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Chapter Forty Two
Impel
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Casquette.
Black tie. Gold cicada pin.
Race’s eyes averted from the gaudy mess that walked through the elevator doors and back to the bulletin board she was pretending to read, hoping that Fumihito had not noticed her tired glance at his attire.
“Hey, hey!” Fumihito sauntered up to Race, folding his cycling cap and stuffing it in his shirt pocket. “Have you seen a cicada today? I’ve already seen three and it’s not even noon yet.”
“No you didn’t.” Ayumi challenged, her ars full of papers she was attempting to sort without having her hands free. “It’s the wrong time of year. All the cicadas are hibernating.”
“Chocolate-dipped cicadas are still cicadas.” Fumihito folded his arms and stuck his nose in the air as he spoke, making the eye roll Ayumi was in the middle of repeat itself in as overly dramatic a fashion as possible. “That’s not counting the ones I have in my wallet, and all over-”
“Oh, you haven’t seen it yet, have you?” His eyes sparkled as he eagerly retrieved his wallet and scooped out the excessive amount of bills inside it to reveal the cicada pattern which lined every pocket, worming his hand in between Race and the bulletin board so she was forced to take a good look at it. “I also have a cicada plate frame on my bike, a cicada pillow case, cicada socks, a cicada riding cap,” He removed the casquette from his shirt pocket and flipped it open to reveal the cicada patch ironed onto the front. “Just about everything I could think of.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Ayumi gripped the bridge of her nose as hard as she could as the elevator doors opened and a man in a cartoonishly large cicada costume exited. “If you need me I’m going to be throwing up in the restroom for the next six hours.”
“Oh, hi?” Fumihito stared at the goofy character as Ayumi escaped the conversation. “I didn’t… Did my wife send you over? I don’t remember hiring anybody.”
Race barely had time to slip the mask over her nose before the costume detonated.
—
“Those are your instructions.”
Ren could feel the veins in his temples standing out in spite of his best efforts to stay composed. “You want us to stay put, do absolutely nothing, and wait for this guy to show up? The same guy who just hacked the whole-”
“If you depart, he will find you.” Oisim mumbled, unaffected by Ren’s temper. “If he knew where you live, he would have come here. If he knew where you worked, he would have gone there. Instead he has told all of Japan that someone whose name is not unique is something they do not know.”
Ren’s glance at Tone did not go unnoticed, for Oisim suddenly approached, stopping just inches away from him and completely obscuring his vision. “It is clearly unsafe for Kohaku to continue to associate with you any longer. She has already disregarded my order to remain separate. Now she will be kept away.”
“Hold on,” Ren protested as Oisim turned and walked towards the heavy door, which Goshiki stood just outside of. “How exactly is it unsafe for her but safe for us?”
The giant glanced over his shoulder at the cratered portion of the wall in reply, the thoroughly repainted portion thoroughly scrubbed until all that remained was a slight discoloration. After a tense few seconds of silence, he exited the room, Goshiki following at his heels as the door closed behind them.
“It’s all the same,” Rook immediately resumed the moment the door had clicked into place. “I don’t want him here. I don’t like him, and I won’t forget what he was part of. He’s done too much damage to simply let him walk in because he feels sad.”
“I’m with Rook on this one.” Ren crossed the room and slumped into the computer chair. “We have no idea what he might do once we get comfortable with him. I’m not opposed to keeping things amiable, at least to a point, but he needs to stay at arm’s length for a while. For a long while.”
“So… What happens now?” Rook looked between Tone and Ren, the haniwa he rested upon grinding against the counter. “We’ve driven the yakuza out of Japan almost entirely, the only thing really left is some splinter groups trying to restore their families’ power. Do we finish mopping up, or what?”
“Rook.” The silvery brows framed Ren’s harsh eyes beneath them. “It is entirely too soon to go gallivanting around and getting into more fights. Everyone needs more time, on top of Oisim now keeping tabs on us. We just have to lie low.”
“There is one thing that needs doing.” Tone mumbled, leaning against the shattered wall and folding his arms to obscure the lumpy glove over his right hand, which covered the minimal bandages he had been made to wear. “A letter came in the mail today. The court has ordered that Corey be exhumed.”
“What??” Ren made no effort to hide the shock on his face. “But that-”
“I don’t like it either.” Tone stood up off the wall after one of the shattered segments threatened to fall off. “They want another autopsy done to verify his cause of death. And they want you put on a no-fly list in the meantime. Had to find that out myself as they decided not to mail you that bit.”
“What does this mean?” Rook looked back and forth between the pair. “Do they suspect Ren of something?”
“It means either they found their precious footage from the hotel,” Tone straightened out his hunched spine, glancing down at Rook from the bottom of his mask’s eye holes. “Or somebody tipped them off.”
—
Race turned around.
The blast was slowly expanding in all directions, a wave of heat and light that torched everything it touched. The mysterious character responsible was gone; where he went or who he was could not be ascertained by the now incinerated costume.
A more difficult task remained, one that was far less appealing than figuring out the identity of one person. She had been seen by Fumihito during the conversation and was standing directly next to the costume when it detonated. She could not make it out unscathed.
So it was with her jaw locked and her muscles tightened that she turned around, standing in front of Fumihito and gripping him by the shoulders as the force of the detonation slowly bit into her back. Her suit jacket frayed and withered, the skin underneath beginning to sizzle from the heat. Her fingers dug into Fumihito’s shoulders as her knees started to buckle, desperate to carry her away from the explosion and the pain. After a short time, however, she fell to the ground, pulling herself away and looking back at the sphere of fire.
Slowly struggling back to her feet, Race pulled Fumihito away from the edge of the blast, repositioning some of the furniture for him to land against while trying her best to ignore the stinging skin in the middle of her back. Standing in front of Fumihito, she gave him as much of a shove as she could before leaning her head against him and staring into the floor.
“I’m sorry.”
The fourth man watched.
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