~INITIAL ENCOUNTER~
Work in progress. Currently working on Chapter 28.
PROLOGUE
SATURDAY / 10 JULY 2005 / 12:00 AM
PARIS
I am Stephan Leblanc. No, I was Stephan Leblanc.
My name was a lie, and so is this world.
All lies. Nothing but goddamned lies.
I look down upon the City of Lights -- all these people, with all their luxury vehicles and all their expensive gadgets -- from atop of the Eiffel Tower.
These maggots call me a monster. They think they are saints because they have a monster to point at while they wash their hands clean of their sins.
I hold a pendant in my hand. Within it is a picture of a red-haired girl – the only person who treated me like a human. She talked to me like one, held my hand as if I was one.
But now, she is no more.
Maki Hoshino… is dead.
I close my hands, grasping Maki’s pendant with all my might.
“Maki…" I cry. "I’m so sorry…”
My hand glows blue.
I turn to the skies, screaming Maki’s name in anger, raising my blue hand to the heavens.
Blue sparks of lightning shoot from my hand—
No, it was pure energy, pulsing through my hands like lightning, eager to lay judgment upon the maggots below.
My power answers to me: arcs of energy jump from my hand to the Eiffel Tower, turning it into a colossal beacon.
The Tower fires an arc of energy at a nearby car, shattering it and the worms within into pieces.
A second streak bursts forth at a crowd of people, erasing three of them from existence and burning the rest so horribly that death would be a mercy - a mercy no worthless maggot deserves.
Another arc blasts forth at a restaurant full of diners, turning them into specks of light.
Alas, Paris is truly the City of Lights!
Lights of death, from my shining blue hand. Lights of destruction, from my hatred and hopelessness. Lights of despair, which I shall give all of you sevenfold!
As my hands close, my gaze turns to the pitch-dark heavens.
Tonight, Stephan Leblanc is truly dead.
Tonight, I am born.
My name is Weisser Drache. I am the White Dragon.
==========
LINK 01
WEDNESDAY / 12 JUNE 2013 / 6:00 AM
SHIBUYA / TOKYO
“Wake up, sleepyhead!” says the alarm in a cutesy, girly voice.
Ugh, six already? I still want to sleep.
“Wake up, sleepyhead!”
But I’m not working today. I filed a vacation leave last Monday.
“Wake up, sleepyhead!” the alarm still says. God, I hate it when that alarm plays. Might as well ignore it and sleep more…
Wait, did I just say it? That today’s my vacation leave?
I open my eyes, and a poster of Madoka Kaname on my bedroom ceiling greets me with her huge pink eyes. Good morning, Akane. Good luck on your day today! she seems to say.
After a little push and a big yawn, I grab my Weiss-Smart smartphone from beside my pillow, hold it close to my face, and turn off the cute-but-cacophonic alarm ringtone I have set.
A message notification appears before me. I tap it gently, opening the message.
「Greetings, Ms. Akane Orikasa.」
「Today is your scheduled audition to become a member of our upcoming idol singing group, the “Trickstars”. Please come in your best idol costume and look as cute and adorable as possible – and make sure you have practiced your singing and dancing talent – in order to have a larger chance of becoming one of the faces fans will be willing to look forward to.」
「Audition starts at precisely 8:00 AM. See you there.」
「Skye Talent Agency」
Eh… What!? Today’s my audition?
Oh crap, how could I possibly forget this? I’ve always dreamed of being an idol ever since I watched the forty-eight girls. Now that I have a chance to be an idol singer myself, I’ll never forgive myself if this one-in-a-million chance flies by.
‘Madoka’ stares at me again, this time, saying something else: Now, hurry up, Akane, or you’ll be late for your audition. You want to stop being a glorified tea server and start being a celebrity, don’t you?
I jump off my bed, quickly and carefully fixing my pillows and blanket. “Towel, please?” I say on my way to the bathroom, and my towel comes off the rack and on my hand.
Ten minutes later, I walk out of the bathroom. I gesture my hand towards my closet. “Open, please!”
Both of its doors open wide. “Clothes, please!”
A hanger containing my blazer and pencil skirt flies to my hand— Wait! Wrong clothes. I’m going for an audition, not for work.
“Singing clothes, please?”
My office uniform flies back into the closet, and my audition costume – a white shirt with gold buttons and a huge red bow ribbon on the chest, a red vest with poofy sleeves and gold accents, red fingerless gloves, and a red pleated skirt with a white poofy underskirt – comes to me in its stead.
