Chapter Text
Rumble rumble… An invisible storm with no clouds in sight echoed in the distant night sky.
My hand grasped at the handle to slide the metallic door to the side. The recent noise had put me on high alert. Holographic fox ears perked up as I relied on my beast-like instincts to gain any sort of premonition. But I couldn’t tarry for long, this was Yachiyo’s life at stake!
Inside, the scent of something charred sharply stung my nasal receptor.
The soldiers I was talking to moments earlier, who were very much alive and had their own convictions in protecting the Muse… have been slaughtered. No, they looked more like they were electrocuted to death. The mix between electrocuted flesh and fabric that had become their corpses gave out a weird synthetic-like smell that made me dizzy.
My tail sprang up from the nerves as I spotted a shape at the end of the carriage. Oh no.
The enemy was still nearby.
The earlier thunderbolt had left behind floating feathers, which were actually the crackle of electrons in the air after the discharge. All leading to a boy with blonde, single braided hair.
“Roka, Mami… I found him. It’s—”
I immediately contacted my teammates but found my tongue tied in the middle of it. “Dammit, why now?!” was screaming inside my mind.
“Iroha? Who’s in there with you?! The energy reading from them is insane!”
“I-it’s him. The Azure Striker.”
My hoarse throat finally let out those words I dreaded to ever say in this line of work.
So, remember when I said I could take on mid to high level threats? Well as of this point in time.
I was looking at the FINAL BOSS instead.
The “Azure Striker”, Gunvolt.
A teenage boy around my age who was implanted with the first and strongest Septima, the power to wield electricity. A vessel of unlimited power. He was equal to the Sumeragi Swordsmen, even surpassing some of them. He was preoccupied with opening the door that was leading to Yachiyo’s car before— Yep, he turned around and noticed me!
“You serious, Iroha? You need to run. Now.”
“Reinforcements will show up right? M-maybe one of the Swordsmen will show up?”
“He’ll kill you Iroha. Please.”
Voices flew around my earpiece asking me not to throw away my life, all the while the boy in blue strolled towards me. Staring at me with azure eyes. What was I afraid of? Just a tiny weapon of mass destruction who had destroyed many Sumeragi facilities and fighters. A war machine in human form.
Nope, noooooo pressure at all!
And that very machine of war went on to ask one question. “Are you with Sumeragi?”
He asked coldly. He certainly didn’t want any nonsense. And if I were to think of it by technicality, I could actually say no? I’m just a freelancer, freehire, free-hands and free whatever.
Yeah as if he would believe that.
“That doesn’t matter. Are you after Yachiyo?”
Instead, I brazenly shut his question down with my own. There was something more pressing for me to know right there and then.
“Iroha?! What are you doing?”
The shock was palpable just from her tone. My priority seemed like it came across as a shock to Roka.
She yelled at me, listing off reasons after reasons for me to turn away from this. My school, dreams, aspirations, all the hard work I’ve done to reach this far and to still go even further. She had tried everything to get me not to throw my life away even through the shock. The desperate tone in her voice made it clear that my decision portrayed me as deluded and insane.
Maybe I was, if I was prioritizing Yachiyo over my life like this. It must have looked like that.
Looking at the length they’d go through for me, I sometimes think I don’t deserve my friends.
“I’m after the Muse program. That’s my mission.” Gunvolt meanwhile kept his cool, undisturbed by the nonsense that was only occurring in my personal channels. Things as they stood were cool enough for a moment or two like earlier to pass, treading the calm before the rampaging storm that was about to take place.
And a storm it certainly was going to be.
“Then my mission is to stop you. No matter what!”
I raised my double bladed dagger in determination, pointing it towards my soon-to-be opponent. Someone who may outclass me, but damn if I wouldn’t try.
But he didn’t immediately raise his weapon towards me, as if sensing my uncertainty and hesitation.
“Did you know?” He started talking, after mulling over the decision to tell or not tell me what he was about to divulge to his enemy.
“Sumeragi is using your precious Muse to brainwash every Adept in this country.”
“I— Huh?”
My mind immediately blanked out. Reasoning was lost on me.
“Mind control, hijack. Whatever you want to call it. Sumeragi wants to control for whatever purpose. It can be to be their soldiers, it can be for their power projects. Or it can even be for their cruel experiments.
