Finally it's finished!!! After so long and such horrible writer's block, I managed to churn out this rather boring update. It's necessary, but I assure you, my next Asura chapter will involve fighting so don't be discouraged. I hope that my readers (those of you who are still out there) see this revival. Do respond, since that is the encouragement I relish, and it helps me feel motivated to write more. XD
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The walk to the subway station was interesting, to say the least. For a modern city, Akitaka’s streets were no more or less congested than one would expect from a populous urban center; yet the traffic seemed to flow properly from block to block. Never before had Takara felt that the image of a city as a living creature, streets functioning as its circulatory system, been so appropriate.
Most cities’ “veins” clogged regularly in ways that would wreak havoc upon the hardiest of bodies. It was a bit unsettling, as people had individual objectives and itineraries for their day, yet in Akitaka the drivers almost seemed sedated. When she and Kira crossed the street to the sound of digitized Enka music, no one seemed in a hurry. On the street, hearing a stretch of time without a far-off honk was rare, but at some points as they strolled along, Takara actually found the atmosphere becoming awkward simply due to the lack of automobile noise. Nothing could be done about rolling tires and humming engines, but Akitaka streets were oddly quiet. The idea should have soothed her suburban mind, but she instead found herself wondering if the locals simply got along splendidly, or not a single one of them was in a hurry to get anywhere.
It was then that she remembered who had his hands in the layout of the city. That mage had undoubtedly exploited some natural flow of energy to arrange the streets he had influence over, which was to say potentially all of them, in a harmonious fashion. Thus traffic rushed like unfettered blood in healthy arteries and rarely piled up, the streets were clean and quiet, and through some subtle sorcery, maybe even the minds of drivers were subtly nudged that much closer to an agreeable mood. This was to the benefit of Kurogiri; if he was weaving a city-wide spell that suppressed diversions of Gaia’s own blood, Mana, then total control of Akitaka’s environment was necessary. Takara didn’t understand the specifics, but from what she had learned from her mother and aunt, she could intuit that much and feel confident about its accuracy.
Seeing the streets made her curious about Akitaka’s subway, almost to the point of forgetting her other underlying worry.
“
If any place is suitable for that man to make a second attempt on us, it’s the subway, where the sun can’t reach.”
But surely, if the streets were quiet, public transportation would be crowded? Even if they
weren’t, and Akitaka’s population couldn’t compare to a megalopolis like the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, it was still the subway.
Her eyes went wide as she stepped off the escalator into the white concrete interior of the subway station. She turned to Kira, but he’d already begun to speak, oddly enough.
“This might seem weird to you, since I’ve lived here for a while and all, but… for a city, Akitaka sure never feels crowded, huh?”
Takara raised a finger at his point. “My thoughts exactly. Just look at this place.” She walked further into the interior.
As contemporary as anything else in the city, the subway abandoned the multicultural kitsch of the surface street architecture for clinical, sterile modernity. There certainly were people milling about, but nowhere
near the seas of people other cities often literally had to shove into trains. A tired-looking subway attendant sat inside of his glass box a short distance further into the station, while the platform was quiet with silent folk anticipating their ride. Takara looked about with energetic curiosity, her earlier drowsiness entirely purged. A couple laughed as discretely as they could in a corner of the platform; a businessman checked his watch and let loose a relaxed smile so few of his ilk could afford. Cooled air made the lightly-dressed girl shiver slightly, and the hollow sound of the tunnel began to fill with distant rushing wheels, like an underground wind.
“Misaki is a quiet town, but it’s more of a suburb, where I live. This place reminds me of Tokyo, but even though it’s the weekend, people don’t seem to be walking around. It’s weird.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty dead today.” Kira stated. His voice echoed off the station’s ceiling, oddly far-off.
Takara looked over her shoulder. The boy was standing rigidly still, a healthy distance away from her. She only got a brief glimpse of his overtly uncomfortable expression before it morphed into a forced smile, crooked like a rag-doll’s stitches.
She blinked and crossed her arms, stopping for him. “What are you doing over there?”
Kira shook his head vigorously. Was he sweating? “Nothing, just waiting for the train. Ha ha.”
