“Where is it?”

  You couldn’t slam a thin sheaf of papers on a desk, but the irate gentleman in Hanna Vogt’s office certainly tried.

  “Excuse me?” Hanna asked. She was used to dealing with irate customers, but it was normally over the phone or in a conference room. Customers weren’t allowed in this section of the Kanzaki-Volkswerk industrial compound.

  Looking up, Hanna noticed that this wasn’t a customer. He wasn’t from her section, but he was a fellow employee.

  “Um… Dr. Engel? Is that right?”

  The doctor blinked. “Well, yes… Ah! My apologies, I should have introduced myself. I am Matthias Engel, yes. Your name was on your door, but you are in charge of the warranty returns, yes?”

  “Yes,” Hanna said cautiously.

  “I apologise again, but I have been looking everywhere for this Frame, and it is nowhere to be found. Nowhere!” Matthias shoved the papers he was carrying across her desk.

  Hanna picked up the papers and perused them. They were a printout of a record from the asset-tracking system.

  “I suppose you’re not familiar with the codes we use in the history section,” she said.

  “I am not,” Mattias said shortly. “I only know that it was a return, so it should be here. The other Frames are here, but not that one!”

  “Normally, that would be the case,” Hanna agreed. “But you see, here, they ran the diagnostics at our Japanese facility and this one failed, indicating it had been tampered with.”

  “Yes! That is why I am here!” Mattias exclaimed. “Where is the Frame?”

  “Well, you see, since it had been tampered with, it was not eligible for return,” Hanna explained. “So it was sent back to the customer and no refund was issued.”

  “No, no no. We need that Frame,” Mattias insisted. “You see, here. On the diagnostics.”

  He came around her desk and started pointing at the diagnostic results. He was standing far closer than Hanna would have preferred, but he didn’t seem to notice, jabbing his finger at the numbers.”

  “You see, here! And here! The response times have greatly decreased, and the power ratio has increased by fifteen percent!”

  “Interpreting the engineering statistics isn’t my field,” Hanna said coldly. Mattias jerked and seemed to realise what he’d been doing. He quickly went back to his side of the desk.”

  “Procedure was followed, Doctor Engel,” Hanna said. “I’m not sure what the numbers mean, but they were outside of the range that was acceptable for a return.”

  “You don’t understand,” Mattias groaned. “The numbers are better.”

  “I’m sure they felt it was an improvement, but the point is they tampered with it. Procedure in such a case—”

  “Yes, yes, procedure, you still don’t understand,” Mattias interrupted rudely. “They made it better, do you see? That Frame is faster and stronger now than when we built it. That high school managed to make improvements on a state-of-the-art, military-grade Frame.”

  Hanna looked down at the papers again. The delivery address was a school but the purchaser didn’t appear to be a teacher. One Junko Ogasawara. The last name sounded familiar, she thought might be the name of an industrial group. That might explain how she managed to purchase five Frames, but Sales’s investigations hadn’t gone further than checking that her credit was good.

  “That is interesting, but the fact remains that the Frame is not here.”

  Mattias swore bitterly, using words that were entirely inappropriate for a professional setting.

  “We need to find the person who did this,” he said once he had exhausted his vocabulary. “We need to acquire this talent for our engineering team.”

  “You make it sound as if we are going to kidnap this poor person,” Hanna said disapprovingly. Now that the Frame had been located Mattias had no further business in her office.

  Mattias laughed. “No, we’re not like those maniacs at Kotodama. Kanzaki-Volkswerk is a reputable corporation. We’ll, I don’t know, offer them an internship or something. Recruitment will know what to do.”

  “Yes, well, that is entirely out of scope for Warranty Returns,” Hanna said pointedly.

  “Ah, yes, my apologies again, Frau Vogt. Thank you for your assistance.”

  Mattias took his papers back and bowed out of her office. Hanna didn’t immediately return to what she had been doing. A thought had come to her, and she was running through all the possible ramifications of the action she was considering.

