A few city blocks distant from the safehouse, a small hole opened in a wall, about a foot over from the door to a third story apartment. It wasn't a physical hole, made by a drill or a bullet; maybe not even a hole in any proper sense of the word. It was simply a direct connection between two coin sized circles on either side of the wall, a fundamental reshaping of the geometry of the area such that the space of those locations was seemlessly woven together. The portal sat there unchanging for five seconds, nothing visible through it except the far wall of the hallway. After that short wait, an eye appeared at the hole, flicking around the empty apartment. This also went on for near five seconds, ceasing when space reshaped itself into it's more natural state, the interior wall returning to an unblemished surface. Another brief delay, and then the sound of a key sliding into the lock, and the muted metallic thunk of a bolt retracting into the door. Said door inched open, and when it had done so enough, Shef stepped through into his living room and carefully latched and bolted the door behind him.
With the exception of himself, the room was, unsurprisingly, empty of people. Nothing under the table or behind the couch, nor behind the blinds. For the most part, said room was clean. Nothing on the floors, the bookshelves were orderly and occupied only by organized books, CDs, and files, the couch was also clean. The table stood out as slightly cluttered though, remnants of a meal, napkins, small tools, and a few sheafs of paper scattered across it. A glance into the kitchen and the bathroom confirmed them to be empty, the bedroom too. Not a full sweep, but Shef rarely did that; too tedious for the small likelihood of discovering something. In the bedroom, Shef removed a set of metal plates and polished spheres from his pockets, and tossed them into a drawer. They'd been completely useless for that battle, but. . .they were rather fun, and he felt there'd be some use for them in the future. Everything else in his pockets got tossed onto the bed, and he hung his coat in the closet next to a few others.
Shef headed back over to the bed, and stared down at it, eyes unfocused.
"Deal with those later," he mumbled. He was exhausted, drained, more than he had any right to be. Needed some rest before anything else, but. . .no, he wasn't going to deal with the pile of guns, magazines, and other tools just to sleep on the bed. Picking up one of the guns and a pair of glasses from the bedside table, he first stopped at the bathroom to remove his contacts, then headed into the living room. There he promptly laid himself down on the couch, pushing the gun underneath it. He drifted off quickly, into a light doze.
After just under an hour, Shef found himself conscious again, staring at the floor over the edge of the sofa cushions. His mind was clearer, a bit. He yawned, rolled over to face upwards, putting a pair of glasses on his face and staring for a few moments before anything else. It didn't take long for him to decide to review the day's events in his head. A sort of internal debriefing. It needed to be done since there hadn't been a full one, and he'd made mistakes, and he needed to address them. They'd arrived at the mansion without incident, nothing to note there. They'd spread out to search the mansion for the sanctuary, and he'd gone to the basement. That itself had been something of a mistake in retrospect, too suspicious, an odd place to start. He could have asked for a tour immediately and avoided numerous potential problems. Nothing major had occurred, thankfully. But it had led to the maid, Evi, managing to approach him
entirely unnoticed. He'd been certain he was more aware than that, had made efforts to keep himself constantly aware. Admittedly a basement would likely have had concrete floors, easier to sneak on in soft shoes. . .It was still a failure, something to note for the future. Green hair too, something he'd only seen a few times. On the whole, that event had been more than a little unnerving on a few levels. The tour, for what it was, had gone mostly without incident. It was when Shef had arrived back with the others that the next incident had occurred. He grimaced as he thought back on that. The scryer. He'd overreacted, obviously, but it had just been such a spontaneous bewildering event that he couldn't fathom even now how he should have reacted.
Not in the way he had, that much was certain. What a fucking stupid set of circumstances-- He forced his thoughts prematurely away from that incident, didn't really want to think about it right now.
"Moving on." Yoake had stolen the panties without problem, nothing to review there. The train battle was next. That had gone mostly well. He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or disturbed that he'd been able to independently determine the targetting of the system of the missiles though.
"Fucking gaydar guided missiles. . ." he grumbled, yawning. Battle had ended without much incident, then Tsukasa had shown up. This wouldn't have deserved mention save the fact that, once more, she'd gone immediately to flirting. With him. It had been almost the first thing she'd said. Perhaps she was just a flirt with everyone, and since there'd been no men present except Minato, he'd been the target?
