A Sky of Falling Stars, part 3.3: Tomato Juice
I do not own the RAILDEX universe.
Author's Note:
Somewhere, while He sleeps.
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" . . . "
No Jaywalking.
That was just one thought among many in her mind as she perched upon the edge of the sidewalk and waited patiently for the walk sign to appear. The girl with short dark hair and glasses had been glancing through her phone messages when she remembered that this particular intersection had developed a glitch recently, rendering the wait easily two minutes longer than what she was normally accustomed to. After a moment's thought, she shrugged her shoulders, which lifted her ample chest just enough to emphasize its presence to anyone who cared to look.
Her name was Konori Mii and, as a proud member of Judgment, she wasn't going to start breaking the laws now. Especially not with the familiar green insignia pinned so prominently on her sleeve. It didn't matter that traffic was nearly non-existent or that the lack of pedestrians was downright unusual for this time of day. As an embodiment of the city's rules, she had no intention of breaking them. The young woman hid a deep yawn behind her hand and had just began to stretch her arms over her head when she heard a male voice catcalling behind her.
"Oh Guernsey-san~~"
The girl's arms dropped immediately as her teeth were set on edge. Konori held her fist at the ready and turned around, finding an unremarkable but all too familiar young man standing just behind her. He winked and mimed a gunshot with his fingers, clicking his tongue. Her fist dropped as she rolled her eyes.
"Yabumi-san." The girl put on her best candy-sweet smile. "It's nice to see you a– HAH!"
Without warning, the lovely arm of the law sent it's fist directly at the boy's head. In a fluid motion, Yabumi bent at the knees, moving just enough that Konori could feel the heat from his face as her knuckles passed him by.
"Blast!" The busty girl went slightly off balance for a moment before squaring her stance again. She gritted her teeth when she saw him yawn behind his hand. "I can't keep missing forever . . . "
Yabumi smiled a narrow and infuriatingly patronizing smile.
"I'd suggest best two out of three . . ." Yabumi lifted up the heavy grocery bag he was carrying to give the girl a better look. "But, I doubt that a sweet law abiding girl like you would hit a defenseless shopper."
"You, sir, are far from defenseless." Konori smirked and leaned forwards. "You might also be interested to know that I have been doing some extra speed training recently. Just a few more weeks and you're going down, boy!"
"I'll look forward to it." The girl grinned broadly as he continued. "But we have more important matters to deal with right now."
Konori tilted her head in confusion.
"I just received a text from His Imperial Headbandness informing me that you will be joining us for dinner tonight."
"He was kind enough to invite me over. I was hoping I could get him to– "
"I don't need any more details." Yabumi pointed off into the distance and scrunched his face. "What I need is for us to get there and start cooking before Sogiita does."
The girl from Judgment furrowed her brow.
"Why? The frittata he made last time was excellent." She looked off to the side with a bit of sorrow in her eyes. "Once the shock wore off enough for me to actually taste it, that is . . ."
"I was impressed by it too . . . " Yabumi suddenly looked a bit disgusted. "Then I found out that he can't cook anything but frittata. We've had it eight times since then."
Konori looked stunned for a moment before she broke out in a giggle fit. Yabumi scowled.
"You're only laughing because it's not your problem!"
The girl stuck out her tongue. "And it's hilarious~"
"Yeah, well why don't you . . . uh . . . " Yabumi broke off and pointed into the street behind Konori. "Is that guy a friend of yours or something?"
Konori turned and saw a thuggish looking boy standing motionless in the middle of the street. His glazed eyes were locked on the two of them without blinking even a single time. Konori took a small step back when the strange boy opened his mouth and released a dry creaky voice.
"I . . . obey . . . ."
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The late afternoon air was quiet as the two girls walked back to their dorm, both burdened by a set of heavy shopping bags in each hand. The girl on the left wore her brown hair short, just to the length of her chin, with a single bundle pulled into a small ponytail on the side. She maintained a slightly sleepy expression as she shouldered her burden of groceries. Her more energetic companion's hair was longer, just above the shoulders, and was held out of her face by a simple copper-colored headband. They were Haruue Erii and Edisaki Banri, two close friends who shared a deep bond through their physic connection.
