A Saniwa's Duty

Interstitial 2

The front door slid open, and the two popped their heads in and looked around. Empty.

"Well," Tetsuo began as he stepped over the threshold and into the foyer. "I don't know if I should be glad or not that there's nobody here."

"Can't be," came the reply from his sister as she followed suit, hands on her hips. "Who else would've built this?"

"Mom, obviously." Cue eye roll.

"Okay, but what about guarding this place?"

"Look, we couldn't even fucking find this place if it weren't for those guide runes. From the looks of it, this place is covered in all sorts of protective arcana too. I mean, who knows how long ago this was built? Still looks pretty new to me."

Chiaki kicked the varnished wooden floor beneath her feet and sent up a small dust cloud.

"Yeah," she coughed and swatted away the dust particles. "And dusty. Still, there has to be someone around here."

"Why do you keep insisting? How do you know? How are you sure?"

"Because," Chiaki shot her brother a mixed look of disbelief and annoyance. "How else do we power that giant tower over there? It looks important, but I don't think either of us have the innate ability to turn it on, seeing as there's no external power source of any kind out here."

"Alright, fair enough. I'll take left, you take right."

With a nod, the two parted ways, opening sliding doors which lead to more empty rooms. With each empty room Chiaki discovered, she felt more and more despairing. After all the available rooms had been checked, she met up with her brother back in the foyer.

"No luck huh?," her brother questioned as she approached. "Aside from the dust piles, not much," came the blonde's reply.

"Maybe in one of the buildings outside?," Chiaki suggested after a moment. "C'mon bro, let's step out for a bit."

Tetsuo gladly shut the door behind them as they exited. Then, they inhaled deeply. The fresh air was a warm welcome from the dusty interior of the building.

"So," Chiaki began after a moment of silence. "What else does this place have?"

"Let's see," Tetsuo tried to recall everything that he saw and listed them off.

"Huh," his sister said in amusement once he was done. "Looks like she really prepared this place, didn't she?"

"Yeah, except for that stupid goddamn tower," the brother responded, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to the structure in question.

"I'll go check the shed and the training hall, you take the warehouse and the forge," Chiaki directed. Before Tetsuo could argue, his sister had already flown off on her hoverboots. He shook his head and sighed, then headed for the forge.

★★★

There was nothing of interest inside the shed aside from a mountain of boxes, some gardening tools and what appeared to be a tractor. The training hall yielded no results either, save for the unusually polished floor and the various bokken neatly hung on the walls, from the smallest tanto to the largest naginata.

Tetsuo had no such luck in the warehouse either. he unamusingly gazed at the mountain of boxes before him, them shook his head dismissively and closed the door shut. He looked at the open forge and grumbled.

I swear to the gods, if nothing's there, I am so going to kick Ia's ass later.

He rounded the corner and saw someone standing there. The teen narrowed his eyes and raised his arm, his signature maglev disks materializing and hovering above both forearms. "Hey!," he called out as he approached slowly. There was no response from the stranger.