Kita had suggested that the two of them walk through a particularly low traffic pedestrian platform near Uwada Enterprises. YF assumed it was to discuss when a search of Uwada’s building would occur, though Kita remained silent for at least twenty minutes while they walked further from the arterial road.

“This is not exactly the safest place in our neighborhood,” said YF.

“We’ll be fine Mr. Sakai.”

YF glanced at the large white characters for “Division 4” blazed on the back of her navy coat. “You don’t think we make for easy targets?”

“Trust me Mr. Sakai. I’ve made a career out of this and I believe we’ll be fine.”

“So what do you want to talk about?” asked YF, trying to keep his eyes from scanning the upper and lower platforms.

“That Mizuno has special taste,” Kita mused, shoving her hands into her coat pocket.

“What?”

“It’s just an observation, Mr. Sakai.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” YF said firmly.

“Such things are common among men in our circles, you know,” said Kita.

“As I’m sure it is among men of any circle,” YF muttered. “You’re really not that special.”

“My point is that I mean no condescension, just making an observation,” she repeated.

“It’s funny that all our social norms come from people like you,” said YF through gritted teeth. “Dramas, beauty streamers, celebrities with normal backgrounds like us — everyone wants to emulate what you do. But then behind closed doors you do whatever you want. Why don’t you just use your money or influence or whatever to loosen up some of these damn laws? Let those of us who live our lives drinking and smoking every minute of it we can away be a bit freer?”

Kita stopped in her tracks. “Mr. Sakai, real life does not resemble the script of an early evening drama,” she said in an unexpectedly stern tone. “There usually isn’t one person or even a group of people powerful enough to just change societal norms and laws. The so-called ‘high-born’ families you like to refer to, well,” Kita scoffed. “If you think everyone gets along and wishes to execute a coherent agenda, then you’re more naive than I thought.” She folded her arms. “You and I both would like to think we have some sort of iron grip over this country. If that were true it would be a simple explanation to both our problems.”

“Save the lecture,” said YF waving a hand. “But I’d appreciate it if you don’t remark about my friend’s particular tastes to other people.”

“I have no interest in doing that,” Kita replied with her characteristic smile.

YF started down the path. Within seconds, rain began pouring down, causing water accumulation on the upper level walkways before it flowed down over the sides. In addition to the streams from above, unobstructed rain coming at an angle caused both of them to quickly get drenched. Kita activated her neck band which formed her full face helmet along with multiple segmented panels ringing the band, creating a sort of umbrella over her shoulders. Still, the rain bypassed Kita’s shoulder shield, drenching her coat. YF took out a retractable umbrella from his utility belt and opened it, stepping toward Kita so that it would cover them both. He had bought it from a convenience store during the two weeks of patrols; rain came more often in the late summer months.

Kita turned her head toward him such that YF could see the opaque face mask over her helmet. She suddenly retracted it along with the shoulder panels, her neck band whirring for a second before going quiet. Her eyes went from his face to his neck, back to his face. “I can see why they like you so much.”

The sudden retracting of Kita’s helmet made YF very uncomfortable. There was always something unsettling about pure-bloods’ long fangs and cat-like eyes, particularly at such close range. Their strange, otherworldly beauty was not comforting either. “Let’s not keep Mr. Nakajima waiting,” YF suggested, turning back toward Uwada Enterprises where his scooter was parked. He began to move again.

“Sure,” Kita replied.

“So what are your thoughts about Uwada Enterprises?” asked YF.

“I will need to process that a bit more.”

“If I may be biased, I have to say that Nakajima is quite a bit sharper than Uwada,” said YF.

“What do you suggest we do about that?”

“You need to find a way to search his offices while you are still talking to him. He is not a man taken by anything — men, women, money, whatever. His only weakness is his need to present himself in as good an image as possible. From what I can see that means we will only have a small opening while you are talking to him.”

“And how would we conduct a search during that time?”

“Can you get your hands on a drone? Or a bot?” YF frowned just thinking about how expensive trying to find something like that last minute would be. “And I need it to be controllable from my receiver.”

Kita looked distracted by something. But after a short delay she gave one of her usual emotionless smiles. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Which maker and model number do you want?” she asked nonchalantly.

