NaNoWriMo9

Nakamura Yuichi leaned close to the screen. There she was? He adjusted his glasses hastily. His contact, a person of undisclosed identity known as ‘Boost250’, had been doing a fair amount of research on Kurogane Masahiro, herself. On reflection, all Yuichi knew about this ‘Boost250’ was their gender and some fragments of her personality, as well as her vast knowledge. The latter made her a very useful resource when Yuichi was unable to uncover any information himself. And, being perfectly honest with himself, this was one of those times.

Quickly, he typed out a message.

Yu79: What do you know about Kurogane Masahiro?

Shortly afterwards, his contact responded.

Boost250: Why do you ask? (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: One of my other contacts said he’s appeared in the city. All we’ve really been able to find out about him is that he’s dangerous, and that he’s been around for centuries.
Boost250: Oh really. (((((￢_￢)
Boost250: Well, I’m not surprised someone like you couldn’t find anything out about him beyond that. (((((￢_￢)

Yuichi paused. Boost250 was… not entirely pleasant, much of the time. However, she was very intelligent and a useful person to be in contact with, so enduring her somewhat harsh personality was worth it.

Still…

Yu79: What’s that supposed to mean?
Boost250: Idiot. (((((￢_￢)
Yuichi sighed. There she went…
Boost250: You’re so stupid, I feel kind of sorry for you. It’s the only reason I bother helping you, you’re hardly an interesting person. (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: I get the feeling that you’re not in a good mood.
Boost250: Whatever. Anyway, I’ve read plenty about Kurogane Masahiro. He’s an immortal mage with the insane goal of killing the gods. Why, I have no idea. It’s something only a fool would choose to do. (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: I already knew all that, what else do you know?
Boost250: He was a failure as a mage at first, but strove to be better than he was. He began to magically ‘collect’ the deaths of people by finding people while they were dying and copying the essence of that moment. (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: ‘Copying the essence of that moment’?
Boost250: It’s exactly what it sounds like, you idiot. He was making copies of the deaths he was using what little mana he had. In a way, he was collecting these deaths. Magi and onmyouji who knew about his act called him the ‘Death Collector’. (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: … What does this mean? Why would he do something like that?
Boost250: No-one is certain why he did it. However, he stopped after collecting one-hundred and eight deaths. (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: That’s… strange… Can you think of any possible connection?
Boost250: If I had to guess, his collection of the essence of death had something to do with both his gain in power and his state of immortality. (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: But… how is that possible?
Boost250: Well, maybe he created something using his collection? It’s possible to make a corporeal, physical item from things that don’t exist in the material world. (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: I… think I remember reading about such things.
Boost250: Oh, do you? (((((￢_￢)
Boost250: I’m impressed, the ability to say you remember something you may or may not have actually read after reading my IM. (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: This is important.
Boost250: Whatever. (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: And… this was a big help.
Boost250: (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: … Is there any kind of spell that could hurt of kill the gods?
Boost250: Not that I’m aware of. It would have to be incredibly powerful, more power than a human mage can possibly use at once without burning out or getting some form of enhancement. (((((￢_￢)
Yu79: I see…
Boost250: (((((￢_￢)

With that, Boost250 logged off. Yuichi sighed, deeply, leaning back in his seat and staring at the message announcing her departure. She hadn’t even stuck around for a thank you… but the information she had given him was incredibly useful. He had some kind of item that granted him power and immortality? But what could that be? It could really be anything he possessed… and he had crafted it from the ‘essence of death’? It was impossibly confusing, even for someone who was used to researching such things. Yuichi sighed once more. Well, it was certainly better than nothing. He would be sure to inform his younger sister and her friend about this…

Chie… didn’t need to know. She was young, and this situation was dangerous. Even though he didn’t even like involving Kiyomi, well, it wasn’t as if she wouldn’t find some way to involve herself anyway. And in that case, it was best to keep her informed of the possible dangers. Besides, she could… defend herself.

There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that she could defend herself.

~

Nakamura Chie smiled cheerfully. Her friends walked on either side of her. Kimura Fuji was a bright girl with pink-toned hair and blue eyes. She was a little taller than Chie, and was a lot more quiet. Tamura Haruko had short blue hair and a usually-easygoing attitude, with eyes that seemed almost gray. She, too, was taller than Chie. Most girls were taller than Chie, but she didn’t mind. No, she believed her tiny size was just a charm point!

“The new homework looks kind of hard…” said Haruko, glancing back at her bag. Chie turned to her with a smile.

