room they had shared at Garderobe, along with a whole other person. The décor was rich and warm, and pleasant on the eyes as with many hotels, and the lighting was bright but not too sharp. No window, but where one may have been was instead a wide watercolour painting of some random landscape that both girls found a tad odd; so lush and green, a thick forest of tall trees and overgrown bushes, gentle hills covered in green grass and a towering green snow-capped mountain as the centre point. Nina found herself wondering for a moment if it was really a fictitious landscape, or where, if not, it might be. Nowhere in the WindBloom kingdom, or Artai for that matter. There was a sliding door to a surprisingly large closet, empty of course, and another door that lead through to an impressive bathroom suite. And one bed. "They only gave us one bed..." Arika poked her elbow playfully against her companion's ribs. "Not like you actually said "two beds please" or anything. How were they supposed to know?" Nina glared at her, but she ignored it and dove straight onto the thick, sumptuous purple covers. "What, they thought we were sisters?" "Or maybe they think we're..." Arika giggled. "You're so boring, Nina-chan." "Shut up!" argued the dark-haired girl, blushing slightly. "As if I'd...with you, of all people..." "Ow." Nina blinked. "Hm?" "That hurt..." Arika didn't move, or turn to face her, but her shoulders were taught as she lay face-down on the bed. "You're so cold sometimes, Nina-chan." "I...er...I'm sorry, I didn't mean...I didn't think you..." The redhead waved dismissively and then patted the bed space beside herself. "Just shut up and come get some sleep already. I don't know about you but I'm exhausted." Nina frowned. "Only if you keep your fingers to yourself." Arika grinned over her shoulder and wiggled her fingers at the other girl, who shrank back slightly at the sight. "Only if you need it, Nina-chan. I think it's the only time I've really seen you laugh." Nina turned her nose up petulantly. "I laugh. You just never it see because I don't laugh near you, you foolish young girl." She turned away and hung up the heavy brown coat that they had scrounged out of a dumpster onto one of the hooks by the door. Then on second thought, she unhooked the thing and tossed it into the large empty hamper in the corner beside the bathroom door. The cool breeze from the air conditioning unit was suddenly chill against her skin, naked as she was under the coat, having had her clothes destroyed long ago and that green cloth thing long gone. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, until a second pair joined them without warning, pulling her back against another warm body. "Arika..." she tried to protest, but it just trailed off. So cold and tired, such wasn't really the time to be protesting offered hospitality. She wriggled her way round to face the other girl and returned the gesture, her arms fitting around Arika's waist in a way that seemed almost...comfortable. "Nina-chan, please, you need to rest. You're still weak." The redhead's voice was soft and entreating in tone, and her eyes showed her concern clear as day when she looked down. Nina found her resolve melting away. "Okay," she surrendered finally. "Let's just...go to bed, yeah..." "I promise," replied Arika, "my hands will stay where they belong." Nina nodded. "Right...right where they are now...I think..." And that was that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Not too much later that very same night, the air above the city was a dark tempest of swirling clouds that crackled and spat lightning in thick sheets across the sky, a nebulous whirlpool of malevolent power that formed the condensed masses of water into an upward-stretching spiral. The massive storm-cloud that hung over the city was being twisted and reshaped by some nameless force, unbeknownst to the citizens below, until it was a towering spire reaching up into the stratosphere. Just below the base of that huge tower, blinding bright bursts of pale yellow smashed and hammered against an ominous spot of deep thrumming orange, answered occasionally by thin slashes of flame that raced across the skies in wide, sweeping arcs. A news helicopter circled low over the city, battered downward by the torrential rains and an inexplicably strong wind that seemed to be blowing straight down. "Hey! Would ya watch where you're pointin' that thing, woman!" The pilot leant over to one side up against the thick glass that made up the cockpit side, away from the handheld microphone being waved dangerously in his direction. "Shut up," barked the newscaster herself, straightening herself back into her seat and adjusting her tie. "Just try not to crash into anything." "You've got thirty seconds, Yomi," said the man behind the camera in that unnervingly calm voice he always used. "Now isn't the time for worrying about your outfit." She gave him a sarcastic smile in return and flicked her thick brown hair back over her shoulder again. "Iwata, check the outboard cam again." "Hey, trust me, it's fine. I know what I'm doing." "But..." Iwata gave her a very firm look that left no room for any more protests. She frowned and let out a resigned sigh just as the little red light flickered to life on the side of the camera. The voice of her director came storming into her left ear like a freight train rushing past so loud that she could hear perfectly despite not having the earpiece in place. She always did hate how those things looked on camera, after all. Hers spent most of its life tucked behind her ear out of sight where she could hear the director just fine, not that she usually listened to the idiot anyway. Bureaucrat. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen," she said in her most formal voice, effortlessly masking over her own emotions. "Up here, in the skies above Tokyo city, a most disturbing event is unfolding that even the scientific community of Japan is having trouble explaining away. Some have theorised that this is, in fact, some sort of freak natural occurrence, or perhaps an artificially caused meteorological phenomenon." Iwata flicked a few switches and the camera feed swapped over, leaving Yomi only seconds to move, still talking, to her next position kneeling right beside the wide glass door of the craft. "As you can see, the sky directly overhead is an impenetrable shell of cloud, dark enough to blind even the best of pilots and all but extinguish the already meagre starlight Tokyo receives on the clearest of nights. There appears to be some kind of cyclone system forming in the sky, however irrational it may seem, upside-down over the city." Another flick of a switch and the masses were treated to a first-class view out of the door of the helicopter, looking out over the Tokyo skyline towards the epicentre of that tremendous storm cloud some few short kilometres away, where the 'lightning' was at its brightest and most colourful. "What has many people worried is this, you see before you now; it appears to be some kind of electrical discharge that defies most of what Japan's meteorological experts know about lightning in its many forms. The closest anyone has come so far is the notion that, perhaps, this is simply an aggravated and confused natural weather pattern affected by the unnatural pressure systems that flow over the manmade structures below. The lightning is branching out in all directions, but for now there appears to be no danger to anyone on the ground. Indeed, even the tallest buildings have stood so far witho-" She broke off. The director started yelling in her ear, but she wasn't listening. She was signalling frantically behind her back to her cameraman, off-camera, while she held a pair of motorised binoculars up to her face with the other hand. Iwata looked confused at first but soon found what it was that appeared to have grasped his co-worker's attention so viciously and zoomed the camera rapidly in on it. "A girl," said the newscaster to herself in an astonished whisper. She cleared her throat, shaking the note of startled wonder from her voice as she held the microphone back up to her mouth and clicked it on. "A girl," she declared firmly, ignoring that pest of a voice buzzing behind her ear. Screw jumping to conclusions. "That's right, ladies and gentlemen, you really are seeing this. Up in the skies above Tokyo city, an unidentified girl, throwing what appears to be bolts of lightning as if they were sheets of paper..." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Haruka was oblivious to the helicopter, or the young newswoman therein whom she had at least several years over, calling her a "girl" of all things. She was too busy kicking some serious ass. That was the best part of being Armitage. Yes, admittedly, living as the successful and incredibly wealthy owner of one of the largest business firms in Japan was impressive, and being her ravishingly beautiful self was not without its rewards however hard it was to maintain, but nothing compared to Armitage. Armitage was power, and pride, and an attitude that nothing could silence. Armitage didn't take shit from anyone for anything, and that was just the way she liked it. But most of all: Armitage was a smack down with a ten-ton truck. The overkill, that was what she loved the most, the sheer gratuitous excess. The way in which any threat, any opponent, was dealt with in exactly the same way; she blasted the ever-living crap out of it. Armitage was an unstoppable avatar of righteous vengeance, the burning fist of justice. Her fury was the sun, incinerating everything in its path. Those stupid Orphans never stood a chance. The snake beast screamed at her again and she threw yet another enormous bolt of energy at the thing with an enraged bellow of her own. Like a solid beam as thick as her thigh it jumped from her outstretched fist to the creature, connecting faster than the eye could follow and bringing forth a blinding splash of yellowish light that temporarily obscure her opponent from view. The scream it gave, much more discordant than before, gave her immense satisfaction. From the foaming cloud of smoke that had engulfed the Orphan issued forth several long, curving jets of flame that arced through the air towards her, closing in from all around, even above and below her. In a heartbeat, she was a sitting duck, with countless trails of fire racing to meet her and torch her alive, or so it might have seemed. The attack broke across an invisible shell that encapsulated her from head to foot and left the mighty Armitage unscathed and laughing contemptuously at her foe, arms crossed over (rather, under) her expansive chest. "You're no match for me, you foolish beast!" Her voice was as bold and commanding as ever, even though the Orphan could likely not understand her at all. Japanese-speaking aliens; who ever heard of such a thing? Instead of boasting, as she usually did, her tone became an agitated demand. "You can't win against the power of Armitage! What is it you want here? Did you come to make a few pretty little patterns in the sky or are you on some sort of mission?" The creature did not answer her, not that she had really expected one, nor did it take advantage of her pause as they most often did. Haruka felt her irritation growing ever larger as the thing continued to stare her down, tiny jolts of electricity snapping across its scaled body in spasmodic patterns. The tingling feeling creeping across her skin was beginning to grow stronger, though whether it was her exerting herself so far or the lightning in the air remained unanswered. "Fine!" she yelled at it, flashing her trademark 'insane wrath' grin at the Orphan. "I'll just have to blow you into a million tiny pieces and then interrogate what's left!" She clenched her left hand into a fist, the muscles in her forearm, usually hidden beneath lightly tanned skin, bulging impressively. Blowing it up wasn't working, so it was time for the hands-on approach. Her body darted forward at something approaching the speed of sound, leaving shockwave in the air behind her, and her arm bent back beside her head to deliver a good solid punch right on that annoying snake's face. At the last second, the Orphan turned its attention up towards the clouds overhead and started squirming its way up through the air at a startling speed. Its whole body was crackling with static and the horn on the prow of its serpentine head was giving off a soft blue glow. Haruka shot straight past it and was some distance away before she could stop and turn back towards it, blinking confusedly. "Damn it," she cursed under her breath and sent herself flying after the thing at top speed. "Bastard!" she yelled at it. "Get back here! I'm not finished with you yet!