Tokyo Demons Book 2: Chapter 2

Jo stopped dead as the alarm rang out from the top of the hill. His head snapped toward Mitsuko.

She stared back in bewilderment. “Did they see us?” she whispered.

BOOM

A heavy, dull rumble undercut the alarm. It sent a tingle of fear up Jo’s spine.

“That’s the car bomb!” Mitsuko threw a fist into the air. “Let’s go!”

Jo tried to say something, but the roar of teenagers drowned him out. Mitsuko’s sneakers kicked up dirt as she sprinted up the hill.

“Wait!” he shouted. “Mitsuko!”

But she was already gone, her back disappearing in a tidal wave of bodies. Jo was jostled roughly as Byakko members rushed by him.

“Th-they know we’re here!” Jo shouted into the crowd. “This could be a trap!”

A shoulder rammed into Jo hard enough to knock him to his knees. His baseball bat clunked to the ground as his palms dug into earth.

“Oda!”

A huge hand grabbed him by the back of the shirt. Jo scrambled to reclaim his weapon as he was hefted to his feet and spun around.

Wei scowled. “I need you,” he snapped. “Keiko got confused by the alarm and fucking ditched me.”

Jo opened his mouth, then stopped. He saw Sachi and Kado past Wei’s arm. They were still at the foot of the hill…Kado was mouthing something at Sachi, gesturing quickly with his hands. Sachi stared at him in shock.

“Oda!” Wei snarled. “Help me up the hill!”

Jo’s gaze jerked back to Wei, then dropped to his left leg. The prosthetic, Jo remembered. He swallowed and slid an arm behind Wei.

Wei limped up the hill, leaning on his metal limb and Jo for support. Jo scrambled to keep up, choking as Wei’s bodyweight sagged onto him. The incline was steep, and Wei was faster than expected.

“Keep up!” Wei barked.

Jo gritted his teeth. The screeching alarm cut through the night, punctuated by the sounds of smashing glass and shouting teenagers. The bat’s grip slipped in his sweaty palm. He tried to focus on Wei, but his mind was a jumble of panicked thoughts.

What the hell had set off the alarm? Jo knew the kogal with the slingshot and a few others had been sent up early–in a camera blind spot or whatever. But even if a camera had managed to notice them, would a few sneaking teenagers warrant the doomsday bell?

One of Jo’s shoes suddenly slipped against the grass. Wei dug his prosthetic hard into the ground and grabbed Jo’s shirt, keeping Jo from spilling against the incline. Jo panted and regained his footing.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?! You’re the one with two legs!”

Jo grabbed Wei again. “You’re…heavy!” Jo gasped.

“Your head’s not in the game! Wake the fuck up!”

Jo’s heart thudded against his ribcage. He hefted back against Wei’s weight and struggled up the hill. His legs started to shake beneath him as sweat dripped down his back. By the time they reached the top, Jo was coughing so hard that he doubled over.

Wei’s weight mercifully lifted. Jo grabbed his aching ribcage as wet coughs wracked his body. Wei sneered down at him as the man unstrapped the sledgehammer from his back.

“How many packs do you smoke a day?”

Jo spat onto the concrete. “Shut up,” he wheezed.

An electric light exploded above them, blinking out in the darkness. Jo covered his head as glass tinkled to the ground. Teenagers cried out triumphantly at the lower-pitched shattering of broken windows.

Most of the external lights were gone, but the harsh lighting inside the building still separated the outdoor shapes as hooded teenagers. Jo saw several Byakko members pounding at a steel gate out front with crowbars. A few floors above them, a window slid open.

Jo’s blood went cold as a shotgun barrel peeked out.

“GUN!” Jo screamed. “ABOVE YOU!”

The people around Jo pulled back. A few shouted and pointed to the window.

The barrel exploded with a BOOM and a flash of fire. Byakko members scattered.

“Take out the gun!” somebody yelled.

Rocks sailed through the air, crashing through the windows surrounding the shooter. One or two hit their target and the barrel suddenly jerked back into the room.

