When they arrived in the public square, Kita pulled a box about two palm lengths long out of her bag and set it on the ground. After pushing some buttons on the surface, multiple hidden openings appeared where lasers fired out from the device and onto the building walls, moving in erratic circles while tracing the prevalent bolt marks. Over the next few minutes, the colors of the lights began to split into three — red, green, and blue — what YF could only guess meant the gunmen, the victims, and those unknown.
“It’s going to take a while because the tracer is not that accurate. Like most programs that count on learning models, they can only get us a chunk of the way. Then the hyperparameters need to be adjusted,” said Kita.
YF scratched his head. “Not sure what you’re talking about.”
“Use your memory to tweak the model please, Mr. Sakai.”
“Should’ve said it like that the first time,” YF murmured.
YF took some time to download the camera footage from his scooter and then spent a few minutes rewatching the clips. His scooter was never pointed straight into the plaza, which provided him with a less than satisfactory recreation of what he had seen. But for the next few hours YF tried his best to piece together the position of the bodies, drawing in no small part from his memory. He asked Kita to move the projected images multiple times, which eventually caused him to worry that he was bothering her. But no matter how many times he did it, she did not complain. YF was so focused on what he was doing he almost didn't see the six men in trenchcoats with fully opaque helmets enter the square.
He slowly stood up. "Ladies? Gentlemen? How can we help you?"
They did not respond, instead starting to fan out to cover any possible exits of the square. YF reached up toward his torso before Kita pressed her fingers gently against his wrist. “Better not to wake the tenants.”
YF glanced once at the rays of light streaming brightly into the square. With the sun moving quickly overhead to deter anybody sane from coming out, YF was not sure who she meant by “the tenants”.
All six of the newcomers withdrew long, fixed blade knives from their coats, each with full handguards.
“Baton!” Kita barked, lowering her hands.
“What baton?” asked YF.
Kita turned to him. Though he couldn’t see her expression through the opaque mask, he could imagine her expression. “Your issue one!”
“I never got one.”
“My word,” Kita tsked. She gripped the tail of her coat and flipped it back, pulling her retractable baton from her utility belt and flipping it into the air toward YF who barely caught it. She then reached down with both hands and pulled out two curved knives from each side with her index fingers through the end holes. YF had seen such knives in movies set in the southern continent of Jomura. But had never seen somebody in his country use them.
“Push the button,” she commanded as she brought her right leg back into a ready stance.
YF pressed the button in the middle of the baton handle, causing it to make a click sound as the telescoping segments extended outward. The first man lunged for Kita who parried with her left blade and flipped her blade right upward such that the curved blade edge was facing herself before smacking the man hard in the helmet with the blunt edge. A slow, sizzling sound followed the crack of the strike, the man yelling out and grabbing his face shield before backing away from Kita. He continued to move quickly backwards until he reached the shadows, stumbling and falling onto the metal platform with a thud.
On YF’s side, he back-stepped from a downward slash and then swiped his baton horizontally at the attacking woman, who dodged quickly out of range. When YF’s foot landed, he stepped up against his left foot with his right and then kicked out with his left, catching her in the stomach with a surprise sidekick. As she staggered, YF gripped the baton in both hands and swung at the woman’s helmet hard, sending her tumbling to the side onto the ground and smashing a hole the size of a golf ball near her ear. Immediately the sun’s rays touched her skin and started to burn her. She grabbed the side of her face and screamed, rolling weakly onto her stomach and then to her side to shield her face from the rays.
YF looked up to see the four remaining assailants standing still without approaching. Just when he regained his footing, time seemed to stop as Kita flew forward, weaving in and out of the positions of the three in front. As she passed by each enemy, she struck them hard on the facemask with a downward, hammer-like motion. YF watched the attackers react what seemed like several seconds after her maneuver, generally to raise their hands to their face. Time regained its speed when Kita stopped moving on the other side. YF shuddered as he recalled how quickly Yui moved before reaching YF’s position during their encounter in the warehouse.
