Child's play

September 16th
Shinjuku Gyoen, Shinjuku , Tokyo

Today we had for the first time in a long time finally an activity as such in the Research Club or as it is called this week. This time we were in Shinjuku Gyoen Park, one of the biggest parks in the city, it was already dark so the amount of people in the surroundings was decreasing. Next to me was Tamamo as well as well as Haru surprisingly, who normally at this hour would be on her way home with her grandfather, but the very naughty one made us meet here today knowing that her grandfather had to work really late today.

The case that occupied us on this occasion were the reports, exclusive of Sakura curiously, that apparently in this place strange things happened after the sunset, statues that moved, strange shadows, lights moving, strange creatures in the lakes, light poles walking, like a little of everything in between. In the beginning, Haru was not very confident that what Sakura was saying was true, but after searching in internet she realized that the anecdotes were enough, so she wanted to check it herself and this is how we ended up in this situation.

"What do you mean I didn't have to bring the stuff from the club?" Haru said annoyed.

"I mean, the cameras and the ultraviolet lamp are pretty nice, but those things are for hunting ghosts, specifically ghosts that don't like to be seen by the living."
"According to what Sakura said this is more like some kind of Japanese yokai." I replied honestly

"At least you could have told me that we didn't need them this morning!"
"You know how heavy it is to bring all this in a backpack!"

"Hey, stop there, it was your idea to suddenly come to the park when you realized your grandfather wasn't coming to pick you up early!"
"When I noticed I was still working in the cafeteria."
"I was supposed to stay until closing today."
"...."
"By the way, why is your grandfather working late today?" I asked Haru.

"He said something about being called to check something out of Tokyo and since he doesn't have a car he will have to come back with one of the other detectives."
"How about you? How are you doing with your slime body?"

"I put an energy drink instead of water in my coffee and right now I'm seeing colors in the sound, so I think I'll go straight through the night as a fox girl."

"Hey, Darling! Check it out, this park has a lake called Tamamo!"
"Do you think it's a coincidence?" Said tamamo while looking at a nearby sign.

"Speaking of bad ideas, where is Sakura?"
"You told her, didn't you?"

"Yeah, this was her idea, wasn't it?"
"She was the one who said that strange things were going on here."  Haru checked her phone trying to confirm what she was saying.

"Okay, although let me tell you that I feel quite nervous being in a park at night."
"Here in Japan it's quite safe so it's different, but where I come from being after sunset in a public park is just looking for trouble and getting mugged."
"And I really feel that way right now."
"Please forgive me if I suddenly look like I'm about to kill the first person who speaks to me."
"It's hard to overcome old habits" I said while confirming that my gun was loaded inside my bag.

A girl comes walking hurriedly, it is Sakura, she is still wearing her school uniform, but slightly modified, she is wearing combat gloves as well as a light tactical chest rig with several pouches, appeared to be of real military grade, in her back, she is carrying a Shinai-bukuro, a cloth bag created to carry a wooden shinai sword used to practice the martial art Kendo, although this time I doubted that, I am sure that inside was a real metal sword.

"Wow, who called the Spec Ops?"
"Are you going to any nearby wars by any chance? This is a public park, Miss Green Barrett"  I wasted no time in teasing her for an excess of excitement.

"What are you talking about, we are here to fight, aren't we?"
"We have to be ready to fight at any moment."

"That's exactly the problem, we came here to hunt, not to fight in the front lines."
"With all that equipment, you're yelling something like, hey! I'm clearly here to fight a Yokai!"
"What you'll do is scare them away."
"No one is dumb enough to do anything to someone who is clearly ready to unleash their special attack on the first turn."

"Hunting takes subtlety, deception, staying two steps ahead of your enemies and pretending you're five steps behind them."
"Clearly you still have a lot to learn."

"What you are is a coward, that's what you're saying."

"Take it any way you want, I don't care"

"I'm sorry, I don't speak the language of moronic"

"Don't worry, someday you'll be so fluent in it that you'll be like a native of moronic"

"Very well, then what do we have to do Elise?" asked Haru in excitement.

"Wait a moment! Since when is Elise the leader?" said Sakura annoyed.

"Since the club was founded I have been the field leader,"
"Why? because I have experience in not letting them kill me, until now I have been killed just three times"
"As for what to do in this case, well the reports don't indicate any violent situations so we can assume it's not too serious."
"I think we should split up and look for clues or something like that."
"Remember to let the others know if you find anything or anything happens."
"If you can't then go to the Central Rest House, which we will use as a meeting point."
"Questions?"

"Yes, why don't we go straight to the enemy?"

"Sakura, do you even know that we are fighting here? because I don't."
"Maybe even she is only a streamer making content for her channel making jokes."
"Like the stupid CherryStyle"

"Oh you are also subscribed to her channel Elise?"
"What do you think of her? Don't you like the way she dresses?"
"I always listen to her fashion tips!"

"Haru, I'll be honest with you, you're lucky that your grandfather entrusted me with your protection."
"Because if not, right now I would be the one looking for you to harm you."

"Let's make this more interesting, a competition between you and me Elise."
"The first one to kill the Yokai is the new leader!"
"What do you think?"

"No, no thanks, I'm fine like this."

"Aha! You're afraid of losing!"
"That's right! You're weaker than me!"
"That's why you're afraid of losing your position as leader!"
"Well it's decided! I'm going to settle this first!"
"I proved to you that I'm better than you!"

"Girl, this is not a competition to see who's got the bigger dick!"
"We're supposed to be on the same team"
"Or at least pretend we are."

