The next part of Scepter 4′s (mis)adventures.

Chapter 2 (part ½) (volume 2, pages 63-79)
The Demonic Swordsman and the Cheerful Returnee from America

At Scepter 4’s HQ, there dwelt the Demonic Swordsman named Zenjou Gouki.

A servant of the previous Blue King, Habari Jin, who slew his king. A rational man of principle and the only member of the previous Scepter 4 to continue to be in active service in the current one, on insistence of Munakata Reishi. A powerful warrior with a long military track record who was at the ground zero of a Damocles Down and lived to tell. Despite the aforementioned incident costing him an arm, he still remained an expert when it came to fencing.

At present though, despite his personal history, he had a do-nothing job as an office clerk in the File room dedicated mostly to past data that he was tasked with sorting and arranging. Such was one of the conditions Zenjou set for returning to duty as a member of Munakata’s Scepter 4. That is, Zenjou deemed it unacceptable for himself to become a pillar of support for the reborn Scepter 4. That decision was both for his own good and for the good of the organization.

Only, ironically, ever since the Kounomura incident had happened, Zenjou, who one couldn’t really call busy usually, suddenly found himself swamped with work. Due to the Kounomura faction’s hacking into Scepter 4’s system and bringing it down, the paper doc.u.ments that Zenjou was in charge of managing were now in hot demand.

So today, again, Zenjou was on his way to Munakata’s office, holding bulky folders with his hand to his chest again. Despite having his only hand already preoccupied, he deftly managed to knock on the door.

“Please come in.”

Since he got permission, he drew back his wrist and opened the door.

Munakata sat at his desk, head lowered as he was writing something.

“Oya,” he said with a small smile when he saw Zenjou. “It is you. I would have opened the door for you if only you said something.”

With that, Munakata rose and crossed to Zenjou, accepting the stack of papers from him.

“I apologize for troubling you to come all the way here. Ah, yes, this is what I wanted. The register of all the strains in the Tokyo suburbs.”

Zenjou stared at Munakata unmovingly.

“…Is something wrong?” Munakata lifted his gaze from the papers he was looking through when he sensed Zenjou’s stare.

Zenjou reported in a vacant tone, “It looks like the flow of sewer water is starting to reverse. Also, there is alcohol detected in our water supply. It is unknown how it got there, but apparently, some j.a.panese sake is mixed in with the water. Needless to say, it is likely the work of the people currently picking a fight with you.”
“…”

Zenjou was lost as to how he should interpret the expression that crossed Munakata’s face then. Munakata’s mouth twisted and for a fleeting moment, he looked like he was about to burst into laughter. The next moment though saw him frowning, his face becoming pensive.

‘Just what on earth could he be feeling right now, I wonder?’

Frankly speaking, at the moment Munakata had been backed into a corner like never before. Rather than effective sabotage tactics, the trouble with water and sewer services felt a lot more like shameless mockery. Petty humans playing the great Blue King Munakata Reishi for a fool, to be exact.

And the person in question seemed just a little bit annoyed, as well as fed up with his situation. But what he seemed even more than that was…

"Bewildered, is what he is,’ Zenjou sensed intuitively.

For a short while, Munakata was deep in thought. After a pause, he showed a smile to Zenjou. “I thank you for reporting. I shall do something about it.”

Zenjou gave a deep bow and left the room.

Regarding this matter, Munakata didn’t at all need him for more than managing the File room. Even though Scepter 4 was falling apart, Munakata himself held it together just fine. In which case, all Zenjou needed to do was to carry out his original duty.

And he would take this chance to ascertain a few things.

Thinking that, Zenjou returned to his workplace.

It could be that the fact of Munakata holding it together all too well was what was making this whole situation especially troublesome, and excluding Kounomura Zen"ichi, the only one aware of it at the present stage was this solitary man.

Munakata Reishi himself not realizing that little thing was proving his undoing.

†

Awashima Seri was very honestly impressed and shocked. All because the s.p.a.ce she was currently in, reproduced her own room almost perfectly. The bed, the desk, the wardrobe - all the furniture she used in the dorm was the same.

