The inside of the place was the same magical science bonanza that it was the first time Mei arrived, though now GUMI and Rei felt like gawking, when before it was Mei herself who had felt a little like she was out of place.
Naoki and her protector took up one side of the forge room, the one closest to the forge. Mei and her crew took up positions around the tank where they were storing Hearts; Mei assumed these were the Hearts whose Tools were currently being repaired.
"So. First, I think, we should introduce ourselves properly," Mei said. "Then— I'd like to ask you some questions about how you came to this position, before we fully discuss what I want out of the deal. As such— I have already introduced myself, but these are my mother's good friend GUMI, Kisaragi Rei, the second daughter of the late Dr. Kisaragi Juzo, and Raimoto Haru, an acquaintance."
"Takayama Naoki. I was friends with Torioi in elementary school, and my mother and hers would regularly meet after school." Naoki was looking at GUMI and Rei especially when she said it, and Mei felt, then looked down to see, Rei's hand carefully on her opposite waist.
She wasn't sure how well she resisted a little smile to herself, but GUMI snickered, so chances were slim.
Naoki narrowed her eyes, for just a moment. "So. I have a few questions of my own, if I may. What exactly is your relationship with Kisaragi? I know your mother didn't ask you to meet her."
"— Ah. We met not long after the start of the semester, actually. And…" Mei paused. "We made a promise to go on a date, but I guess this isn't quite what you had in mind, is it?"
"No. No it is not. It's been eye-opening, though!"
Naoki looked thoughtful about that. "And then, if that's the case, why are these two following you?"
"A fox may move as she pleases," Gumi said, putting her hands on Mei's shoulders. "In this case, however, I have entered into an agreement with this girl."
Mei's eyes glanced left and right, not quite sure what to make of this. On the one hand, this was exactly the position to sink her teeth into Mei's jugular. On the other hand, did she really mind that? On the third hand, these two were getting particularly handsy, weren't they?
Haru nodded, and her grin grew toothy as she squeezed Mei's arm hard enough to make her iron skin bend. "I'm one of her clients."
While it was true, Mei wished that she wouldn't put it that way.
Naoki sighed. "Seems there's still some things the same about you, even after six years, huh? Pursuing your own goals without thinking about the situation you're in. Or your own health."
What the heck was Naoki talking about now? Mei canted her head.
"I don't even blame you for not following through and meeting me in high school. But this…" Naoki sighed. "What was the real reason we stopped meeting? Was it really just that we drifted apart? Or was it more something like this?"
Mei looked down. "My guardian forbade it."
[Make A Connection +Rapport: 5+3+1 vs 2, 10 weak hit]
"That woman. … It's thanks to her company that I'm not putting stress on mother during my training." Naoki paused. "She came personally to offer me the deal."
"There's also a generous grant from the Eva Ray Research Center," the impostor explained, "Though we wouldn't need either if we had even legacy equipment."
Kisaragi shook her head. "Father's lab was done in. And as for Torioi Haruto's… I'm fairly certain it's become a Site."
"All the better!" Naoki grinned. "The lab equipment might have become strange, but I'm certain that if it's a Site it'll keep growing to be more like itself-- and we can use that for parts— maybe even find things we can't find anywhere else. With prodigies of science and magic, I can make wonders for you."
TAKAYAMA NAOKI (ARMORER) [Formidable] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Mei paused. Prodigies of science and magic? "… Oi, sensei. Would that stuff qualify?"
"— An excellent guess, student. Ask her."
[Compel +Thoughtful+2: 3+3+2 vs. 4, 6 STRONG HIT]
Mei nodded, reached into her satchel, and pulled forth a large thermos of amzake, from which she fished the broken shackles and chains she could gather up from her various adventures. "I don't know if these are good enough, but…"
Naoki's eyes glowed briefly, and she whistled. "The physical remains of broken curses? Oh, that's fantastic, actually. What were they used for?"
Mei leaned her head up and traced along her neck, drawing Naoki's eyes to the burn scar. "My guardian forbade many things, Naoki."
Naoki paused. "You're after revenge, then?"
Mei shook her head. "I might have to, but I think… For me, what would be more important is no longer being shackled."
There was a short silence.
Into it, Mei asked, "Is there something wrong?"
"Why are you here? Really? You're being quite open about everything else, but there's no way you come up with two stories just to blackmail me. Once you knew it was me, you could have just asked."
Mei tested the storage tank and found it too top-heavy to take her weight. Instead, she sat on the floor. "It's as easy as your friend. People saw him and assumed my father had escaped the Underworld. The thing is… I have it on a good source that he never arrived."
"You have contacts in the Underworld?" Naoki said.
"We are standing in the Night Market," Mei misled. "You can get anything you want here, so long as you can pay the price, right? But I think there's something more going on. And I think you, impostor, know some of the truth."
"What makes you say that?" The impostor asked, very carefully.