“’Ha, ha?’” The older girl eyed him skeptically, imitating his odd laugh in monotone. “You’re not normal.”
“I thought we covered this already. Besides, it’s better than being boring.”
She gave Kira an indignant look, paired with an absent brush of dark hair.“No, I mean you’re behaving strangely.”
A spark of realization galvanized Takara’s features. “Wait. You said you live here, yet you sounded as surprised at this place being quiet as I was.”
The tall boy jumped. “I-I just don’t take the subway often. I like walking. Walking’s good for you.”
More crooked grinning.
“You haven’t been down here even once, have you? Don’t tell me you’ve never rode the train?” Takara narrowed her eyes.
Kira glared at her defensively. “I didn’t *drive* to Akitaka. And I sure as hell didn’t walk.”
“Did you ride the train?” Takara jabbed back.
“… That was a long time ago! I don’t remember. Maybe I rode a bike…”
“A bicycle? All the way out from the country? That sounds like something you stole from a road trip movie.”
The image of a beleaguered Kira, riding a junky old road bike, with countless bags and personal belongings strapped to his back like some land-borne hermit crab, made Takara hold in her soft laugh.
That did not go unnoticed by Kira, who reddened angrily and turned his embarrassed face towards the tracks. The sound of the approaching train almost drowned out his voice.
“I get motion sickness something fierce...”
An uneventful ten-minute train ride later, Takara and her slightly greener-looking Kira emerged from the Sakunami Street station amidst a colony of futurist glass towers.
Time spent living in Akitaka had done little to alleviate Kira's tendency to gawk at tall buildings. He had an ingrained perception of what was "high" and what was "low." Tall trees stretching above his head were impressive. Cliffs at the sides of rivers doused him in shadow. Mountains were massive, but not in the way that made him
feel it, except when climbing. When Kira looked at the office buildings in the city, every time he raised his eyes to their full height, he saw himself, layered upon himself again and again in an unnatural, sardine-like storage arrangement. People stacked wood and bricks. Cities stacked people.
Takara was entirely comfortable. The city itself did not bother her nearly as much as the space between herself and her own bed at home, for it was a natural transition from a "small" city like Misaki to a large one like Akitaka. It was unexpectedly easy, even. As Kira raised his eyes to the sharply-defined polygons that framed the blue sky, Takara couldn't help but watch him, sighing softly. The amazement that gripped him; was it unease or awe? Was there a distinction between the two anyway?
"
What kind of world did you come from, Kira?"
Kurogiri's lack of directions made locating his delivery point somewhat challenging. Being a party of two, one outsider and one clueless bumpkin, Sakunami street proved to be a bit of a maze. Each building concealed within them another maze of teeming cubicles from the one outside as well. They had managed to eventually gain a fix on the Civic Development and Business building's location by questioning a passing white collar on his way to lunch. It was, unsurprisingly, difficult to tell from the neighboring towers: another steel and glass behemoth shining magnificently in the noon sun. Inquiring with the receptionist in the lobby, who obligingly phoned a notification up to Murakami's office only after Kira mentioned Kurogiri's name, the two ascended to the 10th floor, their select slice of the building.
The hall muffled the sounds of occasional telephones from beyond its off-white walls.
The employees were impeccably dressed and polite when asked for directions, which only served to heighten the sense of being misplaced within Takara. Kira at least seemed blissfully ignorant. That had more to do with knowing he had no "nice clothes" than being unaware of of how he looked. The girl pulled at her blouse's collar lightly, a dissatisfied look on her face. The clean uniform, while quite sharp-looking by her admittedly lax standards, hardly helped her fit in. Plus, she felt the blood on her, even after it had been meticulously purged from the fabric by Innocentia's efforts.
Murakami's office was clearly visible through a smoked-glass partition, a placard on the door distinguishing it from the others. There was a mail slot, but Takara noticed activity behind his desk. Perhaps Kurogiri's associate was in after all.
Takara gave the glass door a light rap. A moment of silence followed. She could hear Kira shifting change in his pocket uncomfortably.
