thenearshore | (no subject)

Who: Omi & Nagi, later Youji & Hibari
What: Prayer #30
Where: Near Shore
When: July 3
Warnings: none at the moment

Omi would be lying if he said this one didn't hit close to home.

It makes him wonder how it would hit Nagi were he able to remember his own past. He seemed to Omi like he simply disconnected from the personal element of a situation. Was that to everything, including the times he was directly affected, or just to times when the natural thing was to empathize with another? The way he'd reacted to Tot in Masafumi's mansion made him think it couldn't necessarily be to everything. Then again, with no memories to guide Nagi, there might not be a difference in the Far Shore.

In any case, for now the real issue is the orphans who aren't members of the Far Shore. Based on their information, the most central location of the local attacks is a school's ball park a few blocks from an orphanage. For several evenings now, they've stationed themselves on the highest nearby rooftop to watch for signs of trouble, and for several evenings, it's been quiet and uneventful. Omi sighs, his elbows propped against the brick rail of the rooftop and binoculars hanging from his neck.

"Do you think we're taking the wrong approach...?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

One of these days, Nagi is going to devise hardware that can detect ayakashi readings. As it were, only the eyes of one from the Far Shore are the surest bet, which means when staking out a suspected ayakashi presence, you had to be there physically. Nagi has a lot of patience for stake-outs, but things could be much more efficient if he had eyes and ears in many other locations than just the one.

This would be why the mission has been consuming so much of his time. He's sat on many a rooftop for several days on this task. This one is the third. In between, he and Omi took a break to check out some other mysterious thing in Northern Europe. Nagi has yet to report his findings to Crawford. In the meantime, they're back at this, staking out orphanages.

"If we don't see anything by the end of today, we can try another location. Or it's possible the ayakashi has moved on to something else."

After all, if another orphan was taken, they'd know about it. If something about this particular mission bothers Nagi, he doesn't show it on his face.

That was a troubling thought. Had they missed their chance? It was possible. That would make for quite a difficult ayakashi, too. If it frequently changed targets and tactics, finding and destroying it would be subject to a tight deadline before it switched around and forced a return to Square One.

Roughly half an hour later, though, just as the sun is sinking on the horizon and Omi is debating calling the day a bust, he spots a flare of purple light on the walls of two buildings to the east, and immediately straightens.

"There! Let's go."

He holds out his arm for Nagi to take. A teleportation is their only chance of reaching the monster in time.

He's already on his feet, having spotted the flare at the exact same moment. Nagi nods and takes Omi by the hand. He'll probably have to transform into his vessel form if they really want to take the thing out, but for now they'll travel closer to assess the situation.

"I'm ready."

At Nagi's signal, Omi focuses on the line between the buildings in the row of the purple flash and teleports to the street. The traffic is lighter than usual thanks to the time, but it still takes a few seconds of scanning through the pedestrians to spot the one with extra eyeballs and bruises. Sure enough, a boy that looks about ten is tagging along looking thoroughly endeared.

He almost hates to do this; that kid is going to be crushed. But it's better than him getting killed.

"Riki!"