Lumina Square, New Eridu's Bangboo boutique.
The shop stocked the newest models of Bangboo in every configuration, along with every conceivable modification part and paint job for them. It could satisfy anyone's needs perfectly.
Anyone except the Bangboo themselves...
"Un-na! What the heck is this bow! I don't want anything like this, un-na!"
Staring at his own reflection, done up like some gaudy butterfly, Little Geno tore the bow off his rabbit ears and stomped on it twice for good measure.
"Sir, you haven't paid for that yet..."
The clerk beside them spoke up to head him off. If the merchandise didn't sell, the store manager would make her life difficult.
"Sorry, my Bangboo has a bit of a temper. How about this: box up the things we already picked out, and we'll take a look at what else you've got."
"You got it! Right away!"
The clerk, sulky only a second earlier, lit up brighter than Little Geno's outfit the moment Geno said that. A full Sichuan opera face-change, performed on the spot.
Everyone worked to put food on the table, after all. Once the bill got paid, everything else was negotiable. There was no sense in picking a fight with money.
Earning a living is nothing to be ashamed of.
Once the clerk had walked off, Geno turned to Little Geno.
"If you don't like it, go pick something out yourself."
Little Geno ripped off every scrap of the flashy getup without hesitation and went pattering off toward the clothing section.
Twiggy watched him go and poked Geno in the small of the back, grinning wickedly. "That trick works every time. Look at it, trotting off all eager."
Geno smiled. Wisdom handed down by the ancestors, that.
Say the room is too dark and you'd like to cut a skylight into it, and everyone will refuse outright. But insist on tearing the roof clean off, and they'll rush to compromise, suddenly perfectly willing to let you have your skylight.
That was the famous "House-Demolishing Effect" a certain Mr. Shuren once wrote about.
Just like at the start, when Geno suggested Little Geno dress up and Little Geno refused.
Because you can't just tell him to dress up and have him dress up. That would make him look like he had no standards. Low-class, even.
And when Twiggy offered to dress him up herself, Little Geno still refused.
Because Twiggy's taste and his own were worlds apart. What kind of decent person dresses a Bangboo up as a butterfly?
So the moment Geno told him to go find whatever look he wanted on his own, he acted without a second's delay.
It wasn't long before Little Geno came waddling back to the two of them in his freshly assembled ensemble, and both Geno and Twiggy looked thoroughly pleased.
He wore a round gentleman's derby, a single lens perched over one eye, and the rest of the outfit was pure old-world English gentleman with a light dusting of steampunk. Elegant and a little dreamlike.
"Whoa. You've got good taste."
"Hmph. Like I needed you to tell me, un-na."
Two stubby arms folded with a snap, radiating pure smugness.
Geno smiled. It really was like raising a little brother.
He waved the clerk over to settle the bill, then walked out of the store with Twiggy, Little Geno, and two new outfits, everyone satisfied.
They hadn't been outside long before they ran into another familiar face.
"Miss Tsukishiro? I didn't expect to run into you here."
On the way to the parking lot on the east side of the square, the two of them and one Bangboo came across Yanagi Tsukishiro, moving fast and looking harried.
The anxiety written across her face gave Geno a bad feeling.
"It's you! Thank goodness. Miss Twiggy, might I ask you all to lend us a hand? We've run into some trouble."
"What is it? What happened?"
Geno frowned as he pressed for details. As far as he knew, this wasn't like Yanagi Tsukishiro at all.
"I'll explain properly once we've met with the Proxy. Ah, they're here."
Even as Tsukishiro spoke, two figures came sprinting over from the direction of the parking lot. Wise and Belle.
"Huff, huff. I'm pretty sure that was my entire year's worth of exercise. Miss Tsukishiro, what exactly is going on?"
Yanagi Tsukishiro didn't waste words. She simply set off at an urgent pace toward HIA with the others in tow, sketching out what had happened as they walked.
"It begins with the commission we're currently carrying out..."
Half an hour earlier.
Barely any time after Tsukishiro and her three companions entered the Virtual Dive System, the HIA staff out in the real world went rigid with alarm.
"Wh-what's happening here?! The system. The system's malfunctioning!"
One of the investigators, sweat pouring down his face, hammered at the console keyboard in a frantic clatter. It accomplished nothing.
"Bad, this is bad, this is really bad!"
Warning icons filled the screen. The system had slipped entirely out of his control.
Fat beads of sweat slid from his temple. There was a Void Hunter inside that system right now, and if anything happened to her, he'd go down as the greatest criminal in all of New Eridu.
"Quick! Think of something! Think!"
The investigator pounded on his own skull in a panic, as if the impact might shake an idea loose. It didn't.
Inside the system, meanwhile, Anti-Air Section Six was tearing through one exhilarating battle after another.
Shk! The blade flashed. Coil after coil of thunder streaked past like a startled swan and shattered the Ethereal in front of her with perfect precision.
Yanagi Tsukishiro looked up at the sky. This combat environment dropped lightning bolts at intervals to throw her off.
In truth, the greatest threat on this battlefield wasn't the Ethereals in front of her. It was the sheer weight of that thunder.
"Though it isn't entirely a bad thing."
A cold light glinted off her lenses. She shifted, sliding away to one side, and a bolt of lightning struck the exact spot where she had been standing.
She wasn't done. Her naginata swept up, and the lightning ricocheted off the edge of her blade, flying true into an Ethereal a short way off.
"Secret Blade: Raikiri."
One stroke to strike the lightning down, and its own force turned against the enemy. Raikiri, the Lightning Cutter, lived up to its name.
With that, the last Ethereal was cleared away.
Tsukishiro let out a slow, stale breath and slid the naginata home in its sheath, as unruffled as if she hadn't just come through a hard fight.
She was a warrior. Her days might be spent buried in paperwork, but she maintained a soldier's combat conditioning, and since her own Section Chief was a martial arts fanatic, she'd logged more than enough hours as a sparring partner. Her skills had sharpened rather than dulled.
"That should be the end of it."
Tsukishiro murmured to herself and began scanning her surroundings. Moments passed, and nothing changed at all.
Her brow drew together slightly.
And just as her patience was about to give out, a clear, crisp voice reached her ears.
____
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