—Early afternoon, downtown. A wind called boredom pooled under the overpass in a parking lot.
Sekou Kagetsu sat on the hood of a gray sedan, tossing paper-cup popcorn into his mouth.
"...Nothing's happening. So quiet it's putting me to sleep."
Watching beside him, Aki sighed and said, short as ever, "Patrol isn't only about stopping what is happening. It's also about making sure nothing does happen."
"I get it. ...I get it, but my hands are itching. Lemme swing a little."
Sekou spread his fingers and called the name from deep in his chest. The three-pronged ancient staff—Vajra—settled into his hand. The air grew a shade heavier; a metallic scent bled through.
Aki shook her head. "Stop. Don't brandish it without purpose."
"Yeah, yeah."
Then Yukika hopped onto the hood on the opposite side. "Sekou's right. Boredom is poison. Let's do something."
"Doing nothing is doing something," Aki replied, pretending not to hear.
But Yukika leaned right into Aki's ear and kept whispering without getting bored. "Hey hey, let's move, let's move. Hey. Hey. Hey."
"..."
"H-e-y, h-e-y."
"...Fine. Training on the rooftops. If you can't keep up, go home."
"Yesss!"
◇
A few minutes later.
Up in the concrete canyons, the color of the wind changed. Rooftop to rooftop, guardrails stretched like lines.
Sekou stood on the edge and looked down at the road below, swallowing a whistle. "If you fall, you're done."
"Then don't fall," Aki said, flat. "Attention. Don't leave my side."
"Roger."
Yukika yawned. "Too much talking. Okay—start!"
She shoved Aki in the back with both hands the instant she said it.
—Or she meant to.
Aki cut her hips in a blink and backflipped over Yukika's head.
"Wah—"
Aki's heel flicked Yukika's shoulder. Yukika tipped off the roof—
"Worst-case!"
She jammed her giant scissors into the wall and forcibly killed her slide. White sparks burst; two vertical scratches grew down the concrete.
"Dirty trick!"
Aki ignored her and cleared to the next building. She landed without a sound from heel to toe.
"...Fast."
Sekou ran not to fall behind. Foot on the roof edge, breath gathered, he jumped.
Just before landing, his feet tangled. "Uwo—"
He planted Vajra's haft and pole-vaulted himself upright by brute force.
"Sekou. Your breathing. Land from the toes."
"I know, I know!"
Roof to roof.
Aki was a straight line. Yukika, an arc. Sekou, a string of dots.
Wind skimmed his ears; the darkness behind billboards came near and far. He changed direction by an HVAC shadow, kicked off a residential wall and crossed on the diagonal.
Aki glanced back now and then, giving short signals with two fingers. Yukika pretended not to see them and ran the edge laughing "Yoo-hoo!"
Sekou started to catch it. Before his soles took the surface, his body picked the landing point.
"I think I got it."
Heat rose in his chest. He pushed the pace.
He closed to a shoulder's width behind Aki. "Look, I'm keeping u—"
The next instant, an invisible step caught his foot.
His center pitched forward.
The roof edge vanished and became air.
—A skylight.
Thin glass pretended to hold his weight and then slit his throat—figuratively—as it gave way.
"Sekou!"
A dull crash. Light, dust, paper scraps wrapped him as he fell.
Inside the building was a dim warehouse—old office desks, cardboard, steel racks. He rolled across the floor and exhaled. "Ow... but I'm... basically fine."
Two shadows dropped after him from the roof. Aki landed without a sound; Yukika spun once in the air and set down lightly atop a rack.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Just cracked my pride a little."
Then something soft and cold touched his ankle.
He looked—one white line lay across the floor. Thread—no, too thick for thread, a line that flexed like a living thing.
The next moment, the white lines became ten, twenty, shooting from walls and ceiling like bolts.
"Dod—"
Before Aki could finish, her left arm was seized.
Yukika drew her scissors, but the threads were faster—ankles, wrists, waist, shoulders, under the throat.
Sekou swept with Vajra. The lines cut. But the instant they cut, another thread stitched the same spot.
The color of the air changed. Sweetness overlapped with iron.
Four, five figures stepped from behind the racks, wrapped in black gauze. Thin masks hid their faces; fine threads trailed from their fingertips.
—The Jorō crest.
"This place is occupied," Yukika hissed.
"Yes." Aki measured the room, calm—but already too late.
A net of threads dropped from the ceiling and covered all three.
Elbows frozen. Knees too. Only breathing was still permitted.
One of the shadows drew out a small device.
A call. Not to the ear—held where a voice could "be heard" through the slit of a mask.
"...Secured. Three. One boy, one blade-woman, one scissor-woman."
The voice that came back slid like a snake stroking grass—words stretched a little, ending with a thorn.
"Bring them... to the Trial."
The shadows nodded as one.
The threads cinched tighter, and the three bodies lifted lightly off the floor.
"...Damn," Sekou ground his teeth. "This is on me."
"Don't move now," Aki said, low but steady. "They'll read your posture."
"Relax, relax. This is only the 'beginning,' yeah?" Yukika laughed—but the laugh was thin, like the back of a blade.
The warehouse door opened from the inside.
Heavier thread-scent waited in the hall. Multiple footfalls.
They handled them like prey—yet not roughly—and dragged all three out, net and all.
The elevator was dark. At the edge of his sight, a wall painted in a web pattern from floor to ceiling.
Sekou steadied his breath and quietly spoke the name in his chest.
Vajra throbbed faintly through the net of threads.
—The word Trial thudded, dull, in his inner ear.
The doors closed, and with a faint vibration the box went down—or sank toward some different direction.
In the dark beyond, he thought someone laughed.
No sound. No scent. Only the laugh reached him, like the tremor of a string.
The next instant, every light went out at once.
—-