Chapter Text
Miyabi counted the number of ethereals between her squad and the crevice ahead. That should be the exit, or at least, take them towards the outer layers of this Hollow.
She could hear something more coming this way, its footsteps heavy, its roars deep. Risk was increasingly outweighing the benefits of staying. Even a sharp blade dulls after too much cutting, and Section 6 has already left a long string of ethereal bodies behind them today.
“Asaba, lead a spearpoint formation.” The Void Hunter ordered. “Break their ranks and open the split. I’ll take the rear.”
A nimble, golden sliver hopped down from a half-collapsed roof nearby.
“Roger that, chief.” Harumasa switched his weapon into dual swords as Soukaku and Yanagi joined behind him into a triangle. “There’s a Dullahan coming this way. Ionization in progress.”
Miyabi answered with her sword light.
Harumasa led the charge into the mob of ethereals before the crevice. With Yanagi and Soukaku by his side, this was practically a skip in the park. The swords and blades of Section 6 are trained enough to make them fit to each other’s fighting styles like puzzle pieces. Every strike was a hot knife on butter, and they made quick progress despite the number of enemies.
Soukaku swiped forward with her banner, clearing a side of the crevice. Harumasa jumped forward and thrust his blade to the left: half of a blast crawler slides off his sword as he gets in front of the Hollow crevice and reach in to pull it wider.
His hand found something supple, like a rope or a coil. The screech of an ethereal too close to his left is cut short with the sound of Yanagi’s polearm breaking the wind.
No time to lose. Harumasa grabbed onto it and pulled it aside: mirroring motions on both sides of the split widens the space-time tunnel.
“Soukaku, behind you!” The archer called as he dragged it open, “Chief? We’re ready for extraction.”
Something clicked as the oni-girl spun around to dodge and hit another ethereal.
Miyabi was already dashing towards them. Yanagi turned as well, facing the crevice, about to jump through.
“Back off! It’s a trigger!” Harumasa’s hands froze. The nylon scratched the side of his hand. “Tripwire!”
The moment’s pause was too much. Ether pressure, heavy enough to be palpable, rushed out of the crevice.
Miyabi reached for the closer target, pushing Yanagi into a roll.
Harumasa let go of the wire and fell back, his left arm reaching for Soukaku as a futile cover. Hopefully the distance will be enough for her to make it.
The ether bomb detonates through the crevice, blowing it wide open.
Miyabi was the first up, Yanagi immediately after her. They immediately stood back-to-back, one watching the flattened ethereals around them for motion, the other searching for their companions.
There, across the open split, far too close to the path of fire, surrounded by shimmering ethereal dust.
Harumasa felt Soukaku’s arms grabbing onto his shoulder before the ringing in his ears take over the rest of him.
Seth Lowell clocked into work today six minutes late. He logged into his desktop, reorganized the seven forms he had to fill out by the end of the day in two different ways—filling out none of them—before checking his phone under his desk. Paperwork always calls for some procrastination.
And someone he never expected appeared at the top of his messages.
[Asaba Harumasa, sent at 8:02 am]
To Seth Lowell:
This is Tsukishiro Yanagi, deputy chief of HSO Section 6. I saw that you are a frequent contact of Asaba and think that you should be notified of the following.
As you might have learned, a recent explosion at the Pursenas Hollow has resulted in critical loss from Section 6. All our members experienced varying levels of harm.
Unfortunately, this morning, we have lost our friend and officer Asaba Harumasa to his previous ailments and recent injuries.
I ask that you keep this information to a need-to-know basis. We in Section 6 are still processing this news and will release it for public knowledge when ready.
Some in our team suspect sabotage and trickery was involved. This recent mission’s failure is not an effect of chance. While all officers of HSOS6 are aware and willing to give their lives for the safety of New Eridu, we cannot rest knowing that there remain mysteries to the cause of Asaba-san’s sacrifice.
I also ask, in his honor, that you and NEPD by extension, would do the small favor of monitoring information regarding this recent mission, and taking care when dealing with misinformation or exposed confidential materials.
HSOS6 will remain the sharpest arrow against the destruction of Hollows. Thank you again.
Jane’s tail flickered between Seth’s face and his phone screen.
“Cat got your tongue?” The specialist consultant smiled. “Did you stand up to get something?”
