Fiesta for the Observers

by Gakuto Mikumo

  But the girl with the ribbon stopped eating as she murmured with some difficulty, “Natsuki…Minamiya…”

  She stared at Asagi with big eyes, her emotions unreadable. Suddenly, her eyes wavered greatly as clear teardrops poured from them. The large flow of tears made an audible sound as they fell upon the table. The sight made Asagi lose her nerve in a hurry.

  “W-wait a… What’s wrong…?”

  The girl with the ribbon gently shook her head. “I don’t know…”

  Asagi could not sense any echo of sadness in the girl’s voice. The girl herself didn’t seem to have any idea why she was crying.

  But with this, Asagi could firmly state the possibility was exceptionally high that the ribbon-wearing girl was related to Natsuki Minamiya. That meant Asagi was no disinterested observer. Apparently, it was her unavoidable fate to look after the girl.

  “Aww, man.”

  Guess I’ve gotta do it, Asagi thought, sighing out of pure stubbornness as she grabbed several napkins. She reached out to the ribbon-wearing girl’s cheeks and wiped her tears away.

  “Okay, got it. This is what we’ll do. From this moment on, your name is Sana.”

  “Sana?”

  “Right. It’s your nickname until you can remember your real name. It gets rough if I don’t have anything to call you, see.”

  The girl blinked, confused, while she listened to Asagi’s plan. But then, finally, her cheeks glowed brightly as a charming little smile came over her lips.

  “Sana…that’s my name…”

  A broad grin came over Asagi as she saw for herself that “Sana” was happy with the moniker.

  “Yeah.”

  She looked just like a smaller version of Natsuki, so Asagi had based the nickname off “Small Natsuki”; luckily, the girl apparently liked it.

  That being said, it did nothing to resolve the underlying problems facing them.

  With Sana unable to remember her own name, there was no way Asagi could just bring the girl to her place. The police’s Missing Children’s Center was already in a state of panic, so she couldn’t rely on them for a quick resolution, either.

  She could try to use Mogwai, but even Asagi hesitated to use Itogami Island’s main computer system just to find the mother of a missing child.

  What to do? Asagi wondered in anguish as she stuffed a hamburger combo down her throat. But that was when she realized Sana was looking out the window every so often.

  “…Sana?”

  The girl was looking at a section of the parade on the side of the road; she seemed especially taken in by the people dancing in animal mascot costumes on top of a particular float.

  “Interested in the parade?”

  Asagi’s question made Sana’s shoulders quiver. She looked like a frightened kitten as she shifted her gaze to Asagi and made a small nod. Sana’s behavior brought a strained smile to Asagi’s face.

  “Wanna go?”

  The instant she asked, Sana’s expression glittered brightly. She quickly began finishing off her pancakes so that they could leave as soon as possible.

  Asagi’s shoulders slumped as she watched the innocent, beaming smile that matched the girl’s age.

  “Well…she certainly is cute…”

  Asagi’s very long day seemed set to continue for a while longer.

  5

  Due to the sheer size of the MAR lab site, the countless buildings connected to one another formed a giant three-dimensional complex. Kojou headed straight in without the slightest hesitation while carrying Yuuma, who was fast asleep.

  Finally, they arrived at a cylinder-shaped building in one corner of the complex. The building was a series of extravagant, resort-style apartments.

  Properly speaking, these were meant for hosting guests and researchers from off the island, but Kojou and Nagisa’s mother, Mimori Akatsuki, had snagged one of them for her own personal use, sleeping there the vast majority of every week. Kojou thought that it posed a bit of a problem for a guardian to be doing this, but he couldn’t complain very much, given the situation he was in now.

  Pressing his hand to a palm-reader touch panel, Kojou opened the door to the guesthouse’s living room. He entered to the familiar sight of its elegant lobby decorated with marble floors.

  Sayaka’s expression was rather stiff as she followed behind the others. “S-so, Kojou Akatsuki, your mother is here, then?”

  Kojou affirmed this with a melancholic sigh.

  “Our mother’s the chief of research for MAR’s Department of Medicine. She’s a certified clinical pathologist of sorcery, and she’s kind of an acquaintance of Yuuma’s, too…”

  Kojou scowled as he added, “I didn’t wanna involve the woman in this if I could avoid it, though.”

