I look up and tip my elegant brown Borsalino hat, feeling the suede and velvety texture beneath my fingers, enveloping the medium-wide brim with my coarse fingers, like grasping the hand of a stiff woman, and I brushed aside a strand of black hair, knowing that today was one of those days.
My name is Gou Momozono. I'm 28 years old.
My humble house is in the northeast section of Kuoh, where all the villas and the affluent households are, and I am not married, although my older brother is and has a precious daughter. I work as one of the producers at Toei Animation Studio, and I get home every day by 10 pm at the earliest. I don't smoke, but I drink a lot. A lot of caffeine drinks. Anywho, I'm in bed by 2 AM and I always forget to get the healthy eight hours of sleep, no matter what. After having a dozen cups of warm coffee and doing about one hour of fidgeting around my house, I go to bed. I usually have many problems sleeping until the morning. Just like a crack-head, I wake up with lots of-
FUWUUUUSH!
Suddenly, the introspecting man, Gou, collided with and was blown back, spun around like an unwilling ballerina, by some invisible force that strangely resembled one of those mystic spiritual barriers he saw some of his animation staff add to that big-time Dragon Ball project he used to work on five years ago.
"W-woooooouaaaah!" Gou screamed for his life as he continued spinning at high velocity. At this point he might as well have looked like a human-sized beyblade-
Woof! Woof! Woof!
WHAM!
Until an odd-furred dog collided with him, stopping his spin and making him stumble forward, almost falling and giving the street an intimate smooch, but he flailed his arms wildly and jumped an inch forward, gaining enough balance to catch himself.
"Kumo, wait up, stop chasing her! Bad girl, bad!" a kid, a little boy, no older than ten, dashed past him just as he regained a semblance of a footing, his side crashing into Gou's left leg, making him fall flat on his face, ass touted up in the air.
At the same time, his precious, dapper Borsalino fedora hat flew off his head and landed right into the hands of the clueless child, that not only didn't know what the heck got his doggie acting like a wolf with a vendetta, but also had failed to notice the man at all.
"Huh, what's…" the boy's eyes widened as he inspected the new object in his circumstantial possession, gasping loud like one of those sniveling little brats that saw Gou whenever he went to a special annual event dressed as Goku. Didn't help he already had a spikey black hair to go along with the fake orange gi. "Ohmyogd, ohmygod, ohmygod, a real DETECTIVE TOP!"
A detective-what?
…
WAIT, MY HAT!!
Gou sprung up like a ghoul sensing fresh meat, looking almost hysterical at the realization he had truly gone and dropped his hat.
"Kid…Shit!" he groaned, dusting himself off - he'd be damned if he'd walk around with his silken dark armani suit with street dirt on it- and took off chasing after the kid, "Kid, get back here! Give me my hat back! KID!"
The boy, whose brown-hazel eyes were sparkling with pure stars in them, his mouth wide and damn near drooling, didn't give an indication he had heard him. Gou idly questioned if he wasn't dealing with someone with rabbies, but dashed that thought away at a much more pressing matter.
Oh Jesus, if he slobbers my sweet hat one more time I will murder this brat!
He didn't even notice when they turned a corner, one of the streets leading down towards the southwest sakura park. Even in distress, he could still recognize it, he had taken his niece there for a leisurely walk all the time.
"Kid, stop running and drop the hat or I'll call the cops!" he said to the boy, who seemed so absorbed in his own world, until he heard the threat and snapped out of it. The kid looked back while running after that damned odd-ball of a dog and the even stranger girl that had flown past him earlier.
"Sorry, Uncle, I need this, I'm on a high-chase investigation!" the boy told him, a radiant smile of adventuristic enthusiasm plastered on his face, like he had been told he can go join the Justice League or something.
And as sudden as this whole debacle had occurred, the boy just turned back around and sped off, faster than ever. If not for the fact he put his hat on his little head, Gou would've found it adorable and impressive how a ten year old could run this fast.