Jo remembered the original plan. He ran to the back of the building, catching up to Wei as the man jogged in the same direction. Wei wasn’t much slower than Jo on flat ground.

The loading dock, barred with a solid metal gate locked to the concrete, was already swarming with teenagers. Jo could make out a small pile of explosives near the ground lock. One of the twins, the one with long hair, unraveled a long cord and ran back from the explosives.

“Clear out!” he shouted. “Fireworks in ten!”

The crowd ran or ducked for cover. Wei pulled behind the side of the building, so Jo followed suit. He clapped his hands over his ears.

BOOM

Jo felt the ground shake beneath his feet. Byakko members whooped around him.

Jo peeked around the building. The gate’s ground lock had been blown open, reduced to a twist of torn metal and concrete. But the gate itself was only dented. The twins ran up from behind the hill and shouted orders. Half a dozen teenagers tried to lift the unlocked gate, but it wouldn’t budge.

“How thick is that thing?!” Wei shouted.

The bald twin shook his head. “Thick!” he shouted back. “And it may be locked down mechanically.”

“Can you blow it around the edges?!”

The other twin nodded. He disappeared down the edge of the hill.

Something lit up in the corner of Jo’s eye. He turned to see a teenager snap a lighter shut and wave a bottle of liquor with a rag stuffed into it. The end of the rag burned with a small flame.

Jo grabbed at Wei. “Aren’t we supposed to control the fires?!” he blurted.

Wei turned. “Hey!” he shouted. “Put it out, asshole!”

The teenager laughed. “If we can’t get in, we’ll smoke the fuckers out!”

“That’s not the plan!”

The teenager ignored Wei and chucked the bottle. It smashed through a darkened window on the third floor; within moments the flickering lights of flames danced behind the blinds.

Jo felt defensive rage rear up inside him. He pointed his bat at the teenager.

“This is a rescue mission!” he shouted. “There’s a hostage in there!”

The guy shrugged dismissively. “Then I hope she can run!”

A series of popping noises danced over the blare of the alarm. Somebody screamed. Jo pushed himself flat against the building, his heart in his throat.

Wei growled and twisted his head around the building. “They’re shooting at us!” he shouted. “Hurry the fuck up!”

“Clear!”

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

The smaller, overlapping explosions send vibrations through the steel building and up Jo’s body. He pulled his rattling head away from the wall.

Wei waited for the smoke to clear. By the time Jo followed him, the twins were alone in front of the gate. Long Hair squinted at the scorched dents along the gate edges while Baldy snuffed out a small fire with a fire extinguisher.

Long Hair waved Wei over. “I’d say we blew half the mechanical locks,” he called as he pointed to one end of the gate. The gate sagged unnaturally under a long, dark hole blown through the concrete arch. “It’ll be safer to take the whole thing down. If we support it on the broken side, can you smash it in on the other end?”

Wei hefted his sledgehammer in response. Long Hair turned to the mob waiting outside the blast range.

“We need at least twenty pushers on this thing! Stay away from the bomb spots or you’ll burn your hands!”

Teenagers swarmed up against the gate. Jo swallowed and did the same, careful to avoid the giant scorch mark by the ground lock. He gripped his bat and shoved his back against the metal.

A girl about his age slammed up beside him, her gloved hands spreading wide against the gate. She smiled at him as she gritted her teeth.

“Hey!” she hissed cheerfully. “You new?”

Jo stared at her. “I…guess you could say that.”

“You’re cute. Wanna fuck after this?”

Jo almost dropped his bat.

“Everybody PUSH!”

Jo dug his heels into the ground and strained backward. The girl grunted by his side, shoving with hands, then back, then shoulder.

A thunderous slam vibrated from one end of the gate. Jo flicked his eyes to Wei swinging back his sledgehammer. Jo clenched his jaw as the next slam jostled his straining body.

The gate let out a long, creaking moan. Jo could feel something giving way in the gate, like thick metal connectors slowly snapping free.

