Tokyo Demons Book 2: Chapter 4

Core didn’t suspect a thing. Not from what Ayase could tell, anyway–the bug she flew back into the accounting office caught the end of the security guy’s phone conversation. The doors were still locked and nothing was missing. As far as he knew, no one had set foot upstairs.

And Jo’s photos were perfect. Daniel excitedly described them over the phone to Nick and Nakajima. It confirmed a few of their suspicions and opened brand-new leads. One thing in particular drew all of their attention:

A pair of medical clinics.

Nick was convinced that was where Pitch was made. Shouri tracked down blueprints. A few Riot Girls even went for check-ups and snapped photos.

“They could be using both facilities,” Zayd pointed out. “They would not store everything in one place.”

“It’s more likely they’re using both, actually.” Daniel gripped his chin. “If they mix different components of the drug in different areas, then it would hide their recipe from whoever’s working on it.”

“Exactly. Zero’s way too paranoid to keep his ingredients in one place.” Nick grunted. “And if we attack one, they’ll close up the other. So there’s only one way to do this.”

“Attack both at once,” Emi finished quietly.

There was no way to be subtle this time–they needed a fast and dirty raid. Byakko and the Riot Girls promised 15 people for each location, but Nick wanted leadership on the ground. He wanted samples from the clinic’s drug safes, copies of any notes found. He wanted people with powers there in case things went badly.

So everyone was going. Even Zayd, who hoped his bodyguard would follow. Even Shouri, Daniel, and Aisha, who couldn’t be left with no protection. Even Kiyoshi, who’d been spending long hours practicing his archery in private.

Nick wanted to talk to Ayase on the phone. “You and Zayd can cut the legs out from under Core,” he told her. “I want you on different teams. If ops show up and shit gets hairy, you go somewhere isolated, turn into the swarm, and go apeshit on those assholes.” He lowered his voice. “We need this place robbed and ransacked. Give ‘em hell, Ayase.”

The words surged through Ayase, filling her with a power she’d almost forgotten. There wasn’t just spy work for her anymore. She needed to fight. And despite the voice in the back of her mind that warned her of the dangers, she felt better facing the issue head-on. She didn’t want to send Sachi to stutter under a Core security guard’s glare. She didn’t want to watch Jo curl up under stairs or Kadoyuki distract a Core video camera.

She could be on the ground now. And that was exactly where she wanted to be.

They had a few days to prepare. The anticipation filled her with new excitement, and she spent her waking hours harnessing the energy bottled up inside her. Adam taught her and everyone else some basic self-defense moves. Aisha prepped first-aid kits and showed everyone how to use them. When Ayase caught Jo on the phone with Nick, learning some pointers on guns…Ayase demanded she be included. And she brought Sachi to learn, too. Just in case.

Two nights in, she had a vivid sex dream about Kiyoshi.

It was a vicious blow to her confidence. She cried herself back to sleep, cursing her body for betraying her.

When the light of day came, some of the misery had sifted away. She dragged herself out of bed and clomped her way to the bathroom. For once, there was no line for the shower.

She decided to take advantage. Her mind was a mess of blurry images as she shed her clothes; when she stepped into the hot water, the images drained from her head. She shivered and lifted her face as blood pounded behind her eyeballs.

Dammit. Ayase frowned into the water. Her helplessness from the night before now felt unbearably stupid.

So it was a sex dream. So what? She’d had those before–about Kiyoshi and around missions, even. This wasn’t anything new. She’d decided on that first night of Kiyoshi’s detox that she was probably attracted to him, but that she wouldn’t let it get in the way of her decisions. She’d had a reprieve from her feelings while she was busy and he was detoxing, but now that he was better and they’d spoken again, it made sense that her dreams had come back.

But it’s no big deal, she told herself. Don’t let it affect your relationship with him and it’s no big deal.

The only difference was the severity. She swallowed and stared at the tile on the wall.

She wasn’t sure if she’d…had an orgasm. That morning she’d felt…deflated, a little. Calmer. There was a vague sense of contentment inside her that felt alien and unsettling. She tried to remember back to her middle-school health class and the textbooks she’d dutifully read. It hadn’t interested her at the time, so her memories were hazy.

How could she know? She knew about boys and nocturnal emissions, but her learning on female sexuality had been vaguer. She’d felt some wetness between her legs that morning, but not more than she had in some stages of her cycle. She didn’t know what to check for.

…

A line from the sex dream snaked its way into her head. Ayase blinked the water from her burning eyes.

