Quiet Time

"I've gotta say Izumi, it really feels like you were slacking off." Chizuru said, munching on a snack. "After all, we decided you'd take on Riko since she was a known element, but you kinda got your ass handed to you"

"I know..."

Izumi's wounds were nothing to scoff at, but they could be healed pretty easily. Her bruised ego? not so much. Chizuru's prodding wasn't helping much either. "But at least I didn't get outrun by some newbie twerp."

"Oh shut up. He might've been an idiot, but he's quick on his skates, if nothing else." She countered.

"I wonder where he learned those skills. You're not exactly a chump when it comes to speed."

They were walking down main street, the hustle and bustle around us a stark, comforting contrast after the eerie silence of the arena. A lot of the old abandoned buildings that the town had been built into were still covered in vines, the spots that weren't covered in vines (and even some that were) covered instead with boisterous graffiti, clearly painted over countless previous layers, each one adding something new to main street. It was a style that was evergreen by nature, on account of both the vines and the ever-changing graffiti that often didn't last more than a week. Always something new, and yet still forever the same.

However, while main street tended to have graffiti that was less boundary-pushing, that didn't mean it was bereft of newer styles, just that those styles tended to play a lesser role in the overall look of the place. Of everywhere in town, main street was probably the most boring; the safest. Most would say it was hardly worthy to be the main street of Hyper-Tokyo.

But that didn't mean there weren't places worth visiting. As Izumi and Chizuru continued their bantering, they walked into a shop. It was one of the less stuffy places—although to say it was less stuffy would be like saying that the ocean has a little bit of water—embracing much more vibrant colours, which were broken up with varnished wood and hanging filament bulbs. The clash of aesthetics was in and of itself a popular aesthetic, after all.

"Two of the usual, please!" Chizuru called out to the clearly empty counter.

"You got it, boss" said someone coming over from the staff bathroom. His name was Tetsuya, and the shop was empty as usual. A crying shame, thought Chizuru. She'd known about this place for most of her life and had never found a better ramen place. Being tucked away in an unassuming corner had its drawbacks though, main street or not. The place barely got any customers, leading to Chizuru trying to talk Tetsuya into moving the place at least once a week, sometimes more. Her attempts unfortunately bore no fruit however, and Tetsuya stubbornly refused to move shop. In his words: "this place is where it has to be. If I move elsewhere in town, I might as well just pack up and leave, and at that point why should I stay in Hyper-Tokyo? Why not just make the trek to some other settlement, like Neo-Osaka, or Sendai-2?"

It was an argument he's used before, but Chizuru figured he probably didn't want to deal with the amount of customers that would inevitably show up if his ramen shop wasn't damn near the hardest place to find in Hyper-Tokyo, let alone main street.

"Say," Tetsuya continued, "You two had a game of Drop Volley today right? How'd that go?"

"Izumi and Riko beat the shit out of each other" Chizuru replied, earning an elbow in the ribs from Izumi. "We won though, despite it all. And I'm including Izumi's seeming inability to ever use any of her runes in 'all of that.' I mean, just look at her! Still tatted to high hell."

"I wish I could've seen it. Unfortunately some strange characters decided to show up around then, so I wasn't able to close up shop."

"Strange characters?" Izumi asked.

"Yeah, they were all wearing the same duds. Really weird."

"The same clothes? What, were they part of a cult or something?"

Chizuru chimed in, "what if they were part of the cult of ramen, scouring the lands for the ultimate ramen shop?"

Tetsuya placed our bowls of ramen in front of us. "Nah, I don't think they were part of a religion. Or at least, not primarily. Call it a hunch, but I feel like religion wasn't the primary motivator."

"What could it have been then?" Chizuru asked. "did they have any distinct features?"

"I guess you could say the clothes were pretty distinctive. They were all wearing black pants with a shirt covered up by some kind of... something on top. Like a jacket or something, although jacket maybe feels like the wrong word. I'm not really sure how to describe it."

"Ooh, did you overhear anything they were talking about?"

"Not much. They seemed like they were on edge, ordering in broken sentences and talking in some language I didn't understand."

"Weird," Izumi said. "You figure they were up to anything?"

"They have to be up to no good!" Chizuru jumped in. "Nobody wears the same weird clothes as all their friends to go to a ramen shop. That's weird as hell."

Tetsuya laughed. "I don't know if I'd go so far as to say they're up to something, but it sure was a weird experience."

"I wonder what they were talking about..." Izumi muttered, her mouth full of the last of her ramen.

Silence streched out between the three of them for a moment before Chizuru stepped in. "Anyways, thanks for the meal and the chat. We should probably get going, but it's always a joy to come here. I'd say it's a shame there aren't more customers, but the quiet is pretty nice. Maybe you've got a point."

"Damn, you must've been hit pretty hard if you're seeing my perspective on this" Tetsuya chuckled. "Take care you two." He gave a small wave as Chizuru pulled a lost-in-thought Izumi out of her chair and back onto main street.

***

They were starting to regret not asking for more details about the clothes those weird people at the ramen shop were wearing, not that it would have really changed anything. They had seen at least a dozen different people wearing nothing but plain black clothes. They could be found rounding corners, disappearing into crowds, and otherwise slinking away before they could be confronted.

"Maybe they're part of one of the other settlements?" Izumi said. "I've heard that the fashion over in Sendai-2 has been in a bit of a strange place recently. Maybe that has something to do with it?"

Silence stretched out between the two of them.

"Well either way, I'm gonna punch someone if something bad happens because of this." Chizuru eventually said.

She looked over to her side to see Izumi lost in thought. She sighed at the sight.

Just then, someone in a strange, all black outfit brushed past Chizuru, disappearing into the sparse crowd. Making the split-second decision of whether to leave Izumi behind, she rushed forward alone, but for some reason the guy was nowhere to be seen.

Where did he go?

As she was pondering where the guy had gone, Chizuru heard Izumi's voice from behind her.

"Chizuru? Oh there you are! I was a bit worried"

"Yeah, sorry. I figured I could try and trail one of those shady guys, but they're just too slippery."

***

"Reports are coming in, sir! It appears that the inhabitants of the settlement in the ruins of downtown Tokyo exhibit the same strange abilities as we have seen elsewhere."

"Thank you for the report. You are dismissed."

The room was large, with a circular table in the center, each seat around the table filled.

"Clearly we need to act quickly and decisively. This could easily escalate into a threat that we have no way of controlling!" One of them said.

"If they have those abilities, our only hope is to take them out before they can recognize us as a threat!" Another chimed in.

"Would it not be better to infiltrate their ranks? We are also clearly lacking intel," countered a third.

Voices erupted in boisterous chatter, almost everyone trying to talk over each other. The man who dismissed the courier sat in silence, watching everything play out for a few minutes before lazily raising a hand. Within moments the cacophony had died down.

"The matter is settled. We attack at midnight. That is all."

He stood up and started walking away, waving a dismissal before anyone had any chance to say anything. Of course, that didn't stop them from continuing to bicker amongst themselves after he left. His advisor stood up and followed him, not wanting to deal with the headache that would inevitably accompany the clamor at the table.

"Sir, are you sure this is a good idea? After all, our Intel suggests that they don't even know we exist."

"We will show them. They have humiliated us before, and we will suffer no such indignity again."