“PUSH, YOU FUCKERS!”

Jo bent deeper at the knees and crammed his back as hard as he could. He held his breath as his legs shook with the pressure.

With a hollow death moan, the gate finally tore free. The force at Jo’s back suddenly went slack and he stumbled to run clear.

The steel wall fell inside the building with a deafening metallic crash. Jo’s ears rang so badly that he barely heard the gunshots exploding from inside.

Byakko members scrambled for cover. The girl beside Jo jerked unnaturally and hit the ground like a stone. Jo dropped to the concrete and covered his head with his hands. The girl lay beside him, a chunk of her forehead shot off and dripping blood into her unseeing eyes.

Shit! his mind reeled.

He thought he heard Wei yell something. A hissing, smoking ball suddenly rolled past Jo and into the loading dock. The rapidly expanding plume of smoke blanketed the inside of the building, cutting off the majority of the gunshots. Men shouted from inside.

“Rush the gunners!”

A few teenagers with equipment on their faces ran into the smoke. Over the yelling and the gunshots, Jo could hear bullets exploding concrete and pinging against steel. The cloud of smoke rippled over Jo as he got to his knees. He coughed, his eyes burning, and gripped his bat with shaking hands. More smoke swirled into his lungs as he hacked uncontrollably.

A pair of sneakers stepped into his blurred vision. A burst of compressed air gusted against Jo, temporarily clearing some of the smoke. Jo gasped in the air and coughed as he looked up.

Miki, a medical eye patch snapped around his destroyed eye and a bandanna tied around his mouth, pulled a pair of goggles off his head. “Look at you,” he growled as he tossed the goggles at Jo. “Sticking your dick on the chopping block.”

Jo blinked watery eyes at the goggles. “Don’t you…need these?” he rasped.

“I’m not the one looking for some church girl in a burning building.” Miki readied his tall canister of compressed air. “Put ’em on.”

Jo coughed and pulled on the goggles. Miki shot a gust of air over Jo’s face before he closed the seal around his eyes. Jo blinked rapidly, his eyes adjusting to the clean space.

Miki pulled a second bandanna from his pocket. “We’re shooting our wad early with the Molotov cocktails through windows. These impatient fucks can’t follow directions.” He tossed the bandanna at Jo. “You don’t have a lot of time. If Core abandons ship, they might leave your hacker to burn up.”

Jo tied the bandanna over his face. As he got to his feet, he heard someone laugh triumphantly from inside the building.

“We’re good in here! Blow out the smoke!”

Miki left Jo to blow his canister into the smoke haze. As he and a few others cleared the air, the dim lights inside the loading dock glowed through the darkness. Jo could see bodies littering the floor–some Byakko, some Core. A few bloodied men were still being stomped by cursing teenagers. Jo ran closer and nearly tripped over an abandoned shotgun. He stared at it for a long moment…but his train of thought ended when Wei appeared. Wei grabbed the gun, pulled at some clacking contraption under the barrel, and squinted at the chamber.

Teenagers starting rushing past Jo, their weapons held high as they surged into the building. Jo looked around for a familiar face, but in the dissipating smoke and murky darkness, he couldn’t make out much. Endless bodies in black hoodies. The excited screams of girls. For a split second he thought he saw Sachi, but Jo blinked and lost the head in the crowd.

Jo’s stomach clenched. If Nick and Adam were somewhere else, maybe Jo did have to plow forward. Miki was right about their timeframe.

Jo’s sweaty fingers tightened on his bat. He ran into the building.

***************

Ayase buried her face against the grass of the hill. The pandemonium in the loading dock was too hard to keep track of. She abandoned her bug in a ceiling rafter and focused on the control room. The men were barking orders and making announcements, but there was a clear lack of leadership. One of the men started to panic.

“Who the hell coordinated this?!” he cried. “We don’t have the men to deal with a mob that big!” He stared down into a monitor. “Shit, they’re starting fires on multiple floors!”

