Cherry Blossom Girls International

by Harmon Cooper

  “I know, but this may be related to Damon Lord. We have to act now.”

  Chapter Thirteen: Shibuya Crossing

  Who could have guessed that the cult movement known as Aum Shinrikyo had reformed with younger members, hell-bent on bringing terror to Japanese citizens. Aum Shinrikyo’s most famous act up until now was the Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack, but that had taken place thirty-five years ago, an incident mostly forgotten about even if it left twelve people dead.

  Whatever this was, it was a new faction, a new group of assclowns looking to take innocent lives.

  The likelihood of the Aum Shinrikyo being linked to Damon Lord was low, but there was still a chance, and people were going to die if we didn’t do something.

  From what I could make out on the television, they had driven two eighteen wheelers into the Shibuya Crossing, crashing them into one another, one toppling over, the other—the larger of the two—still running.

  A few of the terrorist fucks stood on top of the eighteen-wheeler firing their weapons in the crowd while their counterparts gathered hostages, and placed them in the back of the large vehicle. Police were there as well, trying to move people out of the area but not yet taking down the perpetrators.

  It was only going to get worse from here.

  “Can you take us to a secluded area?” I asked the woman.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but I was completely on the same wavelength as Grace, something I didn’t realize until we passed a reflective surface and I saw that my eyes were glowing white too.

  I had also maintained my shifted form, but rather than pat myself on the back or give myself a golden star sticker, I continued to follow the woman to a storage space not far from the baggage claim.

  “Okay, she’s good to go, have her forget everything,” I told Grace as I started taking off my Manchester shirt.

  A few of the CBGs looked at me funny.

  “We don’t have a lot of options when it comes to places to change. I’ll change first. Now turn around, you guys can change after that,” I said, allowing those who wanted to be modest to do what they had to do.

  The Japanese airport attendant left, and by this point I was out of my jeans and into my tights, wearing the same dark shoes I’d worn on the plane. Once I got into the top of my uniform, I zipped it up, making sure everything was in place. I stuffed my glasses in a side pocket, and pulled out a pair that had a strap around them.

  I even thought about putting my bolo tie on, but decided against it in the end.

  While the others started to change, I looked at my phone, pinpointing a couple of rooftops near Shibuya that we could teleport onto. I knew Dorian could do it, but I still wanted to give her as many pictures and options as possible.

  So I started taking screenshots of one particular building, a circular department store known as the Shibuya 109. It wasn’t the tallest building in the area at ten floors, but it would give us a good vantage point over the crossing.

  It was nighttime. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that we had left America during the day and arrived here at night, yet we had flown only God knows how many hours. The fact that it was night would give us a little more cover, hopefully allowing us to work discreetly.

  “Is everyone ready?” I asked.

  Once I got confirmation from the CBGs I turned to see all of them in their uniforms, masks too. These were the same masks they had worn at my book release party, to help conceal their identities from the general public. They would do for now, and I wasn’t planning on getting into the action, so I didn’t need a mask myself.

  Still, Michelle was concerned for me.

  “You should at least wear my hat,” she said, handing me the pink Denver hat. “Just in case a helicopter comes, it’ll cover your face.”

  “Not a bad idea,” I told her as I put the hat on.

  “Do you have a location for me?” Dorian asked.

  I nodded and handed her my phone, our teleporter scrolling through a couple of the images. She took a deep breath and concentrated for a moment, her hands coming to a prayer position in front of her lips.

  “You can do it,” Chloe said, her throat started to glow again, transferring confident vibes to the punk rock teleporter.

  “I know I can,” said Dorian as she stuck her arms out. “Everyone touch me. Let’s do this.”

  We flashed away, reappearing on the rooftop of the Shibuya 109.

  It was a humid night, a slight breeze whipping through my hair.

  I ran to the edge of the building and looked out at the grand metropolis, both blown away by the size of the city, which reminded me of the New York skyline, and all the chaos below. Lit up buildings as far as the eye could see, I felt like I was in Gotham or some shit, Times Square on meth.

  But I ignored all this as I looked down to the streets, readying up some commands.

  “We’ll make this quick,” I told the group. “We take the bad guys out, we return here, we change, and we get the hell out of this area. Because I don’t want everyone to go down, I’m just going to pick those of you that kind of fly, or move quickly…”

  “Yes,” Michelle said, pumping her fists.

  “Not you, I was referring to Dorian.”

  She stomped her feet. “Come on, Gideon, I can definitely get down from this building.”

  “Michelle, I would prefer if you stayed here…”

  “I don’t need knives to take these assholes out!”

  I snorted. “Language. And just stay put. Dorian, Chloe, Stella and Veronique, you’re up. One of you needs to take care of floating duties for Veronique. Also, I don’t want you stripping all the metal from the buildings. I only want you disrupting their weapons, and bringing them down. Try not to use lethal force. I repeat, try not to use lethal force. Let Japanese law enforcement deal with these twats.”

  Dorian gave me a thumbs up, Veronique shrugged, Chloe smiled at me, and Stella raised an eyebrow in my direction. I looked to Grace and Ingrid, who also nodded, Ingrid ready to pinch herself and activate Tulip if need be.