Perfect.
Another five minutes pass, and my idol costume is on, including my white thigh-length socks and red boots. All I need now is a nice red bow to complement my outfit and my hair.
I go in front of the mirror, gesturing to the hair ribbon on the nearby table. “Ribbon, please!” It flies to my hand, and I attach it behind my head, slightly to my left.
“Done!” I say, pumping my two fists in front of me with my burning determination.
I hold a peace pose in front of the mirror, announcing my catchphrase as I wink in the cutest way I could.
“Here comes Akane Orikasa!”
I gently open my apartment door, lest my neighbors wake up—
My stomach growls, and all of a sudden, I’m feeling like Artoria in a lion suit…
Damn no! I must get breakfast, or else it would be my stomach that’s singing during the audition – and that would spell the end of my still-nonexistent idol career.
Without making any sound, I close the door, rush towards my dining table, and there it is! I almost forgot my sandwich, my bento lunchbox, and my bottle of soy milk, and if that happened, I would have to buy my lunch – and auditions can last pretty much the whole day, so that could end up being a late lunch.
I reach my right arm out towards the table’s direction. “Come to me, please?”
My bag of food vibrates for a second, and voila, it flies straight into my hand!
I take out my sandwich. “Itadakimasu!”
I put the whole thing into my mouth, careful not to swallow it just yet. I then flick my pointy finger up – “Music, please?” I mumble through my full mouth – and from my breast pocket, my pink earphones attach straight into my ears, allowing me to listen to my playlist of J-Pop songs and prep myself up for today’s audition.
###
Only one hour left before the audition begins.
Left! Right! Left! Right! I pedal my pink bicycle as fast as I can, hoping to arrive at Skye Agency’s office as soon as possible. So here I am, riding a bike with my lunch bag inside the front basket – all while I am in my cute but relatively ridiculous outfit. I’m sure everyone is looking at me silly because of this. “The nail that sticks out gets hammered,” indeed.
No, I won’t let them hammer me down! I will be the squeaky wheel, and I will get the “grease” that is the singing career ahead of me.
“What’s that?”
There’s a crowd of people in front, and they’re all looking upwards. I stop and look up as well.
There’s a woman up at the rooftop of a six-story complex, standing shoeless outside the railing and on the edge.
She seems to be crying. No, it can’t be?
“Don’t jump, miss!” says a police officer through his microphone. “It doesn’t have to end this way!”
No way! If what I’m seeing is right, then I must save her.
I jump off my bike and walk towards the crowd.
“Have you no shame?” I hear one of the onlookers say.
“You’re being so selfish!” says another. “Think of your family, goddamit!”
This is terrible. How can they say these things? What she needs right now is someone to listen to her, not someone to shame her.
The woman leaps off the edge—
No, this can’t be! I won’t let her die. I won’t let sadness claim her life!
But alas, even running won’t let me catch up to her in time.
I close my eyes, not knowing if this would work.
“Teleport, please!”
A pink light flashes.
As I open my eyes, I’m right below the falling woman.
She falls right into my open arms, and we both fall onto the ground, me lying on my back. I stopped her from certain death! I saved her!
The woman opens her eyes, looking straight into mine. “Why? Why did you stop me?”
I have no idea what to say. My arms wrap around her, and she begins crying on my shoulder.
“I can feel your sadness,” I say. “It hurts when I see you hurt like this. So it’s okay. You can cry, if it makes you feel better.”
Around me, the blaring sounds of ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars wail like banshees. People are murmuring words I could barely understand, though I hear some still shaming her.
My vision blurs. Am I fainting? What on earth is happening to me?
==========
LINK 02
WEDNESDAY / 12 JUNE 2013 / 8:00 AM
SHIBUYA / TOKYO
The back alleys are mostly silent, with many of the people in the neighborhood already at work.
A lone salaryman slumps outside one of the homes, holding a sake bottle from last night’s mandatory company drinking party. His face is mildly pink – not as bad as last night, when he stumbled and fell at that exact spot, his face so red a Japanese oni would be proud of him.
An arc of blue energy zaps right in front of him.
“Eh?” the drunk says. “What’s that?”
A vertical disk of swirling blue energy appears out of thin air, blue lightning firing out of its borders as it grew, leaving scorch marks on mailboxes and electric posts around it.
“Oh, fuck this!” says the salaryman. “I’m outta here!”
He staggers away from the energy disk in a lurching zigzag, the effects of last night’s “revelry” still in his body.
A hand emerges from the swirling energy, and after a few seconds, a man steps out.
