The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Bonus4

Status: Incomplete

3/15 parts completed

   

Hishigami (♀) All Stars Psychedelic Live!!

Part 1

…What is going on?

Below the clear winter sky and surrounded by the smell of gasoline and smoke, I desperately used my aching head to think while clinging to the side of a crushed police car.

I was in Ichigaya.

I was familiar with the landmarks, such as the fishing hole in front of the train station and the branch of a certain TV station, but the most important thing there was the Ministry of Defense facility. The large military antenna tower was visible from anywhere in the area.

A small parade had been scheduled for today. Some newly arrived ambassador was obsessed with the military yet dulled by peace, so he apparently liked to visit military facilities in different countries like a history buff visiting historical sites.

There had apparently been a fair bit of argument over whether the JSDF or the police should be in charge of his protection, but everyone had been quite carefree on the scene. Of course, the only people taking part in the parade were members of the bodyguard division and others who had cleared a strict background check. Plus, the parade was following a prearranged course, so they only had to patrol roads that just so happened to all look the same.

The least important group there was the 0-X Office that specialized in Youkai-related cases. That Office was filled with civilian middle school girls like Mystery Freak Hishigami Enbi and Hachikawa Tomoe. They couldn’t exactly drive a car and I couldn’t recruit civilians for this anyway.

And that’s why I, Uchimaku Hayabusa, was the only member of the 0-X Office on the job.

That was all it was.

I should have only been there for two or three hours.

Should have.

It happened suddenly.

Another group of vehicles charged into the intersection that should have been blocked off.

If it had been an armed group, this would have been a major incident.

But it turned out to be even more of a pain in the ass.

“Dammit. Why did a bunch of JSDF trucks painted in jungle colors crash into us!?”

“They’re not trying to get back at us for taking the bodyguard job from them, are they? And what’s that? A girl!?”

As we hid in the same car together, Sotobori Gaku, the heavy tank of the organized crime division, shouted hysterically.

We were surrounded by a mixture of crushed police and JSDF vehicles.

As everyone aimed their guns at each other from extremely close range, a single conspicuous figure stood in the center.

It was not the ambassador.

It was the girl that Sotobori had mentioned.

She looked like a white witch.

The girl was around eighteen. She has long, rough white hair and an ankle-length outfit that looked like a simplified dress. She had leather belts around her wrists and ankles, short chains, and…softball-sized iron balls?

We were all confused, but the girl gently raised both hands like a conductor and spoke loudly between the two groups.

“You seem quite fixated on me, but isn’t this a dangerous situation!? You will trigger an international incident, JSDF!!”

“Silence!”

She was answered by the speaker on the roof of one of the military trucks.

The person speaking was a woman who would have looked more at home in an executive secretary’s luxury suit than in camouflage.

“Did you think we would end our pursuit for safety’s sake if you fled into the parade? Or did you think you would trigger a conflict over jurisdiction with the police? We don’t care about any of that! Not if it means letting you escape here, Hishigami Ama!!”

My heart leapt in my chest.

Hishi…gami? Hishigami!? She’s a Hishigami Woman just like Mystery Freak Enbi and the even worse Mai!?

The white-haired girl remained carefree.

“A mass shooting by a rogue JSDF unit? I can’t wait to see the papers tomorrow! No, this would probably warrant a special report. Anyway, are you that worried about staying on the Hishigami Men’s good side? I mean, you are the Hishigami Group’s biggest customer and I should probably be rubbing my hands together in anticipation of your future business with us, but it still saddens me that you would ignore the everyday people to do a company’s dirty work!”

“This has nothing to do with Hishigami!”

“That doesn’t matter. And sorry, but I can’t let myself be captured here. Especially by someone involved with the Men. So I think I’ll make a bit of a mess of things here. Specifically…I’ll get some help from a police officer who’ll actually fight for the common man!”

I exchanged a shocked look with Sotobori.

“Hey, this ain’t good. I don’t know what’s going on, but she’s coming this-…gwoh!?”

“Sotobori!?”

What!? What just happened!?

The white witch should still have been a long way off, but the next thing I knew, white cloth was fluttering before my eyes and that heavy tank with some rank I’d forgotten in judo had been tossed aside and dazed.

And this was when we were holding our guns!

“Don’t…move!!”

“Stop it, stop it, stop it.”

It was as easy as taking candy from a baby.

I was on the receiving and not even I could tell what had happened. She easily took the gun from my hands and put my arm in a joint lock behind me with a single hand. She can move like this with those iron balls on her legs!? Dammit!

She pressed up against my back, presumably to use me as a shield.

I felt something soft on my back and her sweet breath reached my ear.