“That’s what the fire doors are for,” another man snapped. “And the sprinklers. Calm down.” He pulled a microphone near his face. “Take positions near stairwells,” he said, his voice echoing through the building. “Twitch is not in the building, so we want our next-best shooters at the windows. Use any means necessary. Repeat: use any means necessary to defend the building.”

Ayase’s blood went cold. She repeated the lines out loud.

Nick growled by her side. “They’re putting more gunmen in the windows,” he muttered into his mobile phone. “And they’re getting more desperate. Get your kids inside the building, Takeshi. They might start lobbing grenades onto your heads.”

Ayase shifted her attention to the sixth floor. The guard outside Shouri’s room was still on his mobile phone, but three more Core operatives suddenly emerged from the stairwell. They ran to the guard as he swiped his security card through the door lock. They all drew their guns.

Ayase tensed. The men rushed into Shouri’s room as one unit, shouting at her. Ayase heard a woman’s voice and the sounds of a struggle.

“They might come to put a bullet in her head, Ayase.”

Ayase didn’t bother updating Nick; she just zoomed her bug into the room. The men forced Shouri to the floor and Ayase’s heart leapt to her throat. One of the men aimed his gun at her.

“Who’s attacking us?!” he demanded.

Shouri twisted her head from the carpet. She opened her mouth.

And spit on the man’s shoe. One of the men kicked her in the side and her body twisted in pain.

“We don’t have time for your shit! Tell us or you’re dead!”

Shouri coughed blood onto the carpet. “You’re right,” she wheezed. “You don’t have time.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!”

“K-kill me and you’ll find out.”

The man with the gun snarled in frustration. “I would love to kill you,” he hissed. “You’ve been a pain in my ass since day one, you psychotic bitch.”

Shouri didn’t respond. When the man pulled back his gun to cock it, another operative suddenly pushed down his arm.

“Don’t,” he said evenly. “She’s baiting you. She wants to die.”

The gunman hissed something inaudible. He gestured to the men, who dragged Shouri to her feet. He grabbed her by the hair.

“When this mess calms down,” he warned, “I’m gonna drag your boyfriend out in front of you and beat the ever-loving shit out of him.”

Shouri bared her teeth. “Fuck you,” she spat. “I know Adam’s already dead.”

“We just moved him. To where you’re going.”

“You killed him!” she repeated, her voice breaking at the end. “Fuck you!”

The man cracked the handle of his gun across Shouri’s temple. She went limp in the men’s arms.

The man angrily put his phone to his ear. “Security’s clearing the garage,” he muttered. “When we can get her in a car, we’ll move her.”

The parking garage!

Ayase quickly repeated the line to Nick. While the men hefted the unconscious Shouri, Ayase flew under the woman’s collar and nestled into her clothes. Ayase switched back to the loading dock; Byakko members were running through the captured entrance, ushered by that short leader with the missing eye. She swore she heard Takeshi’s screeching laughter from nearby.

Ayase opened her eyes.

Nick pocketed his mobile phone and pulled a ski mask over his face. “Adam thinks he found another way in,” he grunted. “Since Core wants to protect its territory, it may be safer inside than out at this point. We’re gonna meet him.” He pulled Kiyoshi’s stolen pistol from its holster. “Stay behind me and tell me if you see any abandoned guns.”

Ayase nodded, adrenaline searing through her veins. Nick crawled over the top of the hill, scanned the side of the building facing them, then gestured for Ayase to follow. They ran to the wall as bullets whizzed through the air and teenagers threw more burning bottles through windows.

Adam was at the far end of the wall, smashing the end of his staff through a second-floor window. It was one of the few low windows not lit up or belching smoke. When she and Nick ran up, he pointed at his work. He brushed the edge of the staff against the windowsill to send bits of glass tinkling to the ground.

“Stay against the wall, Ayase.” Nick threw another ski mask at Adam. He slid the staff through a strap on his back, cracked his shoulders, and said something to Nick in English as he took a few steps back.

