No raid. No dramatic arrest, just a bell and a clipboard.
The bell belonged to a bike shop that sold more stickers than chains. The clipboard was Tanaka's. The basement under the bikes smelled like toner, dust, and the kind of coffee you drink because sleep would be worse.
The kid behind the risograph looked exactly like our guesses: wrists inked with borrowed sigils, hoodie with a fox logo he didn't earn, eyes that had learned to stay angry so they didn't have to be scared.
He clocked Ren first—too young to be a cop, too focused to be a mark—and then me, which made his jaw go stubborn.
"You can't just—"
Tanaka flashed the paper. "City compliance check. Noise ordinance, chemical storage, counterfeit seals. Pick a lane."
The kid's mouth opened, then closed. His eyes drifted to the corner where a stack of gear-etched coins sat in a deli tub like very cursed mints.
I let my Cloud slide over the room in a thin skin: not a threat, a boundary. The risograph hiccuped, then decided not to.
"Name," Tanaka said.
"Shun," the kid muttered. "Don't call my mom."
"Give me something worth not calling your mom about," Tanaka said, bored in a way that made people cooperative.
Ren wandered, touching the edges of things with Mist like a mechanic listening for a rattle. Hibird perched on the risograph and tried to peck the "LOW INK" light into compliance. Roll found the deli tub and put both paws on it like a raccoon choosing violence.
"Don't touch that," Shun blurted, then realized he'd confessed ownership and swore under his breath.
"Who's the artisan?" I asked, taking out the coin from the mast in its evidence bag. "The flaw in the gear tooth."
Shun stared at the floor. "Nobody. Me. A vector pack."
"Your vector pack comes from somewhere," Ren said, kind, because he hasn't had the kindness kicked out yet.
The kid cracked. "Forum drop," he said. "Handle PHALANX. He sends files. We print. We get paid in crypto and shoutouts."
"Shoutouts," Tanaka repeated, like he was tasting a fruit he didn't order.
"Look," Shun said, hands up. "I didn't think it would—" His gaze flicked to me. "I thought it was… like, art. Protest."
"Against doorbells," I said.
"Against youkai cops," he shot back, then wilted. "Against… noise no one listens to unless you make it loud."
Fair.
"Where do the coins go?" I asked.
"Lockers, bike baskets, under flyers," he said. "PHALANX tells me the dead drops. I don't meet anyone. I'm just the printer."
Just the printer is how people excuse being a conduit. It's also how they get to stop early without being crushed.
"Give us the forum," Tanaka said.
"I get blacklisted," Shun said.
"You'll get arraigned," Tanaka said, still in that bored voice that sounded suspiciously like mercy.
Shun went to the computer. Mist cushioned his hands; Ren's way of keeping panic from tripping dumb reflexes like wipe all.
We didn't find a council of villains. We found a message board with bad jokes, two clean admin accounts, and a pretty FAQ: Distributed culture jamming for a better world. The storefront lists looked like a thrift map: skate shops, cafés, print rooms, music rooms—places where bored hands become busy ones when someone flatters them as rebels.
"PHALANX," I said, tapping the handle. "What do they post like?"
Shun scrolled. It read like a youth pastor who learned memes yesterday and a philosophy major who didn't graduate. That cadence sticks to people. You can track it.
"Pull ten samples," I told Ren. "Run them against public posts."
"On it," he said, the part of him that loves puzzles lighting up.
Hibird jumped to Shun's shoulder and headbutted his ear until he fed her a crumb from his pocket. Roll sulked about the coin tub being out of play, then rolled over on the cool concrete like a small, offended star.
The upstairs bell dinged. Once. Twice. Then stopped mid-ding like the air held it by the tail.
Yasaka stepped in with the three-tailed lieutenant at her side. She took the whole scene in—kid, coins, risograph, my Cloud on everything—and nodded.
"No cuffs," she said to Tanaka.
He had not produced cuffs. He nodded anyway.
Yasaka's gaze went to Shun, and she did the thing only people with power and restraint can do: she put the weight down gently.
"Kyoto will treat this as a noise complaint," she said. "First offense. You will pay a fine. You will hand over the accounts. You will scrub what you can and leave the scrubbing to us where you cannot."
Shun sagged in a way that said both relief and humiliation. "Yes, ma'am."
"And," Yasaka added, "you will print for us for a month."
He blinked. "What?"
"We will give you flyers, seals, instructions," she said. "You will use your network to distribute actual warnings. Real patches. When someone like PHALANX drops a 'fun' update that sickens children in a clinic waiting room, your friends will know why saying no makes them braver than saying yes."
Shun stared at her like she'd moved the floor six inches and he hadn't fallen. "That's… that's entrapment?"
"It's community service," Tanaka said. "With toner."
Ren hid a smile behind his sleeve. I didn't bother.
Shun swallowed. "Okay."
"Good," Yasaka said, and the room exhaled.
—
We left with a box of coins, a thumb drive full of forum logs, and a kid who now owed the city copies.
On the street, Ren kept reading, shoulders bowed under information only he could see. "Cadence match," he said finally. "PHALANX's jokes land like a certain columnist's blog. Same punctuation tics. Same cynical optimism."
"Name," Tanaka said, already texting himself in case his memory betrayed him later.
Ren gave it. I recognized it—Kyoto's favorite tech-guy-turned-activist, all hot takes and "just asking questions" panels at small festivals. The kind of person who never throws a punch themselves, but sells gloves.