A tall, bald, muscular Caucasian man, clad in gray tactical trousers, combat boots, and a dark blue bomber jacket with the Russian word ‘sneg’ written on its left breast pocket.
As the portal behind him shrinks and closes, the man remains still. Only his eyes move. Scanning. Looking for something – or someone.
He sees a newspaper at the porch of one of the houses. He calmly picks it up and flips it open.
「Three Chinese Navy ships and a Filipino fishing boat were destroyed yesterday afternoon near the hotly-disputed Spratlys Islands. A lone surviving Filipino fisherman, who asked not to be named, told the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) that a ‘pillar of blue light’ descended from the sky, destroying the four vessels.」
The man smiles a bit and drops the newspaper.
His ear receiver rings, and he presses it. “Da. Hyojin here.”
He lets the person on the other line speak, nodding agreement every few seconds.
“Affirmative, sir,” he says. “Hyojin out.”
Hyojin walks out the back alley and into a wider network of roads. As he reaches the edge of the sidewalk, he pulls out his black Weiss-Smart phone, thumbs a few buttons, and opens a GPS map of Shibuya.
There is a blue blip labeled ‘TARGET’ on the map, and it’s pointing to a hospital.
He lets out a light smirk – “Easy target!” – and returns to his stone-face just as quickly.
He slides his finger over the screen, opening his photo gallery. It only has one picture, which he taps open.
It’s of a youthful Japanese woman in her early twenties. Her hair is cut to her shoulders, and she wears a red ribbon on the left side of her head.
There is a caption below the photograph.
「DIRECTIVE: CAPTURE AKANE ORIKASA.」
Hyojin clicks his phone off, pockets it, and looks to his right. He sees a few passers-by, going about their daily lives – but his sights are on his objective, and he will complete it.
He resumes walking along the sidewalk.
###
Three biker gangsters are hanging out at a sidewalk railing, their monster bikes parked beside them.
“Hey, bro!” says Dokuro the skinny one, tapping the fat one’s shoulder with his beer can. “How’s your ride going?”
“Pretty good!” answers Debu the fat one. “It was a close call. Those pigs just had to rain on our parade. Fucking government puppets!”
The three of them laugh as they raise their beer cans.
Tetsu, the leader with the pompadour, speaks while slurring his words. “Yeah, fuck the police! Fuck the government!”
As they’re about to drink their beer, Dokuro stops short. “Hey guys, look!” he says, pointing behind his two friends. “A fucking gaijin!”
Debu and Tetsu turn around, and they see a military-looking white guy walking towards their direction.
“Must be Russian or something,” says Tetsu as he points. “That word on his jacket is in Cyrillic.”
“Meh, who cares?” replies Debu. “He’s in Japan. He’s in our territory. He should fucking get out just like our ancestors showed his who’s boss.”
Dokuro drops his beer can and picks up a wooden bat with nails driven through it. The other two follow suit, with Debu using a metal pipe and Tetsu a pair of brass knuckles.
Hyojin continues walking forward on the sidewalk, but the three thugs block his path.
“Hey, gaijin!” mocks Dokuro. “Are you lost?”
Hyojin doesn’t answer.
“What?” adds Debu. “Can’t understand Japanese?”
Still no answer.
Tetsu sneers. “Of course he can’t! He’s a gaijin! He could never understand Japanese!”
“Fuck off,” Hyojin says in Russian.
Tetsu gets his ear closer to the foreigner’s face. “What’s that? I don’t speak anything non-Japanese, sorry!” They all laugh—
Hyojin grabs Pompadour Guy by the neck. “I said: fuck off!” he says once more, this time in Japanese.
Weapons raised, both Dokuro and Debu step back in horror as Tetsu chokes from the gaijin’s grip. Ice forms on his neck and covers his head, cutting off his breath until he stops breathing.
Hyojin crushes the now-frozen gangster’s neck, shattering it and dropping both the iced head and the limp body. The head hits the ground and breaks into several pieces.
“Oh fuck no! Let’s get out of here!”
Dokuro and Debu drop their weapons and run away from the gaijin—
Hyojin turns to the two cowards and fires two freeze rays from his hands, turning them into ice statues. He walks over to the frozen gangsters and pushes them to the ground without a care in the world, shattering them into bloody shards.
With no other distractions, Hyojin soldiers on, determined to accomplish his mission.
==========
LINK 03
It’s dark.
Where am I? Why do I feel like I am floating? Worst of all, why am I naked?
Am I dead?