But at the moment, all the producer saw was a thief running off with his possession. "Investi-You little shit, do you think this is some prank you can pull on me?! GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE! AND WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING "UNCLE"?!"
God, my poor, poor forty-thousand yen Borsalino hat!
Issei just couldn't believe it! A real, authentic, Yusaku Matsuda-classic trilby hat! The curves, the soft yet supple material-!!
Although, the shape IS a little different…ah dang it, it's not the real thing!
The boy's heart almost throbbed with a pang of wistful sadness at the fact that God hadn't miraculously dropped him the coolest possible hat of one of the coolest actors to ever be. Despite his mother restricting access to any old movies like that which according to her "had stories heavier than what a sweet kid like him should absorb", Issei still shamelessly played the disks whenever his parents were out for more than two hours and like a truest of spies, leaving absolutely no trace or evidence of his deed!
And that was how the great Dragnarok had come to know sleek-sleeze-ladykiller Yusaku Matsuda, or more accurately his many detective roles like Shuicho Tsujiyama. Which was the beginning of his trilby hat fever.
"Mom, please, can I get one! I really need to have one! My career as the number 1 spy depends on it!"
"Argh, have you been watching those damn detective movies again?! Issei, no, you'll look ridiculous!"
"B-but Mom-"
"No buts, sweetie, I can buy you an anime hat if you want to. Apparently it's the rage with kids these days.
He had groaned, puffed his cheeks, whined and nearly thrown a tantrum, but the Fiery Demon Empress, the Goddess of Endless Pain, would not relent. And he had reminded himself that great spies don't let their emotions show. So he had bitten his lip and held it in while his Mom continued her infamous two-hour long shopping spree at Kyoto Mall. He didn't want an anime hat, those looked ridiculous and any kids around his age would treat him like a chump. Well, they'd mock and tease him even harder than they already do while he's out and about in school on his super serious 'recon missions'.
"Uh oh, look at Spy Agent Dragaweirdo, trying to find his way back to the psych-ward, haha!"
"Creepy little kid, he's probably looking to spy on the girls."
"Hey, Hyoudou, wanna spy the insides of your locker, poophead?"
But if he had an authentic trilby one no one would bully him! Their ignorant eyes will finally open to the truth that he was a great spy agent, destined to topple evil empires!
"Hehehe…they'll see." He adjusted the hat neatly on his head. It was a little big, but thanks to his peculiar hairdo, which blew out and spiked like a palm leaf fan, he was able to mathematically discover just the right angle to incline it to make it stable. "The true form of the Great Dragnarok, born at last!"
Woof! Woof! Woof!
"KIIIIIIIID, GET BACK HERE OR-"
Oh. Right. He was in the middle of a chase. A chase his dog had unexplainedly initiated by flying straight at the fleeting mysterious girl who was speeding through streets with the aerodynamism of one of James Bond's supercars. She was fast. He knew for a fact his dog was abnormally fast - Kumo's set record was forty-five kilometers per hour, as tested by himself and his father. But the runaway princess was even faster than that somehow. Significantly faster.
"Kumo, wait up girl, I-" his voice cut off into a wheeze. That's when it hit him. The adrenaline of potentially losing sight of his dog, mixed with the excitement of unleashing his truest detective form, had made his small boy body resistant to the effects of trying to keep up with Usain Bolt-esque speedsters. His heart was pounding, his lungs strained to inhale the immense amounts of oxygen and his knees were two more street turns away from giving out.
"K-KID! IF YOU DONT…STOP…AND GIVE ME…MY HAT…I WILL…CALL…THE POLICE!" the man, who was just twenty meters away from him could barely word out his threat cohesively as his throat sounded like it was cracking from wheezing and puffing. He slowed down and clutched his chest, trying to catch as much air as he could.
Issei couldn't keep running but if he stopped right now, he was as good as dead.
If this guy doesn't kill me, my Mom will!