BLAM BLAM BLAM

Bullets suddenly whizzed by them. Ayase slammed up against the building as Nick drew his gun and returned fire. Glass shattered above them.

Nick shoved the gun back into its holster. “Adam!” he shouted as he dropped into a kneel and braced his hands.

Adam ran at Nick, jumped onto the brace, then leapt through the air with Nick’s heave. Adam grabbed onto the windowsill, swinging his body to slam into the wall. He hefted himself up and crawled through the window.

Nick got to one knee. “Stand on my shoulders,” he ordered. “You’re next.”

Ayase awkwardly clambered onto Nick. She braced her hands against the building as he grabbed her ankles and rose to his feet. Above her, Adam leaned halfway out the window, one taped hand outstretched.

“Lead him to Shouri,” Nick told her. “He’ll protect you. And remember what I told you about the swarm!”

Ayase stretched her arm as high as it would go. Adam leaned down a few more centimeters and grabbed her hand. She gasped as he dragged her upward, her feet suddenly dangling in dead air.

More shots rang out nearby; a teenager screamed. Ayase gritted her teeth and scraped her shoes against the building until she was high enough to grip the windowsill. Adam grabbed her by the back of the shirt and hefted her up.

She fell heavily into the dark office; she hissed as some of the broken glass pierced through her jeans. She stumbled to her feet, gingerly brushing off glass with the back of her hands.

Nick yelled something from outside. Ayase looked over the windowsill to see him shooting at a window on a higher floor–someone screamed as his bullet hit its mark.

Adam pulled her from the window and shook his head. “Wait,” he said in English. He ran to the closed door and pressed his ear against it.

Ayase took the moment to check her bugs. A few scattered Byakko members still rushed through the loading dock; she heard pounding footsteps and grunts from inside Shouri’s clothes. In the security center, one of the men leaned into the intercom.

“Prick!” he hissed. “They’re only breaking through on the ground floor. Subdue them on the ground floor!”

“Ayase.”

Ayase opened her eyes to see Adam beckoning. He opened the door, which magnified the blare of the alarm that echoed through the hallway. But the hall was mercifully empty, so they slipped out of the office.

Dark smoke wafted from a few of the closed rooms. Several sprinklers burst to life at the far end of the hall, making Ayase jump. She snapped her gaze to the exit signs that lead around a corner.

“They’re heading for the parking garage,” she told Adam. “We need to find the stairs, but security sent men to guard them…we’re heading for a trap.”

Adam stared at her. Unable to translate, she just gestured to the exit signs. “Bad men,” she offered in English. “But also Shouri.”

It was enough for Adam. They ran to the turn in the hall and poked their heads around. The far door to the stairwell suddenly flew open; Ayase and Adam jerked back around the corner. She heard men shouting as Adam flexed his fingers around his staff.

“Crap,” Ayase breathed.

Adam waited. The men’s voices grew louder, their shoes pounding against the floor as they ran closer…the second Ayase crouched back was the same second Adam rammed the end of his staff past the corner.

It clotheslined one of the running men in the throat. As the man’s legs flipped up into the air, Adam whipped around the corner before the man hit the floor.

“The fuck?!”

A gun went off over the sound of whooshing air and slamming bodies. One of the men’s cries was cut short by a loud WHAM.

The men went silent under the blare of the alarm. Ayase peered around the corner to see Adam untangling his feet from the fallen men.

She dropped to her knees and helped him collect their guns. Adam opened an office door, crammed the guns into a random desk draw, then shut everything. Ayase breathed a sigh of relief.

She didn’t want to carry a gun. If she had to transform, she’d literally drop it into enemy hands.

She ran with Adam to the stairwell door and squatted beside it. Ayase pressed a finger to her lips. She broke a few bugs off her to crawl under the doorway.

Through her blurry compound gaze, she could make out several men stationed half a flight up. They glared at her door with their weapons drawn.

“Three men,” she whispered. “With, um…” Not sure of the English word for gun, she mimicked one with her thumb and forefinger. “Up. Waiting.”