“Oh, it shouldn’t be too bad! I bet Fuji-chan will get a hundred percent right away!” she replied with cheer. There was no doubt in her mind that Fuji would be able to fulfill this task. Fuji blushed at the compliment and at Chie’s confidence in her academic ability.

Haruko frowned. “Well, yes, but she’s Fuji-chan… what are we supposed to do?”

Chie folded her arms and put on a grin of utter confidence. “Try our hardest!”

Still blushing, Fuji spoke up. “Well… that’s very good, Chie-chan! I’m, um, really happy that you’re going to do it on your own…”

“Well, I didn’t want to bother you again, Fuji-chan,” said Chie with a smile. She felt bad about asking Fuji for her notes all the time… “So, I wanted to try it myse-“

Suddenly, the world was passing up past her very rapidly. Chie quickly figured out was going on. After all, she was very used to this situation. She was falling.

“Waah!”

And then, she hit the ground.

“Ow!”

Wincing, Chie squirmed on the ground. Behind her, Fuji and Haruko were, well, rather shocked. Not because she had fallen. That was, really, a completely normal thing for Chie to do. More that she had fallen without even running. However, a quick search from Fuji revealed that there had been a crack in the sidewalk that Chie’s foot had caught in. Haruko quickly went to help her up.

“Are you okay, Chie?!”

As Chie was helped off the ground, she glanced to the side… and briefly saw something. It was black, and looked like it was a small child, younger then herself… even as she was brought onto her feet, she didn’t look away. What… was that?

“Chie, are you okay?”

Chie turned to see the concerned faces of Fuji and Haruko.

“Oh, I’m fine…” Chie turned to looked back at the black thing, but… it was gone.

“… I just thought I saw something…”

No, she was sure she saw something. Something strange. Something dark. Something abnormal. Something… something that her big sister would know about. And her big brother.

“There’s nothing there, Chie-chan,” said Haruko, confused.

“… Yeah, there’s nothing, it was my mistake.”

At least, there was nothing there any longer.

~

Kiyomi headed inside her house. She’d left Miko only a little ways down the street, and was intending on meeting up with her shortly. If it came down to it, they would both search the city for the familiars and Kurogane Masahiro. The mage had to be somewhere in the city, so it was just a process of elimination. After all, it didn’t seem like he knew anyone was after him. Of course, she couldn’t know that for sure, but she hadn’t found him yet and she wasn’t aware of anyone else looking for him, so it was likely that no-one was after him. As such, he probably wasn’t hiding…

Hearing the door behind her, Kiyomi turned around to see her little sister.

“Oh, hi Chie-chan, how-“ Kiyomi paused. The expression on Chie’s face was a more serious one. A worried one. Frowning, Kiyomi began again. “Is something wrong? What happened?”

“Nee-san…” Chie began, walking toward Kiyomi, “When I was walking home with my friends, something was watching me.”

“… Something was watching you?”

Kiyomi’s gaze hardened almost instantly. It was difficult to bother Chie, most of the time, and something watching her… that was bad enough to hear.

Chie nodded. Her expression was now growing more upset. “It was… black, and it was small, and it was just standing there. It had… things coming off of it, like tentacles… It didn’t have any eyes, but I could feel it looking at me…”

Kiyomi stared.

After a moment, she leaned down and hugged Chie. Chie hugged back, and for several moments the sisters embraced. Then, Kiyomi released Chie, and straightened.

“Don’t worry about it, Chie-chan.”

“Eh?”

“That thing’s never going to be watching you ever again,” Kiyomi said, smiling. She didn’t want to explode in front of Chie… but she could feel her hands clenching into fists. “Nee-san is going to take care of it, okay?”

Chie’s expression grew into a smile. “Oh, thank you, nee-san! It looked really horrible, I was kind of scared…”

“You don’t have to be scared, it’s never going to bother you ever again,” replied Kiyomi, her fists clenching tighter and tighter. “Now, I’m sure you have homework to do.”

“Oh… right!” Chie nodded, and hurried upstairs.

The moment Kiyomi heard the door to her little sister’s bedroom shut, Kiyomi let it out.

“Bastard! That bastard!” barely restraining herself from screaming in anger, Kiyomi strode over to her brother’s study and threw the door open.

“Kiyomi, what-“
“That bastard with the familiars is watching Chie,” she said, practically spitting out the ‘bastard’ in hatred, “He’s using them to watch her. She’s not even involved with anything, she doesn’t know magic, she doesn’t know anything! That son of a BITCH!”

Yuichi took a deep breath.

“Kiyomi, the familiars are Kurogane Masahiro’s.”

For a brief moment, Kiyomi was silent.

“… That… he…”

It was difficult to articulate her anger.

“… Bastard…”