“Maybe you need someone to…touch you.”

That Kiyoshi had been a figment of her imagination, whispering things from the recesses of her brain. As much as she was loathe to admit it, maybe dream Kiyoshi had a point. And it wasn’t like she needed someone else to deal with that…

She spent about two seconds on that train of thought before dropping it entirely. She didn’t want to. She really didn’t want to. She still remembered the nuns yelling at her when she spent too long under her covers or in the bathroom. When she’d tried to understand her insects, only to be lectured on spending too much time alone with her body.

Ayase shuddered. There was still a weird coil in her stomach when she thought about her body. The insects were one thing, but the rest of it? How could she possibly find the time to deal with all that? Between random sex dreams and living with boys, there were way too many issues for her to address at once. And she was naked after becoming the swarm! If she deliberated on whether or not she’d shaved her legs or what people would see and whether or not that would change their opinion of–

No, she cut off angrily. Not productive, only horrifying.

There was too much out of her control. And when she thought about that, old feelings of paranoia welled up inside her. She’d been defensive and miserable until she’d found a purpose for her power. She didn’t want to return to the days of panicked vulnerability in a world she didn’t trust. She liked her new place. She liked feeling confident.

If sex robbed her of stability, she didn’t want it in her life. The only other option was to…face it, somehow, until she felt like she could handle it. But just the thought of starting that journey filled her with misery and a little terror. She couldn’t forget how rough her first times with Sachi and revealing her power had gone. She didn’t want to relive that with the added grossness of genitalia.

BANG BANG BANG

Pounding on the bathroom door snapped her out of her thoughts. Suddenly afraid she’d spent too long, she squeaked off the faucet.

“Sorry!” she called. “Coming out.” She toweled herself down in seconds and threw on her clothes. She ran fingers through her wet bangs as she opened the door.

A half-naked man with reddish hair stretched his arms above his head, his bare back turned toward her.

For a terrible second, Ayase didn’t know who he was. She recoiled.

“Hnn.” A grunt escaped his lips as he cracked a few joints. The second she overlapped that grunt with sex sounds from her dream was the same second he turned his head and flicked beautiful eyes at her.

“Oh.” Kiyoshi smiled. “Hey, Ayase.”

Ayase could only stare at him in horror.

What had happened to his head? His usual mop of dark hair was gone, replaced with a wig that…no, that looked like his real hair. Someone had chopped most of it off, leaving it carefully buzzed at the back of the neck while a soft wave of bangs still scooped across his forehead. It had been bleached a reddish brown, the color of warm black tea.

And he was…shirtless. He held a bundle of fabric under his arm, but other than that he only wore a pair of loosely fitting sweatpants that sagged around the hips. When she noticed the waistband of his underwear peeking out, her eyes snapped to the floor as blood rushed to her face.

She suddenly feared she was trapped in another dream.

“Kiyoshi!” Emi called from the end of the hall. “For goodness sake, put some clothes on!”

Kiyoshi frowned and twisted his head, breaking the spell.

“I’m covered in hair!” he called back, scratching behind his neck. “I wanna wash it off before it gets everywhere.”

Ayase felt like marbles had lodged in her throat. “Wh-what happened?” she gurgled at last. “When did you cut your…”

“Nee-san just did it. If I’m going on the mission, I have to look different.” He tugged at the sweep of bangs. “I can shoot better if it isn’t in my eyes, but…I dunno. I think I look weird.”

He looked like a model. Without the shaggy mop hooding his face, she could see the delicate curve of his eyes, the hard line of his square jaw. And although he’d lost weight from the detox, there were still thin ropes of muscle snaking down his neck and shoulders, only to disappear in the broad, angled frame of his chest and…

Oh, he was an outie.

“Ayase?”

Ayase’s eyes snapped away as her heart thundered in her ears. “You don’t…look weird,” she choked. “Just…different.”

“Yeah?” His voice brightened.

Ayase wanted to flee. She scooted out of the doorway and around him, careful not to touch his looming body.

“Hey, if you wanna get your hair cut, Nee-san’s doing Shouri-san next.” He gestured somewhere, but Ayase’s eyes were locked on his feet. “Jo picked up bleach and all kinds of crazy colors from the convenience store.”

Ayase opened her mouth to answer, but decided against it. She grunted a non-committal sound before bolting down the hallway.

She practically dove inside the kitchen. As she gripped the fabric over her pounding heart, Emi glanced up from sweeping the floor.

“Oh.” She tilted a dustpan of hair into the garbage. “Ayase-kun.”

