07 Abandoned Public Library / The Red String ...

He wears a dark hoodie, and wields no weapon that they can see.

One hand tucked insouciantly in his pocket. The other supporting the transfer student, slung over one shoulder in a half-fireman's carry. (The transfer student, impotently slapping his fists against his kidnapper's back, to no avail.)

High above the four Banishers does he levitate now, Akai, looking blankly down on Hikage and his mercenaries.

… No.

No, not 'levitate'.

For under the glass dome's pale spotlight the mechanism of his suspension is revealed, the moon betrays his illusion: all about him, twinkling hints of the thousand-myriad threads he has spun.

Invisible in any other light but tonight's.

It is on one such wire-taut monofilament that he perches now, perfectly balanced on both feet, steady, not the least hint of a wobble.

Below, Rina points her guns at him. The other two girls, likewise with their weapons.

Hikage steps forward, the partially-restored Vernal Blade in hand.

"Let him go," he says.

Akai stares back, single eyebrow arched.

"… You sure 'bout that? I don't think he'd survive the fall."

"We have no beef with you, Banisher. We have what we came for, and we're on our way out. We have no intention of encroaching on your business here."

Akai shrugs. (As much as he can, anyway, with the transfer student on his shoulder.) "… Likewise. I have no business with you. I have graciously allowed you all into my territory, and I'm fully prepared to let you all go now. I only want the foreign boy."

Hikage's grip on the Vernal Blade tightens. Gritting of his teeth.

"See," continues Akai, "your sister—assuming you are Hikage—who am I kidding, who else would you be?—your sister's put a rather large bounty on the boy's head. All the shadow gems she earns tonight, in fact. (Guess she has no interest in winning, huh?) … So, I'll be taking him now, if you don't mind." He nods toward the front entrance. "There's the door. Run along, now."

"You know we can't let you do that."

"Then stop me."

~

End of negotiations.

Gunshots, now. The blasting of shinai arcs, curving through the air. The throwing of skewers.

Everything the mercenaries throw at him, Akai dodges. Bouncing adroitly from wire to wire, as if he and his shoulder-borne cargo weigh nothing at all.

Hikage, with no proper projectile attacks of his own, carefully studies, or at least tries to, the intricate network of threads. Trying to find the point of origin. He tests the strings, slicing at the ones he can see, at ground level, with the Vernal Blade.

They snap apart, as expected.

… Effecting no change, that he can see, in the overall structure.

No matter how many wires he cuts.

~

The definition of insanity having been put under scrutiny (result: yup, definitely still holds, no problems here), the girls soon give up on trying to hit the moving target.

Instead, refocusing their efforts on the wires themselves. Aiming for the glimmers flickering through the atrium space, (blink and miss 'em), where the wires occasionally catch the light of the moon.

Hikage watches the futile exercise, brow furrowed.

It's as though Akai always has new wires to move to.

Cut one, and three more seemingly take its place.

… But where are they coming from?

… And how are they being re-strung?

It's certainly not by Akai. His free hand is there, doing absolutely nothing.

Still there, tucked in his pocket …

In his … pocket …

Something clicks in Hikage's head.

~

"His pocket!" Hikage calls out, to the girls. "Aim for his hand there!"

Rina turns to him, exasperated. "… You just figured that out?! That's where we've been aiming!"

Hikage, embarrassed, "I-I thought you guys were aiming for the wires …"

Misa, annoyed, "We are aiming for the wires! We can aim for two things, you know!!!"

"Alright, alright, chill out …"

~

But Akai now knows that they know. (Perhaps not yet in full. But they have at least some hint of what he's hiding.)

And though he continues to evade them, he knows it's a matter of time that they adapt to his movements.

All it would take is one stray bullet, or skewer … Even a single blast of air would knock him off balance …

He decides it's time to finally stop playing keep-away.

He tenses the hand in his pocket, and then, in one swift motion, pulls it out of his pocket, and—

~

A quick twist of Akai's hand is all it takes.

Hikage sees it, too little too late.

That red string tied to Akai's pinkie … from whose securing knot every thread in the library, every single one, is spawned.

