"All right, I'm clocking out. Go on — out with you."
"Hey, where am I even supposed to go from here?"
"Not my problem. This isn't a daycare."
A few words and Guy had bundled Tatsumi back out the door, locked up, and headed off to his own quarters.
'Damn it! am i a baby?!'
A cold gust swept through.
Tatsumi shivered, then drew himself into a ball and hunkered down against the wall in front of the station.
Two hours crawled by like that, and his sleep grew heavier and heavier.
Then — he felt someone give him a few nudges.
He forced his eyes open, and three sweet young faces swam into view above him.
"Hey — are you all right? Sleeping out in the street this late, do you have a death wish?" There was a note of scolding in the girl's voice.
Something in the boy simply gave way.
All the strain of everything he'd been through, held down for so long, welled up and spilled over at last.
Tears slid from the corners of his eyes.
"I've — I've got nowhere to go back to. Someone scammed every last coin off me…"
"Uh…" The girl faltered, at a loss.
She wavered for two, maybe three seconds — then bent down and offered him her hand.
"Um… do you want to come stay at my place, then?"
For a girl her age, inviting a boy the same age back home was, admittedly, a touch mortifying.
Unfortunately, Tatsumi no longer had it in him to trust anyone.
Even with this girl appearing at his lowest moment like some angel out of nowhere — cute, no less — some part of him had already decided to turn her down.
"No — no, that's okay. I've got nothing left. Don't waste your time on me."
"But you look like you could really use some help?"
"Hang on, didn't I just say I've got nothing left worth stealing—" Tatsumi stopped mid-sentence.
The words three-hundred-pound rich auntie floated, unbidden, to the front of his mind.
'…Damn it. Another trafficker?!'
The connection made, he scrambled upright at once and put some distance between himself and the girl.
Rather than taking offense, the girl only smiled and praised him. "Good instincts. That's exactly right — plenty of country folk who come to the Capital get taken in by the swindlers nesting here. You're smart to be careful."
"…" Tatsumi felt more than a little awkward.
Truth was, he'd only developed those instincts after being scammed down to his last coin — not that he could bring himself to explain that.
"Relax. I'm with the Imperial Police. My name's Seryu Ubiquitous. Keep sleeping in the street and you may well be a corpse by morning."
She produced a key, stepped into the Imperial Police office, gathered a few things, and locked up again behind her.
"We're not allowed to bring outsiders inside, so I can't let you in there. Come on." Seryu took the lead and set off.
Tatsumi hesitated, then followed after her — still not entirely sure what to make of it.
She kept them to the main streets the whole way, never once cutting through a side alley: a small kindness meant to set Tatsumi at ease.
Before long they reached a house.
Seryu pushed the door open, called out "I'm home," and stepped inside.
It was a small place — small enough to take in at a glance from the doorway.
Tatsumi followed her in, puzzled, and found no one else there.
He was still wondering about it when he saw Seryu cross to a photograph and speak to it.
"Mom, Dad — I'm home."
"…" For a moment Tatsumi studied the side of her face and said nothing.
He hovered by the door, half poised to bolt.
The girl fetched a blanket from the cupboard, gathered it up in her arms, and handed it over.
"Sorry — my place is tiny. Just pick a spot and settle in. It's a lot warmer than out there, at least."
There was a small fireplace in the little home.
Seryu fed in a few more logs, and warmth spread through the room in moments, chasing off the chill the street had driven deep into Tatsumi's bones.
Wrapped in the blanket, he murmured to her, "…Thank you."
"Hehe." Seryu gave a soft laugh. "It's nothing. Helping people in need is only right — that's what my father taught me."
"Your parents…"
"They were murdered by ruthless criminals. That's the whole reason I trained myself so hard to join the Imperial Police — so I could protect people from going through what I went through." There was a steady resolve in her eyes as she said it.
Watching her, the fire in Tatsumi's chest roared straight back to life!
'This girl!'
That was it!
This was the kind of person he longed to become — someone who fought for the weak and stood for what was right.
A girl, sure, but with a will that wouldn't lose to any man alive.
"You're amazing."
"Am — am I? Hehe. I'm all talk, really. I'm still in the middle of my training — as I am now, I'm nowhere near strong enough."
Once they got going, the two of them found their outlooks and ideas lined up so well that they talked straight through an hour without once stopping for water.
Midnight came and went.
Not long after twelve, a sharp ding — ding — ding rang out from somewhere beyond the walls.
Seryu's expression shifted and she was on her feet in an instant, quickly strapping on her gear.
"That's the emergency signal — a criminal's on the loose!"
Tatsumi understood at once that she meant to go.
Of course she did — she was one of the Imperial Police, after all, and a girl with a fierce sense of justice and a heart to match.
So without a word he rose too, taking up the last "possession" he had left in the world: his sword.
"I'm coming with you!"
"Eh?" Seryu turned to him, ready to talk him out of it — only to find herself swept along by the righteous fire in his eyes.
Right.
They were two of a kind.
There'd be no stopping him.
"It's dangerous, you know."
"Hehe — I forgot to mention. I happen to be pretty strong myself." Tatsumi seized the moment to look as impressive as he possibly could.
The two of them left Seryu's home together and hurried off toward the source of the signal.
...
Meanwhile, Guy was dragging himself out of bed with the deepest possible reluctance.
"This blasted signal had to go off practically next door — no chance of pretending I slept through it now."
Scratching his head, he made his way to the cabinet beside his bed. Inside lay his Shingu the Thousand-Layer Clothes.
Only with it equipped was he, Guy, at his true and complete strength.
He hesitated — then left the Shingu where it was after all, pulling on his ordinary uniform instead and heading out to the scene.
...
Rat-a-tat-tat.
A dense hail of gunfire spilled out of the lavish mansion, ringing all the louder against the hush of the night sky.
"That's gunfire—?" Tatsumi swallowed.
In all his years he'd only ever seen firsthand what guns could do once.
Back when he was small, a Danger Beast had set its sights on the village, and they'd had no choice but to hire adventurers.
Those adventurers had cut down a whole swarm of the things with guns, easy as breathing.
All these years later, that thunderclap of sound and the meteor-quick speed of it were still burned vivid into his memory.
He just couldn't tell whether it was the enemy doing the shooting, or someone else entirely.
Seryu had heard the gunfire too, and her steps turned even more careful.
"We'll have to pick up the pace, Tatsumi. Think you can still keep up?"
"Heh — don't sell me short."
The two of them vaulted the outer wall at a blistering pace and tore through a belt of woods.
Tatsumi couldn't help muttering as he ran.
"The walls being this tall and this long, okay, fine — but they've got a whole forest on the grounds too? Just how loaded are these people?"
"Tatsumi — don't let your guard down. There it is!"
They burst out of the trees, and a scene washed red with blood unrolled before them.
A girl with long black hair was bearing down on two gun-toting guards at a speed that didn't seem possible.
Their guns might as well not have existed for all the threat they posed her — she slipped past every last bullet and was on top of them in a heartbeat.
"…To the grave," the girl murmured.
One horizontal stroke, one diagonal — two cuts, and both guards were dead.
The first opened one man's throat; the second all but split the other in two from the shoulder down.
A curse-poison spread through them, and in less than two breaths the pair had gone completely still, crumpling to the ground.
The whole thing unfolded in an instant, far too fast for Tatsumi to so much as react.
Even Seryu stood rooted where she was.
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