Chapter 3.5

After Reiko set her down and she took a moment to breathe, Kanna remembered that the witch that had almost cast her into the abyss had given her a job.

Kanna’s shaky hands reached into her pockets to fetch her radio. Part of her was surprised it was still there.

“S-Sachiko,” she stammered. “Where are you?”

Sachiko’s terse voice replied.

“I’ve secured the boy. He’s with Chief Shinomiya now.”

“Good…” Kanna trailed off.

“Kanna?” Reiko placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You alright?”

“Right,” she took a deep breath, then slapped her face with both hands. “Sachiko, any update on the others from Section Eight?”

“The Commission is converging beneath Castle Gramarye,” Sachiko responded, “but there’s no sign of Miss Kobayashi or Miss Kazama.”

“What about the castle itself?”

“The drone footage shows nothing. If they’re there, then they’re already inside,” Sachiko paused. “There is one thing though.”

“What?”

“Miss Kobayashi and Miss Kazama were taken in a van,” Sachiko explained. “After we lost sight of them, several vehicles matching its description began circulating the perimeter beneath the castle, guarded by Commission escorts.”

“They must be trying to find the appropriate time to slip them into the castle undetected,” Reiko speculated. “But why run decoys?”

“They’re in a van. How do they get up there?” Kanna pointed.

“Lots of ways if you use magic.”

“Search,” Baba Yaga’s secretary, Natalia, closed her eyes and scanned Sapporo’s midnight horizon. “There are three imaginarium signatures aboard the vans your assistant is speaking about.”

“The Taboo?” Reiko asked.

“Or more distractions,” Natalia growled. “They know we’re coming.”

“I don’t care,” Reiko snapped. “Kanna, we should start with the vans. We’ve got no other leads.”

“Mrs. Samukawa,” Sachiko said. “What Captain Nakamura is suggesting is leading an assault on government agents. This is not the same as taking Section Eight into protective custody. The legal ramifications, the damage to Samukawa Group’s reputation, our ability to secure government contracts. We might never recover.”

Kanna gripped her radio.

“We made a deal, businesswoman,” Baba Yaga scowled.

Reiko knew she had no right to ask, but a deeper obligation stirred inside her. To protect Miyuki and Fujiko was her duty as their superior, yes, but something more clawed away at her, something primeval, not unlike the despair of a desperate parent.

Except Fujiko isn’t even my daughter.

And yet Reiko tugged at Kanna’s shoulders and pleaded.

“Kanna, I will not allow them to undergo an ascension. They can’t. She can’t.”

“...Sachiko,” Kanna decided. “Pull the sentries and drones. Pull everyone back.”

“Kanna!” Reiko cried.

“The Commission knows we’re watching,” Kanna replied. “If we pretend we’ve given up, maybe they’ll slip. Make a mistake. Sachiko, get the garage ready.”

“...Yes, m’am.”

“Sachiko’ll give you the locations of each van,” Kanna handed Reiko a spare radio from her other pocket. “She’ll run cover for you, but as far as intercepting them, you’re on your own.”

“Thank you,” Reiko whispered.

A clarion chime shook the sky. Belltowers stationed on Castle Gramarye’s ramparts tolled. Its bedrock lurched forward and began to rise.

Baba Yaga wrapped herself in her arms as if suddenly cold.

“I’m afraid my personal participation must also end here,” she grimaced.

“Is the ascension starting?” Reiko breathed.

“I can intervene no further.” Baba Yaga shook her head. “Maria, you’re in charge. I must return to the castle.”

“My lady,” Maria Akhmatova bowed with a low, husky monotone.

Baba Yaga blinked off the roof in another stream of light. Maria turned to Reiko.

“We’ll make the first move,” she said. “Converge with us on the final vehicle if our targets come up empty.”

The witch’s escorts vanished from the roof.

“Sachiko’s prepared your ride,” Kanna said. “We should head down.”

“Want to jump into my arms again, princess?”

“Let’s take the elevators. Please.”

They descended to the garage beneath headquarters. Sachiko waited there with a pair of motorcycles. A pistol holster was clipped to her belt. A rifle was slung over her shoulder.

“I hope you’ve driven one before,” Kanna said.

“The targets,” Sachiko interjected, “have run a fixed route, a box beneath Castle Gramarye between North 5th and 1st. Each van is accompanied by escorts, I’ve counted a dozen mages each. I recommend intercepting our target when it turns north parallel to headquarters.”

“You came around to the plan really quickly,” Reiko observed.

“I do as Mrs. Samukawa asks,” Sachiko revved her engine. “I’ve allowed Chief Shinomiya to access this frequency. I’ll cover you, captain.”

Sachiko’s motorcycle screeched out of the garage.

“Before you go,” Kanna said. “I need to know. This ritual. Why are you so insistent on stopping it? Isn’t it every mage’s dream to ascend to Egregore?”

Reiko smiled weakly.

“You run a major conglomerate,” she answered. “You should know that everything has a price. The price for Kobayashi and Kazama would be too great.”

“And what’s the price?”