Adam frowned. He glanced through an open door to another office. He crawled inside, emerging a moment later with a small metal trashcan about the length of his arm. He dumped the garbage on the floor and mimicked throwing the bin.

Ayase bit her lip. She knew the gunmen could easily pick them off if they opened the door. She glanced back down the hallway to ensure the other men were unconscious.

She dissolved her entire left arm into bugs. Praying under her breath, she fed them under the door.

The men in the stairwell grunted. She flew every bug upward as they entered, slowly building a cloud around the men. The men cursed and swatted at the bugs.

Since they seemed more annoyed than threatened, Ayase took the chance. She zoomed every bug in to sting–aiming for the eyes.

The men screamed and batted at her. Pieces of her snapped out of existence in pops of pain…but she ignored it. She stung and stung and stung as Adam burst through the door and flung the garbage bin upward.

Ayase couldn’t make out much in her fractured perception. The metal can hit bodies and someone tumbled down the stairs; shots were fired and Adam’s staff whipped around in a series of ka-krack ka-krack ka-krack. Ayase heard a chorus of shouts erupting from elsewhere.

The last gunman finally fell. Reeling, Ayase pushed open the door to confirm with her human eyes. Adam panted among the bodies and gripped his bleeding leg. The shouts grew louder below her; she ran to the railing and looked down.

A handful of Core gunmen yelled as a wave of teenagers overpowered them. Guns went off randomly, exploding into concrete or causing the occasional scream. Ayase ducked as a bullet pinged against a nearby railing.

She swallowed hard and drew back her bugs. Many flew crookedly on broken wings, and others physically crawled down the stairs. When they reformed her arm, she winced at a burning wave of pain.

“Dammit,” she hissed. She gingerly pulled up her sleeve. Wide swaths of thin, injured skin were splashed like acid burns along her arm. The sickening pink overwhelmed the patches of healthy peach.

That’s it for using that arm.

Adam tore a shirt off one of the fallen operatives. “Who?” he asked in English, gesturing down the stairs.

“Friends. Byakko.” Ayase furrowed her brow as Adam bound his bleeding leg with the shirt. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, okay.” He pointed down the stairs again. “Byakko and Shouri? Down?”

Ayase knew their best chance was cutting off Shouri’s captors in the garage itself. She remembered Nick walking her through the schematics of the building. The exit to the garage was level with the ground floor.

“Yes,” she replied in English. “Down.”

Adam jumped the stairs between them in one giant leap. He landed beside her with a wince, his hand gripping his injured leg.

Byakko members flooded up the stairs in a screeching mob. Ayase pushed against the tide as teenagers shoved past her.

“They’re…they’re bringing the hostage to the parking garage!” she shouted. “We need some of you to come back down!”

A particularly big twenty-something rammed Ayase against the wall. Her injured arm got caught between her body and the concrete, washing out her mind with searing pain. She choked and fell to her knees.

“Loot these fuckers!” someone cried. “Before this place burns to the ground!”

Adam’s hand closed around her good arm. He hefted her to her feet, blocking the mob with his body as she blinked stars from her eyes.

“Kado, wait!”

Ayase stiffened. She knew that voice.

A scream and gunshots echoed from a few flights up. Adam blocked Ayase against the wall as a fight raged from higher in the stairwell. Although some teenagers fled the stairs through the second-floor door, more whooped and doubled their speed to join the fight.

The mob thinned out. Ayase quickly pushed Adam off her so she could run to the railing and see the flight below.

Sachi and Kadoyuki stood in the ground floor stairwell, their faces tilted down to a fallen Core operative. The operative moaned–and Kadoyuki flicked out a switchblade.

Panic and confusion closed Ayase’s throat. Without a word she ran down the stairs, Adam close behind her.

“S-Sachi!” she finally managed to cry. “What are you…?!”

Sachi’s head snapped up as she arrived, his eyes wide in his pale face. He jerked his attention to Adam and stumbled back with a cry.