Ayase swallowed acid. She silently counted to five and forced herself to breathe.

Emi cleared her throat. “Are you all right?” she asked gently. “After your…personal issue last night?”

Last night. Ayase had hoped, maybe foolishly, that Emi hadn’t figured out what had happened from her end of the girl’s room. Especially since she’d awkwardly consoled Ayase until she could fall asleep again.

Ayase squeezed shut her eyes and wished she could teleport to the moon.

“Don’t worry,” Emi assured her. “Aisha-san is a doctor, so she’s perfectly confidential. Although I know she’s hard to communicate with, so you can always talk to me…”

“I’m fine,” Ayase blurted. “So…no. Fine.”

Something flitted through Emi’s eyes. She looked away.

“Just to be clear,” she murmured. “It wasn’t a panic attack, was it?”

Ayase rubbed a fist over her mouth. “No,” she muttered as she walked to the table. She claimed an empty mug and gripped the teapot.

Emi let out a breath and placed her dustpan back on the floor. “Then just let me know if you need anything.”

Ayase poured a cup of lukewarm tea and swallowed it in big gulps. As the grainy remains of the teapot splashed over her tongue, she felt the frustration of the shower slowly rise up to smother her humiliation.

This was stupid. The whole thing was stupid. And they had a mission, dammit–she couldn’t lose her focus.

“Are we still attacking the clinics tomorrow?” she asked at last. “I know we were waiting on Detective Nakajima.”

Emi frowned. “Nick-san doesn’t think we should tell her at all. She probably wouldn’t approve of us ransacking health clinics.”

Ayase stopped. “He wants us to do this behind her back?”

Emi shrugged. “Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.”

That seemed a little unfair, considering Nick wasn’t coming.

“But…the police will probably show up,” Ayase pointed out. “We could get arrested.”

“Shouri-san tapped into the police radio frequency. We’ll know when they’re close so we can get out of there.” Emi swept under the table. “And between you and Zayd-san, we have a contingency plan if we get mobbed.”

A lick of Ayase’s confidence grew inside her again. She filled her mug at the sink and took a long minute to drink.

The knots in her heart started to untangle. Her mind began to clear. Now that Kiyoshi and his bare skin were out of her sight, she could remember what they’d been building up to since Ginza. They were going to chase down Pitch. She was going to lead a team.

Ayase needed to be at her best. So, despite the small pang that went off in her stomach, she clenched her fists and stared at the table.

“Emi-san,” she started quietly.

Emi looked up. “Yes?”

Ayase swallowed. Anxiety started to build in her stomach like a slowly growing fireball.

“How do you…know you’re ready for sex?” Ayase breathed.

Emi stared. Ayase wasn’t sure she’d said it loud enough.

Please don’t make me say it again.

“Sex.” Emi cleared her throat. “With whom?” she asked carefully.

Heat rushed to Ayase’s face. “Just…boys in general!” she blurted.

Emi seemed to relax slightly. “Then you’re attracted to boys,” she clarified. “Only boys?”

Ayase was a little surprised at the question. “Um…yeah? I’ve never thought that hard about it.”

Emi threw up a hand. “That’s all right–I’m just checking. I’m trying to be sensitive to the group.”

Ayase furrowed her eyebrows. Emi hesitated.

“Shouri-san doesn’t exactly hide it,” she murmured, “so I think it’s okay to tell you she’s a lesbian.”

Ayase paused. That was news to her. Wasn’t Adam her boyfriend?

“And Kiyoshi told me Mai has a more open sexuality, and just…I don’t know. Everyone is different.”

There was something about the mention of Mai that grew Ayase’s anxiety fireball. She tried to repress it.

“I’m just…looking for general advice,” Ayase murmured. “Since you’re a woman and you’re older than me.”

Emi fiddled with the Star of David pendant around her neck. “My faith dictates a lot of my feelings on sex,” she admitted. “And I’ve never been terribly interested in it personally, so I’m afraid I may not be much help. But as a nurse…” She shrugged. “You’re a teenager. You’re at a very confusing, difficult age.”

Ayase crinkled her nose. That really doesn’t help, she thought.

“I’m sure sharing this church with so many men isn’t helping, either. If you were back in school, you would have particular ways to share your time with boys–like dates or parties. Without that structure, it’s hard to explore your feelings or even know how to frame them.” She paused. “Did you have a boyfriend back in school? Or a crush you–”

“No,” Ayase interjected.

“Oh. So wet dreams are new for you, then?”