"Which means they did a thorough investigation of my personal room.’

Awashima clicked her tongue to express her discontent, Fushimi-style. Together with discomfort, the feeling of impatience rose within her.

Just what kind of means did they use for this?

So long as she didn’t know the exact ways the opponents operated in, even the seemingly well familiar s.p.a.ce of her own room felt eerie to her.

Just then, a voice came.

“Ah, apologies, Awashima-jou, but could I trouble you to make these screens transparent?”

Awashima lifted her head.

“Mmn. See the control panel of the air conditioner? Next to it, there is a red switch. I need you to click it off.”

Awashima followed the voice’s instructions and turned off the switch found on the wall. The instance she did, all the 4 walls amazingly became transparent.

Awashima had already tried a few things, so she wasn’t too surprised but still had to admit that this technology was impressive.

Simply put, the room she was currently in was a transparent jail cell.

The place where she was held was something like an enormous  warehouse. And in the center of it, there was a clear cube about the size of Awashima’s dorm room, confining Awashima within it and stealing her freedom.

Furthermore, the cube with the transparent walls and ceiling was illuminated by numerous floodlight projectors installed on the floor of the warehouse. From the side, Awashima and the s.p.a.ce she resided in looked like they were floating amidst the dark room, like a stageset in some play.

A look around revealed that the s.p.a.ce was furnished with a bathroom and a toilet. Both of which were completely see-through at the moment though.

“Rest a.s.sured. The switch that makes it transparent is only installed on your side. So your privacy is fully protected,” said the huge bald-headed man in the priest’s garb standing outside her cage.

As if anyone would believe a guarantee of her privacy protection given by the people who, on top of kidnapping her, recreated her private room in minute details like a through-and-through obsessive stalker.

“Alright. Sorry to make you take care of me,” Awashima said with dignity and folded her arms. Since her transparent cell was installed on an elevated pedestal, she now could look down on the big man she would normally have to look up at when talking.

Said big man, Nakamura Gouoku, chuckled as he stroked his beard with one hand.

“I gotta say I’m impressed.”

“By how you didn’t make a single complain and even declaired that you’ll do something about your situation yourself earlier when Zen"ichi called the Blue King.”

“Not happening,” Gouoku grinned. “This cage was specially manufactured by Zen"ichi’s research team. It’s made in a way that not even a gorilla’s power would be enough to break it. And even if you somehow managed to get out of it, there’s me and the strain team standing guard close by, we’d just reign you in, is all. You do realize that Zen"ichi researched all about you there is to research, yes?”

Awashima got taken captive after doing one-on-one battle with none other than that Kounomura Zen"ichi in the first place. Her defeat at the hands of an aging man possessing no supernatural abilities whatsoever was truly humiliating, and she had no choice but to give credit to his devilish insight ability where it was due. Going by the fact that Kounomura had succeeded in confining her here, it was safe to a.s.sume that his anti-Awashima measures were perfectly thorough.

Awashima let out a little sigh. “Looks like I will need some thinking time. I’m sorry, but this is where we’ll stop for today.”

“About how to escape from here.”

With those words, Awashima clicked the switch back into its original position. The same instance the walls regained color before her very eyes. When looking at them now, she could only see the walls of her own room. Truly impressive technology.

And then Awashima felt exhaustion bearing down on her. Dropping her shoulders, she let out a long heavy sigh.

From the outside, the voice came again.

“Oh well, knock yourself out if you want, but my business with you is not over yet. Awashima Seri, I have a message for you from Zen"ichi. He said that the Blue King’s capitulation is only a matter of time now.”

“You should understand it yourself, to a degree at least, right? That the guy has already fallen pray to Zenichi’s numerous tricks—”

“Yeah, there is. To switch on the sound isolation, turn the k.n.o.b next to the transparency switch.”

Not waiting for Gouoku to finish, Awashima did just that. With frightening ease, Gouoku’s voice got cut off, her no longer hearing it. And this time, unable to bear it any longer, Awashima dropped onto the bed. It seemed she had acc.u.mulated a lot of fatigue from all the twists and turns she had been through.