Yes, together, in aggregate, the monofilaments comprise the fabled Red String of Fate, one end of which is tied to Akai's finger … (But then, to whom does the other end belong?)

Hikage only manages to yell "WATCH OU—", his warning cut off before he feels the world slide out from under him, as he is turned upside-down, and dragged up into the air, feet first.

~

All five of them now, the trio, Hikage, and the transfer student, hanging suspended in the atrium, each strung up upside-down by monofilament threads.

The binding wires digging into their skin. Just short of drawing blood.

"Stop struggling," Hikage advises the transfer student. "You'll just hurt yourself."

Blood rushing into their heads, now. Heavy. Throbbing.

Akai, a short ways away, perched on a wire. Watching the library below. Eyes darting from floor to floor.

Hikage addresses him now. "… So? What now? Play the waiting game? Wait for my sister to get here?"

Akai looks at him, and smiles, but otherwise says nothing.

He returns to his watching. Looking for signs of movement below.

He finds one, soon enough.

~

No sooner is that Aberrational skittering heard, among the stacks, somewhere on the second floor, than the dark creature is snagged by Akai, with a twist of his hand, that red-stringed pinkie twitching, and dragged out screeching into the moonlit atrium.

The ill-defined monster flails in a tangle of monofilament thread, upside-down.

The trapped Banishers, and the transfer student, watch as Akai raises his hand and, with a firm Hmmph!, crushes the air in front of him, squeezing his ball into a fist.

As he does, the wires binding the creature collapse into each other—

—and slice cleanly through the Aberration's entire being, like piano wire through soft clay.

Nothing is left of the Aberration.

… Except, of course, the shadow gems that now fall back down to earth.

Akai leaps from his wire, intercept them before they hit the ground.

Trophy in hand, he tucks the gems into the pocket of his hoodie.

Then he returns to his wire.

~

Many such gem-renderings follow.

Each one as practiced and routine as the last. The same swift movement of Akai's hand, the same systematic stringing-up and dragging-out of that which lurks in the shadows of this haunted municipal facility.

So engrossed is Akai now on this further accumulation of his hunting trophies, that in his occasional cursory checkings-in on his human captives, he fails to notice (and who can blame him? Aberration-hunting ain't no easy gig, after all; and besides, he already made sure to confiscate all their weapons; look, there they are, down below, the skewers, the bamboo sword, the guns, all strung up in a bundle; so what can they even do?) the girl in the cardigan, working away secretly, with a single acrylic nail, at the string that binds her.

Misa scoring now, at the monofilament. Where she can just get at it, with her nail. Pausing when Akai's gaze sweeps over her, during his check-ins.

When she feels that the wire is only a few more passes from snapping loose, she stops.

And she waits.

… She waits for the next Aberration to come.

~

And when it finally does come, when Akai is once again engaged in the wrangling of another shadow, that's when the gyaru breaks out of her wire restraint.

Only a few seconds to act, Misa.

… How will you use them?

Will you, A) Free your squadmates?

B) Make a grab at your weapons down below?

Or, (and the audience would absolutely eat this one up),

C) Make an attempt at Akai himself?

~

Well, it's gotta be C), right?

That's what we all paid good money to see, right?

Right.

And so Misa, now free, flips herself upright, leaps up onto an adjacent wire. Jumps to another. Then another. Traversing their lengths clumsily, not half as well-balanced as Akai is.

… But it's okay. All she has to do is reach him. While he's still distracted by the Aberration …

Misa unties the pink scrunchie from her hair, freeing her side ponytail.

Approaching Akai from the side now, she unspools the fabric of her scrunchie, unraveling the hair tie, breaking it apart into strands so thin that even its pinkness can no longer be seen, and then unraveling the strands even further beyond that, until she is wielding in her hands now, the strands criss-crossing between her fingers, as though primed for cat's cradle, a monofilament weapon of her own.

When she is close enough, she leaps toward Akai—

"MISA, BEHIND YOU!"

—but she is shoved from behind, too late to heed Hikage's warning, by some unseen other.

Misa falters.

Then falls.