Chapter 3: The Wings of the Hawk
The scene was set as Ushio and
Asano explained who they were and a knock came from the door right after they
gave Masaru their mission brief, and the only thing that could make it more
suspenseful and perhaps more cliché, was a sudden loss of power and their cell
phones' reception getting taking away. None of the latter happened, but as
another knock came from the door, it was apparent that it didn’t have to as
they all stared at the white wood expecting it to open. While Masaru stared, he
had missed a sight as something struck Ushio’s palm and brought as spear to
form, while something struck Asano’s palm casted down a boomerang that she held
with preparation to throw, as she rose from where she sat. Another knock came
from the door, but seem to stop abruptly as they heard keys jingling through
the silence, and faintly entering the keyhole. There was a click, and then a
creek as the door slid open and Ushio and Asano stepped forward to confront the
person who stood there. It was a girl who had to be around their age, with long
black hair falling down to her shoulders. A smile was slowly fading away as she
spotted them, and a bag fell from her gloved hands and crumpled on the floor.
In that instance they saw a blur of cerulean and black as the girl shot across
the room, and Ushio only had a second to swing his spear around before her fist
came down onto his face. Asano lifted her boomerang and a bladed edge glinted
as it reflected in the ceiling fan's light, and failed to come down as the girl
delivered a kick to her chest.
Masaru was the only one who
remained unmoving as he watched the trio battle and watch the girl thwart every
attempt the Prospect agents made to put their weapons to use, and as he watched
it, he wondered why. He wondered why they were so ready to fight, so ready to
kill without question, and wondered as their weapons moved through the air, why
there had been some remnant of doubt for their words after his fight with
Hashiba. More than that though, he wondered about the girl as gauze fell from
the bag she dropped at the door, wondering why the young woman who fought
gracefully without compromising the cuteness her cerulean coat complemented,
was fighting at all. It was a suspicious scene he could imagine, to walk into
the place and see someone you know alone with two people who wielded weapons,
but there wasn’t a moment of fear in her eyes or even petrifaction, just
unhampered certainty that she had to change the situation around. As the battle
heated she began slowing down, no longer capable of stopping their attacks but
moving fast enough to dodge them, and Masaru watched her move and watched a
clock tick down. In mere moments, it’d be over and he was still wondering; in
mere moments, the girl would be slain by the agents and he was sure he’d still
be wondering then. The thought was in his mind though, and fear was in there as
well, that pushed him to stand between their battles with his hands held out.
“Stop!” He exclaimed and gulped
hard as the blades stopped, the spear only inches away from piercing his eye
and boomerang a moment away from cutting off his head.
“Masaru get out of the way!”
Asano and the girl shrieked and again Masaru gulped hard as he chanced shaking
his head.
“Rin-chan,” He said. “I can’t
let you hurt these guys, they’re long time friends of mine.” He shuttered, and the
girl pulled back.
“How long have you known each
other?” She asked, obviously embarrassed by her sudden rashness.
“I don’t know.” Masaru pondered
for a second. “Ushio, how long have I been out on that couch?” He asked.
“An hour thirty.” Ushio answered
and Masaru’s eyes turned back to Rin.
“An hour and thirty minutes,” He
answered her and felt a sharp sting as her hand struck his face.
“Masaru-san!” Asano shrieked.
“Stop… Rin is my girlfriend.” He
said and the agents traded a look before putting their weapons down.
The room went quiet for a bit,
as things were put back where they belong, and the door was closed. The TV was
returned back to its stand, and Masaru was left lamenting as he stared at the
spot on the floor where spilled tea amassed to make a brown pond. He stared
hard till Rin returned with a cloth and dabbed up the tea, but even when it
lost it thickness, he stared at where the stain would dry and could hear his
wallet weeping. Taking a moment to pull himself away from the stain, he sat
back up and looked at the trio. On one wall, the closest to the window, Ushio
and Asano stood with their heads hung and on the other, the one closest to the
door Rin stood with her gaze averted, still embarrassed by her actions.
“Can you two please explain to
Rin-chan who you are?” He looked to them and watched Ushio’s ID get flicked
across the room.
“We’re members of Prospect,”
Ushio spoke as Rin picked it up. “We’re here to protect your boyfriend.” He
said and Rin repeated a scene as she checked the ID for tell tale signs.
“Now Rin-chan, can you explain
why you saw the need to attack those two?” Masaru’s gaze locked onto her.