The three hit by Kita retreated into two different alleys, leaving the one remaining assailant standing equidistant from Kita and YF. Kita stood up and lowered her knives. From their positions in the square, there was no way for the last man to escape unless he took down one of the police officers. The remaining man hesitated for a few seconds before picking up a second knife from the ground. He charged Kita, chambering his left hand under his right and then initiating a four count knife rave as closed the distance between him and her. As Kita started to move backward, YF could see in her staggering step that she was scared.
When the man reached her position she blocked or parried the first few attacks with her right knife. But after initiating the third flurry of strikes, one of the blades of her opponent caught onto her wrist, slicing through her thick leather jacket and nicking her skin underneath. At that point Kita reversed her right knife point-down so that the edge pointed out. She continued to back step as the man attacked, slowly making her way to his left side until she found an opening. When the man slashed down, Kita parried with her left and pushed the man’s hand down. The man tried to cross his own body to slash at her with his right but Kita pushed off of him and hesitated for half a second to allow the opponent’s knife to pass in front of her. Right after he did, she slashed diagonally downward with her right, opening a jagged gash through the man’s neck and slicing clear off the bottom of his helmet. The man dropped instantly, bleeding out all over the metal floor.
YF shuddered at the sound of Kita’s knife exiting the man’s neck, looking away instinctively. For the next few moments, YF’s thoughts went blank as he stared into the corner of the square, replaying what had just happened in his mind. The pounding of his heartbeat grew louder, the sounds of the city growing ever distant until they faded into the background. It was not until he felt the tips of Kita’s gloved fingers on his elbow that he snapped out of his trance.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt?” she asked.
YF turned to look at her. “I’m fine. Think we should report this and head out.”
“I already sent something to Magistrate Kuroda,” said Kita. “He said there are no available personnel to back us up. I told him the incident is over and that we would send any extra security footage we had.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
YF thought about how quickly she moved during her first attack. He glanced at his shoulder and then back to her. “I don’t have a body cam yet.”
“I didn’t bring mine either,” she said with what sounded like feigned regret.
YF recalled that there were no security cameras in the Silver District due to an old agreement between the sectarians and the Sentinels over the large amount of discreet transactions occurring there. As far as he knew, nothing had changed since those days, meaning that there would be no evidence of what he just saw Kita do.
Kita continued as if nothing had happened. “I’ll pick up the equipment and I was hoping you could drop me off at the train station,” she said, motioning toward the analyzer box. “Hopefully this excursion has not disrupted your patrols. If the Magistrate has any complaints, please direct them to me and I will address them.”
YF’s eyes followed Kita as she walked over to the analyzer box and crouched down gracefully as if wearing a kimono to pick it up. It was only then that in the corner of his eye he saw the dead, bleeding man still lying on the ground. A very strange feeling came over him as he brought his attention from Kita to the dead man. Once he did, his eyes refused to detach their gaze. YF started to walk toward the bleeding man as if in a trance, a wet thirst rising in his throat that felt like the gap between his mouth and his stomach was getting deeper and deeper.
He soon found himself standing over him, his knees automatically bending to close the distance between himself and the corpse. A sudden, firm grip on his elbow pulled him back into a standing position and snapped out of his trance. YF turned to see Kita next to him.
“Mr. Sakai,” she said firmly.
“Yes?”
Kita did not speak for some time. YF continued to stare at her face shield.
“You need to come with me,” she said.
“...Why?”
“Have your blood substitutes been not working as of late?” she asked with a trembling voice, her grip getting stronger.
YF frowned. “How…”
“Come on,” she repeated, tugging on his arm.
***
“Run the water cold until your nose is running. I should find you shivering when I return.”