  “That’s the spirit, team, now take out those terrorists!”

  Dorian moved to the edge of the building, looked over and flashed away. Chloe rose into the air, her hair lifting as Veronique joined her. As this was taking place, a nearly translucent green sphere formed around Stella, spinning as it took her over the side.

  The terrorists were definitely in for a one-sided fight.

  Dorian appeared behind one of the gunmen on the eighteen-wheeler, placed her hand on his shoulder, and flashed away again, appearing in the sky above the crossing and dropping him twenty feet onto the top of the transport vehicle.

  Even with the crowd, the police sirens, and other random noises from the subway station, I could still hear the impact, the man colliding with the roof of the driver’s compartment, spilling onto the hood and ultimately landing on the ground.

  Broken.

  Two of the other guys fell to their knees as Stella and Veronique lowered, the metal vampire instantly draining them, red energy swirling around her.

  One of the terrorists tending to the hostages fired a burst of shots at Veronique, his bullets stopping in the air and falling to the ground. It was Chloe who ultimately handled this guy, the man falling to the ground, his hands cupping his ears as he screamed.

  Definitely not a fair fight.

  There were only a few terrorists left now, these ones smartly trying to disappear into the crowd, which would have been easier if all of them hadn’t been wearing Kumamon sweatshirts.

  Dorian nabbed the first, again giving him the ‘drop from the sky’ treatment. As she did this, Chloe started helping the terrified Japanese people out of the back of the eighteen-wheeler.

  As Veronique brought another guy down, one of the terrorists came out of nowhere, swinging the butt of his weapon at Chloe.

  And he would have connected with her too had it not been for Stella, who instantly formed a protective shield around Chloe, the man’s attack
bouncing right off and causing him to stumble backward.

  Stella was not done here.

  A swirl of greenish energy moved up and around her. It blasted off her form, and dipped into the crowd, sweeping past Chloe and connecting with the man.

  The energy lifted him up into the air, spinning him around as it brought the terrorist over to Stella, just so he could see her face for a moment. Once their eyes locked, she pulled her fist back, and offered the thug a kinetic energy-powered knuckle sandwich.

  “Damn!” I said, feeling the snap of her punch even from the rooftop.

  A trashcan lid flew through the crowd, this one controlled by Veronique. It collided with the back of a terrorist who had almost gotten away, the man’s body tumbling to a halt in front of a pair of screaming Japanese girls, both in school uniforms.

  “I believe we are almost done here…” I said, looking around. Ingrid was there, Grace was there…

  “Michelle is gone,” Ingrid said suddenly.

  “Dammit!” I looked down at the crossing, hoping to spot the young speedster even if this was practically impossible. I knew that she could run down the side of the building. Hell, she could run up and down buildings all day and probably still have enough energy left to stay up all night bothering me.

  “Grace, are you getting anything?” I asked, the psychic shifter now at my side.

  “In that direction,” she said, pointing to a street heading north.

  There was enough light coming from a gaudy DisNike store for me to see an invisible force slam into a man and throw him onto a bench. Michelle appeared before the terrorist, her hands on her hips as she scolded the winded man.

  “Grace, tell her to come back up here,” I said under my breath. “Tell them all.”

  Grace nodded, white energy radiating from her eyes as she looked down at the group.

  It dawned on me in that moment that we had just given ourselves away. My effort to be a goddamn superhero had blown our cover. The world would soon know the CBGs were in Japan, we would now have to be extra careful.

  Seriously. And duh...

  You would think that I would have figured this shit out by now, but seeing those people on the television screen screaming, seeing the terrorists move around with guns, the chaos, it triggered something in me.

  Literally.

  And I was regretting what it had triggered as soon as the CBGs started returning to the rooftop, Michelle the first to arrive.

  “I told you not to go down there,” I started to tell her.

  “I’m sorry, Gideon, I couldn’t help it…”

  “Michelle, we have to stick together; we have to listen to each other.”

  “But that guy would have gotten away,” she said as Stella floated onto the rooftop, followed by Veronique. Chloe was still in the air, and Dorian had already teleported to the space next to Grace.

  “It’s too risky to do stuff like that, especially in a foreign country,” I told her, putting both hands on her shoulders. She gave me a fearful look, the young speedster turning her head away from me. I could feel her vibrating under my hands, acting as if I were truly angry with her.

  The thing was, I wasn’t all that mad at her. I just wanted us to be safer especially with what had happened to Fiona. And I was just about to explain this to her when I heard the beating blades of a helicopter.

  “We’ll deal with this later,” I said, releasing her shoulders. “We need to go somewhere else, and fast.”

  “Find a place on your phone,” Dorian told me. “Or we could just go…” Dorian looked off in the distance at some of the buildings that seemed to be miles and miles away.

  “Building hop?” Stella suggested.

  “Yeah, let’s building hop,” Chloe said, Dorian immediately nodding.

  “Hell yeah,” Dorian told the group. “Grace, you go with Chloe and Gideon; I will take Michelle; Veronique and Ingrid, you go with Stella.”