They chatted pleasantly as they walked, with the occasional fit of giggles removing their attention from the road in front of them, until they ran head first into someone standing in their way . . .
"Sorry!" Banri glanced up at the small group they had run into. "We weren't look . . . ing . . . ummm . . . ."
The energetic girl trailed off when she caught sight of the trio of very large thugs blocking their path. Erii moved a little closer to her friend as the young men scowled and looked them over. Finally the one in the middle spoke.
"Are these the ones from last Friday?" The thug on his left grunted and nodded. "Finally."
The pair of girls chose that moment to yell with everything they had.
"SAVE M–urmf . . . "
Two new thugs stepped up behind the girls and clapped their hands over those shrieking mouths to silence them. The lead delinquent shook his head.
"There aren't any beetles around for several blocks." The girl's eyes widened as he sent them a terrifying grin. "We already checked."
The leader crossed his arms over his chest and gritted his teeth.
"Several of my boys got picked up by Anti-Skill thanks to you two." He leaned in closer to them. "What do you have to say about that?"
"Well, if they're like me . . . "
A new voice broke the group's concentration and they all turned to find the source of the intrusion. Standing in the street was a young man with shoulder length hair, dressed all in black, grinning behind a pair of sunglasses at them. A pair of red stone earrings glittered in the light as he stood with his hands in his pockets and tilted his head from side to side.
"They would say that it was hilarious to watch."
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"I . . . obey . . . ."
The pair stood blinking in confusion while they watched the boy standing motionless in the street. After a few moments, something clicked in the Judgment girl's head. She turned and snarled at the unremarkable looking boy behind her.
"Why would you think he was my friend?!"
Yabumi let out a brief sigh.
"You remember that shady group of girls that pulled me aside in the hospital the other day?" Konori nodded and frowned. "Bare navel headband girl mentioned that you had something of a dark history that I should be aware of."
The girl's mouth fell open for a moment before closing again. She placed her hands on her hips, face twisting into an indignant expression.
"How would they know – "
"They had pictures too." Yabumi bobbed his chin up and grinned at her. "I have to say, you looked really good in that delinquent's jacket."
A pleased face was just as quickly written over with anger.
"Than– Shut up!"
Yabumi lifted his palms at her and shrugged. He then pointed over the girl's shoulder.
"Ignoring the gangland ties for the moment, what are your plans for zombie boy here?"
Konori looked back at the zombie-like thug. He hadn't moved a step since she took her eyes off him. An admittedly poor choice on her part. She chided herself internally for a moment before answering.
"He's got to be on drugs or something." The Girl from Judgment raised her fists ans hunched herself into an orthodox stance. "The two of us can just overpower him. It'll be easy since there's only one oppo–"
"I am your soldier, I Obey . . . IamySoIamyourSoldier . . . Obeyobeyobey"
Konori's confident assertion was interrupted by at least a dozen new voices, which seemed to come from every direction around them. Yabumi stood holding his forehead in his palm.
"Just had to tempt fate didn't you . . . "
"Shut up!"
Ignoring the angry girl and growing zombie incursion, Yabumi smoothly lowered his bag of groceries to the ground and began tapping at his cellphone. Konori looked hopeful for a moment.
"Are you calling for help?"
Yabumi shook his head in response. "Nope, I'm setting the mood."
With a final swipe of his finger, the phone blared out a funky bass line with the occasional brass stab.
"Mood set." Yabumi slipped the phone back into his pocket and raised his arms to chest height, making claw-like gestures with his hands off to his right side. "Alright, lets do this thing!"
"You have got to be kidding me."
By this point the zombie horde took it upon itself to start stumbling towards the two survivors. Law enforcement training took over for one of them and a flurry of punches and kicks were unleashed upon their glassy-eyed attackers. Konori put the surprisingly dainty girl pulling at her hair in a headlock and pulled up her eyelids to examine her pupils. They were dilated and completely unresponsive to the movement of her fingers.
"I think it's some kind of mind control." Konori glanced up at her battle companion. "We need to think of a way to–"
The girl stopped mid-sentence as she watched Yabumi perform a one-handed reverse handspring. The boy's bag of groceries rotated smoothly around his other arm, which was being held perfectly straight out from his shoulder, parallel to the ground. She goggled at him with her mouth open.
