Ryo-Kata, the owner of Ryokata’s Dojo.


    People seldom stop and eat here. It’s small, dinky, and reeks seafood, beef, pork, chicken—all battered up and greased up to turn into a fuel source, then salted to purification.


    It’s mine and moms favorite, though.


    Got the cheap, and a bit less cheap dishes to choose from.


    On a good day, we go for the cheap ones. On a better day, less cheap. On a bad day, we’re pitied, and he lets us drink miso soup as we’re waiting for the dish we’re dine-and-dashing. Had us almost barred once. Moms convinced him not to.


    “One with pork buns, and one with chicken, please,” I say digging for the credchip Jiji gave me before he unemployed me. ”You want money up-front?”


    “Kumori,” he says, leaning in. “If you can’t pay, that’s fine. It’s on the house, kid.”


    I smirk, scoffing.


    “Black-belt in handouts, eh Ryo-Kata?”


    I pull out the credchip Jiji gave me.


    He snickers and shakes his head before he slots it in his wrist, and passes it back to me.


    “Thank you, Kumori,” he says, bowing with a smile. “Put a little discount for you, kid.”


    “Why? Chip’s good for the full price.”


    “Because,” he says, scruffing my bangs before my eyes. “You look like you’ve had a run in with a train.”


    Tell me about it.


    “Treat yourself with the rest of it.”


    “You sure it ain’t that bit of favoritism because of Kira’s cuteness, Ryo?” I say, brushing my eyesight clear of my bangs.


    Crossing his arms, he looks to the side to a woman taking phone orders, before locking back on me.


    “Mrs. Ryo Kata has all the cuteness I need, Kumori-chan.”


    Woops. Grin stiffens, and face burns red hot.


    “R-right. Of course you’re family run.”


    Ryo glares—before snapping into a whole-mouthed cackle. “Hina-san! One with pork buns, the other with chicken, please!”


    He rams a pen against paper—before slashing it across, aside, and twice-over—death by a thousand graphite cuts.


    “Blue clank-arms, yet you still use pen and paper, Kata-Ryo?”


    “Of course! How else would I make sure the brine almost turns to rock!”


    He chops, rips, SNAP-startles the fuck out of me, and hands me the receipt.


    It is just lines.


    “Nearly fucking gave me a heart-attack, Kata-Ryo.”


    “Kumori-chan! Do not die! For your dinner has yet to arrive. A moment, please!”


    He bows, and rams into the flaps on the way to his kitchen, leaving me with his wife. She’s screaming silently—despite smiling at me. No doubt we’re both thinking the same words. He’s left her with me.


    It takes a while. She tilts her head, looks aside, looks behind herself, before radioing back on me.


    “So—”


    Blinds slap open with a pop—he throws a goddamn mini steaming sarcophagus that’s about the size of a two-liter water bottle on the counter. He opens to reveal two beautifully ribboned takeout boxes neatly slotted in whatever form they were in.


    “Put a little present in there for you you both.”


    I frown at the boxes, before looking up at Ryo-Kata.


    “What do you mean?”


    He gently unlaces the ribbons on the box with a sun-sticker on it—Kira’s dinner.


    … There’s an egg inside, cooked sunny-side up. Cradled next to it? A little rice-ball with rabbit ears.


    The sun and the moon rabbit.


    “Kira and Kumori,” he says, slowly placing two pairs of chopsticks on a side-compartment in the container.


    Yeah—I guess it was. Kira, and Tama Usagi. Her lucky little white rabbit. I mean, of course this fucking guy does it. Wish he hadn’t though. Really wish he fucking hadn’t.


    “Thank you, occhan.”


    It hurt to speak—throat aching up. Hate when that happens. Really fucking hate it when it happens.


    A handkerchief slowly pats my cheeks, which I realize were moist. I look up and he is freaking smirking.


    “Appreciate it, I guess. Shame it’s gonna get all sloshed up the moment I—“


    “Oh no, not so fast, Hikari Kumori-chan!” he says, before he leans in on the cylinder with a hefty pat. “This container—the perfect container for the client that’s always on the damn run.”


    He flips and stands it up.


    “The kind of client that plays, ‘the streets are lava!’ in Tokyo—“


    “Yeah, yeah, I get it, Ryo—“


    “The one that never seems to understand that rooftops and ziplines are for cover and coverage!”


    It’s rude to interrupt a monologue—but man, the food was getting cold. So I try to sneak up and away with the cylinder—


    “A container!”


    —got yanked right the fuck back.


    “That resists not only the earthquakes of Japan!”


    He leans in, closing it methodically.


    “But also the brazen fire from my favorite customer.”


    He clicks a button on the container—a green light illuminates.