"Pardon me. Is Mr. Murakami in?"
Takara's expression grew deadpan. "Wait." she muttered in monotone. "Why am I doing this? You're the one Kurogiri hired."
Kira blinked at her, a nervous edge entering his voice. "I was wondering that myself, y'know." He withdrew the promised envelope. "Just leave it to me."
The glass door to Murakami's office opened.
“Um, hello.”
A pair of thick lenses peeked through. Since Kurogiri mentioned Murakami as a “he,” it was obvious that this was his secretary. Kira doubted the man himself was around.
“Hmmmmmm…”
The secretary scrutinized Kira warily somewhere from behind the light-reflecting glasses. Although it wasn’t a frown, she seemed discomforted with the boy’s presence. Perhaps it was uncomfortable for her to crane her neck to see his face.
“This is the office of Murakami Yosuke…” The woman fiddled with her glasses. “You are here to meet him, aren’t you?”
Kira froze up. Something between a wince and a sickened smile seeped from his features.
“Umm, sir?”
He realized at that inconvenient moment that he still hadn’t recovered fully from his subway ride. Naturally the only option available to him at that moment was to endure.
“… Thaaat’s right. I
am here to meet Mr. Murakami.” Kira noted as if only just realizing it himself.
The secretary receded into the room slightly, as if retreating from his voice.
“… Do you have prior arrangements with him? An appointment?”
Kira scratched the back of his head and laughed in a most unprofessional manner. Takara narrowed her eyes at him. He played with the envelope in his fingers like he was fanning himself, even though the building’s air conditioning was already giving him goose bumps.
“Ahaha, nothing so official. I was sent here to deliver a package by an associate of his.” He could do nothing but grin nervously again.
The secretary, however, retreated from the sunny facade and seemed reluctant to let him in. “I'm sorry, but I can't accept packages directly without proof of sender and identification.”
She fiddled with her glasses nervously, closing the door slightly with her other hand.
“These envelopes are unmarked as well.”
“Oh?” Kira looked at the envelope in his hand.
Completely bare. He was a random boy off the street in a tank top and jeans bearing envelopes from anywhere and anyone.
“... So they are! Wow, this is embarrassing...”
Takara stared in deadpan, her unsurprised mouth forming almost a straight line.
“
You didn't notice until now?”
She nudged Kira in the side lightly.
“-Kurogiri! Mr. Kurogiri,” he blurted, “sent me here as his paperboy.”
The name conjured a strange reaction in the secretary's demeanor. She had rebelled against her looks and behavior to seem semi-professional. Something in her rigid posture disintegrated, however. A few rapid blinks behind her glasses and a faint redness in her cheeks betrayed her to Kira.
This was without a doubt the woman with the “thin shadow” Kurogiri spoke of. The reaction was strikingly girlish, even cute. It was entirely unlike the frigid way Takara behaved around him; typically devoid of feminine bashfulness until he bluntly stepped within her comfort zone with words. Still, the thought of what interactions his new employer had with the office lady made his mind spin.
“Mr. Kurogiri you say?”
“He just hired me. So could ya let me leave it here?”
At that, he placed his fingers on the edge of the parted door and pushed with a friendly smile. The secretary lurched backwards awkwardly, stumbling with a barely audible cry, arms flitting about. Takara balked as Kira brashly invaded the office emitting a stream of hasty apologies. His efforts only succeeded in sprawling her out on the floor, letting out a short cry as she hit her bottom.
“Kira!” Takara chided, as if to say “
you startled the poor thing.” Somehow the woman seemed to pick up on the pitiful tone and emitted a faint smoldering resentment as she lay in a pile of released paperwork.
“The fault was mine.” The secretary pulled down on her uneven skirt and brushed herself off, leaves of paper falling into the mess at her feet. Salvaging some of her composure, the woman bowed deeply.
“Inoue Shizuko.” Though her head dipped down, she opened one eye. Over the rim of her spectacles she was greeted with the sight of Kira's wide hand. He didn't bow; he wasn't offering a business card either.
“Kaede Kira. Nice to meet ya.” Kira nodded glowingly.