Seth sat back down. He didn’t notice he stood up.
“I—" He didn’t quite know where to begin. “Someone I know just died.”
Jane leaned closer. “Oh?”
“Yeah, uh—” Seth closed his phone by reflex, then clicked it back open. “Someone I knew from school. He’s a few classes higher.”
“Was. He was a few classes higher.” Jane reached over to scroll for the rest of the message, then whistled.
Qingyi poured some extra hot water into Seth's cup.
“Captain Zhu, you might want to see this.” Jane called out. “Someone in Section 6 is either pulling a really bad prank, or they just died.”
“Miyabi’s section?” That was enough to pull the attention of their leader.
Seth surrendered his phone as Zhu Yuan came closer.
“Call them back.” Qingyi shrugged, sipping her newly-made tea. “If it’s a prank, they’ll let you know soon enough. This isn’t something to joke about.”
The number rang up to an automated voicemail. Seth called again, and the second time wasn’t picked up at all. Qingyi made a face in the silence.
“What do I do now?” The young officer asked. “What do I do with this?”
“No documentation, no investigation.” Zhu Yuan returned the phone to Seth’s desk. “We can’t open a case unless they send us the forms.”
Jane twirled a knife around her fingers. “Well, Miss Tsukishiro here isn’t asking us to give her anything. Just to…keep an eye out.”
Seth scrolled through his short messaging history.
“I didn’t—we weren’t even work friends. See? It’s all just, acquaintance stuff.” His tail swished nervously. Back down the texting history, to the long message. “And I’m a ‘frequent contact’? Oh my god.”
“Isn’t antisocial the new social…or something?” Qingyi patted him on the back. “Tracking inter-knot misinformation and leaks isn’t our duty. If anything gets out, someone else will be tracking it: we wouldn’t have grounds to interfere.”
“No, it’s—I—He—When we first met, Harumasa told me he had a handful of years left, I just didn’t know it would come this fast.” Seth was still a mixing pot of shock and trembling fingers. “This can’t be real.”
“Hollow-related affairs might come back to our tables.” Zhu Yuan replied to Qingyi’s comment. “…if Section 6 opens a case, that is.”
“If all of this is real, that is.” Jane tossed her knife onto her tail. “Doesn’t hurt to look: if HAND has a mole that can kill a Section 6 officer, then we’ve got a nest of explosives above our heads.”
Zhu Yuan sighed. “I’ll text Miyabi. See what she says. Meanwhile…Seth Lowell.”
“Yes, ma’am?” The cat-eared policeman stood up, his muscle memory reacting before his brain caught on.
Jane had to lean back to avoid a collision with his head.
“You can do a…passive monitoring of inter-knot communication regarding this.” Zhu Yuan commanded. “Qingyi will supervise and provide any assistance you need. Don’t let it take over actual work.”
“I’ll provide my inter-knot monitoring credentials,” Qingyi supplied, “and leave the rest to the younger and more-online generation.”
“Yes, captain.” Seth nodded.
He picked up his cup, as if about to go grab water from a fountain, only to find cold water filled to the brim.
Seth sat down and got to work.
“Wise. Wise Wise Wise!”
Belle rolled over from the other end of the couch, throwing a few pillows aside.
“What is it?” Wise reached for the remote to turn down the volume.
“Turn that off.” Belle’s eyes were glued to her phone. “Actually, turn on the news right now?”
Wise paused the documentary. “What is it?” He asked again.
Belle showed him the phone, logged into their newest Proxy account.
[Asaba Harumasa, sent at 8:03 am]
To Phaethon:
This is Tsukishiro Yanagi, deputy chief of HSO Section 6.
As you might have learned, a recent explosion at the Pursenas Hollow has resulted in critical loss from Section 6. All our members experienced varying levels of harm.
Unfortunately, this morning, we have lost our friend and officer Asaba Harumasa to his previous ailments and recent injuries.
I ask that you keep this information a secret for now. We in Section 6 are still processing this news and will release it for public knowledge when ready.
Some in our team suspect sabotage and trickery was involved. This recent mission’s failure is not an effect of chance. While all officers of HSOS6 are aware and willing to give their lives for the safety of New Eridu, we cannot rest knowing that there remain mysteries to the cause of Asaba-san’s sacrifice.