She needed time. Enough time to think and to recuperate.

Awashima pulled the pillow towards herself, buried a cheek in it and shut her eyes, deciding to get some sleep first and then thoroughly examine her situation and her options.

She had understood Munakata’s implicit message.

If one changed their perspective, being taken captive by the enemy meant she was deep behind enemy lines, in the center of the enemy domain. By conceding not to rescue Awashima, Munakata relayed his wish for her to gather information on the enemy here. The two’s mutual trust was strong enough for this much to be communicated without having to say anything.

The thought of Munakata possibly letting the likes of Kounomura overwhelm him didn’t even cross Awashima’s mind. Like on the day when she first met him, she was sure that he was simply calmly waiting for the right moment to launch his counterattack. What Awashima needed to do was getting ready to support him the best she could when that time came. Just like on that day.

At last, a soft smile curved Awashima’s lips.

Munakata Reishi was especially strong in a crisis, and she was the only one who knew that from experience.

With that thought, she quietly fell into a fitful sleep.

†

It was not an exaggeration to say that at the moment, in the battle of two outstandingly talented individuals, Munakata Reishi and Kounomura Zen"ichi, Munakata Reishi was being utterly beaten. As per his declaration, Kounokura did drive Munakata’s special ops into a corner, putting them out of commission one after another and successfully taking over their regular duties, while Scepter 4 as an organization was going through a data crisis, having to deal with their electrical system’s abnormal behavior, and at the moment, also with their sewage water trouble that reversed its flow.

Such a situation could be safely called improbable.

No matter how overflowing with intelligence Kounomura was, at the end of the day he was only a man past his middle age who had no supernatural powers whatsoever.

Munakata Reishi, on the other hand, was supposed to be the Blue King tasked with protecting order.

As such, the present sorry state of affairs could be described as quite inexcusable.

Some were indignant about Munakata’s spineless att.i.tude regarding this matter, others found themselves questioning the uncharacteristic behavior he displayed lately, still others were under the impression that this was some kind of elaborate deception game he played, believing that for some reason, which had to be undoubtedly good, he needed to appear with his back against the wall.

Reality was different though.

Munakata really was a loss, although in a sense different from ordinary people’s understanding of the word.

Something was definitely amiss inside him, but he couldn’t pinpoint what exactly. To Munakata, who was used to outstripping others with ease regardless of what situation he was put in since childhood, this experience was something he didn’t have to deal with often, if at all.

Munakata didn’t have the penchant for overestimating his ability, but he didn’t underestimate himself either. He always kept his eyes on the realistic image of "Munakata Reishi’. And from his realistic self-estimates, for someone like him to be having such a hard time was much too unnatural.

"Is this another black magic spell that Kounomura-shi has cast on me?’ Munakata’s lips curved into a wry smile as he walked down the hall leading to the File room. "But how?’

While he was at it, there were a few other things that baffled him. For example, Kounomura’s troops. Munakata had arrived to the pretty much same conclusion as Fushimi, only faster. And by a.n.a.lyzing the strains under Kounomura’s command, he was hoping to grasp the full picture of his opponent’s organization.

As of now, the Kounomura faction had begun to usurp Scepter 4’s work openly. Going by the eyewitness testimony from the ones Kounomura’s strains had apprehended, it could be surmised that the Kounomura faction had no less than 20 skilled strains. Only, no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find strains that could fit the description as its members.

"King powers? Don’t tell me that Kounomura-shi has become a king and the ones he commands are actually his clansmen?’

Now, that thought had Munakata shake his head resolutely. "No, cannot be. Impossible no matter how you look at it. Kounomura-shi is using strains to accomplish the work. That premise is axiomatic. When they disabled our servers, they must have also erased records on the strains working with them.’

His brows furrowed. "No, something’s not quite right. Something feels off.’ He let out a sigh.

In any case, he should take another look at the paper-medium data they had stored, he decided.

When he arrived to the File room, he knocked on the door once.

“Ah, yes, please come in.” A voice that came from behind the door was soft-spoken and very different from the one this room’s king, Zenjou Gouki, had.

Munakata found himself momentarily puzzled before he opened the door.

