Hades

Chapter Four - The Reunion

Chapter Four: The Reunion

The Tokyo Tower was large and impressive; a man-made monolith pointing to the sky. When the tour bus pulled up at Shiba Park everyone started talking all at once. They could smell the peach blossoms and hotdogs and feel the hustle and bustle of a hundred tourists and hear their guide for the day raising her voice above the roar of the crowd and droning in a nasal monotone: ‘Tokyo Tower is the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world, the tallest artificial structure in Japan…’

Bored, Harusame stopped listening and gazed up at the tower in awe. She stared at the highest point and wondered what it would be like to stand on a pinnacle like that, your hair blowing in the breeze, the birds flying around you, gazing down at the insignificant world below.

*

Back in Harusame’s neighbourhood, crouching on the roof of Mrs Kamiya’s apartment, was the young man in black. His hair blew in the breeze as he gazed down at the insignificant world below him, scanning the faces of the passers-by and shooing away the occasional bird which tried to roost in his hair. After a long while, he muttered a very bad word and tapped his ear impatiently. A skull-shaped earring appeared on his left lobe.

‘UXI!’

‘Don’t shout Master, I can hear you just fine,’ came her familiar, tolerant voice over the line. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘I can’t find her. The soul, I mean, I can’t find the soul!’

‘As long as her body is still attached to that soul, I believe that “her” is an acceptable and indeed preferred epithet,’ Uxi said dryly. ‘Have you tried her apartment?’

‘Yes.’

‘The school?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe she went shopping or out with friends …have you looked around the tow-’

‘Yes, yes, yes dammit, and she doesn't have any friends, so it's unlikely she'll be out shopping with them.’ He shifted his position. ‘I’ve tried bloody everywhere. Use the mirror again. I’m not staying on this roof all night; I’m freezing my bits off up here.’

‘I’ll go and get it,’ said Uxi in a cold tone, disapproving of such rudeness. There was a delay of about five minutes, in which the young man’s expression grew darker and more thunderous. Finally, Uxi spoke again. ‘Master? It seems the girl is at Tokyo Tower.’

‘What in sweet buggering hell is she doing there?’

Some hundreds of metres below him, Uxi winced. The birds that had taken roost around the guttering of the roof gave him a dirty look as they took flight.

‘I wouldn’t know why she’s there, but that is where she is. Was there anything else, Master?’

The young man grimaced and uttered such a filthy word that his assistant’s brow wrinkled with distaste. He tapped his ear once more, severing the voice connection.

Down in the Underworld, rubbing her ear where the communicator had been second before, Uxi wondered silently why he was being so obnoxiously crabby, even by his standards.

*

Over in Tokyo, crammed into an elevator with a large group of fellow students, Harusame sneezed. 
‘Bless you, Izuki-senpai1!’ said one girl, offering her senior a handkerchief. ‘Are you catching a cold?’

Harusame accepted it gratefully, smiling.

‘Maybe someone is talking about her. Probably a boy!’ another girl whispered, and they giggled. Harusame’ smile became strained; she wished the elevator would move faster.