He had referred to her as “Inoue-san.” The honorific missing from Aozaki had somehow made its way onto Inoue.
Naturally, Takara glowered, but she bowed deeply as she was wont to do.
“Aozaki Takara. It is a pleasure.”
The boy smiled firmly and pressed the offer. It was an unorthodox greeting, but Shizuko knew his employer was an unorthodox man. She placed her small hand in Kira's grasp.
Takara could see the familiar twitch run up Shizuko's arm as their palms connected and recalled the sensation of their handshake, how it startled her.
“
Pretty warm, isn't it?”
The woman stared down at their interconnected hands momentarily, then gulped and shook back with lessened trepidation.
“If you've just been hired, then perhaps you are not aware, but...” Her fingers slid out from between his. “... Mr. Kurogiri is a close associate of Mr. Murasaki. He assisted Mr. Murasaki and the five other members of the Akitaka City Planning Council.”
“The 'miracle' of New Songdo City, replicated in Japan, right?” Kira smirked proudly and placed his hands on his hips. So he had been paying attention to Kurogiri's rambling after all.
Shizuko seemed excited, nodding as if being yanked up and down by a string. “Exactly. Mr. Kurogiri is a professor of economics, corporate consultant, an architect, and a... geomancer... of sorts.”
Takara perked up at the term. “Geomancer?”
“Yes, well, though the beliefs of the civic council are purely secular, I can assure you, Mr. Kurogiri believed that arranging the city according to the laws of Chinese geomancy, or Feng Shui, would aid in establishing prosperity in the city.”
Takara nodded, cupping her chin thoughtfully. “I've met him as well. Mr. Kurogiri has an eclectic collection of interests.”
“Indeed. He is our prized specialist from China. Although Akitaka was not as international of a project as New Songdo, my superior was adamant about finding foreign talent.”
Inwardly, she logged the comment into her brain as congruent with what Kurogiri spoke of. If he was indeed a magus, though not one her mother was familiar with, the superstition behind the city's layout sewed itself deep into the fabric of reality.
The bespectacled secretary tipped her glasses and tented her fingers in front of her, holding the envelope to her chest.
“I was a bit skeptical of him myself at first, but Mr. Murakami seemed to lean upon Mr. Kurogiri, and there was such a fantastic synergy between all of us, and Mr. Kurogiri was so very talented and well-read, and he had this way with words...”
The glare of her glasses obscured her eyes, and Shizuko seemed to “deactivate.” She began to stir once more when the pair's confused staring jabbed her back into reality.
“E-excuse me. Anyway, I'll take these and make sure my superior receives them. I'm sure he'll be pleased.” The woman swiveled on her heels to hide her red cheeks and dazed grin.
Takara's eyes darted about the cabinets and bookshelves in the room with curiosity. “Does he work that closely with you? The committee, I mean.”
“Oh no. Sure urban planning is an ongoing process, but he was only heavily involved in the initial phases. We're currently on phase 5.”
Shizuko slid the files across the desk and pressed an open palm on its cool glass surface. She made a pinching gesture as she turned back, smiling as she clipped her thumb and middle finger together.
“Akitaka Municipal Ubiquitous Network. AMUN.”
She tapped her fingers with each syllable, but the tapping slowed as she scanned their faces.
“You... don't have any idea what I mean, do you?”
Kira beamed.
“No.”
“I'm not that informed,” Takara chimed in, “but it's wireless connectivity, right?”
Surprisingly, the meek secretary seemed to laugh at Takara's suggestion. “It's nothing so mundane. Virtually everything has already become wireless nowadays. Akitaka is following in the footsteps of New Songdo, creating an electronic architecture that spans the entire city.”
She gestured to the tiny envelopes Kira and Takara had been gifted with by Kurogiri. “If you would allow me.”
They obliged. Shizuko pried at the tiny envelope seals. From each she withdrew a tiny, transparent grey card, ideally sized to fit in their wallets. She flitted them from side to side playfully.
“You took the subway to get here, I bet. Wonder why you didn't have to pay fare? You didn't have to purchase a ticket or pay with change?”