Ayase shut her eyes in burning embarrassment. “Mostly,” she murmured at last. “And they were never…this bad.”

“Ayase-kun…” Emi sighed. “Your body is going to mature, sometimes independently of your mind. It’s part of growing up.”

Ayase waited.

“And I suppose…you’ll know when you’re ready to actually pursue it. It’s a personal decision and no one can make it but you.” Her voice hardened slightly. “Don’t let anyone else push you into something if you’re not ready. It’s your decision. It’s your body.”

Emi was starting to sound like health class. Ayase’s tiny hope started to fade.

“That’s…helpful,” she lied. “Thank you.”

Relief rushed through Emi’s face, and Ayase suddenly wished she hadn’t asked. She put down her mug.

Her stomach grumbled. She gripped it in embarrassment as Emi brightened.

“Adam-san cooked this morning,” she offered. “There should be leftovers in the fridge.”

Happy to focus on something else, Ayase headed for the refrigerator. Emi started humming to herself as she unpacked bottles of hair dye on the counter.

There was a scatter of strange ingredients in the refrigerator and a lot of pre-packed supplement drinks. Beside a messy, half-empty pot was a single plate, wrapped delicately and topped with a note. Ayase pulled it toward her.

For Ayase, it read. When she wakes up.

It wasn’t signed, but she recognized the handwriting as Sachi’s.

She stared at the note for a long moment. When she peeked under the wrapping, she saw a generous portion of fried pork in rice.

Her stomach growled. Her heart squeezed.

“…you have to tell Sachi.”

The last words from her sex dream rang like a death bell in her head. She rested her forehead against the freezer door.

Her fingers curled around the plate, scraping her nails across the note. She loosened her grip in unconscious regret.

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

Jo was assigned the clinic in Nakano. Zayd was on his team, which meant the bodyguard could be close behind–but they were also taking Shouri and Kiyoshi, which made them more vulnerable. Shouri seemed especially sick, since she was close to detoxing again.

“What’s really worse?” Jo asked bitterly. “Taking Pitch now, or maybe getting caught or arrested where you can’t get any more?”

Shouri snorted and crammed a pair of binoculars into her backpack. Emi had cropped and restyled her hair, leaving her with a short, feathered mop that was bleached with light streaks.

“Taking Pitch makes me a badass, but it also gives me heart palpitations. I’ll take nausea and dizziness any day.” She hefted the backpack on to her shoulder, breathing heavily as she did so. “And I already started taking antago…nists…”

She suddenly wobbled on her feet. Jo grabbed her arm as she regained her footing.

“Shit.” Shouri rubbed the back of her fist over her eyes as color drained from her face. “This’ll be fun.”

Jo called for Aisha, but the woman was already jogging up. She clicked on a small flashlight and tilted it into Shouri’s eyes.

Jo awkwardly turned away as Aisha checked the woman. He saw Zayd nearby, giving instructions to Kado…Kado seemed more intent than usual, with his beady eyes burning. When Zayd asked a question, Kado didn’t answer. Zayd repeated it.

Kado blinked, like he’d been thinking of something else.

“Uh…mm,” he replied at last. He nodded at Zayd. “Yeah.”

Kiyoshi crouched beside them, scrunching his forehead in confusion while he fiddled with his tournament bow. Between that and the doctor who waved two fingers in front of Shouri’s face…

They weren’t exactly intimidating. Jo tried not to think about it.

The Byakko van came for them a few minutes later. When Jo loaded into the back, Mitsuko was waiting with open arms.

“Hey, you.” She gave him a quick peck on the lips. “You look about a million times better.”

Jo was happier to see her than usual. He kissed her back, suddenly glad that her confidence radiated off her in waves.

When she pulled back, her eyes flicked past him. She raised her eyebrows in a friendly question.

Jo turned. Kiyoshi stared at them, his mouth slightly open.

Oh. Jo twisted in her arms to glance at Kiyoshi. “That’s Aki,” Jo lied. “He’s new.”

“Aki…?” Mitsuko’s eyes trailed to the bow in Kiyoshi’s hands. She raised an eyebrow at Jo.

“Aki,” Jo insisted, his voice firmer this time. “And Aki, this is Mitsuko-senpai.”

Jo had a feeling Mitsuko had seen Kiyoshi before, but between the Pitch and the haircut, he looked pretty different from his Fukuhashi days. Mitsuko pursed her lips.

“Aki,” she agreed, her voice thick with sarcasm. “Jo will have to tell me all about you later.”