  “I could just run…”

  “Stay together,” Dorian told Michelle, grabbing her wrist. “You guys go first, and we will teleport to you.”

  “Sounds like a plan!” Chloe lifted Grace and me into the air, a low hum thrumming all around us. It was always interesting to be flown by Chloe, vibrations beneath my feet, the way that her power pulsated through me.

  So damn cool.

  We went from the Shibuya 109 building to a taller building a couple of blocks away, Stella and the others eventually catching up with us.

  From there we continued to head in the same direction, away from the chaos that was one of Tokyo’s biggest and busiest districts.

  It was like something out of Ghost in the Shell, our group going from building to building surrounded by the Tokyo skyline, stars mostly hidden by the city lights, a sliver of moon in the distance, a welcoming breeze.

  An absolutely cloudless night.

  Eventually, we came to a somewhat quieter area of the city, still with tall buildings, but with a giant park in its center, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I could also see habitats for animals down there.

  “That’s the station there,” I said as I looked over the side of the building we eventually settled on. “Let’s change, and then we’ll find a place to stay for the night.”

  The CBGs nodded, all aside from Michelle who was distracted by the lights below.

  “Maybe we can transition into someone’s home tomorrow. We may need a more private space than a hotel, and it will be hard to deal with the guest services now that Grace’s ability is somewhat handicapped.”

  “I can still do more with my power than many would think…”

  “No need to get defensive about it,” I told the psychic shifter. “This is a new experience for all of us. Let’s just make it happen in the smartest way possible.”

  Chapter Fourteen: Basement Sauna

  Even with the fact that Grace wasn’t able to just take people’s minds like she could in the States, she was still a formidable telepath.

  In a matter of moments she had someone translating for us, an American man named Dallas Stringham, who just so happened to be fluent in Japanese. The man had a background in the military, and once he’d gotten out, he’d married a Japanese woman and moved here, eventually becoming a permanent resident.

  “We need a hotel that can accommodate all of us,” Grace told him.

  “I understand,” he said.

  The man was in a suit, like he had just come from some type of meeting. I had already started to notice that many of the Japanese people around us were dressed nicely, even though it was hot and humid outside, and Dallas was no exception.

  He had orange hair, which was combed off to the side, a small goatee, and from what he had already told us, he was now a private English instructor on his way home from a lesson with some hotshot CEO.

  “And this is a safe place for us to stay?” I asked him.

  We were standing in front of the subway entrance at Ueno Station. There was a man playing drums on the street corner, a bassist amped up in front of him, the duo adding a little ambient jazz music to the background.

  The other sounds accompanying them were the sounds of moving vehicles, no honking horns, though. The Japanese drivers seemed polite, less disruptive than some of the crazy-ass New England drivers and their wicked ways.

  “Ueno is definitely safe,” he told me. “There is a big park nearby, a zoo too. Then you have what used to be the black market. Now it’s just several streets lined with shops. Back in the 1950s, Ueno was where American soldiers came to buy just about everything Japan had to offer.”

  “We need to get some new clothes,” Dorian said, tugging at her sleeve. It was warm outside, definitely not sweater weather.

  “We will get clothes tomorrow,” Grace reminded her. “Let’s just get in for the night, get some rest, and figure out our game plan.”

  “Hey, those are my lines.”

  Grace turned to me, cocking her head to the right just a bit. “Are they?”

  “I…”
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  And I really didn’t know.

  I knew Grace and I were on the same wavelength, but sometimes I said things that may or may not have originated from my mind. Other times, I thought what I was saying was genuinely me, only to find out later that there may have been a puppet master behind it all.

  “People keep looking at us,” Stella said. “Especially Veronique and me.”

  “It’s because of your hair,” said Dallas. “They don’t see a lot of blondes around here, aside from foreigners, so it interests them. You should see some of the looks I used to get when I had long red hair,” he said with a laugh.

  How Grace found this guy was a testament to her power. We simply made our way down from the top of the building (discreetly, of course). Once we got to the front of the station, she took the lead, eventually hearing the thoughts of a man named Dallas, who had been hanging out at a pub in the station.

  “I do want to explore, though,” said Dorian. “Sorry, I know we are here on a mission, but…”

  “I would like a nicer guidebook than the one I already have,” Ingrid said. “I read they have guidebooks for certain wards.”

  I took a quick look around.

  Aside from the jazz duo playing on the corner there were also a few homeless people taking shelter under a bridge, using blue tarps as blankets. Not far from us was a series of strange crosswalks that were unlike any crosswalk I’d ever seen before. There were roads, and train tracks, the crosswalks going around them in a variety of creative ways, lots of steps, and it was no wonder that the people of Japan were so healthy.

  All that walking.

  I could see the entrance to the black market across the street, the lights, the sounds, the people at outdoor cafés eating finger foods and clinking mugs of beer together.

  Part of me wished America was more like this, the proximity to the suburbs and neighborhood bars making it easy to stop and grab a drink, meet some friends, no worry about how you would get home when there were ample taxis, a good public transportation system and you were usually within walking distance.

  “And you all are trying to be discreet, right?” he asked.