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The sound of a soft, muffled whisper seeped in through the foggy black haze of unconsciousness and brushed at the edges of a tired and disoriented mind. The mind in question responded by twitching a few extremities before sending slow, cautious impulses down its associated arms. They tried to move, but found themselves caught around something large, at least as wide as their owner's own body; or more precisely, they were wrapped about something. A pair of deep, golden orange eyes rolled lethargically open. The first thing they saw was moonlight, pale and silvery, and the soft yellow-orange glow of artificial light trickling in through the gap between thick red curtains drawn shut across a sliding glass door. The door appeared not quite firmly closed and a gentle night breeze blew one side of the curtain lazily back and forth, dragging across the carpeted floor with a hushed rustling noise. As they wafted ajar, a balcony came into view beyond the door, not much more than large enough for one person and lined by narrow black metal railings less than a metre high. Nina blinked slowly, once then twice, shifting her body slightly to one side as she unfolded her upper arm from where it lay draped across the person-sized lump resting in bed beside her. Her lower arm stayed where it was, trapped between the bed and that familiar figure, as she shook the drowsiness from her head. The thin, short bowl of her emery black hair fell down behind her head to brush against her naked shoulders, and a shiver ran through her when another draught sent chill midnight air racing about her exposed back and sides; still she sat up as far as she could without extricating her arm for where it stayed, snug and warm. On the balcony, silhouetted against the light streaming in from outside, was a modestly tall dark figure of some description. The most prominent features were thick, high-topped boots that stretched up the figure's calves quite a distance, along with a huge, wide brimmed hat that cast a shadow on most of the person's body as well as creating a vast expanse of darkness on the floor behind. The rest of the figure was shrouded by a long cloak garment that reached almost to the ankles, wafting slowly in the breeze just as did the curtains. "W..." Nina tried to speak, but her throat choked up and she coughed instead. Her free hand went at once to cover her mouth, stifling her hacking, lest her outbursts wake the redheaded girl sleeping peacefully by her side. The muscles under her ribs and all across her left side still ached unbearably as they had all through the previous day, but that pain had lost its sharp edge at least. When she finally had her breathing back under control, she cleared her throat and gave another attempt. "Who are you," she prompted firmly of the unidentified figure on the balcony. "What are you doing here?" The figure turned slowly towards her, sliding the glass door fully open once again. Those thick, solid boots sounded heavy on the thin carpet as the figure stepped into the room, darkness still obscuring any facial features. Nina was too busy looking hesitantly about the room in which she now lay to pay too much heed as that figure turned to stand at the foot of the bed, not more than a metre or so from the balcony door. "Where are we?" Nina inquired of the silent intruder, her tone growing a touch more imperative. "This isn't the same room...what did you do?" "I moved you," replied an easily recognisable voice somewhere between softly feminine and deeply masculine, firm and cold yet gentle and reassuring in some strange way. "Had they come for you, I would not have been able to get you both out in time. I needed an alternate entrance." Nina beat her free hand against the bed as hard as she could, though only a soft whuff of air issued forth in protest, thankfully nothing loud enough as to even threaten the other girl's peaceful slumber. "You-" she cut off with something of a start, turning her head quickly to the sleeping Arika. Apparently, her raised tone of voice had not broken through the redhead's deep unconscious state, for she snored softly on to herself yet. "You have a lot of explaining to do," Nina reaffirmed considerably more subdued than before, "Miss...whoever you are... Well for one thing, who are you anyway? And where is this place?" "I am Miyu." Nina cocked an eyebrow curiously. "So you say your name is Miyu. Then you're that woman we saw earlier, in the alley?" Miyu shook her head almost unnoticeably and repeated, stressing the words in what Nina thought was an uncomfortable sounding manner, "I am Miyu." "Okay," Nina relented uneasily, "Miyu-san...where are we?" Miyu paused for quite a long few moments, the dark void that covered her face concealing any expressions that might be flickering to hint at her underlying emotion, though knowing Miyu none would anyway. Her voice was the same flat, deep, and somehow emotive tone it always was when she answered quite simply, "Earth." "Earth?" Nina looked around her again at the darkened room, bemusement on her face. "But..." "Not the Earth with which you are familiar, Nina-san," interrupted the enigmatic woman before Nina