***

YF and Kita sat in the two chairs facing the door while Nakajima sat with his back to the door, the chair next to him empty. Nakajima did not seem pleased at all to see YF again so soon. That was, until Kita retrieved her box of expensive tea from her messenger bag. Before she could even place the box on the table, YF could see a look of joy wash over the sectarian leader’s face.

“Madam detective-san,” Nakajima started. “Is that…?”

“Tea from the eastern mountains, Mr. Nakajima.” She smiled. “For you. And you can drop the honorifics.”

“Madam detective,” he repeated. “Might we take a minute to brew some of this tea before we discuss work matters?”

“By all means,” said Kita.

“Miyagi,” Nakajima called, motioning for his subordinate to brew the tea. YF recognized him as the one who lit their cigarettes during his first visit. Miyagi walked to the side of the chairs and bowed low. He then took the bag and went away promptly.

When Miyagi came back with the tea, Nakajima waited for Kita to sip her tea first, which from YF’s vantage point looked like she barely touched it. After Kita set her cup down, Nakajima took multiple sips before breathing in deeply and placing the teacup down. “How can I help you Ms. Kita?”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“You know about the incident in Silver District,” she replied.

YF was waiting for her to take out some sort of hand terminal, but just like with Uwada, all she did was talk.

Nakajima looked to YF. “The patrolman here discussed the issue with me.”

“I understand that some people feel the need to protect themselves in the Villages using whatever means available to them,” said Kita. “Mr. Nakajima, imagine that you are a ground executor within your organization. One conducting direct business. If you felt unsafe in a particular area, how would you choose to defend yourself?”

“A knife,” said Nakajima, picking up the tea cup and sipping again. “It sounds distasteful but that is the way many here have protected themselves since perhaps the Village of Itsugo was first established.”

“What if you need something with a bit more range?” asked Kita. “Are all expected adversaries only wielding knives?”

“Let’s hope that nobody escalates the arms race,” said Nakajima. “It wouldn’t bode well for anyone.”

“There were incidents of firearms in the past,” Kita said softly. “Even before the restructuring.”

"Nothing like what was reported here though,” Nakajima mused.

“I see,” said Kita. She turned to YF. “I have something private I would like to discuss with Mr. Nakajima. Could you please wait on the bike?” She looked at Nakajima with feigned politeness. “We will need to leave soon after this meeting. If he gets ready first, it would help.”

“My men could take you to where you need to be,” Nakajima offered, eyeing YF.

“That will be quite all right,” said Kita with a smile. “I of course have some things to discuss with Mr. Sakai in private afterward.”

“I see,” Nakajima conceded with a hint of unease.

YF followed Nakajima’s men out to his scooter. When he was securely in the driver’s seat, he pulled out his receiver and scrolled around on it to make it look like he was doing some mindless activity until Nakajima’s men left. When they did, he navigated to his control application, typing in the MAC address of the bot Kita had bought and pressing “connect”. On his screen, the front and rear cameras appeared in a horizontally split fashion. YF turned off the rear camera and moved the bot forward. YF then steered the front two legs of the spider bot into view to make sure they worked. After pushing them out of the way, he navigated it further along the underside of the platform where Kita had placed it two blocks up, slowly making its way toward Nakajima Enterprises. When the bot arrived, YF deployed the artificial web material and lowered it to halfway between the bot’s platform and the next level below. He adjusted the camera until the vent opening was in view, then making the bot swing back and forth until it attached itself onto the vent grill. He navigated it through the opening and into the basement.

The spider crawled to the first closed door, where a panel with dimly glowing buttons was situated to the left. YF moved the bot as close to the panel as he could, then pressed the front legs into the crevices of the panel, cutting a square out from the metal. He activated the memory read/writer and watched as multiple nano threads came out of the spider’s front legs to press into the motherboard of the device. With a click, the door opened. YF retracted the threads and steered the spider through the opening into the room.