"People risking offending the dead is rare, and you're neither stupid nor desperate. What do you know?"
"… Not much. A city. Sapporo."
"… Hokkaido…" That put a cramp on Mei's plans for sure.
Haru cussed.
"I will find the whereabouts of my parents."
Difficulty: EXTREME
[xx] [xx] [x] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
"Haru?"
"I thought for sure he was in Site 1!"
"Whatever thing you saw in Site 1, it wasn't the spirit of Torioi Haruto. Though heaven knows they play enough with the Border of Life."
That made Mei sit up and take notice. "… You're an employee."
"No. But half the people I know are." He turned to Rei. "I am— I was a subordinate for your father during the Long War at the Eva Ray Research Center. I still work there."
"So… that's how it is." Mei sighed. "Someone contacted you."
I will discover the truth at Shirogane Site 1.
Rank: Formidable
[xx] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
[Unlikely Delay: 8 delay]
"Nn. There's a lot of Shirogane Nezuka guys around tonight…" came the voice of Ichigo, from the stall entrance. "I wonder what they're looking for?"
"What are you doing here?" Mei asked, pulling him in before anyone else could get wind of it.
"Kuro told me where you probably went after I missed you at Takayama. What's the rush, anyway? It's not like—" Ichigo stopped. "— No way. Naoki!?"
"Well, that means you're Ichigo, aren't you?" Naoki said.
"Ah— yeah. It's been years, how are you?"
"I'm learning to be a national treasure, of course! What, you think I have all this for fun?"
"Ah, apparently so!" He grinned that easy grin which had won him so many admirers among Mei's friends. Pretty enough, she supposed, and the fangs made it a bit better, but hardly worth the rest of him. He did a swift double-take when it came to the impostor. "Ah— Torioi's father!?"
"No," Mei said.
"— Ah— right."
Naoki's eyes glowed once more. "And the same curses, too…"
Ichigo paused. "There wasn't a family registry, but in some ways, I suppose, it resembled a wedding."
[Destiny reset.]
"All that said. What evidence do you have for my father being in Sapporo?"
[Gather Information +Thoughtful+Bird And Dragon: 2+2+2 vs 1, 4, 9 STRONG HIT]
"Hearsay, mostly— eyewitnesses. But more than that— many of the things he used to supply, that once came from Kobe, now are supplied by Shirogane Nezuka… Via Sapporo."
"Circumstantial," Rei spotted, and Mei agreed.
"But it is a lead," Mei added. "Even if it's one that will have to wait."
Ichigo paused. "— No, you're right, Mei. That wouldn't be good enough. You have something else."
"I do." He paused, looking around, and then produced a small paper. "I followed up on those rumors and found a paper trail. Check the name."
"… Kurochou—!?" Mei groaned as the pun hit her. "No, you're right, that is his sense of humor."
"Eh?" Rei said.
"What was my mother, but the woman who shot the black river bird?" Mei specifically used her father's family name, 'Kurokawa', to drive home the point. "And what is my boss, but the blackest chief of the blackest company?"
"— your dad's pretty morbid," Rei said.
"Well, he is supposed to be dead."
"Aside from that, the paper trail dried up," the impostor said.
Mei looked at him. "You're lying again."
He winced. "I… I decided to see if I could look for the registry of it while I was in Kanto on other business, and…"
He slowly opened his shirt, revealing some nasty bruises. "I was gently dissuaded from continuing."
"Let me." Mei opened the shirt to look at them, closely. [Detective] The bruises were about a week on, but she corrected her original assessment. There were burns, as well— burns that had clear entry points, and exit wounds further down the body, either the feet or the hands.
Electrical burns.
[Armor-Piercing Blow] More than that, these were clearly someone pulling their attack. In the locations these bruises were, and with the size of the weapon— breaking the bone would probably have been child's play. [Detective + Armor-Piercing Blow] In fact, considering the commonly available weapons— a baseball bat!? That or a wooden blade…
"… If I asked you for a description, what would you say?" Mei asked, hoping against hope that the answer wasn't the one she thought it was.
"Head and shoulders taller than you, and she looked near-dead, if she wasn't already. The pallor was unmistakable. Her eyes were cloudy, but you could still see the black in them. Her hands sparked with lightning, and so did the weapon in her hands." He looked Mei dead in the eyes. "Her body shape was very similar to yours if a bit more mature, and she dressed like a sukeban. It didn't hide her pilot's contact scars."
Mei closed her eyes and looked away. "Then my next stop is Kanto."
"… Mm. Be careful," the impostor advised. "The Diet doesn't like it when the zaibatsus get annoyed, and they like disorder in the streets of Tokyo even less."
"You think it'll come to that?"
"She was powerful enough to make even the original Luna-2 reconsider unleashing its anger towards any new pilot. Don't underestimate her spirit."
"Then I rely on both of you to make a tool suited to my purposes; my war chest is deep, so please don't worry about common materials."
