Never A Day Off

Miharu and I had just arrived home from the beach. It was overall a pretty pleasant day, shark attacks aside. I was ready to kick back in and go to sleep before being dragged into the screaming depths of work tomorrow.

Is what I would say if I didn’t see an annoying sight in front of my apartment. An unmarked police vehicle, and a certain horse officer standing in-front of my door.

“Oh? What’s Junpei doing here?” Miharu asked.

“This late at night?” I squinted my eyes. “What could he possibly want?”

The cop leapt off of the walkway to my house and landed in front of me. “Hey! Akina, Miharu. Sorry to bother you two so late, but I could really use some help right now.”

“Are you gonna pay us?” I crossed my arms and rubbed my eyes.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Junpei responded.

Looks like I’m going to have to stay up for a little while longer. Two jobs on the day I was supposed to have my vacation. What else is new? But I go where the money goes, and if the cops needed my help then I couldn’t complain.

“We’re always happy to help!” Miharu said cheerfully. “Even if it’s pretty late, but since you came to us now it must be pretty important.”

“Great,” Junpei smiled. “We have our resources pretty spent right now, especially with the events going on so… I figured you could help us with a potential problem that I just caught wind of. Like, right now.”

“Right now?” I asked.

“Yeah. The gist is, I was just winding down my patrol for the day when a woman came screaming that she saw something coming from the sewer. And I think it’s an apparition, which means you know what.”

“That we have to do something about it. Absolutely,” Miharu nodded.

“Woah, woah, woah. A sewer? We just spent a beautiful day at the beach and I got a nice tan just for me to stink it up in the sewer?” I objected. Miharu didn’t give me a response though. She just raised a singular eyebrow at me.

I then sighed. Well, that worked on me. She didn’t even have to say a word. “Where is the problem? Let’s see if we can get this done so I have enough time to catch some sleep.”

***

“It stinks!” I complained.

“Yeah,” Junpei said. “The sewers are like that, so you’re going to have to get used to it.”

The three of us had descended into a manhole that was on a street reasonably close by. I’ve personally never dug into sewers before, and I expected it to feel bad. But actually experiencing it for the first time was a whole different story.

Eventually, we jumped off the ladder and into the tunnels. Luckily, I didn’t have to wade through any sewer water yet, but being here instantly stunk me up. I was going to have to shower for weeks after this.

The second problem was that it was pitch-black. I couldn’t see a thing. Luckily, I had a solution for that.

“Miharu?”

The ghost girl nodded and possessed my body. Soon, everything became clear for me. I could see like there was light as usual, and in the highest resolution possible—

“AAAAAGHHH—!” I suddenly screamed as a blinding light overtook my eyes. Miharu’s vision enhancements suddenly worked against me as the sudden burst of light nearly fried my retinas into little pieces. “WHAT THE HELL?!”

“Huh? Oh. I suppose I shouldn’t have shined that so close to you, though normally people don’t react that harshly,” Junpei said. “My apologies.”

My eyes eventually corrected themselves, thank goodness for Miharu’s healing ability. But, that sucked. I should have expected that Junpei would have a flashlight, but I’ve never been flashbanged to that insane degree before.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have been so hasty…” Miharu said.

“It’s… it’s fine…” I said to both of them. “I can see in the dark, so your light was just a bit of a jump to me. That’s all.”

“Noted, then. I’ll make sure to keep that in mind, but I need to see as well so I’m keeping the flashlight on. Just, try not to look into it,” Junpei explained.

“Yeah. I got it. So, we just need to look around these sewers until we find an apparition, chase it down to the portal, and then seal it up?” I asked.

“That’s pretty much it, yes. Should be pretty straightforward from there. I don’t want this to become a bigger problem than it has to.”

“Then let’s go.”

Pinching my nose from the horrid smell that came with this location, I began to push forward deeper into the tunnels. Hopefully we could find it sooner, rather than later.