And that thought alone flooded him with greater dread than any scenario where he went to jail. Super Spy Agent Dragnarok could deal with any problem, but that Demon Empress was a beast surpassing the concept of resistance.
He slowed down as well, remembering some of Dad's old 'professional swimmers' magazines about how to control one's breathing, and measured his breaths to balance his heartbeat. All the while, he frantically looked around. His eyes lit when he spotted a different turn, slightly curved behind a tall resident's fence well, making it almost invisible and immediately changed trajectory upon reaching it. He found a large bush that had grown on the other side of that fence and dived as far as he could behind it, bringing his knees close to his chest and stifling his breathing.
Thankfully, by the time the man passed by that turn, Kumo and the girl must've rounded another corner, because he cursed and kept running in their direction.
Sorry, Kumo, but a spy has to adapt and improvise. I'll find you in a bit, don't worry!
Anxious questions and what-ifs swirled in his mind, but Issei tried ignoring them. A spy is focused on the present problems and on how to find solutions. He was worried for Kumo yes and what the punishment at home will be if he not only got home late, but got there alone.
The Fiery Demoness might just reach her supernova state and explode the town!!
No. It was okay. It was going to be fine. He just needed to approach this at a new angle, just like Mr. Ozawa had told him spies do when faced with insurmountable odds against them. He will break through, get his dog and secure his trilby hat.
As for the girl…
I have no idea who she is or what she's doing, but if Kumo was so on-edge about her immediately, then she must be a bad guy! Argh, but I need more info.
He sighed, slumping back against the tall white fence wall and pondered over what to do. First, he needed to figure out where the girl was heading, everything else would fall into place after that.
He scrunched his nose in a grimace, furrowed his brows and tapped his forehead with a finger.
"Okay, so let's go back a bit. Mr. Ozawa always said a great spy re-examines established facts and layouts to retrace steps and find weaknesses! Right, right, ok…so, I was going to take Kumo to Kuoh Park which is east of my home. But that girl was running the opposite direction, so to the west." sweat beads poured down as he concentrated, his neurons firing off. He wasn't the smartest, had the best memory nor the best intuition, but what he did have was determination. And right now he was fully determined to predict where the three runners were heading to. He felt his brain sizzling, firing up like a rev engine, as a new brain power unlocked. He remembered an ability Mr. Ozawa had told him about -
Great spies are able to recognize and retrace steps to predict something. But the greatest spies will do that down to the tiniest detail. Mosaic Hyper-pattern Vision.
It was like he was forcefully opening his Mind's Eye. He traced faint memories of a map of Kuoh and zeroed in on the neighbourhood that was west of his street, marking any nearby crucial landmarks he had glanced at. Then, he did his best to go over the pattern of turns and movements the girl exuded, which was easier to remember since he had memories of three others following that path - Kumo, himself and the random guy that chased after him.
But that wasn't enough. His brows furrowed deeper and he scowled, pushing his 10 year old brain to its limit as he focused on the streets he had zapped past in a hurry. Signs with names of these streets he had also glanced at for the briefest moments. The names were hard to discern, but he remembered streets with the same order of letters as those signs. The compass moved across the map, highlighting the places he was sure they had passed, going up and up, until…
"Aha, I got it!"
A spark like the Big Bang. The lattice of the 'Mosaic Vision' collapsed as he found his answer. He knew where the girl was likely heading! And he knew the shortcuts to that location.
He grinned. The street he was on right now, led directly to those roundabout shortcuts.
He got up and started booking it.
Gou panted, then cursed, stopping to catch his breath, inhaling as much of the sweet oxygen around him as he could, before resuming his run, which by now had been reduced to a hefty jock, making him look ridiculous. No doubt like an aging grandpa on a marathon, about to crap his pants all over the pavement, if the way his arms flailed was any indication how uncoordinated his limbs were from sheer exhaustion.
F-fuck…I knew I shouldn't have…ate those donuts last night…I should've just taken Yuchiro's advice…and exerc-oh God-SIDE STITCH!