But there were other possibilities. In both cases, flirting had been so
immediate, with Tsukasa focusing on him within seconds. Did she know him from somewhere back in France? Was she being paid off by someone? It certainly wasn't that he was naturally irresistable. He barked out a laugh that rang through the empty apartment. He'd need to gather some more information before coming to any conclusions regarding her, to be done another time. Next event of note was the sparring matches. Nothing to say about Vendellin, he'd seemed cautious, hadn't had many questions or seeming interest in trying out his powers, and in return, Shef hadn't said much to him. The man might have been content with observing, not a bad thing, but Shef really couldn't say. Fleur had been. . .distracted. He wasn't certain what to think about the fact that some people's abilities apparently involved a great deal of porn, except that he was rather glad that hadn't been the case for himself. Mary was meek, but her powers seemed promising in their own right. Yoake was better suited to teaching her, she needed someone to surprise and terrify her into fighting. It was for her own good, no need to feel guilty about that, right? Evi had been, honestly, fun. It had been stimulating to go up against another godslayer rather than Aramitama and the like, which took teams. It let him experiment more, without the possibility of endangering anyone, allowed a bit more creativity too, of a different kind. The strategies were different against a single person also focusing solely on figuring him out and defeating him. Thinking about it, probably something to be stressed again to her, that Aramitama or mononoke battles would generally
not be like that.
Also, christ, what the hell was up with her? How had someone who'd never been in a real fight before not been completely traumatized by being riddled with bullets, then having her chest cavity collapsed? Not that he wanted to traumatize someone, but it was frankly disconcerting. Had to be some kind of masochist or something. Not
that a big deal though.
Next event had been entering the sanctuary. Nothing important until they'd entered the sun and met Hitler. Faith had gotten the shit kicked out of her again, and had broken down. Fragile, both mentally and physically. Couldn't be helped, with her abilities focusing that much on offensive power, but still. Then Yuki'd been stripped. Once more, Shef berrated himself, for the fact that he'd stared, however briefly. It was seriously disturbing that he'd reacted as he did, no matter how natural. She was a teenager and a teammate, goddamnit! It would
not happen again, he told himself vehemently. If such a situation came up, he'd be prepared, both mentally, and with perhaps a new tool at his disposal. Not going to happen again. For this solution, Shef would need help, not something he thought he could figure out on his own. Best to get the help sooner than later, but he wasn't looking forward to it. He could probably put it off two days or so, right? It'd be useful when he got it though, he'd be able to prevent anyone from abusing that same distraction against him, might even be a measure to immobilize enemies.
Well, that had been the day. Not all of it, but the most pertinent parts. Even after the nap, he was still feeling worn out, but Shef pulled himself up anyway. Put on some dinner, turned on the TV to a news channel, then sat down at table with his gun. Dissassembling it wasn't necessary, it didn't wear down when used with his power, but he liked to keep in practice, and it helped relieve the stress. Stay familiar with the mechanisms, keep his fingers quick too. The full pistol was arrayed on the table in all its component parts in about twenty seconds. One by one he went through the formality of checking the pieces for scuffing, any powder marks, warping, until he came to the slide. He breath caught briefly.
On the inside near the slide release, normally concealed against the frame, was a series of small etchings. Numbers. Not a serial number, it was out of place for that, and he would have known about it. He'd designed the gun. By the spacing, Shef figured the numbers were probably a phone number. But placed there by whom, and why? Who'd have had access to the internals of his gun besides himself, and who, in accessing it, would decide to leave a signature rather than sabatoge?
Oh.
Right. Tsukasa. Was she serious? Face warping into a scowl, Shef marched over to the bedroom, and grabbed his phone before returning and began punching in the numbers, while muttering under his breath.
He sent off a text, brief.
. . .Don't carve stuff on my gun.
He tossed the phone down on the table and waited.
Author
Topic: Tengoku no Owari SI IC: Yuki Is (Not) Fine (Read 226671 times)