Kiyoshi nodded and mumbled something, but it was inaudible in the clanking van. He slid onto the bench and stared at the floor, something unreadable in his dark eyes.

It bothered Jo, for some reason, but he wasn’t sure why. Mitsuko pulled him back toward her asked about the plan.

The trip to Nakano didn’t take long with Wei behind the wheel. By the time they unloaded a few blocks from their target, the rest of the Byakko and Riot Girl members had arrived. They immediately split into the distance team–which included Kiyoshi, Shouri, and Aisha–and the attack team, which included Jo. He pulled on his ski mask under the light of the moon.

He glanced back at the distance team. He could barely see them from where he was–they ducked in an alley a block away, crouched behind dumpsters and flattened against the wall. He couldn’t make out Kiyoshi at all. Satisfied, he reached into the holster beneath his jacket.

And pulled out the not-vampire’s gun.

It felt too warm in his hand. He adjusted his grip on the handle, feeling a layer of sweat build under his glove. He swallowed and tried to ignore the weight in his gut.

“You don’t have to shoot it.”

Jo looked up. Kado stared at him, his ski mask still in his hands.

Jo scowled at him. “Unless I do have to shoot it.”

“Maybe…maybe seeing it will be enough to scare them.”

Jo bristled a little. “I’m not counting on that,” he muttered.

Kado didn’t reply. Then he slowly pulled his ski mask over his head.

“Did you tell Honda-san that you’re carrying the gun?”

Jo grunted. “No.”

“I…I won’t tell him.”

“Good,” Jo replied thinly. “But someone else will, and it’s not a big deal. Okay? This is the sort of shit we have to deal with now.” He adjusted his sweaty palm. “And with any luck I won’t have to shoot it and nobody will care in an hour.”

Kado nodded, but his eyes were elsewhere. Jo leaned toward him and whispered into the bug at Kado’s collar.

“Who’s in the clinic, Ayase?”

The bug buzzed. A few seconds later, Kado looked up.

“Three researchers in the lab, two big men by the front desk. One more woman patrolling the hallway between the two.”

Jo squinted at the faint light that glowed from the clinic window. “No wonder they pull their shades down,” he muttered. “That’s suspicious as hell at one in the morning.”

Zayd tapped into his mobile phone. “The Shinbashi team is ready,” he said. “They said they will attack in two minutes.”

“Good!” Mitsuko slapped her brass knuckles into her palm. “I wanna get home in time for that dating show with the convicts.”

Jo went through one last checklist in his head. Shouri would text Zayd once she heard anything on the police scanner. After they ransacked the actual lab, they needed to collect or destroy any paperwork…

“He was just surprised.”

Jo blinked. He turned to Kado, who stared ahead at the clinic.

“What?” Jo blurted.

“Honda-san.” Kado’s voice lowered. “He didn’t know you have a girlfriend.”

Jo only stared at Kado a second, an unspoken protest on his lips. Then he closed his mouth and gritted his teeth.

“Over the line, Kado.”

Kado ducked his head slightly. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Zayd gestured for them to move. Jo took a last breath and gripped his gun.

Here we go.

He ran across the street, his sneakers making quiet pats in the dark. He flattened himself against the front wall of the clinic as Wei trudged over. The huge man raised his sledgehammer and crushed the door open.

An alarm blared out over the clinic. Jo pushed past the splintered door and rushed into the front room, where the guards scrambled to draw weapons.

Jo raised his gun.

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

“Freeze!” Miki leveled Wei’s shotgun. “Hands where I can see ‘em, pus fuckers.”

One of the guards went stiff under the blaring alarm, her hands falling by her sides. The other snarled and moved behind the front desk.

Miki pulled the trigger, sending an explosion to splinter the edge of the desk; Ayase jumped at the sound. The man behind the desk cried out and grabbed his thigh.

Miki growled. “You wanna try me, smartass? Next time I’ll aim for your dick.”

The female guard gritted her teeth and slowly raised her hands. The other man crumpled to the floor, cursing as blood blossomed on his pant leg.

Miki kept his gun raised and gestured to the twins with his head. The masked pair ran past him to tie up the guards.

Ayase closed her eyes. From her planted bug deeper in, she saw the researchers abandon their benches in shock. The other guard in the hallway ran past her sights.

“One more,” she said in English as she pointed to the hallway. “No gun.”

Adam grunted an affirmative and slid past her. He flipped up his bat as he vanished into the hall.