“If all you can do is fire at paper targets underground with earplugs in, then go have some fun in Guam. This doesn’t suit you, detective.”

“Dammit. Are you a Hishigami more like Mai than like Enbi!?”

“Oh, you know our name? And it didn’t fill you with fear. I find that ‘hope’ very interesting.”

The police and the JSDF both focused their guns in this direction.

Hishigami Ama smiled as she used me as a shield and pressed my gun against my back.

“Stop it. You have me completely surrounded, so firing will only lead to friendly fire. You belong to different organizations, but you’re both working toward the peace of this country, right? That sad ending wouldn’t suit you!”

“Gh! It’s your fault it’s turning out that way!”

“Pipe down, detective. Just so you know, this is meant to help all of you.”

“You have until the count of ten,” said the JSDF official.

“They’re ready to do this. And! Do you really think I’d let go of my hostage in such a juicy situation!?”

“He is a public servant. It is his duty to sacrifice himself for social stability.”

Bff!?

“Do all of you have issues!? You all stand out so much the VIP ambassador is fading into the background!”

“I know what you mean. And I have no time to play along with their bluff.” Hishigami Ama whispered to me. “My true pursuers will be here soon.”

It happened a moment later.

“It” arrived.

Part 2

It was like a meteor strike.

With an explosive sound, a nearby police car was crushed before violently exploding. The same happened to a JSDF truck soon thereafter. The JSDF official quickly tried to retreat, but she was knocked out by the blast.

But what in the world was happening?

I looked up into the sky as Hishigami Ama twisted my arm and something blotted out the sun.

There were a few objects in the blue sky.

They were…

“What!? Concrete!?”

“Didn’t you know? A tornado can throw building materials with lengths of a few thousand meters right up into the air. And of course, what goes up must come down. With plenty of help from gravitational acceleration, a single pachinko ball can be deadly. So get down.”

More and more heavy sounds rang out.

Each time, I felt a squeeze at my heart.

I could see something like a muddy gray pillar moving between the buildings in the distant sky. Don’t tell me that’s a tornado?

“The legend of a Tengu’s fan was probably used to artificially create a tornado. I’m guessing this was Shitsu’s doing. She says she destroys education, but she uses the legend of Ushiwakamaru.”

It was all too fragile.

Both the police and the JSDF had been using the vehicles as shields. So now that those shields were being crushed one after another, there was nothing they could do. Unable to maintain any form of leadership, they could only scatter in every direction.

“I always tell her not to do that since it isn’t all that accurate. …Now, detective, what will you do?”

“What…?”

“A few other Hishigami Women are after me. Your poor colleagues will be in danger if I don’t leave here. You don’t want to let me go, but that just means you have to go with me.”

“…”

“And more importantly, wasn’t your job here to protect that ambassador from wherever? Based on your behavior, you’re not part of the bodyguard division, but that doesn’t mean you want to abandon your duty, does it?”

Dammit.

I had no choice. Sotobori was still in a daze, I had no idea where the ambassador had ended up, and she had me in an armlock.

“Fine. Let’s go with that.”

“I will praise you for the quick decision, Detective Uchimaku. But you need to pay closer attention.”

“Ah! That’s my police badge!”

The white witch let go of my arm and tossed me my badge and gun.

I was shocked.

I had assumed she would keep the gun for herself.

“Are you sure?”

“You can’t kill me with that. You can’t use it to kill the other Hishigami Women either.”

Ama’s white head shook.

A moment later, I heard an incredible explosion and a fist-sized hole appeared in the police car door.

“What…is it now!? Sniper fire!? Is it the JSDF!?”

“The sound didn’t clue you in? They wouldn’t use an antique like the 1941. One of the others is here already. More importantly, you need to run. Follow me. Unless you plan to take on an anti-tank rifle with that revolver.”

Everything about this was a complete mess.

The tornado was still going strong and now a large sniper rifle was firing at us. We were being pursued by two different assassins.

I could only run through the chaos while making sure I didn’t lose sight of Hishigami Ama’s back. She had iron balls attached to her ankles, but I couldn’t catch up. My legs nearly froze up from the occasional sounds of destruction pursuing us, but stopping was not going to improve the situation. A police car wouldn’t block a bullet like that. It would blow a hole in both the car and me.

“Hah hah! Can you believe this, Detective Uchimaku!? We’re being shot at with a gigantic rifle that blew holes in tanks seventy years ago! Can’t you feel the history!?”

“Shut up, you freak! What the hell is that!?”

“Yuu who destroys systems. As you can see, she’s a brawny combat type that’s obsessed with weird old Soviet weapons. Shitsu does some more general damage and Yuu finishes us off. That’s their impudent idea of teamwork.”

