Three Contracts

The board sat in a nervous silence as they waited for Ito to stop crying. If it weren’t for the fact that he could shred them all in an instant if he wanted to, they would be comfortably at home. A young intern ran back and forth, delivering messages and memos. For some reason, no one dared speak, so any communication was carried out via written notes.

Ito collected himself and put his hand on the table. He hit a button on a remote and the projector turned on with a soft whir. A few of the members coughed and shifted in their seats.

The first slide was titled “About Me”.

“Hello, my name is Masaki Ito. I’m from the Kanto region. Recently I haven’t been able to remember exactly where though. I used to enjoy writing Haiku and cooking”

The board said hello. Ito clicked the button again and the slide changed. This time it displayed an image of Shibuya crossing. Next to it was a map of the same area, with a radius of one mile scribbled out.

“In three, no, two days. Three days. In three days God is going to turn their eye towards Shibuya crossing. If anyone is within a mile radius, God will begin to manifest and we’ll all die”

Several notes were passed around, all asking the same question. Which god?
The next slide simply stated “plan”. The text was annoyingly offcentered.

“So, in order to stop that, from uh, happening, we should evacuate that area. I’ll need all your help, of course, but it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t…sorry”

Ito rubbed his eye, then some more, and some more, and he wished he hadn’t rubbed his eye or drank the sap or left his house.

As he clawed at his face and sobbed, one of the board members stood up. He was young and smartly dressed, with a neat haircut that demanded attention.

“Ito-sama, while you have no doubt proven that you possess unique capabilities, you must understand that such a plan is not to be taken lightly. How do you know this “god” will do what you say?”

Ito was crying again.

“Please do it. I don’t have any way to prove anything. It’s just going to happen, understand?” he wailed.

The board member frowned and pulled out a mobile phone.

“Please be aware that we now have at our disposal a certain god. We don’t want trouble, but don’t think you can use brute force to get your way”

He typed in a number and held his finger over the enter button.

“If you’re willing, I’m sure the Decider's guild would appreciate someone like you on their side. That way you can actually help people”

Ito leapt onto the table and pointed at the board member.

“No, you don’t understand. You really don’t. Not a single person here has any idea what’s going to happen”

The unlucky board member pressed the call button.

At the same moment, every single drinking glass in the room shattered. Everyone sat frozen in their seats. The broken glass began moving towards Ito, who reached his hand out.

The shards embedded themselves into his hand, until his entire fist was covered in glass. He crouched in front of the man holding the phone.

“Yello, what seems to be the issue?” a cheery voice said over the speakerphone.

“N-nothing, just a mistake, sorry”

The board member’s voice was shaky, and his face had gone pale.

“Oh thank god. I’m in the bath right now and I was worried I was gonna have to get out. Night.”

The line went dead.

The room was silent. Ito sank to his knees and held out his hand to the board member.

“Do as I say and we’ll all be fine”

***

Isaac dried off his hair with a towel while Em sat in the bed and polished her gun.

“Who called?” she asked, flicking a speck of dust off the barrel.

“Huh? Oh yeah, that was someone from the guild. Just a butt dial”

Em stopped cleaning her gun and looked out the window. It was a pretty night, and the sky was unusually clear. The moon was almost full, maybe just another day or two until it was complete.

“Isaac, I want to talk”

He pulled an old t-shirt over his head. It wasn’t often that she called him by his name. The bed squeaked as he practically threw himself next to her. His chin rested on his hand.

“Go ahead, I’m all ears”

Em set her gun down next to the bed and looked Isaac directly in the eyes.
“I think we should start spending more time together”

“We already do, right?”

“No, not enough. I mean we should quite the decider’s guild and retire”

Isaac frowned.

“You don’t look so good. Did something happen?”

“I’m scared of dying, Isaac. I don’t want my last moments to be spent fighting an angel or doing recon missions. Things are weirder than they were before. I don’t like Jesse. I don’t like that he killed a god and won’t tell us how. I don’t like that that guy ‘accidentally’ called you. Something’s going on and I want no part in it”

Her face was completely blank now. Isaac leaned over and gave her a warm hug.

“I won’t let anything bad happen”

“Don’t make promises like that”

“It’s true though. Here.” he said, gripping her shoulders and staring into her dull gray eyes.

“I, Isaac, promise that I will protect you from anything that tries to hurt you, make you unhappy, or otherwise prevent you from living your life the way you want”

He smiled.
“Is that serious enough for you?”

His grandiose promise was met with another hollow stare.

***

Rumors about strange things going on at a certain building fell on deaf ears, as Scarlet and Zaza had more important things to discuss: mainly, what to order for breakfast. Yoshi had already chosen, although she would have preferred to have three pancakes instead of two.

“I’m going to go with the tamagoyaki” Scarlet said, stirring her tea with an elegant spoon.

Zaza sighed and leaned her head back.

“If you don’t mind me asking, are you a religious person?”

Scarlet’s eyes widened.

“No, not really. Jesse insists we do family prayer, but outside of that, I haven’t put much thought to it”

The waiter arrived and took their order.

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I never really took you for the type. Out of curiosity, what group?”

“Which….group?”

“Ah, sorry. I mean, which religious group does Jesse belong to?”

Yoshi knocked over her glass of milk and they had to stop a waiter to get some towels. She looked very pleased with herself for the trouble she had caused. The food arrived soon after.

Zaza made a few more attempts to bring up Jesse’s spirituality, but something always seemed to come up.

After they had finished eating, Zaza got out of her chair.

“I’ve got to run. Thanks for hanging out. We should do this again sometime”

Scarlet nodded.

“I don’t get out of the house much, so this was nice. I think it’ll be good for Yoshi as well”

“How about tomorrow?”

Scarlet thought that was a bit soon, but she didn’t want to offend, so she smiled and held out her hand. Zaza took it and they shook, sealing the contract.