After one of the twins forced the unharmed guard to her knees, Miki marched over. He kicked the bound woman over onto the floor.

“I’m here for drugs,” he snapped. “You’d better have some good shit here.”

“This is a clinic,” she answered coldly. “Not a pharmacy. We don’t keep drugs here.”

“Bullshit. Why do you have guards at all hours?”

One of the twins finished searching behind the desk. He whistled and pulled out a pistol.

Miki jammed the end of his shotgun into the woman’s cheek. “You’re hiding something good in this place,” he hissed. “Tell me where it is or I’ll blow your face a new hole.”

Ayase closed her eyes to see Adam advancing on the terrified lab techs. She waved a twin to join her as she bolted into the hall.

She leapt over a downed guard just as her phone buzzed in her skirt pocket. Suddenly worried something had gone wrong, she tried to check all four of her insects.

Things looked okay in Nakano; a few masked friends were rushing the lab, but her view from Kadoyuki’s shoulder was blurry as he ran. Her insect in this lab saw her own human form run in with her eyes shut. Back out on Sachi’s shoulder, people were still in position…

The twin by her side answered her question. “It’s your friend with the police scanner,” he said. Ayase popped open her eyes; he was reading his mobile phone. “The cops got the alarm–ETA in Nakano five minutes, Shinbashi in ten.”

She could work with ten minutes. Ayase ran to the nearest lab bench and scanned it for notes. She grabbed a few scraps of paper she found, one binder with laminated pages…it wasn’t until she ducked that she found a few locked drawers underneath. She tried to kick them open, but it was a lost cause. She crammed the paperwork into her backpack.

“We need keys or lockpicks,” she ordered the twin. “Are you the one who can pick locks?”

He smiled sadly. “That’s my brother. I do wiring jobs.”

“Then call him or Miki-san back here! And can you cut through the alarm wires or something?” Ayase saw Adam shove the last lab tech into the bathroom and slam the door shut. He grabbed a chair and wedged it under the doorknob.

The twin threw his leather bag at Ayase; she caught it and ran for the lab fridge. She barely heard him leave over the deafening alarm.

There were a lot of sealed tubes and vials in the fridge, but she couldn’t tell if they were important. She ignored the vials of blood but stuffed everything else in her bag. Like Nick had ordered, she left the giant stock solutions and anything with a skull and crossbones on the bottle but turned their labels outward and took a quick picture on Shouri’s camera.

“…yase!”

Ayase froze. Where was that coming from? Between the alarm in her human ears and the Nakano alarm around half her bugs, her brain scrambled to place the soft cries of her name. She squeezed shut her eyes.

Sachi was running. She saw the outside of the clinic rapidly loom over him.

“We’re coming!” he shouted. She saw him glance at her bug once before throwing out his arms; something dark blocked her vision as her insect was violently crushed into his clothes.

Ayase’s heart seized.

The alarm snapped off.

BOOM

The shotgun from the front hall was swiftly drowned in cries. She heard fighting and smashing wood and several loud screams.

Sachi.

In a blind panic, she shut her eyes and stumbled for the door. Her bug on Sachi’s shoulder was on the pavement, twitching uselessly with a broken wing; someone’s foot came down and crushed her lenses. She sent the bug in the lab to zip through the hall, but all she saw was a dozen teenagers grappling with adults near the front. And those adults weren’t the police.

Someone’s sleeve was pulled down. Ayase thought she saw Pitch veins.

She rammed her knee and stomach into a lab bench hard enough to pop her eyes open. She choked and grabbed at the radiating pain in her leg.

“Ayase!” Adam turned from a locked cabinet. “Police?”

She shook her head and stumbled for the door. “Core!” she cried back.

“Friends?!”

“Coming!” Ayase ran into the hall, freezing once she passed the doorway. The havoc outside was hard to assess; Byakko and Riot Girls were mostly in dark street clothes, but so were the Core ops. Somebody fired a gun and it shattered glass in the lab behind her.

Hot, clear focus raced along the cells in her body. Her heart pounded in her chest as she leapt into the closest patient room.

Miki was in there, fighting a man twice his size. He’d abandoned his shotgun and instead wrapped a length of chain around his right fist.

Ayase tackled the man from behind. The man cried out and stumbled to the floor, grabbing at Miki as he toppled. Miki sidestepped him and rammed his chained fist into the back of the man’s head.

Ayase pulled back as the man crumpled to the floor. Maybe unsatisfied, Miki rolled the man over and grabbed his shirt with both fists. Then he hissed and unclenched the hand that was still in a cast.

