Volume 4—Chapter 105: Dynamic Duo
Two individuals who should have had no connection at all stood side by side beneath the statue of the mighty lion at Waterloo.
One was a young girl, no older than eight, dressed in an elaborate, frilly lolita outfit that looked wildly out of place against the historic stone. The other was a handsome middle-aged man in a well-tailored suit. At a glance, they might have passed as father and daughter enjoying a quiet outing. In truth, their relationship was far from familial. They were colleagues, bound by work that had no room for innocence.
“You know,” the little girl muttered, tilting her head slightly, “my mouth feels dry.”
“Even so,” the man replied calmly, “with that body of yours, you really should not be doing it.”
“It’s frustrating,” Iris clicked her tongue. “You know how old I was before all this.”
Takeru laughed softly. “That was before. Right now, you are just a little lady.”
“Shut up, old man,” Iris snapped. “And look around. We are in a predicament again.”
She scanned the surroundings. All around Lion’s Mound, faint distortions shimmered in the air. Dimensional cracks were forming one after another, subtle but unmistakable.
“At this rate, the whole secret society thing is not going to survive,” Iris said. “Esper existence will go public.”
“Yeah, that’s a headache,” Takeru admitted. “But we can still frame it the same way we did before. Make it look like this is the first time it’s ever happened.”
“So we label this as the First Catalyst instead of the Fourth?” Iris asked.
Takeru shrugged. “Plenty of web comics already do something like that.”
Iris raised an eyebrow. “Dimensional gates and hunters? Or adventurers?”
“Let’s stick with espers,” Takeru replied. “That way, what remains from the Third can still persist.”
“And what if she finds out about those tied to the Third?” Iris pressed. “For example, you and your daughter. Irana.”
Takeru exhaled slowly. “Then I suppose we brace ourselves for the Fifth.”
“You really are a horrible human being,” Iris said flatly.
“You say that as if you did not already know me,” Takeru replied without offence.
“Tch.” Iris looked away. “Fine. You deal with the Esper Association. I will focus on my own organisation.”
“That goes without saying,” Takeru said.
“Just remember one thing,” Iris added, turning back to him. “Stick to the scenario she gave us.”
Takeru smiled faintly. “I cannot promise that.”
Iris stopped moving. Slowly, she turned her head and fixed him with a stare sharp enough to cut stone.
Iris swung her arm without warning.
The motion was sharp and aimed straight past Takeru’s shoulder.
Takeru felt the air distort a split second before impact. He did not turn around. He did not need to.
Behind him, space tore open like rotten fabric.
A creature began to crawl out, its form refusing to settle into anything sensible. Too many limbs, then not enough. Metal plating fused with wet, organic flesh. Eyes opened where eyes should not exist, glowing with a cold, artificial blue while something ancient and hungry pulsed beneath them.
Iris’s strike landed.
The law and concept of reality within two meters of her warped violently. The ground snapped upward like glass caught mid-shatter. The monster’s front half folded inward, its own mass betraying it as if the concept of shape had momentarily forgotten how to function.
The creature screamed, a sound that was like a digital screech.
Takeru sighed. “You could at least warn me.”
“You were in the way,” Iris replied flatly.
More cracks bloomed in the air.
One split open above the lion statue, emitting something massive and bestial, fur matted with shadow, horns spiralling in impossible angles. Another crack spat out a floating machine, smooth and angular, bristling with weapons that hummed as they locked onto targets. A third oozed open low to the ground, and from it slithered a thing that looked like a spine wrapped in tentacles, dragging itself forward with wet enthusiasm.
“Great,” Takeru muttered. “The full package.”
The mechanical entity fired first. A beam of condensed energy tore toward them.
Takeru lifted a hand.
The beam froze midair, crushed into a thin line, then bent sharply upward before being flung back like a discarded thought. It slammed into the machine, folding metal inward with a deafening shriek.
The horned beast lunged.
Iris stepped forward, unfazed. Within her two-meter radius, the rules bent. Gravity tilted sideways. The beast’s charge suddenly became a fall. It smashed into the ground as if the earth had decided it was above, not below.
“Stay close,” Iris said. “Or you’ll get some fancy prize from me..”
“I noticed,” Takeru replied dryly, already lifting chunks of rubble into the air.
The tentacled creature struck, its limbs stretching far too long, snapping toward them like whips.
Takeru clenched his fist.
The air itself tightened. Invisible pressure crushed the creature from every direction, compressing it into a writhing mass before slamming it into the lion statue with enough force to crack stone.
The statue groaned.
“Careful,” Iris said. “That’s historic.”
“Surviving is more important, sweatie”, Takeru replied.
Another rift tore open, this one spilling something that looked almost human. Almost. Its skin shimmered like oil on water, its face constantly rearranging itself as if trying out expressions it had never learned.
It raised a hand.
Some fundamental rule of the universe changes…
Iris’s eyes narrowed. She stepped closer.
Within her radius, the scream stopped. Not silenced, but overwritten. The creature’s raised hand bent backwards, fingers snapping like dry twigs. Its body twisted, caught between what it was and what Iris decided it should be.
“Sit,” Iris said.
The creature collapsed into a neatly folded heap, motionless.
For a moment, the battlefield stilled. The cracks trembled, unstable, then slowly began to close, as if reconsidering their choices.
Takeru exhaled. “You know, for someone in a child’s body, you are remarkably violent.”
Iris brushed imaginary dust from her sleeve. “For someone who claims to be tired, you move quite a lot.”
Takeru glanced around at the fractured ground, the broken statue, the lingering distortions in the air.
“And this is just the beginning,” he said quietly.
Iris looked up at the darkened sky, where more cracks threatened to form.
“Yes,” she replied. “Which is why you should stop pretending this is manageable.”
Takeru smiled thinly.
“I never said it was.”
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