"Aaagghaag! FUCK!" He doubled over and nearly fell on his knees, just as he made the turn to follow the shade of that damned runaway, or maybe his dog -Gou wasn't even sure anymore, but he stopped caring by the time they crossed the Shoukyou Crossing. "Gaaah, if only that second Broly movie wasn't a flop, I'd be paying a hot maid to carry me right now…Oouh!"
His fingers grasped the collared shirt on his side, where the painful spasms of the diaphragm caused by his excessive running were just having a drum-beat concert with his nerves and tendons. He hadn't run like that since the Kuoh Academy track competition of 1992. Sure he won a bronze medal (if he didn't his parents basically threatened to cut any funds for his tuition or the new IBM ThinkPad 700), but his lungs lost all their air and his heart almost lost the strength to pump blood.
He wasn't obese or even overweight, he was quite thin in fact, but having a coffee-based diet day and night while working as a part-time producer, part-time real estate agent didn't exactly help his athleticism.
Good thing I know the general layout in this suburban stuck-up neighborhood.
He allowed himself a hoarse chuckle and a faint smile. He looked up to take in the familiar pink scenery. The Myoken Sakura Park. With its distinguished landmark, that damned dilapidated tax fund dump eyesore - the Amenominakanushi Shrine, propped up on a small hill that connected this part of town to the forested rural area of the northwest outskirts of Kuoh Town. The Forest of a Hundred Screams, as the superstitious elderly locals of the area called it.
'For it is said the spirits of the scorned men and women wander there, haunting, taking new souls with them to the depths of Hell to nourish their animosity.'
Yeah, right. And ki and super saiyans were real. He always had half a mind to go there and burn the damn forest. Maybe make a contract and put some condos up for sale. Just to show the old has-beens how stupid they sound.
That aside, he was here. He had an inkling the girl whom the dog was chasing whom that little thieving shit was chasing, were all going to converge here. Now why that girl led all of them here, he didn't know and he didn't care. He just wanted his hat back and to slap some sense into that unruly boy!
He dusted himself off and ran inside the park, towards the Shrine, where he felt the girl was truly heading. There was no rational reasoning, just an intuition.
Woof! Woof!
It didn't take long for him to pick up on the sounds of barking a good fifty meters away. He whipped his head in the direction of the sound and saw them. A girl and a dog. No boy, though. He furrowed his brows suspiciously.
Maybe he's hiding…ah forget it, I'll just go check. Gotta make sure that dog won't maul no longer girls either.
He took in a good amount of air and sprinted towards the little clearing near the central park pond - Pink Petal Pond (PPP for short though nowadays that abbreviation apparently carried a 'hilariously' juvenile meaning, his brother said).
Wroof! Woof! Woof!
That strange-colored mutt that had bumped into him earlier. If it attacked the girl he'd have a good excuse to give it a good kick in the arse. Though that fur…had he been a greedier man he'd plan to skin the dog and sell the fur. A snow white and navy blue fur that had seemingly bioluminescent properties. That would sell harder on the market than all of Toei's Dragon Ball Z movie dvds combined!
But…he wasn't his mother, the gold-digging c*nt. He'd just leave all three of his assailants with a slap on the wrist.
As he was focusing on the dog and as he encroached closer to their location he saw clearly that the dog was growling at the girl, trying to corner her. Its features were twisted into an angered snarl, its claws digging at dirt as it barked and snapped its teeth in the air, trying to scare the girl.
"D-Don't come any closer, inugami…please, stay there a-and just…let me go!"
Great, another night and another dog attack. Guess I'll be playing hero here.
With a resigned frown, he passed the tree that bordered the clearing and was ready to make a wild dash at the dog and kick it before it could pounce on the little girl.
"D-d-don't make me hurt you, inugami…P-please…!" the girl stammered out, her voice meek and pathetic, like a flower that could be blown by the slightest breeze. Yet a part of it carried a heavy edge that made Gou pause and lean on the tree with one hand.
