Editing City Series:Volume4b Chapter 4 (section)

===Part 1===

'''11:57 AM

The sun was at its peak in the sky.

There were no clouds.

There was no wind either.

Unusual for winter, warm sunlight shined down.

But that sunlight did not provide heat to all parts of Osaka evenly.

Most of the narrow land known as Osaka was occupied by cold buildings.

There was little land in the city that could be warmed by the sunlight.

The Tennoji Park in the Tennoji Ward was one of those few places.

The large park contained large flower beds, many trees, and brick pavement. Occasional bird calls and beast cries could be heard from the Tennoji Zoo inside the park.

It was the carefree time of midday on a weekday.

The flow of time seemed slower than usual.

Few people walked through the park and none of them were in a hurry.

Some of those were casually-dressed boys and girls.

The schools were on winter break. Freed from the bonds of time, they were able to walk slowly.

The occasional bird calls from the zoo were the only sound supporting that pace.

They all slowly but surely made their way to their destinations.

But there was one person who had come to a stop inside the large park.

She sat on the edge of a large round flower bed in the center of the park.

She was Aoi Hijiri.

She had a shirt wrapped around the waist of her jeans and she wore a white blouson. The outfit combined with her short hair gave her an androgynous look.

She sat on the brick flower bed and ate a somewhat late lunch while facing the sun.

She was eating some takoyaki she had bought at a stand at the park entrance.

She slowly but precisely took the nine takoyaki from their paper box and tossed them into her mouth while her gaze was fixated on the ground at her feet.

A newspaper sold on the roadside was opened there.

It was a sports newspaper that sold itself on the entertaining gossip articles.

“The rumors were right. This newspaper really did change its name from the Tokyo version…”

[[Image:City_v04b_139.jpg|thumb]]

Hijiri moved her foot to skillfully turn the page with the toe of her sneaker.

She kicked past the TV section as she read it in reverse.

She was looking for an article on the previous night.

Hijiri had no idea what had happened since she had escaped the Osaka Hilton and spent the night in a business hotel.

If things had gone as planned, the newspaper would probably mention that Nakamura had escaped to Nagoya.

“…”

She skipped the entertainment section and the horse racing information, but she stopped on the financial section.

While eating two takoyaki, she read the fashion information, glanced at the actions of an Osaka corporate group, and turned the page again.

Then her expression stiffened somewhat.

Not a single article mentioned the previous night’s incident.

Not a word about the Osaka Hilton turning into a flower, about Osaka Prefectural #2 collapsing, or about Nakamura.

Her hand stopped with the toothpick stabbed inside a takoyaki and she kicked at the newspaper again.

She reached page three.

She passed by it after only glancing across the page.

There was nothing there.

She looked at page two across from it.

She glanced across it and prepared to turn to the final page.

“…Oh?”

But her foot stopped.

On the edge of page two was a notice about the temporary suspension of a bullet train.

The bullet train route from Osaka to Nagoya would be stopped from the first train early in the morning to the third train in the afternoon.

The only reason given was a train car malfunction.

There were no related articles, but…

“Come to think of it, there was a weird story earlier…”

She used her toes to flip back a few pages at once.

In the financial section, one piece of information about a corporation had caught her attention.

“The Houzenji Group’s special forces had a live-fire exercise late at night, hm?”

The Houzenji Group was a corporate group that had been under the protection of Nanba Souichirou’s Modified Purple Electricity Style.

An article mentioned that the group’s corporate combat special forces had held a live-fire exercise in Osaka Plain the night before.

No matter the age, corporations would always secretly fight over their patents and technology. These exercises were daily events and normal people and students like Hijiri would likely end up dragged into those conflicts if not for the academy rules.

“But why did a simple exercise make the news?”

Hijiri looked down at the article that expressed some questions about this exercise.

Most of the exercise had occurred on national land without receiving permission from the appropriate government departments, so the article simply gossiped about a possible true meaning behind the actions.

The author ultimately concluded that they did not know the truth but that it might have been a way of disguising a search for Hideyoshi’s buried treasure or making contact with aliens.

Hijiri, however, sighed.

She stuffed all four remaining takoyaki into her mouth.

And she swallowed them.

Five seconds passed.

After another sigh, she picked up the newspaper and looked at page one, which she had been unable to see while it was lying on the ground.

The headline article was about a professional baseball winter camp.

There was no record of their rampage from the night before.

But Hijiri was no longer frowning.

She quickly flipped through the newspaper while moving her lips.

“One, two, three,” she counted as she flipped through.

When she reached the end, her count had stopped at 32.

She closed the newspaper and looked up into the sky.

“Including the five text ones and the seven 1/8 size ones, that’s how many ads the Houzenji Group has in here…”

To have their ads printed, they had to be paying the newspaper.

Newspapers of course made money by publishing articles to bring in readers, but they more directly made money through advertisements.

Most of this newspaper’s direct income was paid by the Houzenji Group.

“They bought up the page, did they? If the other newspapers are the same, it must have cost quite a lot.”

“Does that frighten you?”

A man’s voice suddenly reached her.

Hijiri turned around to see a man dressed like a monk standing in front of the flower bed on her left.

He was Iba Masaaki.

He too was holding a rolled-up newspaper in his hand.

“I overlooked the fact that the Osaka Chancellor’s patron is from the Houzenji family. I never thought the wealthiest merchant in Sakai would be so fixated on a child who merely slayed an ogre.”

“Looks like they’ve made a really big move here. Is that newspaper the same?”

Iba frowned slightly and nodded.