  It only took a moment to print out her own copy of that asset record. Then…

  Kotodama was a… maverick company to put it politely. One that skirted the edges of the strict laws that applied to weapon manufacturers. They did pay well, though. And you met all sorts of people at industry conferences.

  This was a personal call, so it was best to use her personal phone. The office line wouldn’t be tapped, but the number she called would be logged. Hanna was fairly sure that her employer wasn’t monitoring her personal phone calls but she was less sure of what the police could manage to find out. Best to keep from saying anything that could later be found to be incriminating.

  “Wenhao? Hello, this is Hanna. Are you free for lunch today?”

  * * *

  The Student Council office was, Yamada Shintaro often thought, a little too imposing for his liking. The room itself was far too large. Part of that was due to the table and over-stuffed couches where they held Council meetings, but even with that addition, the room was too large. The over-sized desk he sat behind tried to fill the room, but the cavernous office was too big for that. There was so much extra space that he thought his voice would echo if it wasn’t swallowed up by the soft carpet and walls lined with books.

  Most of the books were of dubious value, kept here because they had to be kept somewhere. The different versions of the Student Code from years past filled a shelf with slim volumes. The records of the Student Council’s minutes, pretentiously bound in leather, occupied considerably more space.

  There was some reading material to be found on the few occasions when he was bored. Only the classics, of course. The Heavens would surely weep if someone were to conceal a copy of Urasawa's “Pluto" behind some imposing leather covers.

  Not that Shintaro often had the chance to peruse literature, and today was no exception. His endless paperwork was interrupted by the discreet light of the intercom.

  “There is a phone call for you, Yamada-sama,” Claudette said when he pushed the button. “It is Ogasawara-sama.”

  Given that the responsibilities of the Council were far greater than the average student council, it made sense that there should be some permanent staff included in their budget. Why one of them, who mostly served as a secretary, was a maid, was less clear. The answer might have been recorded in the Council minutes, but they made for distressing reading.

  Shintaro had enough nightmares from the current crop of problems.

  He took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be an easy call, and he needed to seem unperturbed. As the representative of the Council and the Academy, he needed to project calm, unruffled confidence.

  “Put him through,” he requested, and a button lit up on his phone.

  “Ogasawara-san, it is an honour to receive your call. I am Yamada Shintaro, the Student Council President.”

  The voice on the line was deep and filled with gravitas, as was only appropriate for the Head of the Ogasawara Group, an informal alliance of companies of considerable power and reach.

  “This is Ogasawara of the Ogasawara Group. Pardon me for intruding upon your busy schedule.”

  “I always have time to speak with a concerned parent of one of our students. Particularly one as distinguished as yourself, Ogasawara-san.”

  “I am sure that the anxieties of a doting father are the least of your concerns, Yamada-san. The work that you are doing is of far more importance than addressing my unworthy concerns.”

  That’s laying it on a little thick, Shintaro thought. Whatever his responsibilities here were, at the end of the day he was still just a student. He would be gone next year, making his own way in the world. Ogasawara, on the other hand, was paying fees for the education of his daughters which made up a considerable portion of the Academy’s budget.

  “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he assured the man, hoping this wouldn’t turn into a competition of humility. “I encourage you to call whenever you have the slightest of concerns.”

  “Very well, I shall get to the point. You are aware of the incident with my daughter, Junko. The story that I have heard, is it true?”

  Shintaro sighed. “You are referring to how she was kidnapped by the Shōrinkan-gumi while still on the island. Loathe as I am to admit it, it is true.”

  “That was not supposed to be possible! I had assurances that the security on the island was sufficient against any threat!”

  “Allow me to explain, Ogasawara-san—”

  “This is because you entrusted my daughters’ safety to that ridiculous PMC! A gang of students wielding swords might have been sufficient in my day, but this is the modern age!”

  “Ogasawara-san—”

  “Today, we have mercenary groups with Frames, terrorist organisations infiltrating Japan, criminals and foreign intelligence agencies, all looking to attack me through my children!”