Reiko considered staying silent. Reason insisted she remain tight-lipped. These were state secrets, but she had asked Kanna to risk herself, risk everything maybe, for Reiko and her juniors who she hardly knew.

Besides, a part of her just wanted someone else to know.

“The price to become an Egregore,” Reiko gunned her engines, “is to commit Taboo.”

Reiko slammed the accelerator and her machine burst out of the garage. Stale frigid winds kicked against her face as she found herself again in the shadow of Castle Gramarye.

In the distance, Reiko heard panicked screeching followed by a battery of mechanical tumbles. Her radio flared to life.

“Captain,” Sachiko said, “the Egregore’s security has engaged the first van. The second and third convoys are shifting routes.”

“We’ll take the closest one.”

“Affirmative. Make your way to National Route 230. The convoy is running east towards the river.”

Reiko swerved left at the next intersection, cruising past streetlights hanging over empty bus stops. The only other lights that night lay further ahead, crimson backlights dotting the horizon like bright hives.

“Reiko?” a different voice came through the radio.

“Kazuo?” Reiko responded. “You’re safe!”

“Thanks to Mrs. Polar Bear,” Kazuo sighed, “but we can celebrate later. We need to talk about Arataki.”

“He’s put up Kobayashi and Kazama for ascension. We have to stop it.”

“I fear this runs deeper than that,” Kazuo warned. “The PM’s Cabinet is ripping itself apart, swearing and denying allegiances to him and the NPSC. The Americans have been too quiet despite the fact that Lisa Everest was just killed. The vultures are circling, Rei.”

“None of that matters right now,” Reiko scowled. “I’ll leave the politics to you. I have two juniors to save.”

“I have a clear shot at the next intersection,” Sachiko broke the conversation. “Engaging in three, two, one. Mark.”

Gunfire burst in quick succession and cracked open the night. Backlights flared as Reiko closed in, and she could discern the silhouettes of motorcycles circling a van. A concentrated bulletstorm detonated in a spray of sparks around the rear axles of the lead vehicles, their wheels protected by menacing red auras.

“Wards,” Sachiko reported, calmly. “I’ll draw away part of the vanguard, captain. I’ll shake them off and leave the rest to you.”

Additional rounds peppered the air in sharp, strident snaps, and several motorbikes peeled off the convoy in pursuit. The cloaked mages forming the rearguard noticed Reiko gaining on the van. Collectively, they lifted their hands.

The road between them and Reiko split open, and Reiko weaved through fields of asphalt buckled upwards like newly formed stalagmites and veered around street blocks that nosedived into cavernous canyons.

A flurry of elements, fire, lightning, and ice, hurled themselves in her direction and dissolved on Reiko’s own wards. As harmless as they appeared, the attacks slowed her advance. The distance between the van and Reiko widened.

Reiko leaned forward and tightened her grip on the handlebars. She jammed her foot on the gas, closed her eyes, and envisioned the engines beneath her flooded with blazing imaginarium.

Her machine roared to life like hot spurs pressed to a steed. It charged, fearlessly, smashing through cresting waves of towering asphalt and flying across the fractures tearing open Sapporo’s streets.

Reiko snapped her fingers and ignited the imaginarium down the length of the highway. Flame-wrought lances rose above each streetlamp and showered the convoy with brilliance rivaling light at dawn. Reiko dashed past the explosions hurling humans and machines to the pavement.

She drew close to the rear of the van, latched a hand onto the backdoor, and pulled it open to find nobody inside.

“Sachiko,” Reiko shouted. “This one’s a decoy. Where’s the last convoy?”

“One moment,” a trio of rounds crackled through the radio. “It’s running north along National Route 5.”

Reiko banked off the empty van and turned at the next streetlight.

“What about the Egregore’s escorts? We’re supposed to meet at the last van.”

“I can get their attention.”

In the distance, a signal flare shot across the surrounding mid-rises, casting copper radiance against everything around it.

“The van’s changed course,” Sachiko said, “moving west now along the Belt Line towards the university.”

Three familiar shadows blinked around Reiko.

“Anything?” asked Maria.

“Nothing,” Reiko answered. “I assume you came up empty too.”

“Our hopes rest with this final carriage,” Maria said. “Let us go.”

Reiko swerved onto the Belt Line and overclocked the engine with another blast of imaginarium. The machine buckled; it wouldn’t take more abuse, but Reiko only needed it to hold for one final sprint.

The last remaining convoy barreled down the straight away. The Commission’s remaining mages flocked around the van like bees protecting their queen.

A lone motorcycle screamed into the T-junction up ahead. Sachiko cranked her high beams to maximum and behind a blinding white light, emptied her assault rifle into the incoming van.

Bullets deflected off the van’s ward, but the convoy scattered to avoid both the high beams and bullets ricochetting off of each vehicle.

Baba Yaga’s security pounced on the stragglers like wolves singling out the weak. Maria Akhmatova dived through the enemy formation. She slammed the ground, releasing a concussive blast that hurled every other mage away.

Reiko raced through machine carcasses and flailing bodies. Her hands gripped the rear handle and threw open the doors.

Please. Please, Natsuko.

But the final van lay empty.