could ask any further questions. Her face turned ever so slightly to the young girl's side. "Do you remember the Black Valley, Yumemiya-san?" "I think so," came Arika's voice, sleepy and dazed though it was, from just beside and behind Nina's shoulder, startling her considerably. The redhead brought both hands to her face to rub her eyes awake, yawning hugely. Nina's arm drifted downward back towards her side but, surprisingly, Arika turned her head to the dark-haired girl with an odd expression when she noticed the movement and reached out to take Nina's hand in her own. She drew that arm back up, until it was draped across behind her shoulders, and then leaned slightly into the other girl so that her shoulder nudged Nina's chest. Nina flushed slightly, and was thankful nobody could see it through the darkness. Try as she might though, she couldn't stop her hand from drifting back down to where it had been before, settled on Arika's far hip. Where it was more...comfortable. "The Black Valley is like an island caught between dimensions, stretched across the boundary separating one world from another. Either world can pass into the Valley, and then out the other side into another dimension." "Wait..." Nina felt her eyebrows knotting together in the middle of her forehead, but what was said actually seemed to be making sense. "So we're not on Earth...but some...other Earth?" "Yes," replied Miyu simply, in that oh so final way she had of doing so. "You have passed from your own world to a different one, where Earth has not expanded out into space yet, and technology has not advanced as far as it has on your planet." "Miyu," began Arika, but Nina interrupted, "But then how did we get here? The last thing I can remember, we were..." she trailed off. "I brought you both." Miyu turned to face the balcony again, leaving her face in profile as she tipped her head back until moonlight was free to wash in under the rim of her hat and illuminate her features at last. "You were needed here, so I was forced to bring you." "Miyu," Arika repeated imploringly, "you keep saying "your world"..." She paused. The question hung on the tip of her tongue. It was such a foolish thing to ask, certainly, but from the worried look on her face, Arika already knew the answer. "...but it's yours too, isn't it Miyu?" Miyu shook her head slowly from side to side, letting the fedora shroud her face once more. "I am not of your world. This world, this reality, this is my home." Silence reined for a long while, the two young girls sitting a little uncomfortably on the bed side by side, looking hesitantly at one another with similar confused expressions hidden in the darkness. After what seemed like forever, Nina finally broke through the awkward pause, turning her attention back to the black-robed figure, "Miyu-san..." Miyu was gone, empty air where but moments before had stood that mysterious blue-haired woman. The night breeze wafted the curtains back and forth through the open balcony door. Nina let out a heavy sigh, a slightly agitated sound. "Does she expect us to just sit here in this room forever then? What are we doing here? Surely there must be some reason she brought us here in the first place..." Arika's arm around her lower back gave a comforting squeeze. "Don't worry, Nina," she said in an unexpectedly tender voice. "I'm sure Miyu-san knows what she's doing. I trust her not to put us in danger if she can help it." "Hey... What did you call me?" Nina responded after a considerably lengthy pause. Arika smiled not quite nervously up at her, still leaning into the dark-haired girl's side. "What's wrong, Nina? Did I say something wrong?" Nina turned her nose up slightly and averted her gaze. "Just...nothing." She almost left it at that, but something was just screaming at her to be a little more forthcoming and she eventually relented. "Just...thinking of fa-Sergei..." she corrected herself. "I'm sorry." Nina looked back down at the redhead leaning limp against her, cradled in her arm. "What?" She shook her head slowly. "You haven't done anything wrong, Arika...I just..." She trailed off again. A hand grasped at her shoulder, turning her to face the other girl as Arika leaned up until their faces were level. "I'm sorry...Ni-na." "Don't say that..." Arika's thin, delicate young lips twitched into a half-smirk as one finger traced a slow, lazy pattern across the other girl's upper chest, gradually wandering lower. "Ni...na..." The way her lips moved as the sounds drifted out, barely a whisper, as if her tongue caressed every nuance as it went. She was clearly enjoying it. One more time, her mouth spread open the very slightest way and the tip of that narrow pink tongue peeked out as it curled up behind her top teeth... "Ni..." Nina shot her a suddenly amused look. "Go back to sleep already, Arinko." "Sergei used to call me that," replied Arika in an almost sensuous tone. Before any questions could be asked, the redhead let herself fall onto her back again with a soft thump and her arm around Nina's waist pulled the other girl down with her, so they lay once more side by side. In place of the usual mischievous comment that Nina might have expected, there was only silence, a puzzlingly relaxing, contented sort of silence. As Arika's eyes drifted shut again, her smile shifted from amusement to satisfaction. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Outside, somewhere nearby on a deserted rooftop, high above street level, that dark figure stood solemnly at the corner straddling a high metal railing, looking out over the cityscape with shocking red eyes. Her face was as flat and calm as ever, but her eyes gave subtle hint to the tumultuous emotions roiling and foaming beneath her placid surface. "I lied," she said to no one, her voice filled with regret. "Yumemiya-san trusts me with her life...and I lied to her." The small yellow bird perched atop her left shoulder turned its head in an almost human manner and twittered at her excitedly. "No, I understand, Miss, but..." She repeated, as if in answer this time, "I lied. I lied to both of them... Because they must not know the truth, is that it Miss? Isn't that what you wanted? All this is so that they can still lead normal lives, if they survive..." The little bird twittered some more, chirping away in its melodious little voice, and Miyu seemed to listen intently to what it had to say. She nodded almost imperceptibly in response. "I tried to tell them the truth," she answered after a moment's more silence. Her eyes turned down to glance at her hand for a moment as she spoke. "How can something so artificial have a name to begin with...?" The little bird squawked furiously at her all of a sudden, chattering agitatedly and hopping about on her shoulder, flapping its wings at her. She lifted a hand to offer a comforting touch to its head, but it refused, batting the offered fingers away with its wings and squawking still. "Please, Miss...I know you don't like it when I say it, but it is the truth. I do not deserve a human name, after all." Miyu slowly let her eyes drift shut, and her face relaxed again from the tense expression it had grown to back to its natural emotionless state. The little bird was still warbling away angrily as she spoke again, in a much softer, more soothing tone of voice, "please, Miss. I promise, I won't mention it again. I pro-" There was a sharp hiss. The little yellow bird leapt up and fluttered into the air as Miyu hunched forward violently, her hands grasping at the metal railing to keep herself from falling. Her fingers tightened with such force that the rusted old metal bars twisted and deformed under her touch, like warmed plastic. Panicked warbling filled the air, that little yellow bird circling frantically above the woman, now kneeling, as a cloud of luminescent blue steam emitted from the back of her neck in several thick puffs. Her mind was boiling. Her brain was exploding inside her head, frying the inside of her skull and everything else within, including itself. Her vision turned blue and violet, and red, then orange, then green, all the different colours she could name and many she couldn't, cycling through them all one after the other at ever-increasing speeds. Her consciousness was being sucked away, one tiny piece at a time, nibbled at by a thousand angry wasps. It was agony, and it was unstoppable, and it was terrifying. Images, sounds, scents...memories she had almost forgotten she even had came rushing to the surface as they one by one dissolved before her eyes; memories of a mysterious man towering over her prone body, of voices all around her in the darkness, of how cold snow was... ...a tall, young golden-haired woman, standing in the snow... She grabbed that one with all her might and forced it away somewhere deep inside, where the pain couldn't find it and destroy it. Then, the world faded away into dark silence. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Several hundred metres more or less directly up, much was afoot. Haruka recoiled swiftly through the air away from her opponent, clutching a hand tightly against the side of her arm. Blood seeped through the narrow gaps between her fingers, trickled down the back of her hand in thin rivulets, down along her forearm, and dripped off her other elbow. It stung like hell, sure, but it was still pitifully shallow a wound; a paper cut in the face of a raging angry bull. Ultimately, it only made her even more pissed off. "Damn it," she yelled at the Orphan, again, "you really don't want to make me any madder!" The Orphan replied with another fresh burst of razor-thin flaming shafts that lanced out towards her like flailing tendrils, lashing and writhing through the air, each one missing by a comfortable margin thanks to Armitage's incredible agility. She slid from side to side effortlessly, and whatever didn't miss completely broke apart against the thick, glowing yellow transparency that manifested in front of her as a shield. The second the attack ended, Haruka answered in kind with one hand stretched towards the creature, fingers spread, yellow light glowing at their tips. Energy leapt from her fingertips in rapid fire, thin yellow beams that snapped through the air and scorched deep, smouldering pits into the surface of those thick armoured plates that covered the snake creature's hide. It screamed and thrashed, and tried to evade, but dodging bolts of light is, as any physicist will attest to, practically impossible at such short range. Haruka's face twisted from angry to wicked delight and the glow surrounding her fingers swelled. Pale yellow turned lighter, whiter, those narrow shafts of light smashing into the Orphan's scales like miniature nuclear explosives. The screaming grew and grew until it was almost deafening, and still Armitage attacked. Her opponent was in agony, and it was losing, and that was a damned good thing. Lightning crackled wildly just a few metres overhead, drowning out everything and almost deafening Haruka herself, and leaving the air tingling with static. The tips of her fingers felt like they'd been pressed against a hot grill, burnt and sore. She swore, loudly and creatively, and then started channelling energy back into her other hand. "Stupid fucking lightning," she yelled at...well, who knows, really? She looked up, at the swirling storm clouds above, and shook her fist. "Whose side are you on here, anyway!" As if in reply, the wind that had been all night long trying to batter her down to the ground...stopped. The rain ceased, as abruptly as if someone had simply flicked a switch. Lightning still crackled and spat as it ran all about the surface of the cloud, and from deep within thunder still rumbled, almost like some sort of huge reaction were taking place concealed inside that thick black shroud. The strange tingling sensation crawling all over her bare skin, static building in the air, it was getting thicker and stronger by the second. It was like being jammed between two giant electrodes. She turned back to the Orphan, ever angrier, and yelled at it again, "What are you planning, damn it!" It answered with a scream. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Mikoto stood perched at the very edge, leaning out over the precipice without hint of trepidation. Her bare feet shifted against the soaking concrete ledge, slapping wetly as she swapped her weight from one side to the other and back again. "Mikoto!" Mai looked somewhere between furious and distraught, dashing across the roof towards the young girl. She was still panting slightly from the sudden rush up so many flights of stairs in such a hurry. She ran out at full head and didn't stop until she was within reaching distance of her young charge, upon which she keeled forward violently and put both hands on the sturdy grey stone ledge and panted heavily. "I'm...not as fit as...I thought," she heaved between breaths, trying to laugh self-consciously and failing. Mikoto didn't seem to be paying much attention though; the girl's face was turned up to the sky above and her eyes narrowed, unblinking, focused on the bright flashing specks fluttering wildly about under the thick cloud cover. "I have to go," she announced resolutely. "I have to stop it." "Damn it, Mikoto, get down from there right now!" When the girl bluntly refused to reply, Mai hissed and bashed one fist angrily against the concrete ledge. The young girl turned her head back to look over her shoulder, showing a most determined expression on her face. Her features were hard set, steadfast against Mai's protest; the redhead found her arguments quickly dissolving in futility. "I have to protect Mai," declared Mikoto just as tenacious as before. She turned her gaze back up to the sky, and the narrow tails of her hair wafted dramatically out behind her from her head, the thin white shirt wrapped about her ruffling in the breeze. "I have to stop them, or they'll hurt Mai. I can't let anyone...I can't let that happen...not ever..." "Mikoto..." The older woman shook her head frantically, her eyes stinging with a mixture of the sharp chill in the air and sudden bewilderment. "What are you talking about, Mikoto? You're talking like..." "You don't remember," interrupted Mikoto, rounding on her with that same resolved expression on her face, amber eyes gleaming. "You've forgotten." "Remember...remember what?" Mikoto blinked. "I remember...I...remember..." She shook her head from side to side dismissively. "I remember! I know...who... Mai, don't you remember? Don't...don't you know..." Confusion replaced obstinacy as her eyes darted about from her hands to her feet, to her makeshift guardian. "Mikoto, you're not making any sense!" A flash of blindingly bright light splashed across the roof, illuminating everything in sharp contrast for barely a second before fading away again. A few moments later, there came a most terrific crashing boom, like the ground was splitting apart. A second flash of lightning came not too long after, then a third, followed by more deafening thunder behind it. Mai looked up towards the source of all that light and noise with a curious expression, as did her young companion too. At the base of the colossal towering cloud structure, a minute shape was forming; a disk of shining golden-red and orange and yellow, roiling like flames. At the sight of it, Mai felt her head throbbing inside. It was...familiar. The ocean crashing up against the rocks far below, sprayed thick white foam up in hissing sheets that leapt up over the cliff-side and showered over those assembled like a heavy rain. The air was a raging beast, sweeping and diving like some terrible invisible monster trying to claw the cliff apart. Out across the sea, lights flickered on the horizon. Thin trails of white smoke arced up into the air and dashed across the sky towards the coast... Mai felt her knees trembling under her. Her heart was pounding furiously in her chest, and her head was ringing like there was a bell stuck over it and someone was bashing away with a hammer. Her fingers clenched up tightly until her nails stung her palms. "Don't get the wrong idea! Nothing happened here!" "That's insane!" "There's no need to go running into a conflict. I'm sure there's a way..." "Why resist it? This is the purpose for which you were created!" Words in her head, all jumbled up, all racing around inside her mind at different speeds, all yelling at her at once. It was deafening. Her hands went to her head reflexively and her knees gave out without warning, dropping her down to the concrete roof with a soft thump. Mikoto jumped down from her ledge and started yelping at her in a panic, but she couldn't hear anything past the roar of voices in her brain. Up high in the sky, beneath a beautiful cloudy blue sunset, a huge plain of fire erupted from nowhere. The air split open and flames poured out like water. The heat was tremendous. Writhing from out of that eternal fiery hell came the figure of an immense dragon, a legless winged beast all in white and wreathed in flame, with many eyes hidden about its head, and a huge dagger embedded through its snout. The God of Destruction. Kagutsuchi. Mai's head was ready to explode, and still it wouldn't stop. Her body rolled forward until her forehead touched the soaking concrete. "Get out," she mumbled, deliriously. Her voice broke as she screamed out, "get out of my head!" The fire was all around, still consuming what few trees left standing. Where there had been before a thick patch of forest, now was a clearing, scorched and barren earth around a huge elongated crater that still glowed with incredible heat. Mai looked down at the ground from her perch atop the great dragon's shoulder and saw no sign of the young girl. "This doesn't make sense!" Mai's voice was turning hoarse from her screaming already, mostly an inarticulate wailing that overcame her body whenever her awareness was consumed within yet another bewildering vision. There was