"How the hell are you doing that?!"
"You're asking how?!" The boy sounded disgusted as he ducked and weaved his way around innumerable flailing thug limbs. "You don't spend over six months as Sogiita Gunha's roommate without either dying or turning into Bruce Lee! What's your excuse?!"
Konori looked about ready to make an angry retort when she suddenly noticed a very upsetting omission in the boy's heroic movements. Specifically, the fact that he was exclusively dodging and not actually bothering to hit anyone.
"Hey!" The girl in the green armband planted a kick in the stomach of a boy that was getting too close to her. "Why are you making me do all the work?!"
"I don't like getting my hands dirty." The boy's cavalier attitude set Konori's teeth on edge. "I figure that's a job for violent girls like you."
"Just WAIT until we get out of here! I'll show you a–"
"I'm Aihana Etsu."
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"They would say that it was hilarious to watch."
The thugs were flabbergasted for a second before they managed to recover. Erii and Banri blinked in surprise when they recognized their slightly androgynous savior. They suddenly felt very sorry for the thugs holding them captive. The leader of the thugs on the other hand didn't seem particularly impressed by the newcomer.
"You have a problem, shorty?"
The black-haired boy tilted his head forwards to stare over his sunglasses, revealing a pair of piercing black eyes. The unearthly silver stain marring the boy's left eye caused the thugs to jerk back in surprise for a moment.
"Of course I have a problem." The boy's grin widened. "The city left a load of burnable trash right here in front of me. I really should write the sanitation commissioner . . . "
"Oh, you are just asking for it!" The leader stepped forwards, raised up his right fist and grabbed the boy the collar, pulling his button-down shirt slightly open. "I'm gonna– urk!"
A strange gurgle left the leader thug's throat just as he pulled his fist back. Erii and Banri looked on in confusion as the older boy froze for a moment before he slowly lowered his fist. The other thugs let go of the girls and backed up against the wall, looks of terror etched on their faces. The leader's face broke out into a far-too-tense smile as he readjusted the shorter boy's collar and gently dusted off his shoulders before finally backing away himself.
The grin never once left the long-haired boy's face.
"What's wrong, boys?" He pulled his hands from his pockets, revealing black lacquered fingernails and a matching set of silver rings on every finger, all set with brilliant red gemstones. "You promised me quite the knocking. So what's stopping you? Is it this thing?"
He reached up and fished a small round medallion out of his shirt and let it dangle in front of him for all to see. When the thugs started to shake, the two girls squinted to make out the assemblage of silver-gray shapes set against a black background. The largest shape was a long narrow isosceles triangle pointing to the right. A smaller left-facing equilateral triangle was nested inside of it. Smaller still was a circle, inside the triangle without touching its edges. Finally, a single horizontal line extended through the circle, beyond its edges.
It was the insignia favored by the Middle Line.
The boy released his grip on the medallion and let it fall outside his shirt in plain view of the world. Once again he began to speak.
"So you recognize our group's marker?" The boy curled the fingers of one hand and inspected his fingernails. "I'm very pleased to hear that. That removes the need for me to demonstrate why the city calls me 'Heat of Fusion'."
The thugs went even paler than they had been a minute ago. The leader started to chuckle uncontrollably.
"Hehehe . . . you're one of them . . . " The short boy began to nod as a gleeful manic look spread across his face. "The three . . . hehehe . . . favored to become the number 8 level five . . . heheheeeee–"
The androgynous boy lifted up both arms and threw his head back.
"That's right! In terms of shear power and control, I'm the current favorite." He lowered his arms into a shrug. "Of course the higher-ups in the city would prefer the other two to make it, but that's fine. Eight, nine or ten works for me!"
"'Heat of Fusion'?" Everyone turned to look at Erii. "Really?"
"I'm almost certain that I can't actually start a fusion reaction, but it was either that name or 'Burning Man'. " The short dark-haired boy started chatting politely with Erii as if they weren't in the middle of a hostage standoff. "However, during my last system scan, I was able to vaporize a half-meter cube of that ceramic material they use to protect spacecraft during reentry without any trouble, so the specifics don't really bother me that much."