That’s why I have to stop it!”
Brainwash… all Adepts… Including me.
Yachiyo… was this what you were really made for?
It wasn’t like I thought Sumeragi to be the cleanest organization out there, far from it. I knew of it all, I ran away from it all. I kept my distance all while taking freelance contracts from them, just to pay the bills. I didn’t want any part of what they did.
But I also turned away from what Yachiyo truly was, withholding the answer right outside my glass-tinted view. So her image, grace and beauty would sear themselves into it instead of all the ugliness of this damned, cruel world.
It would have been too nice if the Muse was something Sumeragi created out of the goodness of their heart, wouldn’t it?
“Aha… ha…”
I was trading away my soul for a love that may have been fabricated. For obedience, for being a puppet running in circles doing Sumeragi’s bidding. The possibility of it was as real as the feeling churning in my chest. It was unsightly, and Gunvolt was still there.
“If you aren’t going to interfere, get out of here.”
… The grip around my weapons grew firm. Almost peeling the skin off my hands.
“No. Way. I’m not moving~” My playful front served to allay the fear of something that felt both certain and uncertain. It was my life we were talking about after all. My projected fox ears twitched and flicked in tandem with my conflicting confidence.
I reaffirmed myself, speaking into the comm line, “I haven’t lost yet have I? That means I should fight, or at least slow him down.”
“Iroha!”
My fox ears communication continued to blare with undying desperation to not see me perish.
“Seriously, get out of there!”
“W-who knows, they might be able to fix Yachiyo later!”
The tempest in my heart grew. I could still walk away from it. Being the hero never suited me at all. In all that glamour and glory laid a responsibility that the girl inside me wanted to turn away from. To know whether I’m doing the right thing or not.
“Roka, Mami… I’m sorry.”
“Please take care.”
I had the creeping feeling that if I were to turn away right there and then… I would lose something important forever.
So, I cut off the communication link between us.
It was clear that to Gunvolt his task was of utmost urgency. He would sooner bolt inside Yachiyo’s room rather than converse with me. But that would mean turning his back to me, something he probably deemed as too dangerous of a risk.
“You can still walk away. No one would blame you.”
His intense glare, not too different from what I would imagine from a noble beast, conveyed the greatest sincerity I had to acknowledge out of him… conviction. He was ready to put everything on the line for his mission, to protect the freedom of Adepts. In a sense I must have looked like the villain of this story.
Tch.
My mind ended up being a tangled mess over the accrued complexity within the last hours of my life. Fighting arguably the strongest Adept, Yachiyo being a program that mindhacks Adepts, him being willing to let me go. Admittedly, I was still second-guessing the conflicting feelings I had about Yachiyo. Was it real? Was it all just planted inside my mind?
“A sweet and precious melody is flowing through the air.”
Was the fluttering in my heart when her voice freed me, also fake? Was I just dreaming?
You can still walk away.
Shut up.
You can still go back to your ideal life. Perfect, ordinary Iroha.
Stop talking. You don’t know me.
Poor weak Iroha can still go home to cry after all.
. . .
I don’t know if I should believe him, her, or even myself.
I looked down on my feet. Ah, right. I also chose to be here, too.
On whose behalf do I take a stand? Sumeragi? The people?
Me? Myself?
After hours at night, the world around me had gone to slumber.
Rain had been falling down nonstop. A downpour enveloping Kyoto with countless beads of water. Not to mention the shower of droplets was packed together enough to refract light, I imagined it would have been like seeing the city I grew up in become submerged underwater.
But I didn’t bother to look past the window, or to marvel at the shining drizzle illuminated by the city lights. In fact, my window had its curtain closed. The only way I’d know it was even raining was the sound of hard water drops banging against the roof of my family home.
I was lying on my bed covered under a white sheet. Lethargy and torpor seizing my body, rendering it immobile and paralyzed to mimic how powerless I felt on the inside. I’d just had another fight with mom. As with any other time this happened, her harsh shouts towards what had become my life froze me still.
— “How long are you going to keep that up, huh? Just parading around doing as people please. Enough!”
— “... How are you supposed to be a daughter of mine like this…?”