  “Ogasawara-san.” Firm while remaining polite. “As an alumnus, you are of course aware of our tradition of self-policing by the student body. However, that is not our main defence against external threats.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “It is not. Our chief defence is the oversight provided by the Board. They keep an eye on our immediate future and give us warning with plenty of time if we need to take action against an attack.”

  “I had heard that the Board had that ability…” For the first time, uncertainty trickled into Ogasawara’s voice. “But there was never any proof.”

  “Nor will there be. Prophecy is a complicated business and in order to minimize the variables, the Board restricts communication to a very small group of people.”

  “And they didn’t see fit to warn you about my daughter?”

  “On the contrary. We did receive a notification of her imminent kidnapping and chose to take no action.”

  There was a pause. When the voice on the line came back, Shintaro could hear the anger in Ogasawara’s voice.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Explain,” he said curtly.

  “Not only did we receive notification of her kidnapping, we received notification of how it would be resolved. By her fellow students, on the same day, with no injury to Junko-san at all.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Furthermore,” Shintaro continued, risking an interruption during a moment when Ogasawara was confused. “We were notified of an opportunity for considerable growth on Junko-san’s part.”

  “Growth?” Ogasawara said, confused.

  “Adversity, as long as it does not overwhelm a person, is good for the soul,” Shintaro explained. “Junko-san has led a very sheltered life, as is only appropriate for one of your children. Being forced to confront hardship has spurred her on to greater heights. I think you might have already seen signs of this, yes?”

  “What do you mean?” Ogasawara asked cautiously.

  “My understanding is that she has already repaid a substantial portion of the cost of her regrettable impulse purchase.”

  “You know about that?” Ogasawara asked.

  “We had to get involved with the transfer. The local bank isn’t set up to manage transactions of that size.”

  “I suppose not. She wouldn’t tell me how she got the money, but I suppose I do have to commend the girl. It’s not every heiress that can walk away from a kidnapping with twenty million yen.”

  * * *

  “This is a catastrophe!”

  Shōrinkan Masahiro looked over the ranks of the fallen. So many of his family were injured that they’d had to convert the warehouse into a makeshift hospital. It would have been more efficient to just put them in a real hospital, but the Shōrinkan-gumi didn’t do things the sensible way.

  “I just got back from that disaster on Akahone Island, thinking that finally, finally, we’d have a chance to get out from under the thumb of the Raimēkai-gomi. Only to find that you captured some random industrial heiress and got yourselves all beat up by, what, her school friends?”

  “They tricked us, boss!” Shinsuke protested. “They disguised themselves as pizza delivery!”

  Masahiro sighed. Sometimes he wondered if the other gangs were right to mock Shōrinkan-gumi. No, he assured himself. We may not be as big, or as tough, or as rich as they are. But we’re better than them.

  Anyway, the main reason the other yakuza mocked them was because of the shirts, and they were a good idea. The brightly coloured designs made his gang stand out and look less threatening.

  Which might not seem like a good idea for a criminal enterprise, but the yakuza of today weren’t just a criminal gang! They were entrepreneurs! With real estate and start-up businesses! Pop-up stalls!

  Sure, a lot of the guys wanted to fall back on the extortion and kidnapping rackets, it was all they knew. But give him time and he’d teach them a better way. One that didn’t lead to getting beaten up by school kids.

  “Pizza delivery?” he asked. “How the hell does pizza delivery get you all beat up?”

  “We were looking for that Toei kid like you told us,” Jūnpei said.

  Masahiro grunted. He’d had to apologise for not finding the kid, even though it turned out she’d gone straight back to the Raimēkai! His guys had never had a chance to find her. Not that the Raimēkai cared, they just wanted another chance to lord it over him.

  “So we headed up to the island where that school is,” Jūnpei said.

  “Are you crazy? Everyone knows not to mess with that school,” Masahiro exclaimed.