"Of course," Yasaka said quietly. "He's been sniffing around grant committees for years."
"Public," I said. "If we hit him like a criminal, it feeds the performance."
"Then we hit the network," she said. "Cut the tools, salt the trail, make the stage boring."
Plan A – Bore them.
"Ren," I said, "write a patch for the patch. Something every risograph in the network can eat that makes the 'fun' vector look like an ad filter."
Ren's grin was instant and obnoxious. "On it."
"Tanaka," Yasaka said, "visit the column-inclined gentleman with a very dry letter from our legal counsel about liability."
"Where shall I serve him?" Tanaka asked, drier.
"On stage," she said. "He likes it there."
"Copy."
We took the long way back to the shrine. Kyoto after a small victory is a specific shade—lantern-warm, noodle-steam soft, the kind of night that makes even the ugly alleys look like they're just tired, not mean.
Kunou met us on the steps again, this time with manju instead of coffee. Crisis-princess, snack-bringer—same job, different tray.
"Mother says you made the printer print for us," she said, eyes bright.
"For a month," I said. "Long enough to rewire a habit."
She nodded very seriously, then offered Ren first pick. Ren chose the one with the red bean stamp like it was a test. Hibird stole a crumb with the confidence of a union worker on break. Roll received a whole one and tried to unhinge his jaw in delight.
We ate on the steps. Yasaka watched the city like it was a hand she'd learned to trust again.
"Your Sacred Gear is… quieter," she said, eyes flicking to the spot above my heart.
"Less offended," I said. "We've negotiated."
"How?" Ren asked.
"Stop treating it like a crown," I said. "Treat it like a map. Maps don't rule you. They warn you about cliffs."
Ren chewed on that and a bite of manju at the same time.
The Sky Crown pulsed once, a small, approving tick. It didn't mind the demotion. If anything, it liked being useful more than being worshiped.
Good. Same.
—
Night practice. Ren ran Mist drills along the torii path, casting soft false edges that forced feet to pay attention. I walked the perimeter with Cloud extended in a shallow dish—catch-and-release for any idiot charm still trying to find purchase. Yasaka took calls. Tanaka disappeared and reappeared like doors existed for him alone.
Halfway through a slow lap, Sky Crown flickered map-lines I hadn't called: six points, all faint, all moving toward the same neighborhood like iron filings to a magnet. No panic, just a notification.
"Ren," I said.
He paused, not winded, which he insisted on every time. "Yeah?"
"Six," I said, tapping the air. "Converging by the canal."
He didn't ask how I knew. He just grabbed three tags, pocketed two stones, and nodded once.
We hit the canal path at a jog. The six points resolved into three sets: two humans who thought crouching makes you invisible, one youkai who knew enough to be afraid of his friends, and three pieces of luggage with stickers that all said BUILT TO LAST in English like a dare.
"Bags first," I said.
Ren's Mist flowed low, making the canal railings look a step closer than they were. The humans shuffled sideways into a bench with the soft, satisfying thump of ego meeting wood. I stepped over the wobble in their attention and laid a hand on each bag.
The first was packed with charm slips and a Bluetooth speaker. The second was coins. The third was a portable projector the size of a lunchbox, menu still on DEMO: CROWD MOOD.
"PHALANX sends toys," Ren murmured. "Borrowed from real monsters."
The youkai boy—ears tucked, tail tied to look like a belt—looked up at me with the specific panic of someone who realized they'd been recruited into the wrong club.
"Don't—" he started.
"We're not here to hurt you," Ren said quickly, voice low and sure. "We're here to stop them from making you hurt someone else."
He said it like he believed it. The boy believed him.
The humans tried to make call-out noises ("fascists," "plants," "boot-foxes"), then looked at Yasaka appearing behind us like a revelation and decided this was not the hill to die on.
"Go home," she told the boy, not unkind. "Tell your friends you did not get brave. You got lucky."
He ran.
"Drop the bags," she told the humans. "Walk."
They did, muttering slogans to keep their faces intact for the walk of shame. Tanaka stepped out of a hedge like a bureaucratic yokai and handed them each a folded pamphlet titled So You've Been Recruited by a Clout Cult. They took them. Everyone always takes the pamphlet.
Ren picked up the projector and frowned at the settings. "This thing pairs to public screens."
"Kill the demo," I said.
He did. The canal lights went back to being regular lights. The water went back to sounding like water.
We hauled the bags to the shrine. Kunou made the projector play a frog for three seconds because she's eight and power corrupts. Hibird approved. Roll tried to fight his reflection in the lens.
"Tomorrow," Yasaka said, "we will be very boring on television."
"Plan A," I said.
She smiled. "Plan A."
—
No fireworks. No final boss, just a city that didn't take the bait.
When the phones went off at midnight with a push alert—CITY ADVISORY: PATCH YOUR CHIMES. PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO 'FIX THE VIBE' WITH UNAUTHORIZED DEVICES—Shun's network had already posted the same, cooler and funnier. The forum shrieked. The column-inclined gentleman wrote six subtweets and then, very sensibly, none at all.
Ren erased Plan B from the whiteboard and drew a box around Plan A. Hibird pecked the border until it was neat. Roll slept with a coin under his chin like a dragon with one (1) treasure.
Kyoto settled.
The Sky Crown pulsed once more: a little line added to the map, not a chain—just a route we could take again if we needed to.
Guardian work is never over. But it doesn't have to be loud to count.