Relwing

  1.59: A Budding ActressRUMBLE.

  RATTLE.

  SCREEEEEEECH—!!

  Akuchi-bus swayed violently from side to side as we barreled toward our final battle. She sounded almost… chipper. Of course she was excited. Why wouldn’t a shapeshifting tanuki be thrilled about reckless supernatural vehicur combat? I thanked every kami listening that no ordinary humans were around to witness the flood of traffic viotions she was currently committing. Actually… considering what she had been doing in her motorcycle form… had we ever been following traffic ws?

  Clinging to the steering wheel, I felt my stomach twist like it wanted to escape my body first. “Hyaaa…!” My vision wobbled, and I sagged forward over the wheel like someone who’d bcked out during a cursed space-gravity attraction at a haunted matsuri.

  Then Akuchi snapped us into a ninety-degree turn so sharp the universe itself probably filed a compint. Screams erupted from the passengers… half terrified, half disturbingly delighted. Their faces fshed by like festival-goers on a ride explicitly designed to kill people, eyes sparkling with barely concealed excitement.

  Akuchi’s engine thrummed beneath us, humming with spiritual energy… no doubt supercharged by Ume’s… highly questionable cooking. Ume called it “nourishing.” My digestive system deemed it “a threat.”

  SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH—!!

  CRACCCCCCK!!

  We abruptly skidded to a halt. My head lurched forward. I lifted it blearily, fighting the nausea spiraling inside me.

  “We are now just one block away from our objective,” Akuchi announced over the comm in a disturbingly cheerful flight-attendant type of tone. “Please disembark in an orderly fashion!”

  “K-Kami save me…” I clutched my stomach, sure that Ume’s hotpot was about to redecorate the inside of my helmet.

  …

  Warm arms wrapped around me.

  Soft… incredibly soft pressure enveloped my back.

  My entire soul detonated.

  “KYAAA—?!” The nausea vanished instantly, vaporized by Ume’s bosom-induced sensory overload.

  She giggled behind me. “All better now, isn’t it?” Her voice was honey-sweet as she petted my helmet like I was some trembling stray she’d decided to adopt.

  My knees knocked together. I nodded, trembling, my thoughts reduced to static. The horrifying realization that my future was probably going to be full of moments like this… actually warmed my chest. “L-Let’s… d-do this!” I decred, forcing myself upright.

  Ume released me… finally… and patted my back with firm enthusiasm. “Good, Noh-man! Let’s go get him!”

  I stumbled forward. “Ow… w-why does the use of that name always hurt…?”

  Yes. That was my fate in a nutshell.

  We exited the bus st. Everyone else had already moved out. Rui stood at the front like a pocket-sized company commander ready to lead a battalion.

  “Alright!” she barked. “Let’s go over the basics one more time! This is dangerous! Everyone lies low until the operation begins! Vampires… be sure to hide yourselves! When we begin the pnned attack and he becomes vulnerable… you will spring out, seize him, and we disable and make an arrest. No killing!”

  The vampires bowed, nodded, and cheered in unison.

  “Silence!” Rui snapped. “MOVE OUT!” She cpped sharply.

  Ume smacked her shoulder. QUIETLY, IDIOT.

  Rui flinched. “Y-yeah… s-sorry!” she blurted… way too loudly.

  “Hyaaa—!” Panic smmed through me. I spped a gloved hand over her mouth. She froze, blinking up at me. Her cheeks bloomed red.

  Mine immediately followed suit.

  Behind us, Ume sniffed the air delicately, smiling like someone who’d just discovered a fresh batch of delicious emotional turmoil.

  Natalia-sama let out a soft, elegant ugh. “I suppose Akuchi should change form and call the man to bait him out.” Her eyes slid toward the bus.

  Akuchi vroomed… actually vroomed… and with a bright poof of tanuki magic, transformed into Reiko-chan.

  I slowly released my hand from Rui’s mouth. She marched forward like nothing had happened at all… though I was pretty sure her ears were still a little pink. Ume sniffed the air again with a mysterious smile, like she was sampling an emotional bouquet.

  Rui handed Akuchi a cellphone. “Here. Use this. It has a temporary number, so he won’t be able to trace it. It’s preloaded with only his contact. For safety. I used these with Reiko-chan too, back then.” Her voice wavered just slightly. “The measures we took weren’t enough, I suppose.”

  Her regret was written clearly across her face.

  “Don’t bme yourself,” I murmured, pcing my hand gently on her shoulder.

  Rui looked up at me… tears glimmering in her chocote-brown eyes. My chest tightened.

  “I know,” she whispered. “There’s no time for that kind of sentimentality. We have to finish this.” She inhaled, her expression sharpening into determination. “Akuchi. Make the call… and everyone zip it.”

  Akuchi nodded, giving a small, composed smile. She flipped the phone open and dialed. Everyone immediately motioned at everyone else to keep silent. We held our breath as the faint ringing began.

  beep

  beep

  beep

  Each tone stabbed deeper into the tension coiling in my stomach.

  Then—

  click

  A cold, distant voice seeped through the speaker.“May I inquire who is calling me so te?”

  My blood chilled. Yes. That was him. Those frozen eyes of his had a matching voice. My throat bobbed in a hard swallow.

  Akuchi paused.