  “Yeah, but we’ve got these, now,” Jūnpei said, pulling at his shirt. “They’re non-threatening, right? So as far as anyone knew, we were civilians. We drove off the ferry and went right through the front gate. Parked in the service vehicle bay.”

  Masahiro blinked. The shirts… had worked?

  “We were barely out of the van,” Jūnpei continued, “When this girl pops out in front of us, says something, we say something back. And she says “Do you know who I am,” and we say no.”

  Jūnpei grinned. “And she says, “I am Ogasawara Junko, that’s who!” and we remember that her dad’s rich. So we grabbed her and headed back, quick as we could.”

  “And no one stopped you?” Masahiro asked incredulously.

  “Nah, it all went smooth,” Jūnpei declared. “We didn’t even have to wait for the ferry.”

  “And that girl,” Shinsuke, another one of his boys, added. “She said a lot of stuff while we had her, I wish you could have been around to hear it. All the sort of things you’ve been saying about presentation and brand awareness.”

  “She was really smart,” Jūnpei agreed. “I mean, not about being kidnapped, but other stuff.”

  “Right,” Masahiro sighed. “So where did it all go wrong?”

  “Well,” Toji said. For some reason, his only injury was a broken little finger. “We were waiting at the docks for you, we were expecting you to come back on the Raimēkai boat. But it got stolen! There were some school kids on it. And Shion-sama.”

  “So Shion-chan beat you up?” He wasn’t going to grant that brat any respect in front of his men. As long as she wasn’t in the room.

  “I dunno who beat us up, boss,” Toji confessed. “It all happened so fast. There was this orange-haired chick that broke my finger and stole my phone, though. That’s how they found the warehouse.”

  “And then they pretended to be pizza delivery to break in!” Shinsuke declared.

  “Shinsuke, here, let them in for some reason,” Kenji, one of the older guys said mournfully. “I dunno why he keeps going on about pizza, we never saw any. They just walked in and took the girl.”

  He gestured at the two with more serious injuries. “Those two tried to stop her—the orange-haired girl.”

  Masahiro looked over his injured family again. “Okay, I think I’ve got the picture. We’ll go over it in detail, and work out what we did right and what went wrong. We haven’t lost anything tonight that we can’t recover from.”

  He took a deep breath. “One thing for sure is, those kids haven’t heard the last of the Shōrinkan-gumi.”

  * * *

  Sometimes, Sugiyama Kazuo wished the Hirasaka Agency was part of the official military. If it had been a part of the SDF, he would have been already home by now, whisked away by helicopter back to Tokyo to be debriefed.

  Instead, he was taking civilian transportation. Walking through the public areas of the airport with his gun concealed in its carrying case. Guns were so rare in Japan that he wondered if the official in charge of scanning luggage would even know what the screen was showing him if Kazuo were foolish enough to go through the standard gate screening.

  Being a member of the Imperial Guard had some privileges, after all.

  The gate attendant bowed deeply when Kazuo flashed his identification. He gave a nod in return and let himself be led behind a curtain. He handed over his luggage. It would remain sealed, untouched and unscanned by any intrusive X-rays and would be handed back to him when he arrived in Tokyo.

  He had a first-class seat. Being a member of the Imperial Guard had some privileges, after all.

  The flight back was unremarkable, as was the cab ride from the airport to his Agency. Kazuo would have preferred to go straight home and decompress before going back, but the timing of the flight meant he was getting back in business hours. So business came first.

  His first stop, once he’d signed in, was at the armoury, where he checked in his rifle and accessed his locker. His swords were still there, just as he’d left them.

  There was little point to wearing the swords in the building, and they looked a little incongruous with the business suit he’d worn for the flight, but there were so few places where he could carry the weapons that he was entitled to. Here, in this building, his swords were a symbol of his status.

  And the girls went crazy over them.

  There was still an hour until his debriefing, so he headed up to his office, got some coffee and exchanged a few greetings. Then he was called into Conference Room Three.