Upon hearing this revelation, everyone else in the alley looked like they were about to throw up.
Except for Erii.
"Wow, that's really cool!"
"Hot's the word, but thank you." He turned back to the group of thugs. "Have you heard the rumors about what happened to the last group of people that hurt one of Mairo-sensei's 'little sisters'?"
The thugs nodded. Or just shook in general. It was hard to tell.
"I'd really like to avoid having to see it happen a second time. I had to burn my favorite outfit the last time." The long-haired boy pointed down the street. "So why don't you boys toddle off?"
Without waiting for another word, the group of five thugs dashed off.
"Oh boys~"
The group paused in mid-step, but didn't turn around.
"We'll be in touch."
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"I'm Aihana Etsu."
Time seemed to come to a stop for a moment when that slightly shrill and girlish voice announced itself to the world and all those present. When her zombified opponents froze in place, Konori spared a glance and found a short girl wearing a dull grey uniform with a pleated skirt and striped tie. The girl's head was totally obscured by a strange red hood-like mask.
"SixisSixxSSIXXsiSSxIsSIX"
The zombie collective spoke in many voices, forgetting their original targets as they shambled around to face the newcomer. The girl raised a single fist in front of her masked face.
"I am not a number!" Her voice rose into a melodramatic keen. "I AM FREE!~"
The first thug that Konori and Yabumi had spotted started shuffling closer to the masked girl. Despite the implied threat, the girl's posture didn't change.
"General." The masked face began to look from side to side. "I know you can hear me."
A few steps closer.
"You can see that I'm not really suited for battle at the moment . . . "
Still closer.
"The opportunity must have you drooling."
The masked face tilted up to look into those glassy eyes. Closer.
"But it doesn't matter."
The girl in the mask could feel a dull heat from hands approaching her neck.
"Because there's something you didn't notice."
A sudden eruption of sounds like the hissing of uncountable enraged serpents filled the air. Konori and Yabumi looked around in surprise as the zombie teenagers that had been surrounding them up until that point all collapsed to the ground. Standing next to these downed individuals were a new set of people, who seemed to have appeared from thin air. Small sparking devices clutched tightly in their hands.
The lead zombie thug had stopped moving. The masked girl watched as a smile full of malice slowly spread across his face.
It remained there as she pressed the sparking stun gun to his chest.
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It was a quiet mid-afternoon, the school day had come to a close and visiting hours were finally opened in a certain hospital. A small blonde girl wearing the red backpack and green armband paced back and forth in front of a specific door. Her cautious blue eyes turned back and forth, scanning the hallways for dangers both obvious and hidden. The small patients' lounge behind her was devoid of people, save for a single girl snoozing in a wheelchair with an enormous stuffed dolphin clenched tightly to her chest. The few nurses passing her in the hallway looked at her Judgment armband and continued past her without question.
And then, once the hallway was momentarily vacant, she slid open the door leading to the room of the hospital's most honored guest.
Wasting no time, she slid the door closed and turned towards the white privacy curtain separating her from the bed. There she stood, listening.
The sound of the boy's breathing was slow and regular. As she listened, Nayuta felt a sense of calm wash over and through her like the waters of a cool mountain stream. Her blue eyes looked beyond the physical and saw none of the oppressive and turbulent waves of power that the city's level fives endlessly emanated. The little girl let out a shallow breath when her eyes found it.
His beautiful void.
Without making a sound, she peaked her head around the curtain and found the boy to be asleep. Nayuta caught sight of a tiny orange and black bottle of "Nap Attack!" brand sleep aid. Specially formulated to put a person to sleep for exactly two hours. Convinced that the boy was unlikely to wake up anytime soon, she walked around the white curtain and stood close to his side. Her voice whispered into the room as she silently slid her red school bag to the floor..
"Onii-chan . . . "
Touma didn't even stir at the sound. The little girl turned her head to the side slightly.
"Yu-chan." Her voice lowered to a raspy approximation of the sound of a big brother's voice. "Did you come all this way to see me?"
"Does Onii-chan hate me?"
A pair of tiny hands gripped the sheets of the bed in a death grip.
"Why would you think that, Yu-chan?"
"Because of my name." The blonde girl bit her lip and muttered into her chest. "Would Onii-chan love me more if I was someone else?"
