Rain, Remembrance, and Rifts

I ran through the darkened backstage as I chased down Honoha. With the boost of speed given from Miharu, I managed to catch up to Azana who was running on all fours. She was mad, growling, and raging.

“Keep up,” I said, as I ran alongside her.

“This is serious!” Azana angrily snapped at me.

“I know, I know,” I said. I was just trying to keep things light, especially when things weren’t going so great for me. The two of us went up a flight of stairs, following the blue light trail that Honoha left behind.

At the top, we headed to a maintenance room with a few windows. The two of us saw the girl approach one of them and shatter it with her bare hands.

“Oh no you don’t!” I shouted, with my gun pointed towards her. With a loud scattershot BANG, I released the shot to the ringing of my ears. By the time I regained my senses, Azana was covering her ears and the shot left an imprint on the wall. But, my shot didn’t connect. A small rift in space appeared in front of her, and an apparition took the shot before the fabric of reality patched up.

“Well…” Honoha blinked. “The way you rely so much on that shotgun makes you easy.”

And with that, the girl jumped out of the window, and we saw her flip onto the roof.

“You’re not getting away!” Azana shouted, jumping out as well. As Miharu repaired my eardrums, I followed suit. It seemed to have started raining, as we climbed up the arena and onto the roof of it all.

We all scaled the roof, with the lights of the police cars in the distance. Honoha was surrounded, without a place she could jump to. Azana and I stood against her as she turned around. Rain was dripping down all of our faces, and our eyes stared at each other.

“You’ve got history with this girl?” Azana said.

“She works for my local convenience store. I’ve bought a lot of ramen from her,” I explained.

“A convenience store worker? Is that really what’s causing this entire mess?” Azana scoffed.

“Don’t scoff at me like that!” Honoha shouted. “I can do whatever I need to! Just because I’m at a dead-end in my life doesn’t mean I can’t do this!”

“What? Is that your motivation?” I shouted back. “You’re stuck in a dead-end job so you want to terrorize the city? What kind of messed up childhood did you have to make you believe in that?”

“I don’t have anything! I might as well make a name for myself! Anything is better than nothing, you don’t understand!”

“You have a life! Stable income! I didn’t even have that for my first few weeks, and it was all just uncertain! And is that what you threw it all away for? To terrorize small children at an elementary school? To just cause havoc? When you could have clearly done way more! Where did you even get that knife?”

“I don’t need a lecture from you. This knife is the only thing I have about me that’s notable. So deal with it.” Honoha said. “I already know how you fight from that shark and the dragon. I know how to beat you.”

“Was that mission a red herring? She’s been watching us?” Miharu asked.

“I’m not one that can be so easily predicted—!” I say, immediately pulling out Kyoha and opening fire. My ears ruptured from the blast, as I probably put too much anger into that shot. Before I finished recovering from the recoil, I felt a knee into my stomach.

“GAH!” I felt all of the wind get knocked out of me, before I saw the knife about to be driven through my skull.

“My point proven,” Honoha said, but before she could lower the knife down, a slash came out from her back… knocking her to the side.

“You haven’t studied me, yet!” Azana said, her nails sharpened and her fangs bared. “And you shouldn’t have wasted your time on her when I’m the upgrade!”

“Tch…” Honoha fought off the scratch on her back as I tried to get back onto my feet.

“I wouldn’t say you’re my upgrade,” I muttered.

“She saved us. No time for bickering,” Miharu reminded me. She was right, I needed to focus. It was two on one, it shouldn’t be too bad.

Honoha tore apart a small hole in space, as another small apparition came out. These weren’t as big as the permanent apparitions, and Azana immediately took advantage and chowed on the apparition. Though that was responded with by another knife slash from Honoha. With her distracted, I also took out my knife and began my assault as well. The two of us began to tag team the girl.

Annoyingly, she held up quite well. Was it because my moves were too predictable, so she only needed to focus on Azana? I’ll show her.

I stomped on the ground and channeled Miharu’s power into the ground. A rock pillar slammed forth and hit… Azana?

“OW!”

“Ack. Sorry!”

“Just focus!”

Our brief exchange left an opening for Honoha to slash at Azana, who just barely managed to dodge and return with a slash of her own. I also continued to attack, but the catgirl created a rift that summoned an arm to grab at me!

“Akina. You’re going to need to start mixing things up!” Miharu shouted in my brain.

“Shoot.” I tried to think of a new way to fight. Something that I haven’t done since I started the Solve Everything Agency. With that thought, I parried a blow from Honoha before cutting off the spirit arm with my knife. I jumped back and away as a response. Then, immediately ran back forwards in a straight line. All of the energy that I could muster channeled into these legs, as I clotheslined the catgirl in the face.

“What the—?”

That decked the girl down onto the ground. A stupid and predictable move, but not something that she’s seen me do. I haven’t done that since my first fight with Azana. I took a deep breath, this time not falling over… but a bit dazed. I really have gotten stronger.

Azana took this chance to pounce. Her teeth sharpened as she tried to reach Honoha's shoulder to bite her.

“Ew! Get off of me you stupid beast!” Honoha shouts. Trying to push Azana away, but the soulhunter managed to get another bite to her shoulder. A shouting occurred before Azana got thrown off, with a bit of skin taken from her.

At this moment, a helicopter flew behind us. Honoha turned around, and looked directly at the vehicle.

“Do not resist! You are under arrest!”

The voice from the helicopter said. And jumping out of the helicopter, a flaming man jumped out, before being extinguished by the rain.