I flipped around to lie on my chest instead of my back. My hand tugged on the blanket sheet, clutching it like a lifeline. The air around the walls was cold to the touch, as if the desolate winter had swept over my entire room. My shivering was full of nauseating fear and silent rage that found no solace, so I kept shutting myself under my sheet, unable to fall asleep.
It hurts to be alive. It hurts to breathe. My worn, raspy voice won’t reach anyone.
Devoid of expectations for my own attempts to safeguard my heart, I could only cry and rue in my suffering. My mind must have had that line of thought so many times already, all in a single night. The only thing left I could do, to stay the scarred heart I was carrying.
Thunder echoed loudly far, far away as if it came from another world. Lightning strikes hitting the earth resulted in a painful, frightening sound.
So even if I had cried, there was absolutely no one who would hear it.
Instead, I opened my phone screen to listlessly scroll with my reddened eyes. Between all the social media platforms, video services, what seemed like an infinite amount of information, I happened upon it—
A Yachiyo consultation website link. Attached to her streaming account and main website.
“If you ever need someone to talk to, call me~ Because no one deserves to be alone.”
A clumsy, generic tagline for a superstar like her. Maybe she could have written something more profound, or charming. But it was exactly the simplicity of that line that pulled at my heartstrings.
My trembling finger pressed on the consultation form button to unveil a large white box. That was it. It was just a large empty box where I could write anything in it. Not even the normally obligatory questions like my name, my age, where I live. Maybe she had done away with the questionnaire sets. Just letting people pour their heart out over their concerns, and the woes of their lives. Every little thing that worried them, each bit that could be as small as pet peeves and crushes, laid out just to have someone else listen to them.
I filled in as much as I could. About myself, about my family. About my mom and the fights we kept having. I put in the agonizing and complex emotions I had been bottling up throughout life in any words I could come up with. The first time I ever brought myself to say it, rather than swallowing it. Did Yachiyo intend to read each and every one of these as is?
This can’t be real, my doubt spoke to me. It probably was going to be some AI generated answer. A mass produced fake reply sent by a machine. I was only waiting to be disappointed.
I let my back fall softly on the bed, and covered my head with the sheets again. With bated breath under the white linen, I waited. My dull listless eyes were threatening to fall asleep. Maybe if I give up, I can forget it, even if for just a small moment. The temptation of letting my eyes close to pass my troubles into a ‘tomorrow’ dragged me down into the embrace of apathy.
Before it could lay claim on my soul, a notification rang from the phone I was still clutching in my hand.
It was Yachiyo, having grabbed my distress beacon.
“Iroha,”
She knew my name. Even though I didn’t write it in at all. She was looking at me, even as we spoke.
“why don’t you take a deep breath now? Like this. Haaaa… Hoooo…”
I breathed without question. Breath in. Breath out.
“There we go. Better? Have you calmed down?”
Breath in. Breath out.
“You’re so strong, Yaccho might actually cry. It’s just that between you two—”
Breath in… Breath out…
“How about taking some distance for now? Eventually things will get better. Yaccho promise~”
“I’ll always be with you, Iroha.”
Rain and thunder eventually became quieter in my ears, no longer ringing my eardrums. My trembling subsided as I went through the breathing exercise Yachiyo gave me. I was so in awe, I kept looking at my palm for any signs of nervous tics. Looking for any indication of my heart wavering.
A fixation was born inside me.
I hurriedly tapped on her channel on my phone. “Yachiyo Runami—the Muse”. Her polished face with white twin-looped hair greeted me from her banner, which was drawn to be a beautiful Japanese porch with the moon looking over from the sky. The ocean surface was just beyond the wooden floor, glistening from moonlight.
Quickly, without delay I tapped on one video presented just for me in the “For You” section.
“Remember”, by Yachiyo Runami.
It looks like I could still see it, the breathtaking sight of seeing everything under the sea. I could see the 'rain' outside my eyes.
It was blurry, all I could see were vague circles of blurry colors. But it was fine to me that tears filtered my view.
Because it truly made her dazzle all the more to me.
“Brilliant days are waiting ahead.”
A world where Yachiyo doesn’t exist.
I don’t want that. I don’t want that at all!
Because… Yachiyo is my air! She’s what allowed me to breathe, even when I felt like I was underwater!
This was my conviction.