I also ask, in his honor, that you will do the small favor of monitoring information in your circles regarding this recent mission and provide your service should Miyabi or I seek to develop an investigation of our own.
HSOS6 will remain the sharpest arrow against the destruction of Hollows. Thank you again.
Wise grabbed the phone from Belle’s hand and called back.
30 seconds of ringing later, an automated Bangboo told them to “leave a message at the beep for Asaba Harumasa”.
Wise pulled out his own phone to check the news. Recent explosion in Pursenas Hollow. HSO cancelling their press conference scheduled for next week.
Belle dialed back again to Harumasa’s number. This time, there was no pickup at all. The line simply dropped into an eerie silence.
“This isn’t funny.” Wise laughed nervously. “Yanagi wouldn’t do this to us.”
“They are all offline from inter-knot.” Belle typed quickly into her phone. “FAIRY, is this real?”
“Would you like me pull up the public record for: HSO Section 6, Agent Asaba Harumasa, and check his status tag?” The AI managed the sarcastic tone without a sarcastic voice. “Master, I am not a magic mirror to answer every question.”
Wise rolled out of his corner of the couch. “Do a shallow layer crawl for any reports of injured personnel from Section 6, official and unofficial, since the latest news report on Pursenas.”
FAIRY pulled up several screen’s worth of social media posts. The various “scoops” ranged from a short notice out of the official account for HSOS6 to several megabytes of anxious fans theorizing the catastrophic destruction of their favorites and posting them everywhere. A few thousand words of fanfiction, three music videos, and about a dozen new artwork were mixed in between.
Belle turned off the documentary and ejected the disk.
“What do we now?” She asked, pulling up another chair before the HDD.
“I don’t know.” Wise replied, yet his hand was already reaching for the keyboard.
“I guess we watch.” Belle answered her own question. “We ‘monitor’? And wait for Yanagi to say ‘surprise, you’ve been pranked’?”
The siblings had an old web scraper laying in a folder somewhere. It only needs a quick touch up, and FAIRY can embed it into the inter-knot system, sniffing for the right information.
“Or we wait for Yanagi to come one day and ask for our special collection disks in the staff storage room.” Wise whispered as he typed in an expression to filter posting dates. “Then, we do what we do.”
Yanagi did not like the lights in the Intensive Care. There were too many of them, and all so bright that it burned her retina as she stayed. Her mask fogged up her glasses, which served to diffract some of the aggressiveness.
“I talked to the chief, and she allowed it to proceed.” The woman said, her voice floating past the sound of machines. “The messages were sent this morning.”
There was no silence in a room like this, in the same way that there was no darkness in a room like this. Every space was lit with the same pale white light. Every second was filled with beeping, with whooshing, with a buzzing drone.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Yanagi shifted: she can feel sweat beading against the bandages on her shoulder. “I’ll have to talk to Miyabi more and maybe Soukaku to keep the story tight.”
She took off her glasses and wiped them on the scrubs that she had to wear, outside of the loose hospital-issued gown.
After putting them back on, she leaned in to read, before pulling the entire paper aside.
“That’s enough. I’ll think about and work out the details.” The woman frowned. “You focus on—”
A thin, pale hand reached for her sleeves. Long fingers, once strong enough to draw heavy bowstring, tugged at the light blue scrubs. The motion was barely perceptible through cotton and bandages underneath. A few cords knock against each other, making dull plastic sounds.
Yanagi slipped the paper back. And the pen.
For Soukaku. The hand wrote. Then, 4 little cats took shape beneath the words. The lines were wobbly, the whiskers barely drawn in, and the last cat was turned at an awkward angle.
Yanagi didn’t know whether to laugh or sniffle. She opted for a huff. This time, she took the pad of paper and pen without any resistance.
“I’ll handle Soukaku,” she said, “you know what will make her feel better, and it isn’t badly drawn cats.”
Someone tapped on the window nearby. One of the nurses, probably. Yanagi gave the shape a nod and turned to leave, not before stowing her stool under the bed.
A pair of golden eyes followed her as she left. Then they turned slowly, as if fighting the murk of anesthesia, before closing again.
A nurse comes in to document the vitals, muttering as they looked for the right record.
“Patient name: Asaba Harumasa. Blood oxygen under support: 90%; blood pressure……”