“Ah,” came from inside the room.

The young man sitting at the table and apparently looking through the bundle of papers smiled awkwardly when he saw who the visitor was. “Um, good day?”

While the young man did look sheepish, strangely enough he didn’t appear apologetic. He wasn’t a Scepter 4 member. To begin with, he didn’t even wear a uniform. His hair looked silky and chestnut-colored, and his features were quite graceful. He smiled an amiable, gentle smile.

“You…” Munakata recalled him immediately. “Totsuka Tatara-kun, if I’m not mistaken? From Homura.”

“…” Munakata fixed him with a stare, to show that he was waiting for an explanation to be provided to him.

“Flew back to j.a.pan?”

“Oh.”

“I found him standing at the empty reception desk. I decided to talk to him, and after hearing him out, I concluded that a look through the doc.u.ments was required, so I brought him here at my own discretion,” another voice came from behind Munakata suddenly, announcing the return of the king of this room, Zenjou Gouki. “Was it erroneous judgement on my part, sir?”

Zenjou was expressionlessly observing Munakata.

After a pause, Munakata chuckled slightly, “Fufu. It is not an everyday occurrence for you to trust someone this much, Zenjou-san. I have no objections, on my part. You are the one in charge here. It is perfectly within your authority and scope of your professional duties to let an outsider read the materials stored in this room. I simply found it somewhat amusing that the outsider in question is Homura’s Totsuka-kun.”

Munakata sent Totsuka an amiable look. “So, did you find what you were looking for?”

“That is good to hear. How is Suoh doing? Is he well?” Munakata asked polite stock questions.
“King?” Totsuka c.o.c.ked his head a little. “Well… At present, his life is being targeted both by the American government and an insanely strong a.s.sa.s.sin the likes of which we’ve never seen before, but other than that, yes, I suppose he’s well. Business as usual.”

Munakata’s smile turned quirky, “Good grief. Not a boring minute with that man, huh.”
“True,” Totsuka grinned back. “ That’s for sure. Well then, if you will excuse me, I will now take my leave. Zenjou-san, I will take these copies with me, okay?”

Zenjou only nodded wordlessly.

“Zenjou-san, Munakata-san, thank you for your a.s.sistance.” Totsuka bowed his head. And then suddenly added, “Munakata-san.”

“You look like you’re having fun. Did something good happen?”

Munakata was lost for words.

But it seemed Totsuka hadn’t expected a reply in the first place as he tossed a goodbye with a clear smile on his face and closed the door behind him.

Munakata stroked his chin. “Having fun? I am?” he uttered questioningly, evidently talking to himself rather than to Zenjou.

Said Zenjou, having already taken his seat and, not wasting a moment, resumed his scrutinizing of the papers, smiled.

†

“…Munakata Reishi seems to be mightily confused,” remarked Nakamura Gouoku from the pa.s.senger seat.
“Such is "love’,” answered Kounomura Zen’ichi in a carefree manner from the driver’s seat.

The ringleaders of the Kounomura faction, who had succeeded in toying with Munakata Reishi and confusing Scepter 4 with detailed calculation and ingenious plans, were currently driving a car at leisure through the shopping district.

To be exact, it wasn’t just some ordinary car either. It was a so called advertising van that had a big illuminated advertising panel installed in the rear. The advertis.e.m.e.nt was that of a pub that provided an adults-geared show, and it had three girls in mini-skirts winking from the ad panel.

Only a little while ago, Kounomura was relaxing in the VIP room of a teahouse with maids, rolling around and reading manga, and the day before, he was hanging out with some homeless. The day before that, he was staying at a certain statesman’s house, enjoying some highest grade wine, and still earlier, he was taking a nap in a camper-van.

He had been changing his whereabouts every day. But he wasn’t simply running from place to place haphazardly. Having thoroughly a.n.a.lyzed Scepter 4’s search algorithms, he moved to those locations because he was confident that he wouldn’t be found in those places at those times.