“Akane?”
“Who’s there?”
I turn my head around, looking for where the feminine voice came from.
“Akane?” she calls once more, but from where?
“I'm right behind you,” whispers the voice from a distance.
I turn around. There, a speck of light shines in the darkness.
I tilt myself forward and glide towards the light.
As I get closer to it, the light grows and takes the shape of—
A girl! She looks like she's in the last years of high school. Her ethereal unclothed silhouette glows bright like the sun, while two ghostly sky-blue flames trail behind her head — a sight to behold that I can't gaze away from.
She has red hair, whose right half reached past her shoulder while the other half fell just past her ear.
A ghost?
“Don’t be afraid, Akane.” She reaches her hand out and holds onto mine. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Who are you?”.
I gaze at her eyes, and she gazes at mine. What lovely blue eyes she has!
They are filled with sadness, as if pleading for my help.
“I'm Maki Hoshino, and I have one favor to ask, Akane,” she tells me. “Please, save my beloved Stephan.”
“Why me?” I muttered. Who is Stephan, and why would she want me to save him?
“You’re the only one who can save him from the darkness in his heart, Akane,” she says. “The whole world’s safety is in your hands.”
“But, why, Miss Hoshino?” I plead. My head shakes in confusion. "What is Stephan doing?"
She holds my hand tighter. “Please, Akane! I know you can do this. Saving Stephan is the key to saving this world.”
###
WEDNESDAY / 12 JUNE 2013 / 9:00 AM
SHIBUYA / TOKYO
A nurse greets me as I open my eyes. “Hello, Miss Orikasa. Are you all right?”
I nod.
“Thank goodness you’re okay,” she adds. “I’m happy to inform you that the woman you’ve saved earlier is now having her injuries treated, and she wants to thank you.”
Thank goodness, indeed. The nurse takes the cold compress off my forehead. It would be on my conscience if the girl died – and much worse if I didn’t do anything to save her.
Pushing myself off the bed, I find my idol costume back on. Weird. I was naked in my dream.
The apparition from my dream came back to me, and I wonder: Just who was that red-haired girl, and why was she talking to me?
“Miss Orikasa, you should just lay down and have some more rest okay?”
A digital clock on the wall reads 09:05 A.M.
Wait? It’s past nine already! Oh crap, the audition has already started! My goodness, I am so late already.
I jump off the bed. “Thank you, miss!” I say, bowing to the nurse in a frenzy as I grab my lunch bag and scamper out of the door.
###
I had to slow down to a walk, unfortunately, as I am inside a medical center, and running would disturb those who are resting. As such, I have to lose some precious seconds in the name of peace and harmony. It can’t be helped, though.
Slowly I make it past a hallway of very few people—
Ah! What was that? My head hurts!
My head reacts to something behind the door beside me. It feels like someone's being broken down in here.
Could it be?
Clutching my head with my left hand, I open the ward door with my other hand—
“You whore!”
A woman in her late forties is launching a flurry of slaps on the bedridden patient, and I can feel each time the former hits the latter. “You’re only thinking of yourself! Haven’t you been thinking of how worried I was about you!?”
The patient looks familiar.
It’s the same woman I saved from her jump earlier – and here she is, being tormented by her mother for attempting to take her own life?
“You’re so selfish!” the woman says. “You have no consideration for others and especially for me!”
My right hand shakes at what I am witnessing. I can’t allow this!
“Stop it!”
The woman stops and glares at me with those murderously slanted eyes. “Who are you?”
“What gives you the right to hurt your daughter!?”
“Why do you care!? Who are you? This is our problem!”
“Of course I care! She almost killed herself because no one would listen to her!”
This is unforgivable. How dare she. I won't stand for this abuse!
“You're her mother, dammit!" I cry out. "You should be the one who best understands her feelings, and yet…”
“How dare you lecture me—”
“Shut up!” I scream.
I calm myself down, but one thing's for certain: I would never accept this blatant disregard of a person's suicidal feelings. Never.
“Your daughter doesn’t deserve a devil like you.”
I walk out of that room in disgust.
Becoming a part of the Trickstars is out of the question now. I’m just tired from all that happened this morning. Might as well go home and face reality: serving tea to my male co-workers while I endure their harassment.
It can’t be helped, though. Such is my bad luck.
###
As he walks through the streets of Shibuya, Hyojin’s eyes keep scanning from side to side, looking for signs of the girl with the ribbon.
He spots a yellow-taped area ahead of him, in front of a six-story building, with police officers surrounding it.
