Memory Reaper's Ascension - Chapter 233: Investigation (III)

Chapter 233: Investigation (III)

The rock was fast.

Not faster than him — but fast enough that the three workers by the dump truck had no time to register what they were seeing before it had already passed between two sets of boots and was cutting east along the repair seam.

Ishiki ran as well.

The four green limbs churned against the composite, each stride low and wide, the grey-brown body staying close to the surface. It moved without panic — that was the part that registered clearly as he closed the gap.

Behind him he heard Shiro hit the street at speed.

Ishiki had summoned [Sorrow’s Edge] and the jian with purple flames manifested in his hands from motes of light as he ran behind the ordinary looking rock.

Shiro brought out the pistol and removed the lock, aiming for the rock. As the rock reached the end of the street it slowed down a little and that was when he shot.

The shot landed perfectly on it and bounced off of it. The rock was sent tumbling into a different alley because of the impact.

The people in the street suddenly froze to the sound of bullet.

“Everyone stay Back…” Ishiki ordered, to stop them from panicking as he skidded to change directions.

The people around the street and in adjacent streets and the restaurants held their breaths as they saw the two investigators in black uniforms running wildly.

The rock reached a large municipal dustbin at the corner of the street and jumped.

The lid was slightly ajar — a gap of perhaps four centimeters. The rock cleared it cleanly, dropped inside, and went completely silent.

Ishiki reached the bin in four more strides and stopped.

He stood with Sorrow’s Edge in hand and looked at it.

There was no movement or sound. Through Ghost Blade — still active, he saw that the rock was still inside but the limbs were gone and everything was silent.

’Is it a tainted demon without a body? Like that Demon back than who took other body.’ He clicked his tongue in frustration. ’Why was it still until now? If it can really change through bodies why not take a human body? Where was he running to? ’

A myriad of questions assaulted his mind as he looked at the bin for a long moment.

“Shiro, Isolate the area… Send everyone away.” he ordered with a grim expression.

Then he reached in with his left hand and opened the lid.

The rock was sitting on top of a folded paper bag and a broken composite fragment. Hesitant, Ishiki turned it over in his fingers. The underside was smooth and unbroken… like a usual roc, with no trace of the four green limbs that had been churning against the street surface thirty seconds ago.

He gritted his teeth.

It was not a rock that had learned to pretend. It was a living thing that could become a rock so completely that even Ghost Blade couldn’t read the difference between its dormant state and genuine mineral. Which meant the three-centimeter drift he had caught was not carelessness. It was either instinct or it had been testing him.

Neither option was comfortable.

His jaw was set. Sorrow’s Edge came up in a single motion and struck the dustbin at the center.

The purple flames took it completely.

They moved over the whole dustbin and the three bins surrounding it. Within four seconds there was nothing remaining of the bin or its contents.

There was no ash or residue. The pavement beneath it was clean and unmarked.

The people from afar were filming the scene with awe and grimness. It was not daily you see a player in action. They were staring at the clean patch of street where a dustbin had been moments before.

Shiro, had called in the other workers and few more personals from the nearby police station to control the scene.

He stood behind Ishiki’s right shoulders and had the expression of a man who was not going to comment on the destruction of municipal infrastructure.

For a second, everything was fine. Had he actually killed the thing just like that. Then he suddenly looked east.

A leaf was running.

Brown-edged, dry, the kind of autumn leaf that ended up flat against gutters and cable posts for weeks before the street crews cleared them.

It had grown four green legs, identical to the ones the rock had grown — moving in the same low and rapid scurry along the base of the wall. It was already past the junction marker. It knew it had been seen and it was not slowing down for that.

“—”

Ishiki moved.

But something was wrong about where it was going. It was not running for open ground.

Just ahead of it… the manhole cover sat flush with the street at the corner of the junction, the drainage slots were narrow gaps along the gutter edge, wide enough for water, wide enough for a flat dry leaf with four green legs pressed tight against its body.

It hit the first slot at full speed and pushed through and was gone before Ishiki reached it.

Ishiki stopped at the junction.

He looked down at the drainage slots. He looked around and saw that the people had started to go back to their works… he recognized the street as he has been coming here for the last six months.

It was just two or three roads away from Nina’s School!

’Screw that bastard.’

He crouched down and looked through the slot.

Below was dark and a maze of tunnels that one would never wanna enter. He closed his pipes and let [Ghost Blade] do its work.

Through the slot, the drainage pipe, the channels.

But he found nothing. There was no trace of the fucking leaf. ’How did that shit get out of 500 meters in such short time.’

’Screw it! It was a Tainted Demon for sure. That fucker had intelligence… goddamn it. Its a good thing it hadn’t entered a human body yet. Maybe its afraid… I need to finish it now… but what has he turned into? ’

’A rock. A leaf. What else?’

He stood up and looked at the manhole cover.

It was standard infrastructure — heavy cast composite, a seal of the government embossed at the center along with the maintenance date.

He put his foot against the edge and pressed lightly. The cover lifted with low resistance… he could have broke it if he wanted but, that would not have been wise.

He looked down into the dark.

’Well,’

he thought. ’That’s fine.’

“Stay here,” he turned back and said to Shiro. “Radio the nearest Association post and tell them to send a containment team to the Seki Street junction. Tell them not to enter the drainage system regardless of what they hear. Tell them to wait for my signal.”

“I have already done that. Just the last part is new.” The guy replied.

“Good..” Ishiki turned to the drainage.

He heard Shiro take one step forward.

“Sir.”

“I said stay.”

“With respect,” Shiro said, in the tone of a man who had a point to make and had already decided he was going to make it. “my designation is that of your personal attendant. I am to help you with all the work you have, I have been trained for that.” A brief pause. “Wherever you go, I go. That is the role.”

Ishiki looked at him.

Shiro looked back with the composed expression of someone who was not going to be managed out of this and both of them knew it.

He was not panicking, neither was he performing bravery. He was stating a fact about his function, because it was simply true and there was not much more to say about it.

Ishiki held the look for a moment.

Then he looked back at the dark below.

“Suit yourself,” he said and dropped in, swallowed by the darkness.

The descent was roughly three meters — he landed in the main channel with a clean impact, knees absorbing it, Sorrow’s Edge already in hand. The darkness was near-total.

Through Ghost Blade the space resolved in the peripheral way in his mind. He did not need light to see… that was his advantage.

The channel ran east and west, concrete walls close on both sides, in between the two side walks the drainage water moved with slow gushes. Ishiki instantly covered his nose by ordering Divine Blood to create a mask like covering.

He dismissed the [Sorrow’s Edge] and instead summoned, [Aether Blade].

A second impact behind him. Shiro, landing with trained precision, but his hand slipped on the slick pavement. He steadied against the wall with one hand and straightened.

He had produced a small torch from somewhere in his jacket. The beam cut the dark.

“East,” Ishiki said without thinking much. Because it was clear that the demon was trying to run towards the wall.

Shiro directed the beam east.

The channel ran straight for approximately twenty meters before curving. Along the floor, in the accumulated grit and debris of a drainage system that had not been actively maintained in some time, there were tracks.

Ishiki looked at them for a moment.

Then he started walking.

Shiro fell in behind him, torch steady and gun ready in his other hand.