But as expected from Sakura, instead of listening to me, she took out of her bag the weapon she was holding, a very particular katana, quite beautiful in design and colors, one of unquestionable quality, its power must be immense, a blacksmithing technique lost in time. Unsheathing the ancestral sword, he ran towards the darkest part of the park, as if that was going to help him find an enemy she did not know.

"And there She goes, having no idea what to expect."
"Damn, if on the other side of that there's a cop it's going to get pretty funny."
"Schoolgirl arrested for attacking officer with katana for no apparent reason."

"I would frame the newspaper story in my room."

"That sword, the katana was curiously happy when it was shown." Tamamo astutely mentioned

"Yes I know, it has good reason to be."

"Hey Elise, I already noticed it a little bit, but why do you hate Sakura so much?"

"Haru, do you want the answer"
"Or preserve our friendship"
"Choose well, you can't have both."

"Darling, what do you think we should do now?"

"Argh, the idiot's already gone ahead"
"Let's follow her and see what happens, if she doesn't find anything we're just saying we don't either."

I wasn't stupid, I knew perfectly well why Sakura was doing this, she was trying to get information about my combat ability, all this was just a pretense to see how strong I was, something too complex for Sakura to process by herself, this was someone else's idea, probably one of those real demon hunters friends of Asuka's. But they didn't take into account a little big problem, Sakura, she is so unforgivably narcissistic and overachiever that she is not able to see herself. She's so driven to show how strong she is that if I just let her fight head-on like she likes it will be me who can see how strong she is, what she's capable of with the weapon she carries, and the best part is that it even saves me the trouble of having to deal with the problem myself.

The three of us followed Sakura in the distance seeing how she tried to solve this nonsense, but she seemed too impatient even to try to do it in the legal way, instead,  she stuck her sword in the ground and took out a chalk she had written on the ground a circle with unknown figures, she put her hand on the handle of the sword and put magic on it, soon after the circle began to shine in a white tone.

"Oh interesting, I've never seen that combination to perform magic before" Said Tamamo observing.

"!!!!"
"Magic!? Magic is real?"
"Sakura is using magic!"

"Haru, you already saw Tamamo transform into a giant fox!"
"What are you surprised about it now?"

"Oh yes, you are right"

But to my surprise, Sakura's method turned out to be effective, when suddenly from a smoke explosion similar to the one that Tamamo usually makes when he transformed, a young boy came out, he was dressed as a preschooler, in his hand he had several tree leaves and in another one a black permanent marker. The poor boy looked completely confused when he saw what happened by surprise, showing that he didn't even know what was happening.

"Tamamo, translation please"

"Well, it looks like that guy over there is a Tanuki."
"They are a type of supernatural raccoons."
"Playful and mischievous in nature, they can also shape-shift."
"Not a threat in any way, they just like to play pranks to pass the time."
"That one over there looks like he's too young  to be alone."
"He's probably lost or got separated from his mother by mistake."

Sakura wasted no time and, without any hesitation in her mind, she advanced towards the young Tanuki with her katana drawn. Her expression showed determination as if she was ready to face a deadly enemy, she didn't waste a second in throwing herself towards the young Tanuki who had appeared in the park. The poor boy threw his leaf that transformed into ropes trying to stop his attacker, but Sakura cut them without problems with her sword. When she was only a couple of steps away from the boy, she raised her katana ready to give her deadly attack. I simply approached and put myself in the middle of the two, without fear I used my hand to stop Sakura, unlike her temporary carrier, the katana was not an idiot or a cruel, It knew to whom should show its edge and to whom It should not. But the impatient warrior couldn't tell, she was too arrogant for that.

"No way!"
"How the fuck did you do that!"

"Sakura, what the fuck were you about to do?!?"
"Are you an idiot!? He's just a kid!"

"It's a monster!"
"It could hurt us at any time!"
"You shouldn't be weak against the enemy!"

"As if  like you were just born yesterday Sakura"
"You're too old to not  understand what's going on!, so old and  yet so dumbass"
"I can't believe that you are so strong but at the same time so weak as to solve this in such a pathetic way!"
"Are you implying that you lack the finesse and your abilities are so limited that you can only think of violence as the answer?"

"You are insulting me! You're trying to make a fool out of me!?"

"You're making  a fool out of you!"

The child behind me starts to cry after seeing that he was almost saved from certain death. From among the trees, Tamamo comes out carefully with a couple of sweets and calmly calls out to the child. The tanuki, looking for the comfort of a mother, sees a temporary replacement in her and approaches her arms, feeling protected by them. Haru excitedly approaches her to try to help Tamamo with the child.

Sakura was annoyed looking around she saw as the only one seeing this as a threat, seeing that nobody followed her game, and for fear of more embarrassment, she kept back her blade and gave up on her desire to fight for today. Tamamo talking to the boy was able to get information from him, apparently, he lived in a place with a lot of different animals, searching a little on the map Haru found that nearby was the Ueno Park Zoo, so we set off. When we got there the boy was happy to see that he recognized the place, as the place was already closed we stood at the entrance until soon after we were approached by another raccoon, which turned out to be the mother of the lost boy. The two had a nice reunion and we were even a bit chuckled to see how the mother treated the son and scolded him for running away to play a couple of pranks on the humans. In the end, they both thanked us with a smile and returned inside the zoo.

After our adventure was over it was time for everyone to go home. We took Haru home which luckily we got to before the Inspector returned, no doubt the lack of a car was taking its toll on him. As Tamamo and I returned home the store had been closed for quite some time, everyone was already at home. While my mother was preparing dinner I went back to my room to put my things in order, and curiously among them I found a book that I had not seen before among my things collected from the last time I was in Atlantis, it seemed to be the one that one of Nanami's diaries had brought me by mistake.