Spring Upon the Solstice

XXVI - A Journey Across the Sea

{ 001 }

"Akuma-1, codename Sakura Four, register," I force myself to relax into the seat cushion. "Password phrase: Veritas."

My foot bounces furiously up and down on the accelerator pedal, which thankfully, doesn't have any power running into it, or else I'd be driving forward at sixty miles an hour straight into the wall—multiple times in a row.

I don't know why I'm so nervous. Or perhaps I'm not nervous, though my shaking hands say otherwise. I'm just...worried. Worried about the fate of the Kyoto kids, of my friends, but most of all, worried about what's happening in Hokkaido right now. Hokkaido, to put it bluntly, stands atop a whole new plane of fucked up problems, breaking pretty much all known conventions for Harbinger attacks. That being said, they've only attacked twice, but the point still remains.

Access granted. Welcome, 001.

Harbingers have never snuck up on us before. Jormungandr tripped biohazard warnings long before it surfaced in 2034. Charybdis gave me a total of five minutes. But this one? It caught us by surprise, and worse, it made landfall without even being noticed. What the hell is up with that?

I open my eyes, and the blinding light of my visor settles into mild discomfort.

"001, do I have your attention?"

The Leviathan has drawn the iron curtain over her anger once again, so it only comes off as a steel bat to the face rather than a knife to the heart. Nobody—and I mean, nobody, between the five other Princes under her command and all of HERALD—escapes that deadly apathy.

"Yes, Commander."

"Good. We'll be flying you out to Hokkaido soon."

"Commander, what is this Harbinger?"

"A beast. What more did you expect?"

"Yes, but what exactly is it? Nothing has ever caught us off guard before. Why now?"

"Namakemono can brief you on that. I need to contact House Acheron to divert our resources there. Good luck, 001."

With the same sporadic frequency at which she appears, the Leviathan once again evaporates into the silence, leaving me with nothing but a patronizing encouragement and some leftover sympathy.

"Thanks," I grumble. "But if you were going to show up just to say that, why say anything at all?"

I rifle through the cockpit cabinets as the entire hangar floor rumbles towards the surface of New Katachi, its roof parting like a missile silo to allow us through. Nothing new about that. What really upsets me is my book—or lack thereof. Unfortunately, The Kingdom isn't in print anymore and sure, I could probably download it off some torrent site, but nothing beats the feeling of turning pages with your own hands. I can only hope that maybe it survived my battle with the Second Harbinger, and that maybe the cleaning crew didn't toss it in the incinerator.

"Hey, Namakemono?" I hit the intercom with my elbow, still struggling with my search.

"Here," she cuts into my audio feed, abrupt and tactless as ever. "Don't expect me to linger too long. In the middle of cutting all broadcasts to and from Hokkaido, and I need to play catch-up with this mess."

Well, Nakamura's book isn't here. Fantastic. Guess I'll have to wait until I make it back to read about Yurika and her adventures in the underworld. So much for the paperback experience.