Editing City Series:Volume7 Layer 11 (section)

===Record 79: When the Dance Begins===
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'''08/23/1998

'''19:15

The city and the school worked together to hold an escape-the-heat bon festival. The cornerstone of the competition was the 130R corner on the west end of the schoolyard, but the ground collapsed there and the leading group crashed. An unpredictable chain reaction was beginning.

The signal atop the starting line festival tower was still red. The ref gave his ruling by forming an X with the drumsticks held over his head. Seeing that, all of the contestants came to a stop in their yukatas and geta.

A discussion was underway over whether the bon dance would resume, but the atmosphere was heavy.

We were on security duty and we had encountered another issue. Maybe it was due to the crash, but we received word of a hole in the small mountain behind the general school building.

The Boss called me there.

“They say it’s a bomb shelter. I hope it doesn’t collapse.”

We slipped between the yukata-wearing people to go check.

The representatives of the different groups were butting heads and arguing in front of the pit and a few groups were already starting to withdraw.

The broadcast committee had split into a few different teams with TV cameras to report on what was going on at each location.

“Yes.” The boss took a look around. “The night dew changes the road surface. If they start up again, they’ll need to swap out their normal geta for rain geta.”

“Yeah, our schoolyard is so old it has drainage issues.”


When we walked by the school building, we passed a pit crew carrying new geta just like the Boss had said. I felt a little bad after seeing how much of a rush they were in.

Back behind the school building was a small mountain covered in trees. I had thought it was only any useful when using the incinerator or cleaning, but…

“What took you?” asked Snowy and Lady who were in yukata and must have been waiting for us.

Lady must have been in a hurry because she had brought a melodica from the music room instead of her usual keyboard. We stopped in front of those two.

“Where are the others?”

“Taking over the security work. Senpai told us to handle this on our own.”

“I see,” I said while turning my attention to the square hole in the slope. The Boss viewed the edge of the hole.

“This is artificial. There’s cement or something down there.”

“It’s a secret base,” I said.

“If we can get in it,” added Snowy.

I asked her what she meant.

“The shadows are too dense for us to enter. I tried to use my Mobilized Writing and pull it out as a weapon, but it didn’t work.”

“I’ve managed to confirm it’s spreading into the space around here, but I don’t know how far it will spread,” said Lady.

I heard cheers from the school building, so the bon dance must have been back on.

“We need to deal with this quick if we don’t want to miss the festival.” I thought about the issue. “So Snowy couldn’t grab it and pull it out with her Mobilized Writing because the postwar shadows are packed in there too tight.”

“Could the air hole meant to let it out also be blocked up?”

Lady showed off the air hole on the bottom of the melodica and I nodded.

“So we just take the reverse route and break an air hole into the entrance.”

I readied my fist, took a breath, and swung it toward the shadows.

'''If you throw a punch with belief in your heart, all things will receive the blow in accordance with the conservation of energy.

I felt the blow land and the shadows were blown away like a gasping breath.

Then I heard an explosion and a wave of screams from near the school building.

“Huh?”

I pulled my fist back and looked over to see Lady’s exasperated face.

“The shadows must have erupted from the 130R corner.”

'''Author Comment:

The bon dance.

They search the bomb shelter later and then remodel it.

Lady is playing a melodica here, but her power actually works even without any music.

She just seems to like using a keyboard, so she doesn’t like using a flute or a guitar.