  The ironic thing about these after-action debriefings was that everyone in the room knew what had happened. Kazuo had been monitored during the entire operation, to the extent that a video feed had been streaming from his scope.

  Nevertheless, the procedures had to be followed. Since none of what he said was going to be news, most of his section had passed on attending, leaving just his section chief and Tanabe Hirofumi, the Division Director in attendance. And the girl taking minutes, of course.

  His Section Chief, Nakahara Masayuki got the meeting started.

  “Why don’t you begin with the original tip-off.”

  Kazuo nodded. “We received unofficial word from Division Five of the First Intelligence Department that the terrorist organisation Scarlet Moon was operating on Japanese soil.”

  “The Strawberries?” Director Hirofumi asked. “How did they get in on this?”

  Kazuo blinked. Apparently, not everyone was fully up to speed. Division Five was often referred to informally as 1-5, which happened to mean strawberry. An unfortunate coincidence that the other intelligence agencies never failed to take advantage of.

  “Division Five was tasked with tracking Scarlet Moon by Section One when the terrorists landed in Japan,” Kazuo explained.

  Section One was part of the Second Intelligence Department, assigned to combating international terrorism. They weren’t allowed to operate in Japan, which was why the responsibility had been transferred. However…

  Director Hirofumi snorted. “They should have taken care of them while the bastards were still overseas. The Strawberries must have been pissed. Still, why contact us? Scarlet Moon isn’t supernaturally aligned.”

  “No, but their targets are,” Masayuki explained. Technically, the question had been for Kazuo but he let his boss take it. Departmental politics was above his pay grade.

  “They must have hoped we’d be interested,” Masayuki continued, “Since Scarlet Moon exclusively targets Kododama Heavy Industries, which has close connections with the Kokuryūkai.”

  “Ah. So they’re on our side.”

  “They’re terrorists,” Masayuki corrected gently. “They’re not on anybody's side, but we certainly don’t have an interest in stopping them.”

  “But?” Hirofumi asked, and Kazuo took that as his cue.

  “We thought it possible that the Black Dragons would send a dragon to deal with the threat if Kotodama proved unable to. The Chief decided it was worth setting up a sniper position on the off chance.”

  “It was a risk, but it paid off,” Masayuki said proudly. The projector hummed into life and displayed a shot from his sniper camera. It showed a ten-meter-long dragon—small by dragon standards—rising up from a city street.

  “Have we identified it?” Hirofumi asked.

  “No,” Masayuki answered. “The colours are the same as Elidorious-san’s, so there might be a relation there.”

  Kazuo wondered if his boss would leave off the -sama if Elidorious was in the room. Hirofumi continued asking questions.

  “Has he responded at all?”

  “No,” Masayuki said, shaking his head. “Our communications with Elidorious-san are sparse. He has been cooperative in the past, but he can hardly be considered an ally. He hasn’t told us about any relatives, and we haven’t told him about the dragonbanes.”

  “Fair enough,” Hirofumi conceded. “So, an unknown dragon popped up in your operational area and you took the shot. Do we know what it was doing?”

  “It was with some human—humanoid—companions and it was fighting with… someone.”

  A slideshow of images from the sniper camera started playing. The distance was too great and the light level too low to make out much. One group fighting another group. Smoke bombs.

  Then the moment of impact, showing the target falling from the sky.

  “A clean hit,” Masayuki said smugly. “According to our source, that should be enough to guarantee a kill.”

  “Too bad you couldn’t confirm it,” Hirofumi said neutrally.

  “Pulling out immediately after striking a dragon is standard doctrine,” Masayuki said. “Retaliatory attacks tend to be devastating.”

  “Not this time,” Hirofumi noted. “There weren’t any reports of further property damage.”

  “It’s possible that Kazuo-san got out before one could be launched, or the dragon may have been operating alone—besides the human companions, of course.”

  “Ah. Those. How did they react?”