“Junpei!” I shouted.

“We’ve contained the rift,” the officer responded. “Figured I could take some time to help you girls out as well.”

“That’s convenient. It’s three on one now!” Azana shouted. “Why don’t you make this easier on all of us and surrender?”

“...”

Honoha silently stared at the three of us surrounding her. She huffed, and then took out her knife and began tearing apart space around her.

“Hey, hold on!” I shouted, and I immediately charged forwards to try and stop her. But I was too late. A massive rift formed around Honoha, and suddenly a vacuum began to pull us in.

“I’ll see you on the other side.”

Honoha said, before falling into her own rift. The force began to try to force the rest of us to follow, as the hole in space began sucking us towards it!

“Shoot… damn it…!” I shouted as I stabbed my knife into the ground to act as a hold. It seemed like Azana had a similar idea, and Junpei grabbed onto the ground as well. But, there was one problem.

“Akina…!”

Miharu’s voice wasn’t in my head, but instead she was outside of my body, and being pulled in by the rift!

“Miharu!” I shouted.

I attempted to grab onto her, but it was too late. Miharu got sent flying into the rift. Her head almost got fully immersed, but just before she fully went in, something grabbed her and prevented her from falling in. It was Azana!

“You know. It would be pretty pathetic if I bested my rival by letting her crutch die like this. If there’s a way you’re cleaned up then I’ll be the one to do it!” Azana said, digging her feet into the ground.

I couldn’t let the two of them act alone like that. So I took my knife out of the ground and ran towards Azana, attempting to help her pull Miharu out!

“We got you! Miharu!” I shouted. As I did, I felt another pull on my back, Junpei was helping the three of us pull. The rift began to close on its own, most likely because it was different from the permanent rifts, and with one final pull… we all dragged Miharu out of the vacuum as the rift closed itself!

The four of us fell to the ground, and all took a collective deep breath.

“...agh,” I groaned, before looking at Miharu. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… fine. I’m…”

Honoha wasn’t here anymore. She was gone, but at least we were okay. For now.

***

I was recovering from the battle, standing at the concert’s entrance as the police cleared everything up. I was needed to seal up the portal that Honoha caused, but otherwise I was just trying to relax.

Miharu seemed to be clutching her head. It was a long day, I get it. I needed some rest too. Azana and I exchanged our jabs, but we split apart. I gave her my thanks for saving Miharu, she scoffed at me. Things were better between us, I think.

There was only one thing missing from today.

“Hey, Akina.”

The short doll girl approached me. She seemed to have also recovered well from her hostage situation. I looked at her and gave a smile.

“Yo. It’s good to see you safe,” I waved.

“Thanks. Same for you.” Shiori sat down next to me. “It was pretty scary out there, but thanks for getting me out of it.”

“I shouldn’t have let you get into that in the first place. Sorry, I failed you,” I muttered.

“Hey. It could’ve gone a lot worse. Yeah, it’s a shame that the show got cancelled, but you have to appreciate what you have,” Shiori responded. “And if what I have is you two, then I’m feeling pretty good. A girl and her ghost who always try their best. And who I know will always be trying to get better.”

“...yeah, I guess,” I sighed.

“And that’s why I’ve decided both you and Azana should get the bonus! That way, nobody feels left behind!”

“What?” I asked. “But… how are we supposed to decide who’s better?”

“I mean. If I had to be honest, I didn’t really care about that. The both of you saved my skin and that’s good for me,” Shiori said. “Plus, there shall be no pettiness in my vicinity. I just wanted to have my friends with me!”

I groaned, though I couldn’t exactly argue with that. Plus, it was still money. It would be uncharacteristic of me to complain about money. Looks like I’ll need to settle my score with Azana in a different way.

“Well, thanks,” I said. “The Solve Everything Agency is glad to solve your problems.”

“I’ll be calling back soon,” Shiori winked. She then proceeded to head off into the crowd, leaving the two of us sitting on the stairs. I turned to Miharu, who had been uncharacteristically silent this entire time.

“What’s up with you? We got our bonus, and sure, she got away but people seem to be happy enough.”

“...I… I remember…”

I blinked. That wasn’t what I was expecting.

“You remember what?”

“I remember… Something about my past life… back when I was alive. Going into that… weird spirit rift jogged it a bit.”

“Oh, shoot. Tell me. I’m curious,” I responded.

“I was… I was a hero of justice… like I would go around the city, fighting bad guys and helping people in need…”

“Oh, so nothing new then,” I brushed off.

“Akina!” Miharu angrily snapped back. “This is important!”

“You already preach about hope and justice all the time. How is this anything different? You’re still the same old silly Miharu.”

“It’s… it’s different. I feel like I remember me doing these things. As a person, instead of as a ghost. I don’t know what it is about that rift that dragged my memory, but I want to go back in. I want to know more.”

“Well, we’ll need to find Honoha again, and who knows where she is,” Akina said. “But once we find her, I’m sure we can drag more of your memories out of your head.”

“Yeah. I just feel like… I’m this close.”

“Hey. How about we think about this later? We’ve had a long day, and I’m pooped. We’ll need to search for Honoha afterwards, so let’s try to relax for today.”

“...yeah. You’re right,” Miharu said. “We helped a lot of people today. I think that’s good enough.”

With that agreement, our day came to a close. A very long and painful day, with a lot of bumps along the way. But in the end, the Solve Everything Agency had completed their mission. That was enough for me.