Hyojin approaches one of the guards. “What happened here?”
“A woman tried to jump off that ledge.” The officer points to the top of the building, then directs the foreigner’s eyes to the shallow, human-sized crater on the concrete. “A girl in an idol costume suddenly appeared with sparkles, just in time for her to save the jumping woman’s life.”
Hyojin is now sure that Akane has somehow been weakened, and is now a vulnerable target. All he has to locate is the hospital, ambush her, and complete his mission.
“Thank you,” he says, and then he resumes his walk.
###
A woman with neck-length, unkempt black hair approaches a convenience store’s cashier and bows with both hands holding her basket of purchases. “Excuse me, miss?” she says and stands out of her bow.
The cashier, glued to her smartphone, hesitates before paying attention to the customer. She is a youthful-looking woman, of university age, wearing a classic gym uniform ensemble – a short-sleeved white cotton shirt with her name “Sayaka Miyazawa” written in Kanji on her chest tag, a pair of navy blue bloomers, white knee-length socks and white running shoes with blue accents.
“Good morning, uh, Miss… Miyazawa,” says the cashier, setting her Weiss-Smart phone on the counter and bows because she failed to notice her customer right away. “How may I help you today?”
Sayaka sets the basket on the cashier table and takes out three identical red boxes of Pocky sticks – and one green tea-flavored KitKat.
The cashier quickly passes the goods through her scanner gun and announces the total price, which Sayaka produces out from her left hand’s glove and gives to her with both hands.
Sayaka adjusts her glasses as the cashier counts her money. “By the way, miss, what were you watching earlier? It sounded like news.”
“Ah, eh?” The cashier scratches the back of her head. “There’s this incident earlier this morning. A young lady in an idol costume appeared out of nowhere and saved some poor soul from certain death. I think they’re both in a hospital or something.”
A surge of insight flies into Sayaka’s thoughts like an electric current. A young lady appeared from nowhere? It must be…
“Here’s your change, Miss Miyazawa.” The cashier hands the extra money to Sayaka, which the latter takes using both hands and puts back inside her left glove.
Before she leaves, Sayaka gives one last, quick bow to the cashier. “Thank you. Have a nice day.”
The cashier returns the bow.
###
A feminine figure in a black motorcycle racing suit with a matching black helmet waits outside the convenience store, never leaving the seat of her black and red Suzuki Hayabusa motorbike.
The biker sees her partner, Sayaka, walk out of the store with the three boxes of Pocky – and a single green tea KitKat.
Seeing the three red boxes is enough to make her raise her helmet’s visor, revealing her face – some hints of her auburn hair as well as a full view of her confident brown eyes.
“Here you go, Miss Hathaway.” Sayaka hands the boxes over to the biker with her two hands, while the latter takes them with only her right one.
“Thanks, Sayaka.” The biker cracks one of the boxes open, rips the foil inside, takes out one chocolate stick, and places it into her mouth like it was a cigarette. “By the way, it’s Rachelle.”
Sayaka sighs as she hops on the motorbike behind Rachelle. “I’m still not used to addressing you the American way, I guess.”
“Nah, don’t mention it, Sayaka.”
“Wait a second!”
Sayaka tells Rachelle, who was munching another pretzel stick, about the news she heard from the cashier.
“Is that so?” Rachelle says as she snaps her pretzel in two and places them both inside her mouth. “Looks like we will be busy this morning, then, huh?” she adds while chewing on the treat, putting the two unopened boxes on her suit’s thigh pockets and the opened box on the bike’s customized compartment just above the speedometer.
Sayaka palms her face with her gloved left hand. “Uh? I hope you don’t mind, but maybe you shouldn’t talk when your mouth is full?”
“Sorry.” Rachelle gulps. “My mistake.” She closes her helmet visor down, and presses a button on her headgear’s right side.
“This is Percival to King Arthur!” she starts. “Galahad and I have confirmed where the girl is. Shall we proceed with our mission? Over.”
A female voice answers from the other line. “This is King Arthur. Permission granted. Track her down. Over.”
“And if we encounter any bad guys?”
“Avoid engaging hostiles if possible. We have to avoid civilians getting caught in this if we can. Bedivere is on standby, just in case. Over.”
“Thank you, King Arthur. Percival, out!”
Sayaka puts on her helmet – a white one with blue accents – and secures it. “Let’s go find her.”
“Okay, Sayaka! Let's go!”
Rachelle revs up the bike’s engines, and they take off in search of the girl.
==========