Kira chuckled. “Kurogiri said it was because students ride free.”
She was enjoying herself. Still reserved but clearly enjoying herself. Her formality made it trickle through like water through cloth.
“Mm, he said that, did he? But that was just a proposal. We still haven't implemented it. Our local school system and Jin-Sei University would have to distribute these cards to their student body first.”
Shizuko held the cards in front of her face, as if growing shy. “Well, he was right about you two at least. Kurogiri's paying your fare. He obtained special access to early models of these cards to test with his associates.”
Takara raised an eyebrow. “Eclectic interests nothing; he already has plenty of nice toys to play with, I see.”
Kira squinted at the cards. The lack of weight and thickness made sense to him, but their flexibility was what shocked him. He had assumed they could not be cards, as they bent further than the typical hardened plastic, in order to prevent de-magnetism. If they did not function through magnetic strips, Kira could not comprehend the craven ways the innocuous transparent rectangles communicated with the automatic ticket-takers.
“So these ID tag things were what let us through the subway? But, I thought I needed to slide them through a slot.”
More than anything though, he was feeling uneasy. He wrote off the expense as nothing serious to a man as wealthy as his employer.
Shizuko nodded. “They're not just like any old magnetic strip card. Simply carrying one codes to your distinct biological patterns. Your body's latent electric field activates public network code readers, transmitting your personal ID code to receiving stations. With it you can make credit purchase transactions, log into public computer terminals, open locks you are registered to and make use of public transportation without having to exchange written information, hard currency, or even slide a card...”
“That sounds like something out of a... science fiction movie.” Takara murmured.
The secretary winked fetchingly. “'The future is now!' or something like that. But don't be too impressed. After all, it's nowhere near as advanced as the original proposition.”
Takara took a step back. “Don't tell me...”
“Nano-machines. Tiny robots in your bloodstream that would transmit your vital data to medical centers and your location to acquaintances, or, if your life was judged to be in danger, to law enforcement.”
She nodded her head to punctuate her point.
“Thought you'd know that, speaking of science fiction movies.”
Takara shook her head disapprovingly.
“The card is already enough of an invasion of privacy...”
Kira felt disapprovingly itchy.
“Privacy nothing; I'm fine without midget robots invading me.”
As if rendered sore by the unenthusiastic response, Shizuko rubbed the back of her head. Perhaps it was from the fall earlier.
“Well, aside from that complaint, we were at a loss as how to outfit all the residents, or to screen out those who didn't qualify due to health problems. Other issues were due to contact issues with the sponsoring foundation and how to classify residents, since this is a commuter city and a large amount of those who work here live in surrounding cities or smaller towns, due to the high rent...”
Her fading last few words hinted at a more personal frustration.
“What about crime? A system such as that would allow you to monitor criminals more easily, wouldn't it?”
A soft chuckle. “Young miss Aozaki, you're pretty clever. Something as mundane as a 'crime rate' is totally out of the question for Akitaka.”
Shizuko covered her mouth with her hand and their cards and waggled her finger, scolding jestingly.
Kira read the bewilderment in Takara's face as she opened her mouth to protest.
“But...”
The words were still within her throat. She could not explain the encounter last night. The feeling of thickening blood in her clothes still weighed heavy upon her skin. The knife-gripping fingers surreptitiously curled into a tight ball.
Breaching the awkward silence, Shizuko extended her hand forward with a kind expression, gripping the cards.
“... Here. I shouldn't detain you any longer.” She nodded to Kira again. “Give Mr. Kurogiri our regards. Should he wish to assist as once more, I'm sure Mr. Murakami would be delighted to hear from him. The sponsors also send their best wishes.”
Shizuko's feminine wink marked a change, a lightening in her voice.
“Be sure to tell him that, okay?”
A swelling of pride bloomed within his chest, as if exposed to light for the first time. He unfurled his hand and took the cards, the first sign of respectability he'd cultivated for himself that he could remember. For a while, he'd had his doubts, but this man he was working for was highly regarded. Someone who yearned for the stability of regular meals and cash in his jeans pocket, it felt to Kira like he was “worth it” again.
“You bet.”