    “Kumori Hikari,” he gently pushes the container to me again. “The Shade that brightens everyone’s day.”


    … How the hell do you even start to walk out of this one.


    The silence stretched so far out I could still heard his voice echoing in my mind. He glared at me with a brazen smirk—his brow cramming down—probably wanting to hammer in the point. Damn sight might’ve very well excavated my eyes, so I look aside. The steam caking the airborne grease drew wet droplets on the formerly opaque floor to ceiling window to my right. Drop to the left nearly beat the one to the right—


    “Remember.”


    Oh for crying out loud—not this crap again.


    “If you ever want a different line of work,” he says leaning in to catch my contact. “Then these doors will always be open for you, kid.”


    I swear—he’s worse than the fucking ex-pats.


    “Sure,” I say, finally looking back at him. “Problem is—you’ve got all slots filled up already.”


    I nod to the fella slapping a hissing stove behind the flaps.


    “You’ve got a cook—” I nod at Mrs Ryo-Kata, “—a cashier—” same lady, “—and no room for a waitress.”


    I motion to the very fact that since this place is a take out joint, it barely holds four bar stools for the patrons.


    “You want me to ogle the customers that never sit, or what?”


    Got him to ogle at me with that grumpy-ass, ‘I’m disappointed with you’ look fathers give their kids on J-dramas. Only reference I get since mine fucked Kira, and fucked off.


    “Besides—I’ve already got business cooked up. So don’t worry about me.”


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    He hauls a deep sigh with an equally deep eye roll.


    “Who, Genjiro?”


    I scoff, smirking. “No, not Jiji-san.“


    “Then it’s that damn good for nothing gossiper, Teach.”


    I take a deep breath—gotta lay it out to him straight, I guess.


    “Ryo-san—I’ll tell Kira you said hi.”


    … You’d think he’d get a clue.


    <hr>


    I push aside the drapes slung over the exit of Ryo-Kata’s food stall, and walk out to a scraper-tall concrete tunnel-corridor illuminated by wall-lamps, and barely perceptible fluorescent snake-fixture tubes curving along the ceiling of the tunnel. Glass road in between has two ways—one heading right to the Mekka of tech—Akihabara Station. The other to bumfuck nowhere.


    Looking down on the glass road, I see the magnum opus of a master nerd—the finest threaded fucking cable management I’ve ever witnessed. With slings of light trailing like they’ve been painted on by the finest brush, they pulsate and mimic the traveling path of information. I swear, it’s daring you to crack the glass and knick the masterpiece.


    Looking up ahead, and I see a bus shelter enclosure crammed into the wall like a concentrated mass of smoky quarts. Lights are out for those who don’t have the proper SUICA card. Those that do, they can beep open the quarts, get greeted by a sweet disembodied lady voice, and then coop inside of the now illuminated shelter—or they can hike through the shortcut within—and go right through these too fucking high-reaching walls.


    For us destined to walk the glass-mile of cable management—we at least get to be graced by the graffiti made by nullcasters with too much artistic freedom to care for work. Folks who spend their day-by-day as innovators of the streets, bedazzlers of places where bedazzling isn’t just encouraged, but necessary. They’re the ones that breathe life into these walls. All so that they can get back the final drop of sanity they sorely wish they hadn’t lost.


    Glass road turns red moment I cross—


    “Please adhere to the jaywalking rules—”


    And there she is.


    I don’t get it. These roads aren’t exactly less traveled. They’re fucking dead. So what’s her beef with me?


    She panics the moment she realizes it can’t give us ‘ganics the luxury of hearing her in our heads. Especially since she tends to get a bit socially awkward when dealing with someone without a neural interface. Kinda makes me wonder how the gov’ed fellas thought it fit the sanity bill, considering a disembodied voice inside of your mind is just another notch off of the cyberpsychosis symptom bucket list.


    No matter. With a quick check to make sure the cylinder’s strapped proper to my hip, I keep on walking.


    Best place for these packages, the hip. Tried once strapping it to the back, and fucking sent it the moment I dove into a roll.


    Guess we can canter into a jog. So a deep breath and—


    “Ahh.”


    —there it is.


    The glorious smell of newly unboxed electronics mixed with newly minted rubber tires.


    Room tempered joggers paradise. Shame the nullcasters are missing out. Instead of having any motivation to jog, they’re either busy tagging, or too busy being a cog in a bucket filled with water. Guess it’s better being the second worst thing to uselessness, rather than homeless.


    They should instead do what I do.


    Become a runner.


    Break your self.


    Realize how dramatic your fixer can truly be.


    Make him question ever hiring a 14 year old.


    Make him existential over the prospect of feeling guilty over the death of said 14 year old.