[+2 Momentum. That settles your first follow-up in the coming days. 9/10.]
"And. Naoki…"
"Yes?"
"I know you're taking a big risk here. Thank you. If it comes down to it, ditch my stuff and move on. I'll understand."
Naoki's hands curled into fists. "I would hate to disappoint you."
"You're more important to me than anything you could make. I mean that."
"The worst part is, I know you really mean it."
Now she turned to Ichigo. "What did you find?"
"Let's discuss it elsewhere."
THE NIGHT WEARS ON O O . . . . . .
Mei and Naoki exchanged LINE with a somber air and only as they left did Mei realize someone was missing from the conversations.
Because I'm not sure what we want. Or— no, we want too MANY things. We wanna kiss her. We wanna keep her at arm's length and protect her from our curse. We wanna free her from any obligation to Kaneko Chou, right now with no regard for consequences. You want to protect her from the storm coming for you.
Under the circumstances, I think we did okay. Except for the toss it bit. I think we wounded her pride a little.
Mei paused, wondering if Asura-chan thought that any item Naoki would make would be worth her life. Don't be stupid! We can't kiss her if she's dead!
"Of course you'd say that," she muttered, under her breath. Mei wasn't sure why she'd bothered. Because it's truuuuue~ Even now, you're thinking about it. Wondering what her hands would do if they were between your—
"So. What did you want to discuss?" Mei said, in the blending of a crowd, standing close to Ichigo, one part just that little bit too familiar, one part bodyguard.
[Gather Information +Thoughtful+Bird and Dragon: 3+2+2 vs 9, 4, 8 weak hit]
[Lucky? 35 no]
Don't be that way. You know you're imagining her smith's hands, heating your breath, drawing things out of you you hadn't thought possible, pounding relentlessly for—
Mei cleared her throat to try and focus back on the conversation instead of getting drawn into Asura-chan's desire looping.
"… that's not your father, right? Doesn't smell right."
"— I'm very aware, yes. That was part of why I was there in the first place." Mei said, nodding along.
"As for what I found, it's about those groups from the business. They've got something like three different objectives— or maybe there's three different groups."
"Well. Shirogane sending goons into the Night Market for parts or people isn't unusual, as such," Haru said. "After all, it's the same reason we're here."
Ichigo nodded. "One of them just wants to blow off steam, I think, but they're not happy about you in the slightest. I don't think they realize who you are in the spirit world yet."
Mei nodded. "That fits with what I've found out so far."
"One of them is looking for us and Maru in particular."
"For something other than revenge?"
"They're being cagey about why, so no one particularly wants to talk to them. Something about one of the admins for C-level?"
Mei hummed as she thought about that.
"And one group— pretty clearly some kind of enhanced security team— is looking for something called a 'black swan'."
Mei's eyes flicked to the paper. No… She couldn't be that lucky. Something else was going on. "A black swan, huh? You can find a lot of things in the Night Market, or so I've been told, but a black swan isn't something a carefully watched Night Market can produce…"
Gumi laughed. The alcohol had, apparently, hit.
"— They talked to you?"
"— Only briefly. I figured they were Shirogane because they walked right up to me as if they knew me and asked me if I had located the black swan. Smelled like they were… rotting. I didn't know what they were talking about, so I said I hadn't yet."
Mei squinted, because that didn't sound right, and then connected it with the obvious subject of an enhanced human looking for strange events. "Rotting like death, or rotting like they're staving off burning?"
Ichigo paused, and the sudden shock in his eyes confirmed her suspicions. "— Then you think they're—!"
GUMI's head snapped round at the sound of a stall getting smashed.
Every youkai in the market followed her gaze.
Rei, Mei, Haru, and Ichigo all looked at each other, as they realized who was being attacked, and by what. "NAOKI!"
Choose an unexpected ally, already on the scene:
[ ] [ALLY] Despite everything, still, I reach for that lightning! I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [ALLY] You aren't leaving without paying, are you? I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [ALLY] Flowers bloom in my steps… and yours. I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [ALLY] For the light in our stars! I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [ALLY] I REQUIRE A PILOT.
Pick your poison:
[ ] [UNLUCKY] This is your fault, isn't it? I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [UNLUCKY] We have an urgent letter that must be delivered personally. I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [UNLUCKY] The Black Swan is here. I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [UNLUCKY] I refuse to let these chains bind me for long! I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [UNLUCKY] I REQUIRE A PILOT.
What is the first den for your wild heart?
[ ] [ARMORY] An old friend— simple, solid, direct. I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [ARMORY] A weapon. A work of art. A treasure-- but not your treasure. I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [ARMORY] Wings— once of light, now of shade. I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [ARMORY] A song, to be sung. Be careful not to sing it too loudly. I REQUIRE A PILOT.
[ ] [ARMORY] I REQUIRE A PILOT.
Vote starts approximately now.