Even if someone from Scepter 4 happened to pa.s.s by him right now, they wouldn’t believe that Kounomura Zen"ichi, who they had been desperately searching all over, could possibly drive an utterly conspicuous car such as the adverting van in plain daylight. By creating and exploiting to the fullest blind spots in people’s field of vision, Kounomura Zen"ichi could lazily swim among them like he was an invisible man.

"When I became a strain, I obtained herculean strength unimaginable for a normal human body,’ Gouoku pondered. "But this man can turn himself invisible, as if he’s using a super power, with just his brains and insight.’

Suddenly, Gouoku felt sorry for Munakata. "Zen"ichi wants to be a king, and if he really does become one, just what kind of monster will he be? Munakata Reishi’s the same as possessed right now. By this devil of a man.’

Nakamura Gouoku and Kounomura Zen"ichi were friends. They spent many nights drinking together, and just as many talking the night away. There were no debts or loans between the two.

It was just that one day, Kounomura came to Gouoku’s temple and said, "I want to become a king. Gouoku, will you help me out with that?’

And when he did, Gouoku grinned and replied, "Sounds fun. Tell me more about it.’

And on the same day, he started the procedure of handing over the temple to the younger generation, thinking that he didn’t really mind losing his social standing and status if it didn’t work out.

Kounomura Zen"ichi said he wanted to do it and requested his help. There was nothing in this world that could please Gouoku more. Even if Kounomura told him to save the world together or, on the contrary, suggested they should conquer it, his answer would still be the same. With Kounomura Zen"ichi, his mood would be so good in any case that a side-splitting laugh would feel truly hearty.

That was what Gouoku firmly believed in. And up until the moment, none of his expectations were betrayed. Taking on Munakata Reishi and Scepter 4 was proving truly worth it.

"Well, I’m probably possessed myself, too, by this devil of a man.’ Gouoku flashed a lopsided smile and stole a glance at his companion.

“Ah, no good,” said devil mumbled under his breath as he operated the steering wheel. “The car in front of the car in front of us is jutting out into the wrong lane a little.”

His movements looked clumsy, but in contract to them, he kept his driving safe and steady. His legs were short, so he had to use a special make seat as he did.

“What’s Marumoto’s situation?” Gouoku wondered about one of their comrades.

“Fushimi Saruhiko is someone you’re most cautious of, if memory serves? He’s the reason why you chose the time when he went abroad on a business trip to launch your attack on Scepter 4, right?” Gouoku asked.
“That’s right,” Kounomura replied cheerfully. “A sharp and able person like him and Munakata-kun working together is undesirable for our side. That’s why we’re having Marumoto-kun draw him away for us.”

As a matter of course, the fact that Marumoto would naturally trigger Fushimi’s irritation was in Kounomura’s "forecast’. Like Fushimi had suspected, most of Kounomura’s divine insight and battle plan was based on the data of the Scepter 4 members’ psychology obtained through Marumoto Keiji’s super ability.

Although the person himself didn’t seem to be fully aware, Marumoto Keiji was a rare and talented mind reading strain.

“We wouldn’t have stood a chance if not for him.”

“But of course,” Kounomura, too, showed his pearly whites. “I’m really grateful to him. It’s because he’s doing us this great favor of being our core behind the scene that we can just narrowly prevail over the Blue King.”
“Hmm. Still, with this, I a.s.sume we’re done testing the depth of that youngster Minakata’s potential, aren’t we? His defeat is only a matter of time now, right?”

For a while, Kounomura didn’t say anything.

“…Who knows?” His head turned. “We have no positive proof of that yet. But it was much easier than I had expected, I have to say.”

Gouoku tossed a glance at Kounomura.

“What’s wrong? You look down?”
“Do I?” Kounomura let out a little yawn. “I’m not down… or am I?”

Kounomura wasn’t his usual energetic self, so chatty that it left his company dumbfounded more often than not. He looked rather exhausted, and his eyes appeared drowsy. He let out another yawn, a big one this time.

All things considered, Gouoku could guess the reason for Kounomura’s listlessness, but…

“…”

He chose not to leave it unvoiced, just folded his arms and, grinning widely, said, “Hey, down or not, make sure you drive us safely, okay?”

He was pretty serious about that, too.