***

“Do you have a power that can like, turn off my nose to this smell?” I complained as the three of us walked through the damp sewers.

“Are you sure you want me to do that? Your senses are very important for detecting things,” Miharu argued back in my mind.

“The only thing I’m detecting is garbage and waste and trash!” I complained to her. “This would be so much easier to stomach if I didn’t have to deal with this smell.”

“Fine.”

Miharu finally caved into my reasonable demands. I couldn’t smell anything anymore. This probably also meant I couldn’t taste anything anymore either, which was reasonable. It would still be gross but I wouldn’t feel that much pain.

“Can you also deal with the fact that I’m going to stink later. Like, can you make an anti-stink shield so that I don’t become stinky—”

“You ask too much of a girl. I’m not a miracle worker, you know.”

I groaned. I suppose I was asking for a lot, but it would be nice. We had already been inside these damp and ugly sewers for way longer than I wanted to be, so it would be nice if the damage could be minimized. Especially if I had to meet with any clients soon.

“It’s important to think about the brand, Miharu. What if word gets out that I stink like a sewer? Then our customers will notice and our image will be ruined, which means we’re going to be back on the streets again—”

As I was mentally arguing with Miharu, I felt myself crash into something. Another person! We both tumbled onto the ground as I regained the bearing of my surroundings.

“OOF—! Ow… what in the—?”

I looked to the side to see the person that crashed into me. A hooded female figure, who seemed to be clutching her own head. Then, they looked at me.

“Wait a minute… you’re the riftmaker!” I shouted, pointing at them.

“Oh, shoot. Really?” Junpei’s hands immediately ignited in flame. “You’re coming with us, then!”

The riftmaker seemed to have immediately noticed our aggression. So she got up and immediately dashed away, kicking up dust in my face.

“Gagh— wheeze!” I coughed before getting back up too. “After them!”

“I’m right behind you.”

As fast as I could, I began my chase. I couldn’t let them get away this time.

***

We continued to run down the damp tunnels, with the perpetrator remaining just annoyingly out of reach. I couldn’t run too fast or I would slam into the wall, but the perp was speedy as well.

“GET BACK HERE!” I shouted, like it would suddenly stop the criminal. The person took out their knife and did a brief glance back, before quickly slashing apart a hole in reality. That was our confirmation this was the person we were looking for, but they could do it that fast?

Out of the rift, a person came out. It was an odd water-man that seemed mindless and ready to attack. An apparition, though the rift closed shortly after he came out. So it was only a temporary measure?

Junpei leaped in front of me and immediately kicked the water man away with fire. I wasn’t expecting that to work, but ghosts have different rules I suppose. The apparition disappeared as we continued to run.

Eventually we came to a larger room. Likely meant to control sewage throughout the night, but there was something glowing in the middle of it. A fully formed, staying Rift. The mysterious riftmaker seemed to be standing in front of it, before taking off deeper into the tunnels.

“Don’t you dare try and get away!” I shouted to the riftmaker, but Junpei grabbed me by the shoulder.

“We need to take care of this rift now,” Junpei warned me. “The riftmaker can only make rifts in places with strong emotions. I don’t know what exactly happened here but if that rift is permanent, then this has to be where it’s coming from.”

“But she’s getting away!” I insisted.

“Akina. We need to take care of the immediate problem now, or more people can get hurt. And, uhm…” Miharu was saying something, but then we all noticed something flooding out of the rift.

It looked like a pile of sludge, with the horrified face of a person marked all over it. It was pretty spooky. The body seeped out of the rift and onto the ground, beginning to pick up gunk and sewer water on the floor to make a disgusting trash monster.

“Yeah. We need to deal with that.” Junpei said. “Looks like we’re gonna have to catch that riftmaker later. We have much bigger problems to deal with.”

I frowned, but I knew that Miharu and Junpei were right. With a flip of Kyoha, I aimed it at the apparition. Looks like we were going to have to fight this after all.