The ski mask. “It’s just Adam!” she assured him as she ran up. She grabbed Sachi’s arms, suddenly noticing the blade in his hands.

Sachi brought down the weapon. “Ayase,” he breathed.

Kadoyuki said something beside her. She whipped around as Kadoyuki knelt beside the operative and brandished his knife.

“W-we want the psychic,” he said shakily. “The one who can change memories.”

Ayase blinked.

The operative coughed up blood, his eyes blearily focusing on Kadoyuki. “Who the fuck are you?” he gurgled.

“We want the psychic!” Kadoyuki waved the knife closer to the man. “He’s in the building, isn’t he?!”

The operative furrowed his eyebrows. Sachi ducked beside him and grabbed the man’s arm.

The man weakly pulled back. “Get off me,” he groaned.

Sachi took a deep breath. “Do you know the psychic who changes memories?” he asked carefully.

The man growled. “No. Fuck you!”

Sachi looked up at Kadoyuki. “He’s lying, Kado.”

Ayase opened her mouth to say something, but the words died in her throat. Kadoyuki just stared at the man. Something burned in Kadoyuki’s eyes–something focused, calculating…almost cold. Ayase watched the fear and hesitation melt off Kadoyuki to reveal something she’d never seen before.

Kadoyuki suddenly looked like a boy cut sharp from pain.

“…W-Wipe,” he murmured at last. “You call him Wipe.”

The operative blurted his surprise. “The hell…?”

“Where’s Wipe?!” Kadoyuki hissed, his voice cracking on the word. He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the shaking knife.

The operative froze. He stared at Kadoyuki for a moment, then lunged for the weapon.

Adam was on top of them in an instant. Kadoyuki fell onto his tailbone, panting, as the blade clattered to the metal floor. Adam shoved the operative’s face down and wrenched his arm behind his back.

“Good-bye,” Adam said in Japanese. He coolly dragged his hand down to the man’s neck.

The operative panicked. “F-fourth floor!” he cried. “He lives on the fourth floor!”

Sachi gripped the man’s pinned wrist, scowling as he concentrated. Kadoyuki swallowed hard before closing his eyes.

He pushed himself to his feet. When Kadoyuki turned back to Ayase, the familiar fear had crept back into his gaze.

“We have to look for him,” Kadoyuki said weakly. “Please.”

The sudden knots in Ayase’s stomach twisted, soaking in confusion and dread. She licked dry lips and tried to process.

“A psychic who changes memories?” she clarified. “You mean…” Her mind raced back to the night of Kiyoshi’s kidnapping. “The one who did something to Mai? And Kiyoshi?”

Sachi released the operative and stood. Adam neatly rapped the man’s head against the floor, knocking him unconscious.

“I don’t think he was lying,” Sachi murmured. He wiped at the sweat streaking down his neck. “Do you really wanna do this, Kado?”

Ayase clenched her fists. “Kadoyuki,” she said quietly. “How did you know the psychic’s name?” When he said nothing, she tightened her jaw. “Have you…met him before?”

Kadoyuki shakily retrieved his switchblade from the floor. He closed it and shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, but offered nothing else.

Adam let out a loud breath and knocked the railing with his staff. “Shouri,” he insisted. “Ayase, now.”

Ayase hesitated. When she saw Sachi and Kadoyuki exchange glances, panic raced through her. She fumbled through her pocket for her mobile.

“Wait,” she told Adam.  She punched in a speed dial, held the phone to her ear, and prayed.

The other end of the line clicked. Ayase could hear yelling in the background.

“Ayase?!”

Ayase reached out to grip Adam’s arm. “Nick,” she said quickly. “Where are you?”

“In the loading dock. We’ve cleared most of the perimeter.”

“Can you grab some people and go the parking garage? To meet up with Adam?”

Nick paused. “You haven’t found Shouri?” his voice rasped through the phone.

“No. But I think they’re still…hang on.” She shoved the phone at Sachi. “Hold that,” she ordered as she closed her eyes.