blood and skin under her fingernails and the palms of both hands stung unbearably. "You killed him!" Mikoto looked up at her with a dead expression on her face. "Eh?" "You killed Takumi!" Unstoppable rage boiled up within her. All the fury of the great God of Fire was at her fingertips, to be unleashed at any moment. Against any foe. "DIE!" "No!" Mai shook her head frantically against the images, pounding her forehead against the concrete until it hurt. "NO! This isn't real!" The voices came faster and thicker, jumbled into each other, all trying to speak at once, yelling at her from inside her own brain. Vision flashed behind her eyes faster than she could follow. It was all so...familiar. "This is the purpose for which you were created." "Tokiha!" Something was grabbing at her shoulder, but it was already too late. Her consciousness couldn't take any more. Her fist unclenched and her knees stopped shaking as all the muscles in her body went limp. Her body keeled over to one side with a wet splash as she hit the concrete. "TOKIHA!" Someone...someone was screaming her name. She tried to open her eyes and saw only a storm of colours. "This is your purpose..." ...to destroy. To kill. She lashed out as hard as she could with both arms at the figure hovering over her. Her body convulsed. Her eyes went wide. "GET AWAY FROM ME!" Something lashed across her face with a sharp crack and knocked her senseless. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The clouds were parting. The tremendous mass of darkness hanging over the city was spinning even faster than before, and in the very centre, the clouds parted. Slowly, the parting grew, until it became a narrow hole all the way up to the top of the storm and out. Then it spread, widening out ever so slowly, showing more and more of the clear starlit sky through the gap in the immense cloud cover, like a tunnel to another world. Unseen by eyes on the ground, the upper part of the monolithic tower blossomed out like a gigantic flower to reveal a dazzling aurora of light and colours, twisting and winding in on itself in ever-increasingly more complex patterns, tightening down into a single bright point that was every colour at once. Down below, Armitage was getting furious. More scratches littered her arms and legs, even one across her cheek, blood trickling over her skin in thin streams. The muscles all along her arms stood out in sharp relief, tensed and ready, and her thighs were bunched up thick as she squeezed her hands into fists. Her teeth ground together with an audible scraping noise. As the clouds parted above her head, moonlight streamed down over her like some sort of heavenly spotlight, illuminating her features in sharp relief. She grinned a decidedly malicious grin, the moonlight lending her an almost inhumanly evil aura. Her eyes narrowed malevolently at her opponent. She opened her mouth to say something awe-inspiring, but a bright golden light flashed off to her left far below, jarring her attention. A golden beam of light raced up through the air and collided with that beastly Orphan in a bright flash. The beam faded, the light resolved into the figure of a tall and vaguely feminine person of some description, body mostly obscured by a heavy, billowing black cloak and an enormously broad-rimmed black hat. The figure held one arm aloft in front, thrusting upward. Haruka looked closer, and discovered that the figure's entire left hand from just behind the wrist was instead replaced by a long, flat blade that glowed with an eerie golden yellowish light. The blade had driven itself straight into the underbelly of the Orphan upon impact until the tip protruded from its upper edge, gleaming wetly. Thick orange blood oozed down the figure's forearm and dripped from a bony elbow. The Orphan gave a last, agonised screech, and then evaporated into a thousand pieces. With it, vanished the howling cyclone winds and the directionally challenged rain, and even the clouds above were starting to dissolve. However, that mysterious figure stayed floating still where the creature had been slain, the blade glowing brighter yet. "Negating dimensional field..." "Huh?" Haruka shifted back into an anticipatory stance. "What the hell?" The glowing yellow light died without a sound. High above, where no one would really notice, the ball of writhing energy winked out of existence like a light being switched off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Yet again, the car rolled to a gentle stop. Only the driver seemed to notice; the lone passenger was still engrossed in staring off into the middle distance, a glazed look in her eyes. When there came a tapping on the blacked-out window separating the passenger area from the driver's cab, it took her quite a while to even notice. "Yes?" She tapped one carefully manicured fingernail impatiently against the wooden panel armrest beside her, her weight resting on her elbow as she leaned against the thing lethargically. "There's a call for you, Fumiyoshi-sama. It's the committee line." She snapped up the receiver set into the armrest and brought it at once to her ear, a dark expression clouding her face. "Fumiyoshi," she declared in a decidedly acidic tone of voice. "What do you want now?" As the other person talked, her expression shifted from dangerously grim to acute irritation, and her fingers found their way back down to start drumming against the armrest by her side. She tipped her head slightly, and all that thick lavender-coloured hair came rushing down to obscure her face like a curtain being drawn. She blew at it with frustration, but it refused to move. "Damn it," she replied at last, sitting up a little straighter. "Where do you get off telling me how to run my own company? Don't you think I know what I'm doing after ten years? I hope I don't have to remind you, I may look like a child to you, but looks aren't everything." She turned quiet again as that imbecile on the other end started spouting more garbage, twisting