Waking in a Strange Place

Pain shot through Mamoru’s body when he tried to move, but he was at least intact. He slowly moved a hand to the side which had been blown open to find it was back together. Not even stitched but healed up and already beginning to scar over. The bones that were broken seemed to be in similar states, pieces back together but still achy. Perhaps he had joined the crowd whose bones hurt when it rained.

A ghostly Hikari floated by his side and turned her head away with a ‘hmph’ as he sat up.

Invading a lady’s private thoughts like that. Have you no shame.

The lady who often invaded his thoughts was being overly judgmental, but he didn’t have time to be concerned about that. There was plenty of other unanswered questions.

The room he was in seemed plain enough. Grey concrete walls and ceiling to match the concrete floor seemed to be the choice of décor. The bed he was laid in was some cheap thing that looked like it should be infested with bedbugs, roaches, or both, and to the side medical equipment that seemed fresh from the dumpster beeped to his heart. He realized some wires had been taped to his now bare chest and he tore them off. The pain barely matched what he felt fighting the pale man.

“Mamoru!” Yamiko shouted before barely through the doorway and quickly pounced on him. He words became obscured by sobs and sniffles, “I, ike- o orried- and I asn’t ure- I could- ast out!”

Get off him witch! He’s recovering! Hikari hissed.

Mamoru gently, but firmly, pushed the crying girl head away from him. She continued to sob with her arms reaching for him, but his hand held her back.

The white-haired man who had been at the warehouse followed in after. He was a bit over average height, with a strong jawline and narrow yellow eyes. Under the baggy clothes the previous night it had been impossible to tell, but now in a tank top and shorts Mamoru could also see he was built like a brick shithouse. Muscles surely didn’t come in that size. The high school boy decided to be careful with how he would reply and let the newcomer speak up first.

“It is good to see you are awake,” his voice was gruff but friendly enough. “I never expected to see some high school kids taking down a drug house.” He laughed and shook his head, as if he couldn’t even fathom the totality of the situation, “but I have serious respect for you guys. Anyway, where are my manners? We dragged you off to our hideout and I haven’t even given my name. I am Yuto, second in command of our little rebel group.”

Yuto offered a big hand to Mamoru which nearly crushed his hand even if the intent was not to do so. Yamiko managed to stifle her crying and nodded.

“They’ve like filled me in a little bit, apparently they have been doing guerilla operations against corruption around this area.”

“Corruption?” Mamoru queried with interest. Yuto nodded.

“I suspect you already have some idea, given where we found you and what you were willing to fight, but we are waging a small war against Subarashii as it continues to take more and more power and abuses that power in continually worse ways.”

“I totally didn’t expect to hear that Suba is actually that twisted. It was, like, man most of my stuff was made by them.”

Yuto nodded. “About 90% of things being produced now are made by Subarashii, depending on the industry they have total dominance. Music is nearly 99% at this rate, mostly slop.”

Mamoru nodded. He was well aware of the bad state things were in. All too aware. It took forever to find a motorcycle on market that wasn’t Suba made and wasn’t junk—and that was before he absolutely despised them.

“I know, that is why there is a growing trend of Mirai songs after all, she wasn’t made by Suba so it’s a bit of public resistance.”

Yuto’s eyes lit up and Yamiko sighed.

“I like, forgot about that, you are in… well I’ll just let the muscle guy speak.”

“I had mentioned I was second in command, and that is because the one in charge is…..”

Yuto produced his smartphone from his back pocket. It was an old model with a crack down the center. A single tap to the side lit the device, a girl the size of an anime figure emerged from the screen. Sapphire colored twintails bobbed on either side of her head and she brushed the hem of her black skirt before waving to Mamoru.

“Hello Mamoru, it is nice to see you that you are awake.”

“Mirai Tankyu!” Mamoru practically fell from the bed. It was Mirai, not exactly in the flesh, but talking to him just the same. He pondered if it were some kind of trick, she was supposed to just be a singing program, not someone he could talk to.

And if he could talk to her, what would he even say? He had to be careful not to mess anything up.

Oh, please put me out of my misery.

Mirai giggled, “A lot of people have that reaction at first. I have settled on saying the best way to explain it is that I am a faerie trapped in digital space, of sorts.”

“I do sense some magic involved,” Yamiko added, “though it is beyond my understanding.

Mine as well. I appears to be something old, Hikari chimed in, and I am not certain how thrilled I am to meet the singer of… that song….

Mamoru felt an odd feeling somewhere in his chest. He had never been one to care for celebrities, focusing instead on anime, manga, and the like to find his idols. It seemed unlikely that he would ever meet any in real life anyway. He shifted his feet on the ground, and glanced away and back again several times. Was this what it was like to be star struck? He took a deep breath and moved his hands in and out of his pockets several time before Mirai chimed back in.

“I am sorry if my form makes you a bit uncomfortable, but it is all I can work with.” She sounded apologetic, and Mamoru felt as if he was a jerk.

“No, no. I just wasn’t sure what to say…. I- I really love your music! Or the music you sing? Or….”

You should close your mouth before you stick your foot in.

Mamoru nodded and quieted down. Had he been alone, he might have slapped his face to get himself back in the ‘zone’.

“Right,” the high school boy said after a deep breath, “So, you are fighting Suba?”

Mirai nodded, “Yes, I have a bit of a personal beef with them.” She disappeared from Yuto’s phone and appeared to walk across the monitor screen of the medical equipment. “For the last, well couple hundred years at least, before they were even called Subarashii Corp, they have been diminishing the magic in our world in favor of technology.”

Mirai walked off the medical screen and appeared to walk across a nearby television screen, in front of the weather report, next. She seemed not to be doing anything consciously but pacing back and forth, across screens and over phones, as a habit while she talked.

“You might have heard how they were the first company to make breakthroughs on the personal computer, and you might even have some older folks in your life who remember when they released the first smart phone. People take the devices for granted, but since I have had a different relationship with them, as you can imagine by looking at me, I have a different understanding, and different access into their servers.

“To keep it short, Suba has been designing these devices to run on the very mana that we use magic for. Basically, artificers are blending their skills with engineers, they call it engificing. That has been aiding the recent boon in tech as well. I am sure you heard of the new AI data center in Strength tower that highly efficient with low power consumption? The details are kept off their network, they have realized someone was in, so I don’t know how they are doing it, but we shudder to think what is going on. At the very least, we are well aware that they have been trapping yokai and, as you saw, using their powers to boost the magic of their managers.”

“It is sick,” Yamiko added, her hands clenched into fists, “If I hadn’t had some exorcism training, I don’t think there would have been a way to break the spirit out of his body.” She shuddered. Seemingly bothered by the whole affair in ways that Mamoru couldn’t imagine.

He crossed his arms and shook his head. Every day it seemed the company found ways for his opinion to grow even lower of it. He hoped in a way it couldn’t get any worse.

“So then,” Mirai chimed back in. “Given your clear fight against Subarashii, we would like to ask you to join us.”