  The silence stretched too long. Too dramatic. Too dangerous. I had a moment of sheer panic—Hyaaa—! He’s going to hang up—!

  Then her voice wavered. It trembled and broke.

  “M-Mitsuhiko…” she whispered, sounding as if she were cracking apart. “I’m… I’m so sorry I left you… I was wrong…”

  Soft sobbing followed… gentle, fragile. Achingly real.

  I gaped.

  There were tears… actual tears… pooling in her eyes. For a heartbeat, I forgot it was Akuchi and not Reiko. It felt like Reiko herself was standing there, unraveling her heart. But this… this wasn’t a side Reiko had ever shown me. Not once. When I looked toward Rui, she smiled faintly… knowingly. She had seen much more of Reiko in their brief time together than I ever had. Much more of her soft and more passionate side.

  “Reiko…” Mitsuhiko breathed in sharply. “To think that you still have your mind. What happened to you?”

  Akuchi froze for the slightest instant… then continued, deepening her trembling sobs.

  “I… I’m a different person now… I met someone who saved me. He hit me like a train. Ah… but don’t worry… I’ll only ever love you.”

  “O-ow…” I clutched my helmet with both hands to muffle the pathetic whimper that escaped me. That line stabbed straight through me like a cursed kabuki prop spear.

  Akuchi’s acting tore at my heart. It was Reiko’s voice… my voice now… and that familiarity made it hit even harder. If I hadn’t accidentally ended up with her voice, this entire performance would’ve been impossible. Akuchi wouldn’t have been able to guess how Reiko sounded otherwise. And when it came to my acting skills, I could never approach this kind of performance. Most certainly not with this kind of devastating emotional precision.

  “Ah… was it that man we encountered at the amusement park?” Mitsuhiko asked, a cold amusement dripping from his tone. “That pathetic fool who tried to cling to you? Hah… if it was him, I will have to thank him for returning you to me. He may be weak, as you always said, but at least he did something useful with his miserable life. Give me his name. I’ll vish him with riches if you would like. I can tell that you still have feelings for him.”

  “N-No…” Akuchi’s voice cracked beautifully. “I have no feelings for him. He gave me what I needed. Trust me. I got exactly what I needed. You don’t need to reward him. He only did what he did for himself. I’m sure he thought I would love him if he stepped in and heroically saved me… but the real world doesn’t work like that. Love works… differently.”

  Her gaze slid toward Rui and me, her eyes heavy with sorrow that wasn’t entirely acting.

  “No matter how hard you try… no matter how hard you try to impress someone… sometimes it’s just…”

  Her breath shook.

  “…pointless.”

  “—Well spoken, my girl. You’ve come to your senses.”His voice softened, but there was something chilling underneath it. “Hurry up and come back to me. I’ll fix everything. I’ll bend every bit of knowledge I possess toward restoring you. You still have your face, I can see. That’s important. That stunt you pulled… Ah! So it was you—so merciless and relentless. I am very impressed. I was terrified for a time, but I had faith your feelings of love would bring back your reason.”

  Merciless? A stunt?

  I froze. My stomach dropped.W-what stunt?!What had Reiko done that we never heard about?!“K-Kami…” I clutched my helmet, my heart pounding. Rui’s entire pn might already be halfway to exploding…!

  Akuchi hesitated too… just for a breath… but kept her voice trembling. “O-of course. I just want everything to go back to the way it was.”

  “I’ll do my very best for you, Reiko,” Mitsuhiko murmured. “Return to my side. Even if you look different, I’ll embrace you warmly.”

  Ugh. The way he said that made my skin crawl.

  Akuchi smiled sadly, her voice dipping into that heartbreakingly soft cadence Reiko used to have. “Then… I’ll put on my best face just for you.” She drew in a small, shaky breath. “I’m close by right now. I wanted to speak to you before showing myself. Please… come see me, actually. I’m so ashamed about what happened. I need to… go on a date. We’ll reignite our love...” Her tone brightened with a fragile, hopeful lilt. “I’m sure somewhere fun is open this time of the night. Maybe… maybe a club. A dark, cozy one where we could…”

  Her performance sliced straight through me.My throat tightened.Ume, beside me, sniffed the air again… picking up something so heavy it almost made her sway.

  But why had Akuchi said all that? I’d obviously noticed that she’d poured all her emotions into her acting… and it touched me. The sight of that young man… far more endowed than me faded. Gender truly was more of a suggestion than reality for her.

  Not only that, the way Akuchi was talking sounded like she had some special knowledge about what had happened to Reiko that she wasn’t sharing.

  “—Hm.” He exhaled faintly.“A wonderful idea, Reiko. I’m looking forward to it. How I’ve missed you! I’ll meet you down below. Our best car will be waiting. I can’t wait to see you…”

  The words were warst tender.

  But…

  My stomach twisted sharply.

  His tone… had shifted subtly.His voice had lost its affection and slipped into something colder. Sharper.Something that sounded like a businessman closing a deal.

  “W-wait…” I whispered under my breath. “Why does this suddenly feel bad? Why does it sound like he’s… pnning something…?”

  My heartrate accelerated and even skipped a few beats.

  The warmth in his voice was only on the surface.

  Underneath all that…

  There was only a cold calcuting nature.