Solving Problems and Kicking Butt

Before my eyes could even process it, I was standing on the side of the stage with my gun pointed at the big crazy insane stupid ghost-dragon screaming its lungs out in front of me. I looked behind, and saw Yoshio and Ouki behind me. The poor magician kid seemed to have been hurt badly, thrown into the wall by the weight of the beast.

“Yoshio. Is he okay?” I said, with my gun pointed with one hand and my knife in the other. I didn’t want to fire it with a normal kid like Yoshio around, lest it might hurt his ears.

“Y…Yeah, he’s just… a bit…” He began to stutter.

“Then go. You being safe is more important than anything, and find someone to take care of him!” I shouted. Yoshio understood my urgency immediately, as I couldn’t risk him getting hurt at all.

He carried Ouki on his back, and began to run away. Good. That was the first thing I needed to secure, but now I needed to deal with the dragon in the room. The crackling rift sparkled from the top rafters, as the creature rampaged through the room.

“Do we have any ETA on the cops? If I’m comparing it to the last dragon, this thing probably can tank shotgun blasts like they were nothing,” I mentally asked Miharu.

“No clue. But we need to hold out until then. If we shut down the portal, then we can shut down the dragon. So we need to stay strong!” Miharu responded. As much as I hated being forced into these high-stakes situations, we had no other choice.

“Right. But what if instead I ended this instantly?” I said, before with a burst of speed, I leapt towards the portal in the top rafters. If I could get to sealing it immediately, maybe I wouldn’t even need the cops’ help.

Mid-air, however, I felt the transparent strike of the dragon’s claw immediately hit my face. It slammed me far back into the audience seats, and I felt the cracking of every bone in my body.

“AGH! OW! GOD DAMN-!”

I shouted various expletives as Miharu repaired the damage to my body. It still hurt like hell, though.

“You can’t just run up there, idiot. It’s just going to kill us before we seal it, and then this problem becomes permanent. Think of a better plan!” Miharu lectured me. I was going to make a snarky comment in response, but then I looked at the dragon and saw a massive amount of swirling energy in its mouth.

“Shoot! I need some cover!”

In some hope of defense, I ducked behind one of the chairs. But knowing how strong this thing was, a flimsy wooden chair wouldn’t be enough. I put my hand onto it, and began to supercharge it with as much energy as possible. The chair tripled in size, and began providing much better coverage.

The dragon released its beam against the chair, and it was a cold, freezing blast that also exerted a fair amount of force. Luckily, my enhancements allowed the defense to hold, but the entirety of the chair froze over.

“Ice breath?! Seriously, watch your back.” Miharu warned me.

“I got it. Let me think!” I mentally shouted back. Using the control over materials that I had, I began to crush the frozen chair into many constituent ice pieces. Hundreds of sharp shards formed from the combination of ice and splintered wood, and I threw them back at the dragon.

The torrent of tiny strikes was actually very effective, distorting the dragon’s form significantly. The barrage ended up stunning the beast with the sheer amount of attacks. This was probably more effective than just blasting it with Kyoha, as much as I was pained to admit it.

“Good. If you keep using my energy like that, then we should be able to hold out-”

BANG!

Miharu was saying something, but it got drowned out by the sound of Kyoha blasting. I was knocked back down from the recoil. My ears began to ring, and I looked at the dragon. The shot I just did deform it notably, but it didn’t kill it.

“I suppose that puts that theory to rest. It’s not as durable as the other dragons,” I said out loud, as Miharu repaired my ears.

“Do you seriously not listen to a single thing I say?”

With my gun in hand, I leapt towards the nearby wall with a single jump. Miharu’s energy had made wall-running possible, thank goodness. I began to dash forwards across said wall, as the dragon roared. A glowing beam formed from its mouth and ice was breathed directly behind me.

As I got closer, I jumped off of the wall, cracking the ground beneath me. I felt the air rush across my skin as I landed on top of the rafters of the stage, placing me above the dragon. It turned its head directly towards me and seemed to prepare for another blast.

BANG!

I shot it in the face with Kyoha. As my ears recovered, the dragon looked away in pain, granting me some reprieve. I ran across the rafters and headed towards the glowing rift. Looking around, I didn’t see the mysterious figure that was here before. I wanted to give them an earful, and a gunful, but they seemed to have vanished as suddenly as they appeared.

“Damn it. Where could they have gone?” I mentally complained.

“Just focus on closing the rift for now, before the dragon attacks us again!” Miharu said. She was right, if I could close the rift, the dragon would probably disappear. With all of my focus, I tried to push out Miharu’s energy to seal up this rip in space.

As I tried to do that however, I suddenly felt the sensation of the ground being torn out from beneath me. I was falling to the ground and immediately lost my focus, opening my eyes.

The dragon apparition had reached up and torn the rafters beneath me apart, leaving me falling in the air.

“AAAAH—”

I let out a scream before reaching out to grab something, anything. I grabbed a nearby loose rail and held on for dear life. The dragon was looking up from beneath me. Thank god I wasn’t wearing a skirt today. With my free hand, I pointed Kyoha at the dragon and began to prepare another shot.

