NaNoWriMoFirstSession

The man’s coat swept about him. The room was mostly featureless. Long ago had he done away with all the unnecessary things, those things that were not vital to his mission. He strode to the center of the room and sat down on the hard, wooden floor, crossing his legs. Only a single lighting fixture hung above his head, casting the room in a dim glow. He tilted his head down, to gaze at the floor ahead of him. It was close, oh yes, it was close. He had worked for centuries, engineering everything he needed for his goal. And at last… he needed only to complete the spell. One final step was all that remained.

His red hair fell over his forehead as he regarded the space on the floor in front of him. Hard, brown eyes stared with the intensity one might associate with the gaze of a predator regarding its prey. He outstretched his right hand, his arm slithering out of the sleeve of his black coat. It was entirely bandaged, all the way up to the shoulder. He didn’t need to use its fullest power, not yet. That was all in due time. But he did need a small amount of its magic…

The man outstretched his forefinger, and placed it against the wooden floor. A black stain formed at the tip of his finger, then grew, as if the man had dipped his finger in ink. Soon, the black liquid dripped from his finger, and he traced it in a circle.

The circle was then filled with complex symbols, all with the black liquid. It was a scrying spell; it would detect an area of high mana concentration and guide him to it. For that was needed for the final step of his plan. A place that had a lot of mana, and a lot of people…

An image of the location was displayed in the circle he had constructed.

For the first time in many years, Kurogane Masahiro allowed himself to smile.

At last, he would kill the gods.

~

“Miko-chan!”

“Eh?”

Nakamura Kiyomi had to sprint to catch up to her friend. She’d been in the process of taking her lunch upstairs, the high school’s roof. There was always a nice view from the rooftop, so why not eat up there? She was very hungry, and she’d paused for only a moment to tell her friend. Unfortunately, it seemed that her friend was still very much the faster of the two girls. This wasn’t to say that Kiyomi wasn’t athletic, but she wasn’t a practiced member of the kendo club, among other athletic activities.

Hououji Miko’s long black ponytail swished as she turned to face Kiyomi. They had both known each other since early childhood, and the least you could say about them is that they were very close friends. Miko was taller than Kiyomi, though not by too much, with long black hair up in a ponytail. Kiyomi couldn’t help but feel that Miko was very suited to a ponytail, and that it looked very pretty on her. Miko’s facial features were soft and pretty, her eyes amber. Her body was elegant and slender, and very athletic. She was, if one considered it, very appropriately-named. After all, she was a miko at the Hououji shrine.

Kiyomi shared Miko’s black hair, but it hung loose as opposed to in a ponytail. It was also quite long, past her mid-back, though even that seemed shorter than Miko’s. She was shorter, and rounder, then her friend, though not by much. She wasn’t a large, or thickly-bodied person, but her slender form was less a result of exercise and more a result of simply having a slender build. Her features were frequently referred to as ‘cute’ by Miko. Kiyomi didn’t care about that so much, but it did feel nice to be called cute by her friend.

At the moment, however, her friend had just run up a flight of stairs before she had even gotten a quarter of the way up them.

Kiyomi could see her friend’s smile become a frown.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Kiyo-chan,” she apologized, “I didn’t realize I’d left you behind like that.”
Kiyomi sighed, then looked up at her and smiled. Miko was sweet and polite, but there was such a thing as being too apologetic. “You don’t have to apologize, Miko-chan, just wait up.”
Picking up the pace, Kiyomi soon joined Miko at the top of the stairs. From there, they both proceeded up to the roof of the school building.

None of the other students had picked today to go up here. Perhaps that was for the best, it wasn’t as nice a place to eat when it was crowded. But the view… the view was lovely. Kiyomi liked the view of the city. Sunlight glinted off the rooftops of the shorter buildings, and the city opened up, skyscrapers stretching into the air like the fingers of a giant.

“Kiyo-chan, we should sit on the opposite side,” Miko suggested, gesturing to the right side of the roof, opposite of the beautiful view of the city. “That way, we’ll have a nice view the whole time while we eat lunch.”

Kiyomi smiled at her friend. Such a nice view… It was the perfect place to eat lunch, without question. Miko walked over to the railing and sat down, leaning against the cool metal. Kiyomi proceeded after her, and sat down beside her. It hadn’t been long since lunch had started, so they had plenty of time to eat and enjoy the view.

