Broken Peace

Taking a break from their planning, the group split into their different groups keeping separate areas of the third floor. Hiroshi walked over to see Yuki, where Seiji stayed. A loyal friend and one that he barely even knew that well. Before everything with Takako, he had only met the man once before. They didn’t attend the same school, so he had to get the scoop on him from Saki. And Saki clearly had some issues with him that she hadn’t spoken to anyone about. He wasn’t sure if they would ever know what her problem with Seiji was. But what he could see from the man was a good friend and someone to trust. So he didn’t know why Saki would see him as a problem, since Yuki needed all the friends he could get, especially now with things as they were.

Sitting down on the floor, none of them had any chairs. Being storage about all there was around the space was boxes or tubs of things that belong to Phoibe, not exactly the sort of thing to be disrespecting by sitting on them. He did wonder why Phoibe or Nerine didn’t make any chairs for them, but it was a minor point. Something unneeded in the long run.

Three hours passed since they started talking and Yuki remained still. He expected him to wake up, but Nerine insisted that he was recovering from the battle. ‘How long do we have until we have to explain things to him? Is he even going to listen to me? There’s at least friends here…’

Hiroshi glanced over at Nerine, seeing a strange look in her eyes when she looked at Yuki. She looked different at him compared to Seiji. ‘What’s with her? She’s not looking at Yuki as though he was a friend, but like she was guarding him. What’s going on?’ Watching Nerine brought back things he remembered Takako saying that confused him at the time, but he never had the chance to get answers about. It was about time for answers.

He looked over to Nerine and noticed her backing away internally. She had picked up on his sudden interest in her, likely detecting something wrong. “So you think it’s about time to explain what’s going on with Yuki?”

Nerine immediately picked up on Hiroshi’s implications, but Seiji didn’t follow. “He’s tired. What are you going on about?”

“I’m not talking about his state. I’m talking about what happened in the last two months while you disappeared on some trip, as he calls it.”

“He’s the King of Atlantis,” Seiji answered flatly. Nerine immediately went blue, aghast that he would just blurt that out without even a second thought. She rushed over to his side hoping that there was still time to stop it, since it could easily be something that was passed off as being too outlandish to be taken seriously.

“Why are you making things up, Seiji? He’s not going to know how to take your joke.”

“Eh? What’s gotten into you, Nerine?”

There was no hiding it from Hiroshi. Nerine was a bad actor and not very skilled at keeping her emotions in check. She appeared serious and like an adult, but she still had inexperience dealing with people. She was out of her element for sure. “Takako said the same thing, she referred to Yuki as the King. What the hell did I miss?”

Chapter 368 – Broken Peace

“…damn…” It felt like an understatement after getting everything out of Seiji. Hiroshi didn’t really know how to react after everything. It just came out of his mouth, but he was still processing all of it. ‘An entire world unseen to us…a missing part of our history…this is a lot to take in…’

Nerine sat on the floor in dismay muttering things about failing to herself the whole time that Seiji explained things. Once it was over, she seemed to have started to recover. “…I can’t believe you just exposed everything…”

“What’s the problem? Hiroshi’s one of Yuki’s friends, he should know.”

‘I’m not sure if I am anymore…’

“The King has many enemies and the council hasn’t given up. No one is even supposed to know we exist or even that he has left the homeland.”

Seiji continued his very casual concern about the whole situation by just flippantly tossing a hand at the problem. “Don’t stress over such details. Anyone tries anything with Yuki and I’ll protect him!”

‘If only it were that easy.’ Hiroshi could sympathize with Nerine’s concerns. Yuki no longer just lived for himself, but for an entire people. Such a position bore a lot of responsibilities. “But why is he even here?” After the story ended, it seemed like Yuki had accepted his fate to protect the people of Atlantis. So it didn’t make a lot of sense to him why Yuki would come back as such a great risk.

“He didn’t want to leave his family behind without answers.”

Hiroshi stared over at the sleeping Yuki. The answer Seiji gave seemed like one that Yuki would say, but there was more that seemed to be going on than just that. ‘Yuki wouldn’t need to come all the way back to Japan just for that. He could have brought them to him. With the powers that they all wield, it would have been easy to do. Why do I get a feeling that there is something that Yuki’s not telling anyone?’ It was a completely unfounded feeling for Hiroshi. All of it was just easier to accept that Yuki wanted to personally see off his family and friends before leaving them all behind for the rest of his life. That wouldn’t be something hard to believe. But Hiroshi couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else going on that he didn’t know. That even Seiji or Nerine knew about. ‘What is your game, Yuki?’

A new day and almost morning, Shigemitsu stared out the window of his office. The view of the UN base still hadn’t taken on a shape. Only the lights from rooms and spot lights filled the grounds giving it a loose form. He watched the light from the patrols searching out areas keeping their security tight. Everything seemed peaceful despite bubbling chaos that existed beyond the walls of the sectioned off part of the city that they controlled. However, such things wouldn’t last.