— “With that weak little thing you had the nerve to call “conviction” where can you go? You’ll go out there, see how cruel the world is
and come back crying after throwing in the towel. Like the weakling you always have been.”
I won’t budge on it. I won’t turn tail as my mom said. I’ll prove it right here and now!
Because I don’t want Yachiyo to die!
Gunvolt didn’t even need to be told. He knew my decision just from a single glance. His gun was already primed in his hand.
Fox ears and tails glowed in a mix of green and blue once again. My energy contacts were glowing with beastly fire.
I tapped my right foot, thump thump. Setting a memorized rhythm and beat etched in my heart, right before what I figured would be the toughest battle of her life. Thump thump thump, my heart raced as I jumped.
“Yachiyo, I promise I’ll protect you. I’ll return the happiness you’ve given me.”
“Overflow… Divine Wind!!”
The oxygen Yachiyo had allowed me to breathe in became the air that pushed me, as I changed trajectory and momentum mid-air, bolting at the speed of a bullet. Harsh, violent wind pressure ejected from the bottom of my weapons as I broke through the sound barrier.
I launched straight towards the Azure Striker, Gunvolt!
[S T R I K E]
My blade swung down from overhead, slicing through my opponent—
No! He… wasn’t hurt. It didn’t even touch him, he phased through it entirely!
Prevasion. Turning your body intangible with your elemental Septima so attacks phase through you without any damage. I could do it a bit, but at best it was monkey-copying. Nothing compared to the real deal who could pull that off seamlessly. Crap.
After Gunvolt returned to being flesh and blood, he whipped out a small gun. The muzzle trained on me as he held the grip with two hands, he fired darts towards me.
They were relatively slow but their literal needle size, thin as they were, made it hard to spot. So I avoided them entirely, by virtue of my feet finding purchase on solidified pockets of air. When he was thinking of following up, I changed direction from the air surface with a second jump, my so-called double jump.
I couldn’t fly just yet, that’d require some kind of life changing upgrade. But I had to make do with what I got and stick it to him!
“Sumeragi’s reinforcement is coming you know! Just give it up!”
From the air I retaliated with bullets from my daggers, fingers squeezing the trigger while the barrels lined up with Gunvolt.
“My allies are holding them up, they won’t be coming.
But surely you already knew that, right?!”
Before I could react, a stinging sensation ran through my skin. An electric field discharged from his body repelled the bullets, all the while he was approaching me. I was only slightly frazzled, but my holographic fox tail changed color to look burnt, as if the electricity itself destroyed the color projection of my equipment.
That… Was uncomfortable.
Here he comes.
Instead of firing back, he ran at me with lightning speed. Likely thinking that I would be caught off guard by the sudden acceleration while he raised his voltage, planning to unleash the thunderbolt that had wiped out the soldier squad earlier.
Sparks rumbled impatiently, running straight to the metal train floor.
“That’s why I need to hurry! I need to finish this for the comrades who paved the way!”
“She may be important to you, but she’s just a ‘machine’! A machine that will enslave all Adepts!”
Raging thunder shook the train once more.
My body propelled up with winds at my beck and call. My feet avoided touching the electrified ground as I glided around him. The all-imposing thunderbolt was concentrated in the area surrounding him.
A thought came to me, as the tugging of gravity slowly pulled at my floating feet.
I was thinking that, after I successfully protected Yachiyo, I’d go back to Sumeragi and find out everything about Project Muse. Mom should know something about it, she’s high up in corporate. I’d get my answers and put a stop to it. Yeah. That’s what I was thinking, so…
“How the hell is that my problem right now?!” My thoughts and speech occurred simultaneously.
I kept spinning my body above ground until he finished discharging all his energy. From his blind spot I sent a whirlwind kick straight into his jaw! I had figured it out. He can’t use his moves or Prevasion when he’s out of juice. With the time crunch and his allies holding up the reinforcements he couldn’t afford to save up his charges.
I had the advantage, and I was damn well going to use it.
Firing my weapons finally netted something, that being two marker rounds on Gunvolt. He was reeling back from not having his power to defend him. I swung my blades endlessly, strong gusts flew off with each motion of slashing. The ranged slashes repeatedly gash him to envelop him in green, a relentless barrage that kept homing to its target.
I can win. I truly believed that from the bottom of my heart. If only…
He scattered the wind with his flashfield. The winds were no longer able to touch him.