Hurt…what does she-
WROOF!
The dog sprung up and went for a bite, her skirt. It wasn't aiming for a vital spot. But just then, Gou saw something he couldn't believe a human being could do.
The girl literally vanished out of thin air, showing up next to the dog in a stance reminiscent of something like a martial artist and a ballerina, before spinning and delivering a blow he couldn't see. The dog whined in pain and got sent a whole basketball field distance away.
Wait…wait, wait, wait…WHAT?!
What just happened? What did the girl hit the damn mut with? Her leg? Her arms? Some invisible mutant limb? The air? And how did she move so fast?! Did she counter the attack?! Was he seeing things because he got so exhausted?
Those questions ran through Gou's mind like waves crashing against rock. It was straight up a scene out of a Dragon Ball episode. But…but how?!
GRRRRR! WROOF!
He blinked. The dog was flying in again. What the hell?! It got punted like 30 meters away! And it barely seemed hurt! Was this some kind of military robot dog drone?!
"P-Please, inugami-san…I mean no harm…I'm just here to get something! Something my family owns!" The girl flash-stepped with that impossible agility again evading each leap from the mystic mutt like she was a butterfly, basically dancing around it. She seemed barely inconvenienced and more concerned with her inability to de-escalate the situation.
Gou stood stunned into silence, practically propping himself on the tree at this point not to collapse from a potential aneurysm.
How in the Christ-loving FUCK is a girl no older than my niece moving like she's blessed by Kenshiro!? Is she on something? Is she one of those genetically gifted monsters- but no wait, that dog is also extraordinary, it doesn't seem to tire out either…WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON??!
Either he was hallucinating or he had hit his head on a street lamp…and was hallucinating. There was just no way he could comprehend a little girl no older than eleven maneuvering a wild animal like a protagonist to one of the anime he would be a director for. Admitting what he was seeing was real was tantamount to rejecting his world views…which was that magic of any sort was impossible!
His mental tirade of awed and baffled stupefaction was cut off as he felt the air shift as the mystical mutt's fur suddenly glowed against the shadows of the trees and its body appeared to take on a mist-like property, like its chemical composition was changing to that of vapor. It then lunged at the girl again, this time so swift he barely followed its movements.
"U-ungh…!" the girl, for the first time perhaps, winced and tensed a little. This one must've felt like an actual threat to her life.
"Brat, run-!"
The girl vanished again and before Gou could comprehend what had happened, he saw flashes of light, something like water glowing faintly and then the dog fell unconscious. The girl caught it and let it rest gently on the ground. As for her, she was absolutely unscathed.
Gou blinked. Nope the girl and the unconscious dog were still there. He blinked again. And again. No matter how many times he blinked, the reality didn't change.
Oh yeah…I'm gonna need to stop with the coffee…and maybe check myself for early schizophrenia…because what the HELL did I just witness?!
Oh and little did poor him know that wouldn't be the last crazy thing he would see that day.
The girl, patted the dog's fur gently, a sad sympathetic expression on her face.
"I-I'm sorry, inugami-san…I know you were just protecting your contractor…but I really need to get that thing." the girl spoke, stammering still heavy in her melodic soft voice, whose only flaw was a little strain, like she was too anxious to even speak.
"Uuhm.." Gou mumbled out and then facepalmed. He saw her jolt up with a deer in the headlights expression, before narrowing her eyes and looking around, crouching low. It was like two different people - a shy girl with doe-eyed moe expressions and then a predator, used to hunting in unknown territory. Gou gulped.
Is she looking if anyone else followed her?
She was, because after a few seconds of scanning the area, she sighed and focused back on Gou. She stood back up and started walking towards the man.
"I-I'm sorry if I've inconvenienced you, s-sir. And I'm s-sorry you had to s-see all of that." she bowed to him politely, before resuming her approach. There was something…almost uncanny about her now. He felt a strange energy. Like she was planning to pull some inconceivable inhuman maneuver on him, too.