  “They broke off the fight they were having and retreated to cover, out of sight of our long-range surveillance,” Masayuki told him. “A little while afterwards, an army chopper airlifted what might have been a dragon corpse in the direction of Uoshima Island.”

  “Uoshima? What’s in that direction… Tsubaki Installation?”

  “The helicopter was registered to them, yes. Tsubaki has been working with the Jade Path group.”

  “Those nutters. Still, I can’t see them working with the Kokuryūkai. They hate them even more than we do.”

  “You never can tell who the Kokuryūkai have infiltrated,” Masayuki cautioned. “But they may have been interested in the corpse for research purposes.”

  “We could use that information for ourselves,” Hirofumi mused. “We’ll give it a month or two and then hint that we’d be interested in their data. If they refuse, we’ll threaten to leak the knowledge that they have dragon autopsy data.”

  Masasuki smiled thinly. “There are a few dragons that might strongly object to that. I’m sure they’ll see it our way.”

  * * *

  Nakula got the notification when he woke up for his shift. The priority message blinked in his vision until he acknowledged it. No training today, he had a mission. The briefing was scheduled near the start of the Vigour shift, at 01:30.

  Grateful that he wouldn’t be switching active shifts, he headed straight there after his meal and cleanse cycle.

  Three of his fellow Arbiters were in the room when he arrived. He signed his respect to the Harbinger and nodded to his two peers. Since the Harbinger did not introduce herself, Nakula assumed they were waiting on more arrivals and took a seat.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Another Arbiter came through the door, bringing their number to five. He hastily took a seat at the front of the room.

  All of them had. It wouldn’t do to seem less than enthusiastic for a mission briefing.

  The Harbinger nodded at the new arrival.

  “I am Harbinger Amruta,” she said. “You have all been assigned to team Radiant Azure, formed for a specific mission in Earth Space.”

  No one reacted, so they must have expected this news as much as Nakula had. He had been training for three months to operate in Earth Space. Learning languages and traditions, how to identify their primitive technology… it would have been surprising if he had been assigned a mission elsewhere. He assumed the same was true for his new squadmates.

  “Two of you have previously been part of Earth Space missions before,” Amruta continued. This was surprising, but it was comforting to know that he’d be among veterans. “So you may already know some of these details.”

  No one said anything. Nakula didn’t know any operational details, but even if he had, it was well within the Harbinger’s prerogative to lecture him about any subject they wished.

  “We have faced numerous difficulties in Earth Space,” Amruta said. “That shall, of course, be overcome. The prime difficulty is the Anomalous Threat Unit.”

  Attuned as he was to body language and posture, Nakula felt two of his fellow Arbiters stiffen slightly.

  “Yes,” Amruta said. “For the rest of you, I will explain.”

  She projected a holographic image at the front of the room. Four humans, three females and one male. They appeared to be part of a military unit as they were wearing uniforms.

  “These four,” Amruta explained, “Have been responsible for sixty-six torzent of our combat losses in that dimension.”

  Now everyone was stiff with tension. That there had been casualties, even before the full assault had been launched, was not widely known. Nakula hadn’t known it.

  One of the others raised a hand.

  “Weaver Sundhara,” Amruta acknowledged.

  “How is this possible?” Sundhara asked, “Aren’t they just children, armed with primitive weapons?”

  Nakula quickly re-assessed the holograms. Oh, those were school uniforms, not military ones. Judging earthling development was still difficult for him, but they did look quite young.

  “They are,” Amruta confirmed, “But they are nevertheless extremely dangerous, possessing powers that have still not been fully analysed. They are referred to as the Anomalous Threat Unit because there is much that is still unknown.”

  With a flex of her will, she advanced the hologram to the next image. It was of an Earth island, seen from above. Nakula thought that it was of the tropical type.

  “What is known, thanks to our informant, is that one of them will be travelling to this location. She will not be joined by the rest of her Unit, travelling with five ordinary students. Team Radiant Azure has been tasked with her elimination.”