    Buy ramen that’ll probably go bad by the time I get home.


    And, finally, thank the fucking government for counting Kira as a parent so you’re not considered an orphan.


    A transit bus passes by—the glass panel floor fades into solid gray-faded peach-white, with truncated milk-drop sound-effects. The whole thing’s boxed in the colored bus-line it is driving. Moment the bus passed by - the damn white didn’t fade. No, it turned hexa-lattice, each hex shrinking into itself before vanishing.


    I swear if this glass-road gets any cuter I might just kiss it. Lord knows it would beat kissing the pavement from falling from a scraper.


    It doesn’t take long until I feel the wind draft coming from the exit up ahead. An LED-super-nova devours the night. Moment I slip out, Tokyo’s freshness beguiles me with a proper crisp cleanliness.


    <hr>


    Handrails to the side are glass with interactive elements that say, “NO INTERFACE”, because fuck you for not having AR-eyes. Lights beyond the glass rail are held by a luminous glass overhead arm, and look like cyber-jello with each having its own color. There is a perfect path across them leading to a fire escape—which, in turn, fed straight into a skyway bridge. I could—no, I ought to—just fucking do it.


    Two steps, quick ones, and I’m at the handrail…


    … And I hesitate.


    … I fucking hesitate.


    The ground really feels good under my soles for some reason. Either that, or I’ve just got this nagging feeling something’s amiss. There’s a drilling and whistling noise in the background that’s a bit too clean to be considered a part of Akihabara’s nerdsmanship.


    Fuck it—excuses, excuses.


    I leap over the railing. Screw Akiba Station—we’re going topside, baby.


    I land on one of the streetlights—skip to the next—reach for the fire-escape—God reaching to touch Adam (and the damn illusion that painting actually is) hand finds the first step—and up I go in a triple-scale rush. Reach the top, easily breaking record, sky way roof flat for a jog. Running across to reach the ledge at the ceiling ending—but stop, and look down to see the face of a sleepy neko-chan cat on a great fucking monitor. She suddenly pops open her eyes—which are too big for my heart, with pupils too thin for my soul, before she purrs, and mellows the fuck out.


    “Nyaa~” she winks once, and yowl-yawns again. “Coziest sleep for the cutest—subscribe to Neko Meowline Meowlanine.”


    “Just don’t forget their proprietary fucking wetware.”


    She winks a heart at me, before falling asleep again.


    I oughta drop-slam into her face and wake her the fuck up. Shame it would probably just crack the damn screen. The alternative is to drop, and roll which would end up centrifuging my takeout into an unrecognizable mess. Maybe going rookie-style’s the way to go here. Clamber onto the ledge, and drop into a lean and keen slide. Ought to keep the sun and the moon-rabbit whole, at least.


    Fuck it.


    I toss the take out—drop into a roll, play catch with myself—catch it!


    Contents splorged up—but it’s splorged up inside of the take-out box. Not outside. Wasn’t my goal, but I’ll take the W.


    Looking ahead and we’ve got a big-ass wall simply asking me to activate my non-existent jets. So I book a left to the side packed with ac-units—oh kuso. They’re standing like unevenly grown teeth.


    Got a shorter, taller, a gap where I gotta skip, then followed by two shorter.


    Screw it. Drop to one, skip to the next, vault, press, and fucking leap to the sixth, roll off it—boom!


    … There’s a fucking mini-side walk that avoids all these shenanigans.


    Don’t mind if I do, I guess.


    Walking this concrete tightrope and I can feel the un-grounded static raising my hair from the throng of grounded otagonks Akiba Station.


    “No eyes on me! All on you motherfuckers—GAH!”


    Leg slipped—and I’m gripping the ledge in front of a big-ass window that’s got a staring corpo lady staring on the other side of the glass. Her dress—she’s wearing a blue rose burning into a root of fire. My face goes numb. The tendrils at the bottom are actually shifting, like one of calmest forest fires burning blue roses I’ve seen.


    “Hey!” heard her voice through the window panel. “No pre-looksies!”


    Her hand goes for some switch, and blinds press and peel my fingers off a safe grip. I might as well humble this bitch seeing as she thinks I’m a fucking amateur. A snap-pull and skip to get a new grip on the blinds. With a whip-rip down, the blinds are surged through their warranty period, and I close the distance to a lithe tippy-toe to the walkway below. Moment I drop, I stop and take a breather—


    “I-itte!”


    Debris from the blinds adds white dust to fit the grime of my white hair.


    I crack into a full jog down the ceiling of a long ribbed body exiting Akiba Station. Reaching the end, I step-vault onto a higher elevation—and keep on running on a building that’s got highways on either side. Cars driving on them—some sporting spheres for wheels, thinking they’re bridging the ‘almost-hover-cars’ gap, but not really. And some have got the good old fashioned wheel… strapped with a fucking neon sling that makes them go ZOOM!