Her bug with Shouri was still buried in clothes. Ayase clapped her hands over her ears and threw all her attention to the insect.

She heard movement, but the men weren’t talking. She crawled her bug to peek over Shouri’s collar. They were in another stairwell–Ayase could make out different wall paint–but the blare of the alarm was weirdly isolated. Ayase didn’t hear smashing or shouts from anywhere near them.

She abandoned the insect and reclaimed her phone. “Shouri’s in another stairwell,” she explained. “There’s one on the other side of the building, right?”

Nick cursed. “We haven’t broken through to that one yet.”

“Then just make for the garage. I’ll send Adam to meet you.”

Nick growled on his end of the phone. “Did you get separated?” he barked.

Ayase shook her head. “Not yet,” she murmured. “But I need to…do something.”

“Do what? Shouri’s our priority!”

Ayase felt guilt coil in her stomach. This isn’t the plan, she reminded herself. You believed in the plan. Her job was to find Shouri, and she wanted to abandon it in the middle of a fight. In the middle of a fire. And for what, exactly?

Her eyes flicked to Kadoyuki. He stared at the floor, his jaw tight.

“W-we want the psychic. The one who can change memories.”

Ayase stopped trying to make the decision on her own. “We think a psychic’s here,” she said flatly. “One of the operatives said he lives in Motoi.”

“What?!”

“The psychic who changes memories. Should I follow the lead, or keep going for Shouri?”

Nick fell into a long pause on the other end of the line. Ayase regripped the phone with her bruised fingers.

“We know they’re trying to get Shouri to a car. I’ll call you if anything changes with her.”

Nick let out an angry breath. She heard him cover the phone, yell something, then return to the mouthpiece.

“I’ll bring men to the garage,” he said at last. “Send Adam. You’re not running off alone, are you?”

“N-no.”

“Then go. But if anything changes with Shouri, you call me that second. And don’t get yourselves killed looking for the psychic. If things get fishy, ditch your new lead and join us.”

Ayase stopped. Fishy? she thought. Her eyes wandered back to Kadoyuki.

“Pass the phone to Adam.”

Ayase complied. As she listened to Nick’s muffled English against Adam’s ear, she gripped her throbbing arm.

Adam’s mouth thinned into a tight line. He said a few words into the phone before snapping it shut. He handed it gravely to Ayase.

She pointed in the direction of the parking garage. “Alone,” she said with regret. Ayase used rudimentary English to describe the direction of the garage. She wasn’t sure of the way, so she avoided specifics.

“Cars,” she reminded him. “Three men. Shouri is…asleep.” Ayase suddenly remembered that Adam hadn’t seen Shouri in a while. Ayase gripped her own hair.

“No pink. Hair is now black…short.”

Adam nodded. Nick had explained that to him earlier–Core had cut and dyed Shouri’s distinctive hair at some point. As hot shame burned a lump in her throat, Ayase looked up into Adam’s masked face.

“I’m sorry. And please…” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence in English. She switched to Japanese. “Be safe,” she murmured.

Understanding dawned in Adam’s eyes. He smiled slightly.

“Be safe,” he repeated in Japanese. He clapped her on the back. “Okay. Ayase, be safe.”

Not sure how to respond, Ayase dropped into a stiff bow. Sachi and Kadoyuki followed suit, lowering their heads.

Adam took off at a run, throwing a last glance over his shoulder. The door to the stairwell slammed shut behind him.

Ayase felt guilt open up inside her like a sore.

He can defend himself, she told herself. And we’re not far from Nick, right? She tried to smother her remorse as she turned back to Sachi and Kadoyuki.

They looked so pale in the dim light. As Sachi bit his lip and Kadoyuki trembled slightly, her hesitation began to fade. Frustration seared through her veins and tightened her nerves.

She looked up the stairwell.

“Fourth floor,” Ayase said evenly. “Let’s find that psychic.”

Proceed to Chapter 2, page 3–>