“Hey, Miko-chan, what did you bring for lunch?” asked Kiyomi, taking the lid off of her lunchbox. She could guess that it was something traditional and neatly-prepared, but she always liked to ask.
“Oh, take a look,” Miko replied cheerfully, taking the lid off of her own lunch box and offering it for Kiyomi to see. The smell alone was enough to make Kiyomi even hungrier then she already was, and the sight of the food… finely-prepared white-and-brown of a tamagoyaki, the greens of an assortment of vegetables, the finely-prepared fish…

Kiyomi smiled. “Just what I’d expect from you.”

Miko returned her smile. “What do you have, Kiyo-chan?”

Kiyomi’s smile faltered, just slightly. Her lunch was, well… hastily thrown-together out of what she had available. It certainly was not anything like the neat and proper lunch that Miko had made. But… she didn’t care about that, not really. Miko didn’t seem to care, either.

“I always like the octopus hotdogs,” Miko commented.

Oh, and the octopus hotdogs. Kiyomi was quite happy with those.

From there, lunch proceeded in silence. This was mostly because both girls were rather hungry, and it’s rather difficult to speak when your mouth is full of food. Miko paused for a moment, a thoughtful expression coming to her face.

Taking notice, Kiyomi stopped as well. “What is it?”

“I was just wondering what the Church did with the Archbishop…” Miko replied.

Kiyomi’s expression almost immediately hardened. Even hearing that made her angry. The memory of that man, and what he was trying to do… “Don’t even mention that bastard, just talking about him makes me angry!”

She immediately started eating, very rapidly. Part of her considered this a way to stifle her sudden burst of rage.

Miko inclined her head. “I thought you would have gotten over your anger, after defeating him like that.”

Kiyomi shook her head, and then swallowed her mouthful of food.

“Just because I defeated him,” she began, placing her chopsticks down. She had managed to devour the remainder of her lunch in under a minute. “Doesn’t mean that I’m not still angry about what he tried to do.”

Miko shrugged.

“I don’t blame you,” she replied, “I think even I’m still a little bit angry, though I don’t feel it like you still do. I just feel good about that fact that it’s over. Besides, that was a month ago.”

“I’ll always be angry whenever I hear about that bastard,” Kiyomi responded shortly, folding her arms. “It can’t be helped.”

The thoughtful expression returned to Miko’s face. After a moment, she spoke. “I’m glad. If you weren’t like that, you wouldn’t be Kiyo-chan.”

“And you wouldn’t be Miko-chan without comments like that,” replied Kiyomi, inclining her head slightly and raising a quizzical eyebrow. That was an odd comment, but Kiyomi was used to that kind of comment. After all, she had known Miko for sixteen years. Really, it was kind of sweet, coming from Miko.

Growing up with the miko had lead to both girls forming a very close bond. It was doubtless that they were best friends. They had many other friends, but even the closest was simply not as close as Kiyomi and Miko were to one another. This was, quite likely, in part due to their shared secret.

For Nakamura Kiyomi and Hououji Miko were not normal high school girls.

The girls finished eating, and went back downstairs to class. It was Kaname-sensei this period, so at least the class was bound to be entertaining even if it wasn’t particularly informative. Kaname-sensei seemed younger than most of her students, if you were to base her age off of her behavior. Her appearance didn’t really help with that assumption.

However, throughout the period, Kiyomi felt like something was amiss. That perhaps something was about to happen.

But there wasn’t any reason to worry, right?

~

Kiyomi was walking home with Miko when she got the phone call. The number was… her home phone?  The only person at home right now… was her brother. Nakamura Yuichi was a bookish man, who also enjoyed communicating over the internet. He was Kiyomi’s older brother, twenty years old, and he spent much of his time studying. He usually didn’t call her unless it was for something very important.

“What is it, Nii-san?” Kiyomi asked, quickly. If he hadn’t even waited for her to get home, it was probably even more important than usual.

“Kiyomi, does the name Kurogane Masahiro mean anything to you?”

Kiyomi blinked. Miko tilted her head, but remained quiet. She’d ask just what was going on once the phone call was over.

“No,” Kiyomi replied, confused. What was this about? “Who’s that?”

“One of my contacts mentioned him; he said he’d been active again. When I asked him who he was, he said he was an old mage. I thought you might know, he’s not showing up in any of my books,” explained Yuichi.

“If he’s not in any of your books, he’s definitely not in any of mine,” replied Kiyomi, her tone somewhat short once more. She’d been worried something dangerous was happening, and her response was this? Why was Yuichi asking her? Kiyomi had been far more interested in magical theory then that sort of thing. “Why are you even asking me?”

“My contact said he’s dangerous, Kiyomi.”

Oh.

So that’s why it was important.