"H-hey listen, kid…I, uh, I don't want any problems with you, okay?" he took a step back, almost stumbling into a rock, but thankfully avoiding it barely. "I'm just here to get my hat back! A boy should be around here, your age, he was running after you!"
But his explanation fell on deaf ears. The girl was taking one delicate step after the next without stopping. She wore the same sad, wistful expression as she did when she rested the unconscious dog down.
"I-I'm sorry, sir, I have to erase what you saw…i-it is family law…s-so please, don't m-make this harder." the girl said. It wasn't a threat, didn't feel like one. And she sounded so pitifully awkward. But at the same time, he saw what she did to that dog. If she could do that, who knows what she could do to him, a non-athletic chump who couldn't even run 1 mile without nearly dying of a heart attack.
"S-Stay…" he felt a fallen branch with his foot, and grabbed it, hands shaking as he tried not to break eye contact with the creepy super-ninja girl. He swung the branch in the air. "STAY BACK, I'M WARNING YOU!"
The girl's expression became a tad sadder, like she had given up on negotiations and the air around her swirled.
She's coming-She's gonna knock me out, too! I'm going to end up like some early Dragon Ball villain - beaten half to death by some tiny murder-happy kid! And I can't do a thing about-
Gou closed his eyes, hoping perhaps he'd open them again and this horrible hallucination dispersed like every sleep-deprived morning vision of death he had. But a hit never came, even the air was calmer. His body relaxed a little and he trepidly opened his eyes to see the girl…staring at the west entrance of the Sakura Park? It was the entrance closest to the clearing they were at.
Why is she just gazing there? The only thing that's there is the old biker stunt ramp that nobody bothered to fix, because the administration is too lazy to-oh what do I care, this is my chance!!
But just as Gou turned to bolt away from that hellish purple ninja spawn, he heard…engines? The distant echo of engines being revved aggressively, almost violently, like the driver cared little for the integrity of the mechanism…but it didn't sound powerful like a Kawasaki or a Yamaha model, he'd heard those (his niece was a real biker-nut and just gushed everytime she heard the roar of a Yamaha). It sounded more like a-
"Aaaaaaaaah-" he heard a scream slicing through the wind. Definitely a boy's. Definitely fast. Definitely sounding like a moped revving through a tornado.
Wait…that voice…that sounds like-!
But before he could finish his thought, the suspect himself made his own entrance in a fashion that was so mad, so insane, it washed everything else Gou had seen in terms of insanity.
Perched up on the seat of an old motoped model, with a nitro bottle haphazardly fastened to the back of the frame tubing with worn hemp rope and with something white stuffed inside an old green military bag the little dumb*ss had slapdashedly put on.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" the hat-thief screamed, which Gou thought was a pretty normal reaction, probably the sanest thing anyone has done today. Sh*t, even he screamed.
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!"
"Dear Kurookami…" the mysterious ninja girl also muttered quietly. Gou was glad he could find something to relate to with this terminator of a girl.
It all happened so fast, Gou was sure if he said it was a scene from a Michael Bay movie, everyone would believe him. Only the explosions were missing, really.
The moped reached a heroic altitude of forty or fifty feet—then plummeted like a soda can off a roof. Just as Gou began composing his will in his head, the kid did the unthinkable. He leapt off, whipped out a custom parachute cobbled together from old blankets, ripped curtains, and sheer luck. Somewhere in the world, a tailor wept. Somehow, he glided to safety like a drunken eagle.
Both Gou and the T-800 ninja girl were too flabbergasted to notice the kid's impeccable landing calculations.
"MAYDAY-MAYDAY!" screamed the boy with all his lungs and Gou was pretty sure an old war vet would get PTSD if they heard this.
Both Gou and the purple ninja T-800 girl were too flabbergasted to notice that the kid had somehow calculated his fall to be right-
Wait…wait, wait…no…is he…DEAR MOTHER OF GOD, YOU LITTLE SHI-?!
THUMP!
on top of him.