“I can imagine we know.” Asano
said as she got off the wall. “Tonight Ushio was supposed to meet someone. That
person had spent the last couple of months collecting information and was going
to give it to us to help with our job.” She explained. “It’s likely that it
didn’t take two months for your life to be threatened, and Rin-san had been
protecting you all the while.”
“She’s right. I just thought it
was some people out for revenge since you took down one of their friends, but I
have been watching your back while you went after bigger delinquents.” Rin
shook her head and Masaru sighed.
“You could have told me.” He
said.
“No I couldn’t have. You would
have just tried to fight them all, probably by yourself!” She barked and Masaru
shook his head. There was no denying that. “I didn’t think that they had
something to do with an organization though.” Ushio’s ID went flying back
toward him as Rin finished her inspection.
“I suppose you all can sit down
then.” Masaru huffed and they left where they stood, the agents going to the
dining table at the back of the room while Rin joined Masaru on the couch.
“The person after you is a woman
called Tae Yui.” Ushio explained. “We don’t know why she’s after you but we do
know that she has a number of people helping her, if Rin-san has been fighting
them it’s likely they aren’t all negatives.” He said.
“Catching wind of Tae Yui’s
movements, Prospect sent some investigators to Asabi and they discovered that
you are her target, naturally they sent us here because we have prior
experience with Tae Yui.” Asano explained.
“I’ll ignore things like ‘it’s likely that they aren’t negatives’ but
I don’t see why you don’t just get the police to arrest her.” Rin spoke.
“I’m sorry. To put it simply,
negatives are people with special powers who are invulnerable to conventional
weapons. The only thing the police would possibly manage to do is knock one out, since it seems blunt object retain their effectiveness but Yui…” Ushio sighed.
“Yui’s a different case. Masaru-san,
when we said that Prospect wasn’t the only thing to emerge from that history, we were
referring to people like Tae Yui. Yui is in a negative of particularly high
danger, and it doesn’t help that she is a member of a group with a similar
mind. They view the negative effect as a test. Those unaffected pass the
first test and get an invitation to their group.” Asano explained.
“The negative effect? Is that
what caused that researcher to go mad?” Masaru raised his hand.
“Yes. The negative effect is different
for each person but one thing remains the same, it takes something away.” Asano
answered.
“So this Tae Yui person lost
nothing?” Rin cued her to go on.
“And if in fact she did, it
wasn’t something that hampered her.” Asano took the cue. “To go on, Yui is two
kinds of dangerous. The first comes from the group she joined and the second
comes from her powers.” She looked to Ushio as he pulled a cell phone out of
his jacket's pocket.
“It has been deemed Cosmic
Contract, and works in a particularly dubious way. It first works by presenting a clause, let’s say in
this case, that you cannot arrest her; it then makes the action of any person
the means of signing it. In other words, let’s say that Yui is confronted by
the police of your town; upon resisting them they draw their gun and tell her
to come along. If the clause is that they can’t arrest her and the signing is
them drawing their weapon, then by drawing their weapons it become impossible
for them to arrest her.” Ushio explained.
“If it’s that simple then why
doesn’t she have me kill myself, or have Rin-chan kill me?”
“Because the Cosmic Contract
cannot make someone harm themselves or another, it is also can’t make them do
anything that they couldn’t possibly do like fly or breath underwater. It’s not
like she’d need to though, when she could just make the clause that they are
immobilized.”
“This Yui woman…” Rin sighed. “I
can’t believe someone that dangerous exists.” She shuttered and Ushio hung his
head.
“There are even people more
dangerous than that.” He said and made her shutter.
“It doesn’t help that without
our ally we don’t know what to expect, or even where to start looking to find
her.” Asano said.
“It’s been pretty grim up to
this point.” Masaru stood and smiled. “But I can at least help you with that.
I’m guessing you two are about to leave now so meet me tomorrow afternoon, there’s
someone I know who can help you out.” He said as he slid his hands into his
pocket.
Ushio and Asano traded a looked
then turned their attention to Masaru as if asking their question to him,
before looking at each other again and rising from their seats. Their confusion
was still apparent on their faces, but they accepted Masaru’s suggestion as they headed toward the door. Rin
followed behind in preparation to lock it, and as they stepped into
the hallways, she stepped out with them and closed the door to a small crack.
“I hope you two succeed in your
mission.” She said. “Because I think Yui may be more dangerous than either of
you really know.” She hung her head as she pushed and slid back into the room,
leaving them with more confusion than even Masaru had managed…
No comments:
Post a Comment