“Fucking…shitfuck.” Miki dropped the unconscious man and gathered his tangled chain. Then he delicately cradled his injured hand.

Ayase couldn’t wait. She ran behind Miki and shoved him toward the door.

“I need the room,” she ordered.

“The hell? For what?” Miki dug his heels into the carpet. Ayase lost her forward momentum and ran nose-first into the back of his head.

“Ngghff!” She cursed and gripped her throbbing nose. He whipped around to face her.

“Just go!” Ayase cried with a wave of her arm. “I need privacy!”

“Are you jerking off or something? Get the fuck out there and fight!”

Frustration scattered her thoughts. “I will! Just…!”

Ayase had never spoken to Miki before this mission, so she had no idea what to say. He growled and grabbed her arm.

“Oda said you’re a force,” he snapped. “So prove it!”

“I can’t if you don’t–”

A Core operative stumbled into the room, narrowly keeping his grip on a pistol. He snarled and raised the gun.

Miki whipped his chain in a tight arc, sending the open end to slice through the air and slash across the man’s face. He cried out as his skin welted under the metal.

Miki threw himself at the man, knocking the two of them back into the hallway. Without a second thought, Ayase slammed the door shut behind them.

Sorry, she thought, although she didn’t mean it. She dropped her bag and backpack on the floor.

And exploded into a cloud, her body expanding into buzzing pieces. She rose against the ceiling, adjusting to the thousands of fragmented sensations feeding into her collective mind. She allowed herself one extra second as that pure force of a collected swarm–the power in her spread bodies felt like the most natural thing in her life.

Then she rippled her body down, feeding rows of her insects under the doorway. She bloomed in the air of the hallway, filling the expanse with her presence.

She zoomed down to bury her mouth stingers in any enemy she could find. People shouted and recoiled, even if she just brushed past them; within seconds hands were slapping her from every angle. She bobbed back from Byakko and Riot Girls and just swarmed around a handful of Core ops she could isolate. They screamed as she buried herself into their flesh.

“Not the fucking bugs!” someone cried. “Like in Kabuki–”

Alarm raced along her hive mind as she swarmed that man. She stung him along the face, even zipping into his mouth to sting the inside of his cheek.

The Core members started to flee. They scrambled for the front entrance as teenagers kicked at their retreating backs. If any remained, Ayase descended. She was especially merciless on Core mobile phones and guns. She swelled up so many hands with her stings that the hallway was littered with weapons.

Gang members seemed confused, but they shouted at each other to keep going. They swarmed the lab in the back to steal and dismantle. She even recognized Daniel in there, his blond hair sticking out from under his hat, head and shoulders taller than the Riot Girl who tugged him along by a hand. To Ayase’s surprise, Emi ran up behind them.

We’re doing this. Confidence surged through Ayase, tingling through every insect extension of her tumbling presence. She zoomed down the hallway to search for stragglers.

But then she saw a familiar boy on the floor, straddling an unconscious Core operative. He panted and unclenched his fist from around the Core member’s shirt. One of the Byakko punks rushed past him, knocking his shaking shoulders.

Sachi.

Her insects reeled back, suddenly static in the open air. A teenager ran through her, scattering pieces of her in all directions.

Sachi’s head tilted up. He cringed back as his eyes widened behind his glasses.

“Ayase!” he whispered up at her. “A-are you okay?”

Through her fuzzy compound eyes, she saw rips in his shirt, dirt on his face. The bloody nose of the unconscious man under him matched the bruises on Sachi’s knuckles.

He looked scared. And the shade behind it was definitely regret.

An echo of her human heart squeezed inside her. She swarmed around him, but he recoiled in clear panic.

Please, she said silently, although she couldn’t complete the thought.

She bobbed back into the hallway, instead swarming back toward the patient room. Sachi scrambled to his feet behind her. Someone had opened the door at some point, leaving her transformation space vulnerable. She saw realization dawn in Sachi’s face.

“Wait. I-I’ll help you.” He ran into the patient room with her, widening it so she could swarm in more effectively. Once the majority of her was inside, he shut the door and scanned the room.

His eyes fell on her abandoned bags and clothes. He swallowed and turned his face toward the door.

“I won’t look,” he murmured. He held the doorknob to lock them inside.

Ayase overlapped her waves and surged toward the floor. She merged her bodies into flesh, melting down into feet and building bone and muscle up from that foundation. When her head formed, pumping blood into her brain, she opened her human eyes to see the tips of her fingers reform before her.