  Kojou had not spoken to Mimori about the fact he’d become a vampire. He didn’t want his mother to know his current circumstances, though the reason was completely separate from Nagisa’s fear of demons.

  There was no doubt whatsoever in Kojou’s mind that, should he carelessly reveal to her he was a vampire, his mother would happily lock him away and examine his body down to the finest detail. Knowing her, she’d chop him up to see what made him tick. You’ll come back to life anyway so what’s the big deal, she’d say.

  Kojou figured this wasn’t the first of Sayaka’s encounters with eccentricity, so there wasn’t any point in telling her this.

  But as Kojou ran such things through his mind, Sayaka was right behind him, squirming all around like she’d been backed into a corner.

  “Wait a minute… I’m not emotionally prepared for this…!”

  Kojou gave her a dubious look as they got into an elevator. “…What the heck are you all nervous for?”

  Sayaka’s cheeks blazed crimson as she returned in a shrill voice, “I ain’t the least bit nervous at all here!!”

  Kojou sighed a bit in exasperation. “Even your speech is getting all messed up.”

  The elevator Kojou and the others were on reached its destination. Yukina chose that moment to hesitantly ask, “Excuse me… But I wonder if we will be in the way?”

  Yukina looked at a loss for words as she glanced down at her blue apron dress. Thanks to having engaged in ferocious combat, her clothes were a mess, dusty and scratched all over. Her silver-colored spear had been stained by blood spatter, too; it was a little much for a claim that it was just part of the Hollow Eve Festival costume. Any way you looked at it, these weren’t clothes for being introduced to someone’s mother. Yukina wouldn’t have blamed the woman for calling the police on the spot.

  However, for some reason, all Kojou did was give a faint, strained smile and remark, “Oh, is that all?

  “I don’t think you need to worry,” he added. “You’ll understand as soon as you meet her, I think.”

  “R-right…”

  Yukina and Sayaka remained somewhat bewildered, but Kojou paid them no heed as he rang the doorbell to the apartment that was now Mimori-occupied territory. With a small delay, a yawning voice drifted out of the intercom:

  “Yes, yes, who might it be?”

  “It’s me, Mom. Sorry, I’ve got a favor to ask y—”

  Kojou strove to keep his behavior as blunt as possible to avoid being dragged into his mother’s overly easygoing pace. However, Mimori interrupted her son’s lack of pleasantries with a buoyant tone.

  “Ah, Kojou? Right, right, hold on, I’m opening the door now.”

  They sensed a hectic rush of footsteps approaching the other side of the door before she unlocked it. Seeing she had done so, Kojou opened the door.

  In that instant, a giant jack-o’-lantern wearing a white robe leaped right out of the room. The pumpkin itself was over a meter in diameter; both of its eyes glowed as it thrust itself before the group’s eyes.

  “Boo!”

  “Hyaaaaa?!”

  Yukina and Sayaka, already tense for reasons unknown, shrieked on the spot from the shock. They clung to Kojou, one on each side of him, clutching their
weapons all the while.

  The jack-o’-lantern in the white robe gave off a satisfied laugh while watching the reaction. Soon, though, it pulled its pumpkin head off with a plop. A woman with a lovely face emerged from within.

  Age-wise, she really appeared rather young, but that might have well been from her grinning expression completely lacking in tension. Or perhaps her looks were simply in line with her mental age—

  Mimori Akatsuki proudly thrust her chest out as she asked, “Hmmm… Did I scare you?”

  Kojou glared at his mother’s display of pride with annoyance.

  “Damn right you scared us! What are you tryin’ to pull here, geez!”

  “Well, it’s the Hollow Eve Festival today! And I really wanted to go, too. Trick or die!”

  Kojou’s breathing was ragged as he yelled back at her:

  “I think you got a few things wrong. That’d be one really scary festival!”

  And this was why he didn’t want to get the woman involved in all this. He just knew that this was going to happen.

  For her part, Mimori noted that Yukina and Sayaka were now snuggled up against her son.

  “Oh my, and you two would be…?”