“You’re a tougher opponent than I thought. My bad.”
“I can’t waste any more time with you.”
Oh, so he was going to get even more serious. Not like I wasn’t already quaking in my boots.
Well… not exactly.
I was eerily calm as a wave of immersion swept over my inner thoughts. Every hair was standing on end as I was completely absorbed by this fight. From the cold air boxed inside a metal frame, to the electricity flowing from my enemy. It was laid out in front of me, through the use of my almost inhumane senses.
All that shoved away the dread I had been having, the pressure and self-doubt imposed on me about my decision to fight. I couldn’t afford to be afraid— In fact fear no longer had a place in my heart. Not in this fight, not if I want to live for another day with the things I loved.
Ah, so this is what it feels like to fight with your life on the line.
I felt reassured. I was doing the right thing. I couldn’t afford to lose. Those emotions that were supporting me became so important to me.
“Oversurge! Azure Striker!
Break the wind that dares to stop me!”
He rushed over to me with the voltage flashfield! With how wide-reaching it was I couldn’t think of dodging it. Picking the alternative, I enveloped myself in dense wind to push against his electric surge. The force of impact blew my hair and clothes back.
Crackles formed between the two boundaries. Between two worlds.
“You’re going… nghh, nowhere!”
“Tch, just give it up!”
“Never! I’m not letting you get even an inch closer!”
“. . .”
“You’ve got guts, I have to admit it. But it’s clear—”
That lightning rends through wind. Lightning normally travels through air following the path with the least air resistance after all.
So even though it looked like I was blocking his electricity, I was still getting electrocuted constantly. Nonstop. The insides of my arms had the sensation of about to combust and burst into flames, and it was spreading upward towards my shoulders, then neck, then head, and finally the addition of my eyes feeling like they were about to pop.
Unbelievably painful. Pain my own words couldn’t describe. Crawling inside my head.
The wind that had been blowing around me finally fizzled out, giving out before the Azure Striker’s power.
I-it’s fine, I can still recharge—
No… No good. My body was s-still… S-shaking. Can’t… Run.
My legs were quivering. The electrocuting pain left an imprint on my nervous system.
“I’m really sorry about this.”
Gunvolt was getting ready to unleash something. From his hands they appeared… Chains.
“Bolts of rebellion
A thunderous voice in his heart
Speaks of one true law!”
“Voltaic Chains!”
As I tried to step away, still trembling, the chains surrounded and bound me tight. They felt like ionized metal rather than pure steel. I was wrapped in a metal that existed purely from voltaic energy.
And the voltage amped up, filling me with absolute electricity.
“AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”
I screamed.
It wouldn’t stop. Not until I completely stopped moving.
The pain I was feeling just before quickly became an afterthought, in comparison to the new hell I was experiencing. My body repeatedly convulsed, my brain occasionally short-circuited in the middle of it. My mouth that was left agape and couldn’t close itself constantly let out drool from the torment, while my throat was squeezing and contracting in a pitiful attempt to relieve myself from life.
I even at times forgot who I was, where I was, why I was here… And what I even did to deserve this.
Until it finally stopped, and I fell down to the floor. Thud.
This was the cruel difference of power. And the agonizing demise that came with it.
As always, I cursed at my own weakness. My powerlessness to even stick to something was so sickening.
— “You can’t be doing everything for other people. Not with that fragile thing you call a ‘heart’.”
I failed, and Yachiyo was going to be erased because of it.
Everything then became dark. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t feel anything.
My mind raced towards the point of time where people were against my decision. Roka and Mami… They didn’t want me to die. This exact scene was precisely what they didn’t want me to go through, and yet here I ended up.
— “One misstep, and you’ll be dead on the streets.”
Mom… Was this why you were always telling me all those cruel things? You were always so cold and intolerant towards me that I thought you wouldn’t cry at all if I were to pass away. In my memory you had already locked away your heart after losing dad.
But now… That thought is making me cry. That you’ve said all those things because you didn’t want me to suffer.
Am I… Going to die…?
No… Stop. Not like this. I’m sorry…
I’m sorry for never listening. Please.
Someone… H… Help… Me…
Roka… Mami…
M… om…
…
Thus was the end of Sakayori Iroha.