The dark smoke from the exploding vehicles may have worked in our favor.

We left the destroyed vehicles and arrived at a police car that was somehow still in a workable state.

I grabbed the driver’s side door, but only received a solid sensation. Oh, damn. They actually bothered to lock it!

I slammed my elbow into the window, but it didn’t even crack.

“It’s bulletproof!? Curse the parade specifications. My elbow’s tingling!!”

“We don’t have time to mess around. Yuu will shoot us. So excuse me a moment.”

She had said I needed to pay closer attention.

Even so, I couldn’t help but stare in shock when she smoothly removed my tie.

What happened next was an even greater shock.

She stabbed with it.

Ama swung the tie and stabbed it into the gap next to the car door. Then she pulled it straight down and I heard the internal latch breaking.

You’re kidding, right?

She smashed it…like with an axe?

The white witch then popped open the door.

“You can have this back. What’s that curious look for? A single hair is enough to kill a tiger, right? And a tie is far better than a hair.”

“No, wait. How much of an expert are-…!?”

“We can talk later. Or do you want to get hit by that 1941? C’mon, get in, get in!”

Before I could say anything more, she kicked me into the driver’s seat. Then she climbed in.

And sat right on my lap.

“Are you just messing with me!?”

“I don’t have time to circle around to the passenger seat. We need to drive off like this.”

“Traffic laws!”

“I don’t recall any laws against driving while sitting in a man’s lap.”

I don’t even care anymore…

When I just about stopped caring what happened, Ama used her bare hand to smash the ignition below the steering wheel.

“This should be fun. I’ve always wanted to hold a steering wheel.”

“I care again! You mean you don’t even have a license!?”

But if we stuck around for too long, we would be hit by that Hishigami Yuu person’s 1941.

We really did end up driving off in a bizarre Nininbaori style.

…Driving on public roads like this has got to be a yellow light for my life as a detective.

“Okay, let me introduce myself, Favorite-kun. I’m Ama, Hishigami Ama. I’m 18, I’m female, and I have no education history. I’ve never been to a school. Yeah, that goes against my duty as a citizen. People call me ‘Ama who destroys hope’. Whether you’re an individual or a group, bring it on. Nice to meet you.”

“You keep changing what you call me, but I’m Uchimaku Hayabusa. And that introduction doesn’t explain anything! What is going on!?”

Part 3 (3rd person)

On the roof of a building near Ichigaya’s Ministry of Defense facility, a woman in a bikini top and skinny pants lay face-down on the thick military coat laid out below her. She sounded exasperated as she spoke into a cellphone.

She was Hishigami Yuu.

“Oh, dear. Oh, dear. This might be bad. The target is active. I repeat, the target is active.”

She was not sunbathing out of season.

She calmly held a 1941, an anti-tank rifle around two meters long.

She was answered by the innocent voice of a ten-year-old girl.

“Were you really trying to hit her?”

“Of course I was. Why would I hold back? But this is Ama we’re talking about. It’s hard to aim for her with the way she staggers around!”

“What about the Nopperabou included in the sniping unit? If you use its power enchant your opponent, can’t you make any opponent stand stock still for two seconds?”

“No, no. Didn’t I just say this is Ama? She’d use it against me.”

“Hmm. Then you should have shot that detective in the leg so she had to carry him around.”

“If I did that with this 1941, it’d be like shooting a red water balloon. And…”

“And?”

“…I don’t really like shooting that kind of hot-blooded guy.”

She heard a giggle from over the phone.

The beautiful woman in a bikini top quickly stood up.

“H-hey! I’m talking about the kind noise!”

“That’s fine. But we can’t let Ama-chan escape. You need to continue the pursuit, Yuu-chan.”

“Okay, but I can’t pursue someone in a car. Jumping from building to building as a shortcut can only take me so far.”

“Don’t worry about that. A few of the others are on the move to keep them in place. Like Rou-chan, and Arawa-chan, and Raku-chan…”

“That’s just playing dirty.”

“And since I don’t want anyone accusing me of being all talk, I’ll be heading out too.”

“Vweh!?”

“What?”

“W-well… Ah ha ha. I-is this really worth having you head out there? I need to give this my all!”

“I’m heading out because I’m worried the rest of you aren’t going to be enough. See you there. Vee.”

“Ah, wait!? …She hung up.”

With that surprised comment, the beautiful woman scratched her head.

She grabbed the military coat she had been lying on and draped it over her shoulders.

“ ‘Yume who destroys ethics’ is seriously going to make an appearance? Is this the end for Tokyo?”

Part 15

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