  An extremely pleased-looking leer came over her. She looked like a child who’d just gotten two brand-new toys to play with. As Mimori looked all over Yukina and Sayaka, rooted to the spot, and Yuuma, still in Kojou’s arms, some thought must have come to mind as she rammed an elbow into Kojou’s side, hard.

  Kojou grunted in response.

  “What do you think yer doin’, geez…?!”

  Mimori ignored her son’s protests as she sunnily voiced her newfound admiration:

  “They’re sooooo cute!”

  And then, she whispered into Kojou’s ear, “Who are they? Which one’s your steady? Done her yet? Oh my, are you adding to the family? Am I going to be a grandmother in the near future?”

  Feeling completely helpless under the assault, Kojou shouted at his mother, “I have not and I’m not gonna! Listen to people for once, dammit!”

  Mimori’s cheeks puffed up in response, a sour note.

  How can you act like that in your thirties? thought Kojou, all of this giving him a light headache. Yukina and Sayaka were in complete shock, holding perfectly still as if they were wooden statues.

  Hearing the ruckus outside the front door, a small silhouette emerged from inside Mimori’s apartment. Her long hair and big eyes were rather distinctive.

  “Huhhh? Kojou?”

  “Eh…?!”

  The unexpected encounter with his little sister left Kojou staring with his mouth open. She’d left their shared apartment without a word, and there’d been no contact between them in the time since; he had no idea what she was doing here or how long it had been.

  “Nagisa? What are you doin’—when’d you get here?”

  “Mimori called this morning and asked me to bring a change of clothes.” Nagisa, wearing a black cat outfit, replied like she had no idea why Kojou was surprised.

  “So you’ve been here ever since?”

  “That’s right. I’ve been cleaning the apartment and picking up clothes from dry cleaning. After that, cooking. If I just leave the apartment to Mimori, it’d get into a really awful state, and her fridge was empty already…”

  Kojou breathed a sigh of relief, even with his minor misgivings about Nagisa’s behavior. Nagisa going missing at the same time the prison barrier incident was heating up in earnest had gotten Kojou quite worried. He had no complaints as long as Nagisa was safe. Besides, he didn’t think she was lying to him.

  “And what have you been up to, Kojou? You were with Yukina and them the whole time, right?”

  Kojou and the others stiffened.

  A smile came over Yukina that resembled a nervous tic; she nodded awkwardly. “G-good evening.”

  “Wait, Yuu’s hurt?! What happened? Who’s that girl over there? Wait, I think I met her before somewhere…”

  Nagisa’s eyes widened in surprise when she spotted Yuuma in Kojou’s arms, then glared at Sayaka. Her change in expression was almost dizzying as she launched a barrage of questions.

  “Um… What is your exact relationship with Kojou?”

  “Eh?! M-me?!” Sayaka fidgeted and averted her eyes as Nagisa strongly pressed the point.

  Nagisa had previously seen Sayaka in the process of making a scene as she attacked Kojou at school. The fact that Asagi had been hurt in the ordeal had made about the worst impression possible on Nagisa.

  Sayaka was virtually in tears as she looked back at Kojou, her eyes begging for rescue. In spite of her implicit plea, Kojou drew his face close and whispered into her ear, “Sorry, Sayaka. Hold Nagisa off for a while, would you?”

  “Eh? Ehh?!”

  Sayaka instantly raised her voice in protest as Kojou gruffly shoved her toward his sister. Nagisa silently grabbed her wrist and glared at her with a look that said, You’re not getting away!

  “Wait a…! I—I will remember this, Kojou Akatsuki…!”

  Ignoring Sayaka’s cries of protest as Nagisa dragged her away, Kojou turned back toward his mother.

  In contrast to Mimori’s sunny disposition, Kojou seemed strangely exhausted. Why does it have to be so hard just to talk to my own mother? he wondered bitterly.

  “…Could you do me a favor and take a look at Yuuma?”

  “Hmmm? By Yuuma, you mean little Yuu? That brings me back. Oh, that’s right, Yuu was a girl…”

  Mimori leaned over and peered at Yuuma’s face as Kojou continued to hold her. With the practiced hand of a clinical pathologist, she touched the skin of the injured girl; her eyes came to a stop over the wound in Yuuma’s chest.