He glanced down at the time on his phone, resting on his desk. Turning away, he put his phone in his pocket just as a flash of light went off behind him. A second light growing into a fireball blew up sending out shakes all the way to the building. The man in the suit slowly walked through the open floor plan of the office. All around him the people’s effects laid about on desks or floor completely abandoned.

The glass of the building rattled to the sounds of the explosions going off and then the power disappeared. Across the entire complex, the UN’s headquarters fell into darkness. The chaos of the outside world had finally descended upon them.

It was about when he reached the emergency stairs that his phone went off. Shigemitsu took a moment to pull it out. The name that came across wasn’t the General, but one of his aides. “Shigemitsu, yes? The first priority is getting the power back up! The back up generators won’t maintain the cells for more than thirty minutes!” He finished giving orders to the aide. Being a businessman and not a soldier, he didn’t have a job out on the frontline, but rather kept away from the trouble.

Down on the ground, Masayuki shouted out commands to the soldiers and his team alike trying to get order back. It had already been five minutes since the attack started. “Order Special Team Delta to the flank! We need their support!”

“None of them are responding, sir!” replied a communication officer.

“Dammit, where the hell are they?! Still sleeping through this attack!”

“Die you traitorous bastard!” yelled a young man in Japanese, part of the attacking force. He immediately recognized Masayuki as Japanese and one of the more well known faces in the city to all those fighting against the UN’s military actions.

Disappearing and reappearing behind the man, Masayuki struck him in the back hard and angled to put into the dirt rather than sending him off into buildings. It immediately knocked the man out without even a chance to attack.

He glanced over at the hole that the attacker made in the wall. The rest of his team jumped about with grins across their faces in excitement. These became the moments that they lived for and waited to see. However, none of those that they faced gave them much trouble. Everyone in the attack seemed far too weak. “What’s going on with the attack? Why are they attacking now and with such a weak force?”

Masayuki glanced around at the base, which so far had taken very little in the way of damage. All that they faced so far was the wall being destroyed. They had been able to keep the attackers suppressed. But he didn’t know the feeling that was getting about the situation. “Something’s not right…”

Within the command floor, reports came in quickly from different posts around the base. A large screen on the wall displayed the tactical view of the situation updating from the reports. General Evans stared at the map taking in the whole situation. Everything looked favorable for them at the moment.

“General Evans,” an officer spoke from behind Evans to get his attention. At that moment, a new blip appeared on the map. “We’ve a new report.”

His eyes narrowed with concern at the location. “I can see that. What’s the details?”

“We’ve completely lost communications with the patrol in Sector J. The only intel we got before communications were lost was a small raid team of the enemy had appeared.”

“A distraction. This is the main force…” He stepped forward closer to the map. His hand raised to the point to location.

The officer turned around and shouted out to the soldier staffing the terminal. “Zoom into Sector J!”

Evans stared at it longer. This wasn’t his base and so he hadn’t completely familiarized himself with the whole layout yet. But he already had a guess as to what was in the sector. And the enhanced view made that very clear to him. “They’re after the containment cells. Order Special Team Beta and Gamma in immediately to secure and kill the enemy.”

“Kill, sir?”

“Are you deaf, soldier?”

“No, sir! I understand!”

“You’re all too soft…” he muttered as he went back to staring at the map.

In the area known as Sector J of the UN headquarters, the unknown strike team quickly ran through the underground halls. All of them wore cotton face masks for winter over their faces keeping their identities a secret.

A man out ahead of the team rushed ahead to the intersection of the hall. He disappeared in a blur as cries of pain followed him. Returning to the visibility of the team, he loosely painted himself in blood. “This is the point. According to the info, this is where we split up, boys! We’ve got ten minutes before they drop hell upon us! So run like the devil’s chasing you!”

Taking his team, he sprinted at full speed through the halls turning and jumping just to make things faster. Cracks and dents remained behind him as they weren’t built to take such stress. They made it to their destination within only thirty seconds. “Really does look like a bank vault. You’re up!” He ordered, as he backed away from the massive steel door.

An unassumingly small figure appeared in front of the gate. It more than doubled their height alone making them look even smaller than normal. They stared at the polished surface for a moment and then started looking around it. After their quick examination, they lifted up the bottom part of their mask to expose their tiny mouth. Licking the steel handle of the large wheel that worked as part of the locking mechanism, a grin came across their face.

Suddenly, their lips drew back exposing razor sharp teeth and bit down on the handle and completely cut through it as though it had been just made out of softened chocolate. They proceeded to chew on the metal and then swallowed it as if it were just a snack.

Returning the mask back in place, they removed their gloves showing hands as polished steel stretched out over their skin completely covering them up. They wound up their arm and rammed it into the vault gate. A few quick strikes left large dents in the previously untarnished surface. It took more effort, but within a minute the small figure had completely cracked the gate. With the seal destroyed, a groan came from them as they pulled on the solid metal peeling it back for access.

With enough room for them to enter and light spilling through, they jumped in fanning out to find who they were looking for inside. The leader of the team walked about the vault that carried ten individuals. It was quick to find whom they sought. But he came to a stop to the one next to who they came for. He read the nameplate. “Saki Furukawa…”