"You can't be someone else. You are who you are, Yu-chan."
Nayuta shook for a moment and brushed her tiny fingers against top of Touma's right hand. The boy took in a slightly deeper breath, his head shifting on the pillow until it tilted towards her. She froze before seeing that he was still asleep.
"But I want to be someone like you, Onii-chan." A few colorless drops stained the blanket a few shades darker. "I want to take back all the bad things I've done."
"You've already started, Yu-chan. Their smiles will light the path for you, so follow them and never look back."
The little girl lifted up the boy's hand and gently pressed it against the top of her head as though he was giving her an affectionate pat.
"You'll always be my little sister, Yu-chan. M-make me proud . . . ."
Nayuta let the hand slid down a bit and pressed it tenderly against her cheek. Her eyes were watering as she murmured.
"Onii-chan . . . "
But the girl's thought would remain unfinished . . . .
The thundering sound of violent stampeding feet ended with a crash just outside the door of the room. Nayuta gasped in surprise and launched herself over the boy's bed, flinging his hand away in her haste to grab the red school bag sitting by her feet. Sliding the window open, she dove headfirst through it and landed with a graceful somersault on the ground below.
Just as a certain Hero finally woke up.
"Ugh . . . What kind of dream was that?" The groggy boy looked over at his right hand, tingling pins and needles, finding it on his lunch tray. "Apparently, I was breaking the illusions of my leftover tomato juice . . . "
Touma picked up his napkins and did his best to sop up the blood-red liquid flowing over the edge of his bedside table into the expanding puddle beside his bed. He shook his head.
"Such misfortune . . . "
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"We'll be in touch."
As the group of thugs disappeared around a distant corner, Erii and Banri could have sworn there was smoke being emitted by their feet as they ran. Still frozen in place, they turned back to look at the boy still with them.
"Don't look at me like that." He waved his hand, dismissing their concerned looks. "We'll just have Anti-Skill deal with them. We aren't animals."
Banri started waving her hands.
"We weren't thinking anything like that! We swear!"
"We're just surprised to see you again so soon, and saving us again to boot." Erii nodded pleasantly before frowning. "Does this mean you guys have been watching us or something like that?"
The girl's companion swung her head around to show a tense grimace, which went entirely unnoticed.
"Not all the time . . . " The boy laughed when he caught sight of Banri's look of horror. "Actually, I'm only here because I needed to pick up some papers from our information branch."
The boy reached into his pocket and fished out a crudely folded wad of papers.
"Our people in Anti-Skill passed us the organization's most recent watch list." He unfolded the papers and turned them around to show the girl's, his finger resting on a certain item on the first page. "This is the listing for the city's most dangerous espers. This column here is for the level fours. Take a look at the first name."
Banri peered in to read the page's tiny text. "Ikutama Yakiin."
"Isn't that your name?"
"That it is." Yakiin nodded at Erii with a glittering grin before pumping his free arm and lifting a knee in an ecstatic celebratory pose. "Third year in a row! Damn, I rock!"
The two girls were unable to move, their faces twitching as the watched the esper's random outburst. The boy then raised his hand and fluttered his fingers to show off his set of rings.
"I was so pleased by the news that I bought a new set of baubles to celebrate." The glittering of the innumerable red garnets caught the girls' full attention. "They're the kind I like . . . ."
The girls' eyes seemed to be sparkling. Yakiin's own eyes took on a playful cast.
"Girls, can I see your hands for a second?"
Like a set of puppets on strings, the girls' hands lifted forwards like they were sleepwalking. Yakiin pulled the ring off his left thumb and slid it on Banri's right ring ringer. He repeated the process, placing the ring from his other thumb on Erii's hand. The girls stared down at their hands as the rings slowly shrank down from their original size to a perfect fit on each girl's finger. They looked up, dumbfounded.
"Body heat activated memory alloy. Saves time on fitting." The girls looked back down at the rings, unable to respond. "They're yours. I have plenty of them at home."
" . . . Thank you."
Erii nodded mutely in agreement.
"You're welcome. Now, speaking of baubles . . . " Yakiin lifted up the medallion hanging from his neck. "Do you girls like this item here?"