    Tuner-culture, eat your heart out—


    “TOMARE!”


    (不正な開発者が検出されました - Fuseina kaihatsu-sha ga kenshutsu sa remashita!)


    Guess that’s all that was missing. A drone that’s most definitely not supposed to know I’m here.


    “Took you long enough,” I say, and do my courtesy bow—which the asshole doesn’t return.


    “Come on—keep up!”


    Let’s give it a run for it’s ￥enDo—spikes through the air—a fucking jet-drone.


    Looks like it’s already paying off that fucking run. Crevice up ahead, and I dive right into it—


    A daft scream drills through the air—I duck, the projectile splashing past me on the ground bird droppings.


    … The fucking.


    Thing.


    Is equipped.


    With a COS-system.


    And it barely missed me.


    I am not fucking homeless. The fuck is it’s problem?


    This city needs to fucking burn alive.


    Crevice I had dropped in lead to two red double doors which unlock the moment I slam double-sole into them. I end up sliding on the soft rug inside—and judging by all the fucking corpo-tuxed people inside who are staring, I’m in a fancy, high-end restaurant.


    “What the hell are you doing here!?”


    Drone engine drills and whistles behind me—probably re-calibrating. I stomp into a sprint—rug beneath my feet creasing and almost tearing. See the drone looming above over the glass ceiling—looking for me. There’s a railing in front—a quick grab-clip over, and I drop to the floor below—CRASH!


    Magicians pull table cloths. I ram into the whole fucking thing, and become more valuable as a person when the gravy sullies my hair. Damn table’s packed to the brim with food that’s more expensive than my entire lineage.


    Guards start to enclose the exit doors—so we definitely book it to the damn side-door they just obviously left open.


    Out, and we’re at a water dam. Vault over the wall, find steps.


    … Run down the steps like a normal human being—but vault off of them halfway through. Bridge over-pass, run under it. Greet the pristine cleanliness of a hobo-less underpass—wonder if I can stop and see if there’s coagulated blood—


    Another scream drilling through the air—I spin-remove my hoodie—throw it at the source—projectile flash-expands and shrink-wrap-cocoons the hoodie—tightening into a cozy death.


    Is this thing for real?


    It takes a while for it to recharge—so we fucking charge the bull head-on.


    It garners height—but it doesn’t fucking know I can—wall climb, vault, clamber the railing—wall climb—and kick off landing right on this sucker!


    Pulling off the camera—no aim for you. Pulling off the radio antenna—


    “AHH!”


    Shit—got zapped. Hold on, girl. Should’ve expected this piece of shit had counter-measures. It tries to rock me off—but it can fuck off with that thought since I work out my core, you piece of bone-white soup can.


    “Woah!”


    Grip nearly slips as it rushes towards the overpass-bridge, flying under to shake me off—or to smash my head against the elevated ground. Two jets maneuvering, one burning a fucking scab on my gut.


    You know what? Fuck this thing.


    I use my dagger—and jam it into it’s COS-hole. Water below is my only bet on a soft land. Letting go, I drop—aim for a dive into the shallow water—meaning I gotta curve the dive after submersion.


    Water envelopes me—I nearly head-bash the bottom—but barely curve out to smash the wind out of my lungs. I almost inhaled a cup of water, but propped my head out, breath cramping with each futile gasp. Vision’s blurred—but red light from the drone’s told me —it’s aiming another COS-round.


    Moment my vision cleared up, I could see the kitchen knife still cozy in its’ COS-hole.


    “Jaa na, kuso tekikuzu.”


    COS-nozzle bursts, the pipe splitting asunder into a bubble-gum mummification balloon, before snap-shrink wrapping the drone in a muffled clap. The COS shrunk further and further, turning the drone into a new element on the periodic table. It’s thrusters pop off, an electric arc briefly hanging onto it, before the COS:y snuffed out the briefly blinding panic lights it shot out as a last ditch effort. The hunk of junk made a hefty splash, a lead cannon-ball, before sitting still, the draft unable to drag it along the canal.


    <hr>


    The warmth of the moment drains out of me—the water chilling my blood.


    I wade through the water to the drone corpse, before I open up the hatch to its’ cortex.


    A CPU, RAM-unit—there it is.


    I pull out a slim red glass-key, before wading through the water out of the canal. Turning it in my hand, its circuits glint a subtle, yet striking green, meaning it’s still functional. Got no way of extracting whatever bullshit it logged pre-pursuit and death, but I know someone who does. And that someone owes me one.