her narrow mouth into an agitated scowl. "No, you listen to me, you little pencil-pushing bitch," she interrupted, loudly. "You keep your own damned opinions to yourself. You're paid to advise that bastard Minagi, well you can advise him this. Tell him I know what I'm damn well doing and if he thinks he can do a better job, he'll just have to come to Tokyo and see for himself! That idiot already screwed these girls over twice now. They're not his personal fucking toys, they're extremely valuable property and moreover, they're still more human than not. They deserve to be handled as such!" She paused and took a very deep breath. "Oh, and one more thing. Tell him if I hear another single one of his stupid dance metaphors, I swear, I'm going to get Kotetsu to screw him over so hard, HE'LL be the one wearing the fucking dress for the rest of his life!" She slammed the phone down hard. Then she picked it up and slammed it again so hard the plastic cracked. For a while, she just sat there being extremely pissed off, grating her teeth and digging her nails into the upholstery until it started ripping. Eventually, she calmed down far enough to close her eyes, take a nice deep, long breath and relax back into her seat again. Her heart was still pounding in her chest and her temper still felt frayed to the very last thread, so she took another deep breath, followed by a third. Somewhere along the way, she ended up with her knees together, hands in her lap, her head back and her eyes closed, humming softly to herself. Her tension swiftly disappeared once she really got into it, just the way it usually did. "Thank the Kami for mother's stupid yoga classes," she muttered to herself without moving her lips. Oh, now she was doing it again, talking inside her own head. Bad habit that. "Stupid Minagi. Self-absorbed little brat. If I were still myself, I bet then he'd listen." She blinked her eyes open at that and looked down. Then she frowned. Her hands drifted on up to her chest. "Damn, I hate being young again. People won't listen to a flat-chested, whiny little girl." "Perhaps you would be more comfortable back in your own body, Fumiyoshi-sama? Auricom do still have your old DNA files, don't they? I'm sure they'd be happy to rebuild it for you." The pink-haired girl smiled cheerfully at the darkened window, beyond which, hid that familiar face behind the wheel. "Thank you, Juno-san, but... I'm kind of attached to this one now. Besides, I want to see the look on her face when we meet again." "Whose face, miss?" She rolled her eyes derisively. "Who else?" "Ah...I see. You're awfully attached to her as well, it would seem." The young girl blushed just a little, her lavender hair falling down either side of her face seemed to emphasise the colour in her cheeks. "Perhaps," she murmured, mostly to herself. "She has a habit of growing on people." She lapsed back into silence as the car moved away again. For a long while, her eyes were shut and her breathing levelled out and she drifted somewhere just beyond full consciousness, in the calm and peaceful void inside her own mind. It was definitely therapeutic, but then mother had always had a knack for cooling people off. It was so serene, in fact, that she once again failed to register her name being called until about the fifth attempt. "Fumiyoshi-sama! Please, wake up, it's urgent." "I wasn't asleep," huffed the young pink-haired girl, uncrossing her legs and jabbing a finger at one of the buttons on the armrest. There was a soft click from the speaker set in the ceiling. "Who is it and what do you want?" "It's Tatami," answered a non-descript and rather androgynous voice, highly toned and softly spoken. "Miss Fumiyoshi, the committee would like to inform you that there has been a slight change of plans." "I'm well aware of the changes to the deployment schedule, thank you very much Tatami." "I'm afraid it's a little more complicated than you might think, Miss. The committee decided that, while a Japanese military presence in Tokyo would not be too suspicious in the eyes of the public, the situation at hand is accelerating more rapidly than they had planned. A vote was cast and it has already been agreed that the remaining five units will not be ready for the trials on time and, as such, are due to be dismantled and decommissioned." The young businesswoman-come-princess gasped and slapped a hand down on the armrest by her side. "That...that is unacceptable! And just what do they plan to do with the five of them once all the augmentations...?" She slumped back into her seat with a heavy sigh. "No, don't tell me. I'm sure I can guess." "Also, the committee have agreed to grant Mr. Reinsfield's company a covert military presence within the city in case the conditions escalate any further, since the Japanese Self-Defence Forces would be more than outmatched should another Orphan appear without any of the project units available to intercept it. I have-" She stabbed angrily at another button and the line cut out with a satisfying click. Her other hand was still balled into a fist, shaking wildly by her side, her nails clawing into her palm. "Idiots," she spat under her breath. "Leave everything to the very last second and then they expect our external contractors to cover up all the holes. And what of BAE themselves? Couldn't they have planned for this from the very beginning?" A most wicked thought skipped across the back of her mind, bringing a grimace to her face. "Oh, I'm sure they'd love the chance to show that damned Armitage of theirs off to everyone in the G8 if they could. Smug foreign bastards." "I'll make a detour, shall I, Fumiyoshi-sama? To the nearest park..." Once again, her smile turned a little sweeter and her tensed facial muscles slackened. "Thank you, Juno-san. I suppose it would help to calm down a little before my engagement." She took another very deep breath, closed her eyes and started humming softly to herself.
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