The room was very long and had multiple lanes, with counters about waist level and dividers all made of metal. It was very obviously a gun range. Guns weren’t legal before the restructuring, and still weren’t legal then, but YF had heard that sectarians had such underground gun ranges before. He breathed in deeply in admiration as he moved the camera through the room. The range was even better than the Ward Office’s when YF reported for annual firearms training. There were multiple archery targets placed at the end of the lanes, which looked out of place. YF squinted his eyes as he moved the camera across the room, looking for signs of firearm bolts, or where the firearms may be stored. The surprising thing was that he found absolutely nothing, not even a scorch mark. YF activated the olfactory mechanism of the bot, which did not catch anything either. There wasn’t even any sign of cigarette smoke. He spent about ten to fifteen more minutes as if going over the same corners would somehow change something. But there was still no indication anything had been amiss.

YF steered the bot out of the room and into the hall. He ran the pneumatic scanner to see if there were any unexpected sources of airflow. The scan itself drained a chunk of the battery and the real time airflow view afterward caused the battery level to drop faster than before. YF took a picture of the pneumatic view and shut the scan off. He overlaid the still view on top of the now restored camera view. There were two spots where air seemed to be coming out from between two wall panels. YF picked the first one and shoved one of the bot’s legs through the crack, activating the leg’s low quality camera. A grainy image of what was inside the compartment showed up on YF’s receiver, and though it looked like there were many racks for firearms, all of the racks were empty. He brought the bot to the second part of the wall. This time, there was nothing behind the panel except a single door. YF checked the battery on the bot, realizing he had to make some quick decisions. He pressed the radar scan button and then ran the procedure to automatically return the bot to where Kita had placed it with a delay of twenty seconds. He then immediately shut off the camera feed to his receiver to save battery.

Not long after he pocketed his receiver, Kita emerged from the office entrance with one of Nakajima’s men nearby. The man bowed deeply before closing the door behind her. She turned and walked up the platform to YF’s scooter before pressing her neckband and activating her helmet. “Ready to go?” she asked.

“Where to?” asked YF.

“We’re going to take a trip to Silver District before I head back to the Ward.” She paused, probably to look at the time on her heads up display. “There should be enough time.”

“That works,” said YF. “Come on.”

Kita climbed onto the pinion seat and wrapped her arms around YF’s waist.

YF pulled the throttle and pressed it down down, quickly gaining speed and ascending until he merged into the early morning traffic.

***

With the sun soon rising, both of them kept their helmets on while walking toward the crime scene. Kita pressed some buttons on her receiver to deactivate the temporary police barrier so that they could pass before reactivating it again. The two then continued down the narrow path toward the public square.

“Nobody in Itsugo fights with knives,” said YF.

“I figured,” said Kita.

“You have experience with knives?” asked YF.

“I never excelled much at combat training,” said Kita.

“So what would you figure?”

“It’s just a hunch,” said Kita. “But Mr. Sakai?”

“Yes?”

“I would be weary of that Uwada.”

“What do you know about Uwada?”

“Much of what can be considered safe in our world comes down to predictability,” said Kita. “Uwada is a volatile man. And for that reason it doesn’t matter much whether he’s a good man or a bad man. Moreover, it’s very obvious he has a strong dislike for you.”

“Yeah he’s my wife’s ex-boyfriend. They were very serious.”

Kita chuckled. “Men have often told me those sorts of things are not a problem. Though for all their pontificating about how simple they are I find they’re much more complex than they give themselves credit for.”

“Usually it can depend on whether or not they have somebody else in their lives,” said YF.

“So after what must be at least half or a full decade, why doesn’t he have somebody else?” asked Kita.

“That’s…a good question.”

Kita stopped walking and pulled out her receiver, navigating to somewhere and swiping toward YF. “I am sending you something to help us with our investigation.”

YF raised his receiver to his helmet, seeing the image of a black card with silver numbers. “What is this for?”

“During your regular patrols you can stop by a few of the hostess clubs and do some digging.”

“Can’t I just show them my badge?”

“Oh come now let’s not be naive,” said Kita. “Which way do you think will get you more information?”

“The sleazy cop way?”

“I wouldn’t put it in such terms Mr. Sakai,” said Kita. “But if that’s how you want to look at it that’s fine, so long as we figure this out.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” YF grimaced.

“Oh such feigned reluctance,” Kita mused. “Though I sincerely believe the girls will enjoy your company much more than you will theirs.”

YF frowned underneath his helmet. “Why’s that?”

“It’s just a hunch,” said Kita.