“It mentions the collapse of Ixolde and the damage from the destroyed hotel, but it blames those on a localized Clockquake, ridiculously enough. The victims will apparently receive disaster relief from the anti-Godquake fund set up after last year’s Godquake – that battle between gods – in Kobe.”

“That was fast…”

“That’s what happens with the Houzenji family, Osaka’s wealthiest merchant group. They intend to conceal Osaka’s defeat.”

“There’s no helping that. The Kusanagi Rhythm works on the emperor, so the Kinki-Kansai corporate group that includes Kyoto probably also wants to hide that it lost.”

“Yes, they cannot afford a loss. …Most likely, this was the doing of Houzenji’s Iwai Sanzou.”

“Do you know him?”

“Yes, although I doubt he remembers ''me''.”

Hijiri did not comment on the emphasis Iba put on the word “me”.

She asked about something else instead.

“Do you know where that idiot Nakamura is, Iba?”

“He did not arrive in Nagoya.”

“…What?”

Hijiri rolled up her newspaper.

“What do you mean? Don’t tell me the Koto Chancellor-…”

“The Koto Chancellor was out on patrol in the city today, but Nakamura did not lose to her.”

“Then…”

“The bullet train they were riding derailed in Osaka Plain and the remaining front car stopped at Kyoto Station instead of continuing on to Nagoya. But…”

He took a breath.

“Nothing remained inside the cars besides a handful of ashes.”

Hijiri remained seated and silent.

She slowly set the newspaper down on the edge of the flower bed and rested her chin on her hand with a serious look on her face.

A few seconds passed.

Then she looked over at Iba.

He looked her in the eye and spoke with no apparent expression.

“Takada is dead.”

“Are you certain? Those ashes could have belonged to the Osaka boy or Nagoya’s Chancell-…”

“Nakamura is not in Nagoya.”

Iba’s short and powerful statement seemed to be all the reason he needed.

Hijiri looked away from him and down at her own feet.

Iba’s voice reached her from above.

“What do you think Nakamura will do?”

“…Wouldn’t you know that better than me?”

“Why?”

“What did you do when someone important to you died?”

Iba fell silent and Hijiri did not look in his direction.

She kept her head lowered as she quietly asked herself a question.

She kept a carefree tone throughout.

“Now, what will ''I'' do?”

She smiled bitterly.

“So this is what it’s like, Seigi, Takahiro.”

“What what is like?”

“Being alone.”

With that, Hijiri stood up.

And she faced Iba.

“I don’t like the possibility of Seigi having died, but Nakamura is a problem.”

“What will you do?”

“For now, do what I was doing before: search for the winter cherry blossoms.”

“Those cherry blossoms are the beginning of misfortune. Will you still search for them?”

“What greater misfortune could I find? I never thought the destruction of an entire hotel would be played off as no big deal.”

“The Osaka Hilton, Prefectural #2, and the New Yodo River Bridge are already being repaired. …By repair companies belonging to the Houzenji Group.”

“So a red flower did not bloom in the darkness.”

Hijiri’s bitter smile deepened and a manly smile appeared on her lips.

“Iba, if you have any hints about the cherry blossoms, please tell me. If they bring misfortune, then I intend to start with them as I find a number of things.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

Iba fell silent for a few seconds.

Then he crossed his arms and gave Hijiri an upturned glance.

But that too only lasted a moment.

He then practically spat out his next words.

“Those cherry blossoms are born from battle.”

“Battle?”

“Yes, that’s right.” He nodded. “Nakamura Midori and Kuki Udai had interacted in the past, but then they became enemies. When they fought in a certain location, cherry blossoms were seen at the end of the battle.”

“…”

“Your parents must have been the same.”

“My parents never told me much about that kind of thing.”

“But those cherry blossoms are born from battle. …Your father, mother, or both of them must have seen them at the end of a battle.”

Hijiri suppressed a bitter smile at that.

A possibility came to mind.

Her father had abducted her mother from Osaka and returned to Tokyo with her.

It would not be surprising if a battle had occurred then.

What effect had those cherry blossoms had on the two of them?

“…”

Iba would not tell Hijiri that.

And Hijiri chose not to ask.

But she did ask something else.

“What do you intend to do now?”

“Bear all responsibility by fulfilling the prophecy.”

“For who?”

“For those who have died.”

With that brief answer, he looked Hijiri straight in the eyes.

There was no intimidation or questioning in his eyes. It was a powerless gaze.

And he spoke with no hesitation in his voice.

“Aoi, promise me one thing about what is to come.”

“?”

“No matter what might happen, please stay on Nakamura’s side.”

“Eh?” Hijiri lowered her head. “S-sure, that’s fine. But why?”

Iba turned around without answering.

He began to walk away.

Just as Hijiri prepared to call out to him, his voice stopped her.

He uttered some Words.

''Companions vanish

''Even he vanishes

''She too vanishes

:''A hand that can hold onto no one remains

:''A hand that fosters destruction remains

:''That hand pleads for no one to leave

They were Iba’s own Words.

Hijiri simply listened to the low rhythm of the quiet Words.

The back of the monk’s outfit slowly, slowly vanished into the few people walking through the park.

“Iba…”

She could not ask where he was going.

The wind blew through.

It was a quick gust of the north wind that instantly swept away the midday warmth.

“!”

Hijiri covered her face against the dry dust carried by the wind.

She faced forward while surrounded by quiet cries of surprise about the wind.

Iba was already gone.

She could no longer see his back, as if he had been swept away by that wind.