*****
Omoyo
*****
The name's Homura, but most people call me by my family name, which is Omoyo. And like Oota probably told you already, I'm a psychic.
My power let's me know what other people are feeling inside. It might sound like a cool and useful ability, but it can get as annoying as hell when I'm close to people who, shall we say, aren't having a great day.
Take this one for example:
I was walking home with the other CSC members in what was usually a quiet and chill afternoon when suddenly, I was hit with a wave of bad emotions, a mixture of surprise, fear and anger. The whole world suddenly went spinning and I toppled over from vertigo.
"Someone's in trouble," I told the others. "I think they're being attacked!"
Mirai and the others exchanged looks. And then Mirai asked, "Do you know where?"
With a shaking hand, I pointed where I figured the wave of anger came from.
"There," I said.
Isaneko turned to Yuna and asked her, "Sense anything over there?"
Yuna nodded and frantically typed into her phone.
"There are two people. One is moving away. Another is not."
"We need to go after that guy, fast!" I shouted.
It was pretty obvious the one moving away was the attacker while the one not moving was the victim. We could not let the attacker get away.
However, Mirai shook his head.
"It's too late," he said. "Anyway, the victim's more important. Isaneko and I'll check on them. Oota and Yuna, you stay here with Homura. Keep your eyes peeled in case whoever's the attacker decides to come back."
He and Isaneko then ran off before anyone could get a word in.
*****
Mirai
*****
Isaneko and I ran as fast as we could to the general direction Yuna and Homura pointed. I bumped into corners at almost every turn and toppled trash cans more than once along the way. Admittedly, I was frantic and was more focused on getting to the victim of the attack as fast as I could than my surroundings.
A crowd was already forming by the time we showed up. Me and Isaneko slowed down and then exchanged looks. We tried to approach the crowd as casually as we could, and then I called out to a nearby girl who wore our school's uniform.
"Hey!" I said to her. "Know what happened?"
Startled, the girl jumped. But she quickly relaxed when she saw that we were from the same school.
"We were just passing by when we saw the crowd and wondered if something happened here," Isaneko lied. "Do you mind telling us?"
"Oh, sure!" said the girl. "I just got here myself, but . . ."
*****
Hisao
*****
A short while after Mirai and Isaneko ran off, I heard sirens pierce the quiet skies. All of our phones got pings, alerting us of a group text from Mirai telling us to head on home first. I also got a separate message from him asking me and Yuna to stick with Omoyo until she got home first.
Sending a separate message was useless because as soon as we volunteered to keep her company until she made it to her house, Omoyo scowled and said, "Mirai put you up to this, didn't he?"
It put her in a foul mood, but nonetheless, me and Yuna followed her to her house before heading back to our own. Needless to say, I was on guard the whole time until I was inside and bolted the front door.
The next day, the school was abuzz with news that a high schooler had been attacked. Even I, with my head always low and my eyes stuck to my phone, could sense the jitters from my classmates around me as they talked amongst themselves in hushed whispers during the minutes before class started. No surprise everyone was on edge given the one particular detail about the crime that stood out to me:
The victim had been attacked with a steel drain pipe.
A chill ran down my spine when I saw that in the news article on my phone. It brought back memories of another time when people got attacked by a pipe-wielding maniac, the notorious serial killer called the Piper.
I actually had a face-to-face run-in with the Piper some time ago and even won a fight against him. It was mostly thanks to my superpower though, which I used to put up a shell of psychic energy around me and made me pretty much indestructible. But even though I was invulnerable, fighting that psycho was very scary. I was only able to stand my ground against him because I was in what Mirai called a berserker state which happens when either me, someone I know, or someone just in front of me is in danger.
Knowing the attacker's weapon was a drain pipe made me worried that there might be another Piper on the prowl again. You see, the Piper I fought was not acting alone. He had a partner who shared the same sense of sick and twisted fun he did. The guy was also dealt with and both of them should be in jail right now. The fact there was more than one Piper alone was enough to make me wonder if there might actually be more of them out there somewhere.
That possibility had become several times more likely with this latest incident.
Fast forward to lunch, me and the gang were gathered in the clubroom, answering a summons by Mirai for a meeting that could not wait until after school.
"Let me start with the good news," Mirai said. "The guy's still alive."
"Yeah, we know," Omoyo said. "The news said as much this morning. Got anything else to add?"
"Nope," replied Mirai. "I only know about as much as the newspapers know. But we did see the guy get carried off in an ambulance."
"It looked like his arm took the worse of the attack," Isaneko said. "He won't be playing any sports anytime soon, but that's still better than ending up as a corpse in the morgue."
"Funny you should mention that," said Mirai. "Earlier, I ran into our friend, the King of Kendo," (translation: the Kendo Club Captain) "and while we were having a Conference of Kings," (translation: a friendly chat between club presidents) "the attack came up, and he mentioned that the victim was a member of another school's Kendo Club."
"No kidding?" went Omoyo. "Is he sure?"
Mirai nodded and replied, "Positive. Despite the heavy rivalry, the Kendo King's established a network for swordsmen across all the great na - Ow!"
With a smile, Isaneko asked pleasantly, "Mirai, can you please tone down the melodrama speak? I think I told you this before, but it's utterly annoying."
I couldn't see anything under the table, but it was clear even to me that Isaneko must have stomped on Mirai's foot. Hard.
Omoyo agreed with Isaneko and said, "Yeah, Mirai. I can barely understand a thing you're saying."
"Come on, you two," Mirai croaked. "How long have you known me? You should get what I'm saying by now."
"Anyway," said Isaneko, "to sum everything up, our school's Kendo Club Captain heard from another school's Kendo Club Captain that the victim of yesterday's attack was one of their members."
"Why's that important?" I asked.