That was what Kita had told him when she left over two hours ago. She only followed him up to the floor of his room, staying in the elevator as YF stepped out and the doors closed behind him. He walked out onto the balcony of the luxury hotel, still shivering from the cold shower water. Though it was a summer evening, the wind at such a high elevation was enough to continue cooling his skin. YF heard the door’s keypad being punched and turned around, seeing Kita standing in the doorway with a black box sealed with some sort of decorative, but heavy duty tape.
“Come on, I reserved a place for two hours,” she said.
“For what?” asked YF.
Kita’s eyes went to the corners of the room. “Privacy.”
YF figured she had to tell him something and was afraid there were hidden cameras or recorders, though he still was not quite sure where she was talking about. “Like a love hotel?”
Kita rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure who you’ve seen in your lifetime Mr. Sakai, but nobody who cares about their health would visit such places. Filled with disease and filth, if one needed to be discreet, one would just go out to the country. It’s only an hour drive.”
YF thought of the first time he and Erika had gone to the love hotel, and then the time that Reina had fled the charity dinner event with him to that place in Icchome. He continued to stare at Kita standing in the doorway. YF was sure that Reina’s social standing was much higher than hers, but Kita acted the part much better than the Aoshima Group heiress..
“Lead on then,” said YF.
The two of them went to the ground floor, where Kita seemed to be following signs for the private onsen. They arrived at the area just as the onsen maintenance oba-san came out from the door.
“Douzo,” she said with a bow, walking past them.
Kita bowed back and opened the wooden door, followed by YF behind.
“We’d have to go to the eastern countryside for a real onsen,” Kita noted. “These hotels are too high off the ground for natural springs. But we don’t have the time for that.”
“Are you from the east?” asked YF.
“A very astute observation.”
YF could not tell if she was making fun of him or not.
Kita opened the sauna door and placed the black box on the seat, turning on the rock furnace. She came out briefly to fill the bamboo bucket with water before going back inside. Soon after entering, Kita dumped water on the hot stones, causing the window inside to fog up. YF could only hear the sound of water evaporating over the stones for the next fifteen minutes until she came back out, sweat pouring down her face. Even in such a state, Kita retained her graceful appearance. A light, bamboo scent mixed with perspiration emanated from her toward where he sat next to the pool. YF looked away.
“Needs a bit more time,” she said.
YF assumed she was talking about the box. “What’s in it?”
“What’s in the box is what will keep you feeling normal for the next two weeks.”
It took a few moments for YF to piece together what was going on; when he did, the anger rising from his core dispelled any allure that the policewoman had over him. YF stood up and turned toward the door to open it.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not going to take whatever is in the box.”
Kita moved to the door, blocking him. “I pulled more strings than you can imagine to get that box and wasted half a vacation day on top of that, so you are not going anywhere.”
“What’s that to me?” asked YF, frowned.
“It means you are going to make yourself better.”
“I am not going to drink the blood of some child.”
“It’s not the blood of a child.”
“It’s the blood of a person,” said YF.
“It’s the blood of somebody who’s still alive.”
“Don’t you purebloods have some secret cellar filled with daywalkers where you farm their blood to satiate your appetite—”
Kita slapped YF so hard that he lost his balance and staggered, slipping on the wet stone floor before catching himself on a bench.
“Your prejudice knows no bounds Mr. Sakai. We are no saints but we are not monsters. I will have you know that the person who donated what you now have in your possession is very much alive and moving. She was handsomely compensated and it is in our interest to keep her as healthy and happy as possible. You’ve heard the Ardan story of the sandrunner who laid the golden eggs. Even if you think we are heartless fiends, it makes no sense to hurt the few people who are willing to help us.”
YF stared into her eyes, and noticed that she was crying tears of rage.
Kita sighed. “I would like nothing more than to cease our contact but unfortunately for the case we are working that is not possible. Goodbye, Mr. Sakai. I am sure you will hear from me soon.” She opened the onsen door and slammed it so hard the pipes lining the room shook.
YF slowly turned his gaze from the entrance to the sauna, where a corner of the black box was visible behind the thick fog.