  “What happened, Kojou?”

  “I don’t have time to talk about the specifics, but…Yuuma’s actually…”

  “—A witch?”

  “So you really can tell.”

  Even as the ease of her correct guess astounded him, Kojou nodded gravely. He was honestly grateful that he didn’t need to chew up time explaining.

  “Well, I’ll give her a look. Come on in!”

  Kojou and the others entered the apartment with Mimori leading the way. Even when compared to the other high-class guest rooms, the suite Mimori occupied was in a class all its own.

  Underwear, unopened letters, suspicious-looking medical instruments, and the like were randomly strewn all around the room, but Nagisa’s determined efforts had kept the area around the sofa, at least, in comparatively decent shape.

  Kojou laid Yuuma on that sofa when Mimori, now changed into a fresh white gown, came back in, putting on antiseptic gloves. She stood beside Yuuma as she slept, leaned over her, and began carefully examining the girl with a practiced hand.

  “Considering the blood loss, her external injuries aren’t all that deep. The laceration to the chest didn’t reach the internal organs. Bending space to avert a fatal wound, perhaps…? Mmm…I can’t tell much more like this. Kojou, prop her up, would you?”

  “Eh? Ah, sure.”

  Kojou did as told and raised Yuuma’s torso to support it while she slept. As he did so, Mimori gently thrust her hands toward Yuuma’s breasts with some kind of thought in mind.

  “There we go… Here, take this.”

  With one smooth motion, Mimori pulled something off and tossed it in front of Yukina. As Yukina caught the white cloth and spread it out, she let out a flustered “wah!”

  Mimori had pulled off Yuuma’s bra with some kind of stage magician’s trick.

  “Wh-what are you doin’ out of the blue like that…?!” Kojou objected, swiftly turning his back away from Yukina’s hands.

  However, Mimori calmly continued her examination without any outward indication of mischief.

  “It was in the way of palpation so I got rid of it… Oh my, Yuu, I take my eyes off you for a little bit and look at how you’ve grown… As a physician, I simply cannot let this pass by…heh-heh.”

  Mimori, wiping away the dro
ol that for some reason had trickled from her lip, began fondling Yuuma’s breasts while she slept.

  A spasm came over Yukina’s face as she watched this purely perverse behavior.

  “Er… Madam, this is, ah…a patient, you know…” Looking up as Yukina tried to rebuke her, Mimori smiled pleasantly, as if her interest had been piqued.

  “Oh my. You’re Yukina Himeragi, yes?”

  “Ah…yes.”

  Yukina immediately rectified her posture as Mimori’s scrutinizing gaze shifted to her. Yukina’s reaction made Mimori beam in an exceptionally good mood.

  “Ah, I see. Oh, don’t worry, I’m a medical psychometer, you see. I can examine most things just by making contact with the skin.”

  “…You mean…you’re a Hyper-Adapter?”

  Yukina sucked in her breath in surprise. “Hyper-Adapter” was a term used for natural psychics who did not rely upon magic. Defying any categorization, their abilities included numerous skills of great rarity, causing phenomena that could not be achieved through scientific technology or magic. No doubt the warm welcome Mimori had received at MAR was due in no small part to her special ability and not just her conventional talents.

  Suddenly regaining her composure, Yukina asked a new question, her tone conveying that she just wasn’t getting it.

  “Erm…if all you need to do is touch the skin, you don’t actually need to fondle her breasts, do you…?”

  “Oh, that won’t do at all!” announced Mimori with an exaggerated shake of her head.

  “My ability only functions when I’m fondling the knockers of a pretty girl, so it can’t be helped, you see.”

  “I-is that so?”

  Yukina was on the verge of falling for it when Kojou angrily interjected.

  “Of course, it ain’t! There’s no such thing as pervy psychometry like that! Geez, don’t pull that stuff on people you’ve just met!!”

  “Muu,” went Mimori, her cheeks puffing up to pout.

  “I want to touch her so what’s the big deal? There’s no point in being a sorcerer’s physician if you can’t touch the knockers of pretty girls! You think so, too, don’t you?!”