"Because, my dear Watson," said Mirai, "when it comes to solving crime, any detail counts."
Omoyo frowned. "Are you a demon lord or a detective? Pick one!"
Mirai smirked and said, "Why can't I be both?" And then he boldly declared, "I am anything and everything! Mwa ha ha ha!"
His act only elicited exasperated groans from the rest of us.
Despite the buzz garnered by news of an attack by what could be a new Piper, the day went on like normal. We went to class like normal, chilled at the clubroom after school like normal, and then left together like normal. However, for the second day in a row, the normalcy of the day was broken as we made our way home.
As we were headed down a road that was deserted except for us like always, Mirai suddenly stopped to whisper something to Isaneko.
Curious, Omoyo asked, "Everything okay?"
Mirai gave Isaneko a rather worried look, but Isaneko just casually brushed him off and replied, "It's fine. Mirai just saw something interesting in my future."
"Really? What?" I asked.
But Isaneko just said, "You'll see."
We continued further down, and then I felt a tug on my sleeve and turned around.
"What is it, Yuna?" I asked my cousin.
In response, she pointed ahead to a lone man in a gray blazer leaning against the wall with his left hand stuffed in his pants pocket. He looked up from his phone and turned our way, eyes rolling over us until they honed in on Isaneko.
On closer look, I estimated his age to be between his early to mid-fifties, maybe younger. For all I knew, his dark, sun-dried skin could just be giving the impression that he was older than he actually was. He was pretty big with a stout build, clearly a man who got a lot of exercise.
We all stopped and our eyes met his. And then he swaggered over to us, stopped just about a foot or two away, and gave us a look over once more.
I was, of course, a bit nervous and alarmed at the way he just approached us.
With a sneer on his face, he said, "Yo."
I turned to Yuna and shouted, "Pull the alarm! I'll call the cops!"
Yuna nodded and took out her keychain alarm while I dialed the emergency number on my phone.
"Wait, wait, wait!" the man cried out, pulling out his wallet. He flipped it open and flashed it to us. "I AM a cop! See? See?"
The top flap held a picture I.D. card with his name while the bottom flap had a gold badge pinned on it. Those two things combined confirmed that the man was an officer of the law.
"The name's Serimachi," said the police officer. "I'm a police detective investigating an attack that happened yesterday. I think you might have heard about it already in the news?"
"Of course," said Mirai. "Everyone at school's talking about it. Right, Isaneko?"
"Indeed," Isaneko said.
"Isaneko, huh?" Serimachi once more had his eyes on Isaneko. "Could you be Aika Isaneko, the face of Angel Support?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Angel Support? What's that?"
"It's the company my mother runs," Isaneko explained. "And yes, I'm that Aika Isaneko, the mascot of Angel Support."
"You didn't seem like just a mascot for the company though," said Serimachi. "Rumor had it you had a much bigger role in that so-called company."
Isaneko shrugged. "All I do is show my pretty face at meetings and maybe do a trick or two. That sounds like something a mascot would do."
Serimachi's eyes narrowed. Judging by the look on his face, it seemed his mood was going south. I had no idea why, though.
"Remind me again, what does Angel Support do?" he asked.
"Well," Isaneko said, "like the name hints, it's a financial and investment support organization. The company offers financial advice and investment opportunities for small businesses and individuals. Oh, and I think they also handled loans as well. There might be some other stuff, but it's hard to keep track."
"Really," Serimachi said with a raised eyebrow. "I don't recall the company starting out that way, though."
"Well, I remember it used to be more like an unofficial club, basically a gathering of sorts for people going through something tough in their lives," Isaneko responded coolly.
Serimachi didn't seem to like that answer, given the way his face twisted.
He opened his mouth as if he had more to say, but then Mirai cut him off and said, "You're asking an awful lot about the company Isaneko's mom runs, but what does that have to do with the attack that happened yesterday?"
Serimachi gave Mirai a sharp glare, but Mirai just responded back with an innocent smile.
"Right, sorry." The police detective quickly regained his composure and returned to the matter at hand. "I heard that students from your school were there at the time of the attack and wanted to check if you happened to see anything."
Mirai gave the detective an apologetic smile and replied, "Sorry. We happened to walk by the scene of the crime, but it was already over by then. We did run into someone from our school who happened to live in the area who told us she heard yelling and came out to find a guy our age but from a different school lying on the ground.
"We also managed to get a look at the guy. He was pretty banged up, but it didn't look too bad. He was still awake at least."
"I see, I see," said Serimachi as he jotted down notes on his small notebook. "That lines up with what we already heard from other witnesses. But I'm curious. What were you doing around that area in the first place? Seems a bit far out of your way home."
"Why, Detective," went Isaneko. "You sound as if you already know where we live."
"Well, I am a detective you know," said Serimachi.
"Wow!" Isaneko cried out in false wonderment. "Detectives are so amazing! To find out where we live in an instant of learning our names. It's almost like you have psychic powers."
Her sarcasm was so blatant, she may as well have announced it. And it put Serimachi once more in a foul mood.
"Hey, is it okay we go now?" Omoyo asked. "It's getting kind of late and we don't want to make our parents worry."
Serimachi gave Omoyo a glance, who glanced back at us. The police detective followed her gaze and I just stared back without saying anything, not sure how to act.
An exhale escaped Serimachi's throat while his mouth was closed. And then he said, "Thank you for your time. If you'll excuse me."
After giving a short bow, he walked away. Omoyo scowled at him when his back was turned.
"What's up with that guy's attitude," she complained once he was out of earshot. "Did you see the way he looked at Isaneko? It was as if he was itching to arrest her!"
"It can't be helped," Isaneko said softly. "I'm a bad girl after all."
She sounded wicked-playful, but there was something melancholic about the way she spoke. And it left me and the others speechless.
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