“Akina! You’re going to knock your butt right into the dragon’s mouth if you shoot that thing! Try something else!” Miharu interrupted me.

I clicked my teeth. She was right. I holstered Kyoha and began to flow Miharu’s energy into the rail I was holding onto. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with it, but I needed to do anything to get me out of this situation. With a deafening sonic BOOM, the bar launched forward into the dragon’s head as Miharu’s power artificially extended it.

The sheer power from that attack staggered the ghost dragon, piercing straight through its ghostly head. A roar almost as deafening as that boom I just made was given to me in response. I climbed back up onto the rafters and saw the rift was floating in the air, with no ground to stand on.

“How are we supposed to like, do anything if this dragon keeps on attacking us?” I said out loud.

“We need a distraction, but everyone has already evacuated the building… so now we just need…”

“THIS IS THE POLICE!” A loud voice shouted from the entrance, before a blast of fire shot out at the dragon, burning its body. I turned over and saw Officer Junpei and his other colleagues. Backup had finally arrived.

The horse-man leapt towards the dragon, with a leap that almost matched my own. The cop, with his legs lit aflame, kicked the dragon in the face, pushing it back. The other cops assisted from afar, with various projectiles to pelt it until it went down.

“Now’s our chance!” Miharu said, and it was our time. I slammed my hand onto the broken rafter and extended it forward, giving me a platform to stand on. The raging sounds of ice breath, flames, and magical blasts rang out in the background as I ran across towards the rift. Putting my hand against the rift in space, I began to work.

I imagined sealing it up, and it began to close. It felt like I was sewing together something that was forcefully torn open, and it wasn’t easy. But, with enough energy pouring out of me, and a lot of my own stamina… I felt it shut tight.

I opened my eyes, and looked down. The dragon began to slowly dissipate, as Junpei impressively held it down with his own two hands. It vanished, leaving the entire area cleared, and my job finished.

***

I was sitting outside on a school bench, as the police were running around the school in an attempt to clean up. I needed some time to rest, and also the police wanted to talk to me after this.

“Oh hey, Yoshio!” Miharu waved at the distance. I squinted my eyes and she was right, the kid was running towards me with a worried expression in his eyes.

“Miss Lady! Are you okay?” he said, as he approached me.

“As okay as I’ll ever be,” Akina said. “We took down the dragon. Are you and Ouki good?”

“Mhm…” Yoshio nodded. “He got hurt pretty badly. But, I think he’s gonna be okay. He’ll get better soon… it’s just sad that I didn’t get to complete our job.”

“I think you had a great first job!” Miharu cheerfully said. “Sometimes things don’t go as expected, but you truly helped him with his grand show!”

“Plus. It seems like you have a new friend,” I leaned forwards. “Do me a favor and ask your mom to let you visit his hospital. I think he might appreciate that.”

“O…Okay!” he said. “Are we gonna go home, then?”

“Not yet,” another familiar voice said. Officer Junpei walked towards me with a notepad in his hand.

“Hey. Didn’t know you could kick so much ass. Thought you were just some ordinary cop,” I responded.

“It’s part of the job. You did great out there as well, so I’d just like to give my formal appreciation for you on behalf of the police department,” Junpei answered with a bow. “I’d be willing to give you all another ride home.”

“That’d be much appreciated!” Miharu nodded. I agreed as well.

I got up, still a bit tired. But, it beats walking. I grabbed Yoshio by the hand and let him lead us away.

“One thing, though,” Junpei said. “Did you see how the rift formed? Normally we would already arrive at one that had been there for a while, but you were on the scene first and there were quite a lot of other people there besides you as well.”

“It happened during Yoshio’s show, there was a figure on the rafters. It was a girl, cutting into the fabric of space itself with a knife. I didn’t get much of the details, just… black cloak.” I couldn’t remember the finer details, which was annoying, but Junpei seemed satisfied enough with my answer.

“Foul play. We did suspect that. This is the first time such a rift happened in a populated location though,” Junpei sighed. “That’s worrying.”

“Did you find anything more about them, and why they’re happening?” Miharu asked.

“Well. Apparitions are mirrors of the afterlife, but they tend to manifest from strong emotional areas, or places with strong emotions. The one you dealt with at the influencer’s house and the one at the construction site were examples. They have a pretty colored history,” Junpei explained. “I assume that this school had a lot of emotions running high at the festival too.”

“But why would a person want to create them?” I questioned. “Just causes a bunch of misery and mess.”

“We’re still working that out, but I’ll let you know if we find anything out.”

The four of us eventually reached the car. I put Yoshio in, then let myself into the back seat, with Miharu following along. Junpei got into the car and began to drive.

“Regardless. I’ll add this job to you as a bonus. You’ve done a lot, enjoy yourself.”

My eyes lit up at the sound of that. More money for my hard efforts, it was truly deserved. Miharu was satisfied as well, and we would also get the money from Mrs. Lio.

Truly, a good day for Yamiyami’s Solve Everything Agency.