The girls nodded silently.
"Every member of the group wears one of these. The colors are different depending on the person's relationship with the organization." He pointed at the silvery-gray shapes emblazoning his own. "Since I am one of the Founders, mine is platinum, same as Ikari-sempi. Myuri-kun's is gold and her brothers' are copper. Green is for allied teachers, blue is for auxiliary members, and black is given to individuals under our consideration."
Yakiin pulled out a pair of medallions from his pocket and showed them to the girls. They were black with a white background.
"How would you girls like to never have to worry about what happened to you today ever happening again?" Banri and Erii felt their eyes growing wide. "There's no pressure. No obligation to join. The nano-circuitry inside the medallion memorizes its owner's unique bio-signatures so they can't be lost, stolen or used inappropriately. They'll let us know if you are ever in trouble. Just wear them next to your hearts and we'll know."
The boy squeezed a medallion into each girl's hand and held them there for several seconds. The girls felt a tingling sensation where the metal touched their skins.
"We take care of our own."
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Konori was flabbergasted. That's all there was to it.
There was absolutely nothing in the standard Judgment procedures for this sort of a situation, which for a branch that regularly collaborated with a level five was really saying something. The young woman looked over at the only face familiar to her and found that Yabumi was at least as bemused as she was. As she watched him glance around, the look on his face suggested that he was wary of further hostility from the newcomers.
"Check the backs of their necks."
The slightly shill nasal voice crept into Konori's ears as the girl in the red hood-mask grabbed the rubbery pile of thug in front of her and pulled him none too gracefully by the shoulders to expose the back of the young man's head.
"When you find the device, grasp it as close to the skin as possible and pull gently." The girl's posse began to mimic her actions with their own captures. "There may be more than one wire, so keep the tension on and be patient."
Konori watched with astonishment as she watched what looked like tiny electronic breath mints with dental floss attached being pulled from each of the former zombies' necks. When she stuck out her tongue in disgust, she heard Yabumi address the strange masked girl.
"You seem to know quite a bit about this little situation." The girl didn't bother looking up as she continued to extract the thug's device. "Would you mind telling us who you are?"
"People who ask stupid questions tend to receive stupid answers." The masked girl finally looked up and found the boy clenching his fists. "Who I am tends to revolve around my mood for the day. Don't ask me why, since I can't prove it."
"We really do appreciate your assistance." Konori began hesitantly . "But as a member of Judgment I–"
"I know who you are, Konori Mii." The girl with the green armband flinched. "And, I'm not going to be lectured by a former Spider."
"How–"
"I know because you and that boy over there have become important to more than a few people." The masked girl lifted her hand to show off the long strand of wire that she had plucked out of the thug's neck. "Now that your level five pet has started acting outside his parameters, there's been a lot of interest."
"Interest from who?"
The subtle growl underpinning Yabumi's voice wasn't lost on either one of the girls. 'Aihana Etsu' seemed to chuckle as she slipped the extracted device into her pocket.
"Never stop asking yourself that. The puppet strings are tangled."
The girl in the red mask crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head to the side.
"If you two want a more specific warning, here it is: Tell your boy toy to keep his hands off Aneki. Otherwise . . . "
Konori and Yabumi were startled as, one by one, the girl's group disappeared from view until only the girl remained. The malice held in that girlish voice unnerved them both.
"He won't just have one level five to deal with."
The girl vanished into air as Konori rubbed her temples, worry etched upon her face as she looked over the group of people collapsed all around them. Yabumi's cell phone buzzed once. He frowned as he read the text.
"Sogiita's starting a frittata. Damn it."
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Author's Note:
Bribery? What bribery? The ML are perfectly legitimate businessmen . . . .
Konori and Yabumi have developed a friendly hostility since getting to know each other. Just one hit would be satisfactory.
Yakiin's nickname is intended to ironically refer to both thermonuclear fusion and the latent heat (enthalpy) of fusion. One turns hydrogen to helium and the other turns ice to water. Someone in the city thinks they're funny.
"Nap Attack!" is both a 'Garfield' reference and an obscure American Math Rock band.
I'm having a hard time deciding if Nayuta is being adorable or creepy. Kihara little sisters will do that to you.