She let out a rush of breath. Then she scrambled to put her clothes on while Sachi’s back was turned.

Her heart thundered in her ears. Adrenaline still burned through her veins, shaking her hands as she zipped up her skirt. She couldn’t stop staring at Sachi’s back, at the way his head was ducked down and he clenched his hands; she could see his eyes were screwed shut beneath the beaded sweat on his brow. She finally walked over and slid a hand on his shoulder.

He jumped. When his head whipped to her, she threw up her hands in her defense.

“It’s okay,” she murmured. “It’s me again. See?” She wiggled the fingers of one hand.

He deflated slightly, but his forehead creased in guilt. “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I-I thought I was used to it, but…”

You’ve barely seen the swarm. She tried to ignore the acids swirling in her stomach. Maybe he noticed, because he gripped her hand in both of his.

“You turned that fight,” he said shakily. “I don’t know where they came from, but they sent cars of guys. And I was worried you…”

Ayase hardened as a spike of adrenaline pricked her brain. “We should get back out there,” she ordered.

Sachi swallowed. “I’m not sure you left any enemies, but you’re right.” He reached for the doorknob with trembling fingers. “That…elbow move Adam-san taught us works pretty well. So you can use it in your human form if you don’t, um…”

Ayase noticed the sick feeling in eyes deepen. She was about to console him, then suddenly realized something.

“Do…do you feel pain when you hurt other people, Sachi?”

Sachi looked up. “Uh…nn,” he breathed, his voice weak. “It doesn’t hurt me physically, but…”

The look on his face in the hallway made new, horrible sense. When he turned the doorknob, she stopped his hand.

“You…said most of them ran?” she asked. “And I saw Daniel-san and Emi-san in the lab–they know better than us what to look for.” She swallowed. “Do you need a minute?”

A hint of relief washed over his features. He let out a sigh.

“Half a minute.”

Ayase forced herself to take the breather. She released his hand so she could roll up her sleeve. The patches of thin skin were few and far between; she’d expected far worse.

“Did you lose a lot of bugs?” he asked.

“I guess not.” She rolled the sleeve back down. “I barely register it when I’m fighting, but I did feel less pain this time.”

He smiled at her. It was slight, but genuine.

“You seem…totally normal now,” he murmured. “And a minute ago you were a million tiny pieces. I can see the bugs as part you, but…” His jaw tightened. “When that’s all you are? Just the fact that when you’re the swarm, the real you disappeared into thin air…”

“I didn’t disappear. What you saw was me.”

His face fell. “I know.”

“It was me, Sachi. Okay?” She raised a hand and wiggled the fingers again. “And this is me, too.”

He reached to grip those fingers. “I know.”

There was something about the way the pads of his fingers desperately brushed her skin. She felt a little jolt in her chest as he pulled her hand closer.

Something warm swirled in the pit of her belly. He flushed a little, blinking behind his glasses.

An unusual boldness streaked out from her heart and tingled through her veins. Before she realized what she was doing, she’d slid her hand up to his chin.

“This is me,” she repeated, tapping him gently. “And you’re…getting used to it, right?”

He stared at her, his eyes wide. Color bloomed behind his face.

“It’s your body.”

The line from Emi’s awkward advice rang in Ayase’s ears. It seemed a strange time to think of it, but…it felt appropriate, for some reason.

Ayase felt another surge inside her–a hot, excited rush that laced power with calm. Like when she was the swarm, but more surreal. Her vision blurred.

As blood roared in her ears, as fire burned through her body, she delicately dragged her fingers along Sachi’s jaw.

He shivered at the touch, sending goosebumps to prickle under the pads of her fingers. They sent tiny crackles of electricity to burst beneath her skin.

He must’ve been leaning toward her, because she could hear his heavy breathing. She stood on her toes and brushed her eyelashes against his chin.

“…you have to tell Sachi.”

Ayase couldn’t think. But for once, happily, she stopped trying to think. She seized the power that welled up inside her.

She tilted her head up and pressed her lips against his.

She felt slowed in time, pushing through a heavy fog. He panted against her mouth and tilted his head.

“This is what you want?” he whispered, but he barely said it like a question.

Her hand ran up his face, sliding his glasses up and off his eyes. She kissed him again, then again, heat building in her mouth as his glasses clicked against her forehead. Her breathing turned ragged and wet as he pushed his open mouth deeper against hers.

Somebody moaned, but she didn’t know who. She could barely hear it over the soft crescendo of approaching sirens.