'Yes, we met yesterday morning. It so happens that she is friends with my neighbor. Or you could say, I happen to be her friend's neighbor. I'm talking about Koyama Shina.'
'Yes, I've heard of her,' Akira said, giggling softly. 'She doesn’t have a very high opinion of you. She talked my ears off about how awful you are,' he finished with a friendly grin.
'Oh yeah, we made a connection right away.' I said, shaking my head.
'Alright,' he chuckled, 'I'm gonna go. Watch out and don’t come under the iron. It hurts.'
I bowed as a way of thanking him and continued searching for Rydon, who appeared in a group of newbies shortly after. Leaving the Dojo, they faltered at the exit for a couple of minutes and then dispersed around the club territory. Rydon looked very happy when he walked up to me.
'It's pretty awesome here, isn't it?' I just shrugged my shoulders.
'It's not my forte. I'm not that good at fencing. My areas are shooting and martial arts.' Why not? I don't have to be shy and can pass myself off as a strong Disciple.
At the Rank Exam, everyone beginning with the Apprentices, has to do some operations with the local mana, Bahir, with the exception of Beginners and Disciples who are deprived of the pleasure. A strong Disciple may take advantage of a weak Apprentice. In reality, I did not need to pass myself off as anyone because I was officially a Disciple in hand-to-hand fighting and gunfire battle. Moreover, Kenta knew this and had certainly shared the information with his son and wife. A year ago, I gave the old man some clues. Shina, on the other hand, seemed to be unaware of it or simply didn’t consider it worthwhile paying any attention to a small-fry like me.
'So you are engaged in martial arts?' Rydon asked cunningly.
'Only a little,' I said cautiously.
'A real man has to be,' he said proudly.
'Alright, enough of the tough talk. Tell me, are you free right now?' I asked, leading him to the exit.
'Right now, I am. I signed up and am free till tomorrow.'
'What do you think of celebrating? First classes, club enrolment...' I paused. 'Meeting Koyama Shina. Tomorrow is a day off and we can hang out.'
'That sounds interesting,' he pondered. 'I just have to stop at home.'
'Absolutely.
'Where should we go?'
'I have a great nightclub in mind.'
'A nightclub? I don't know. I don't really go to such establishments.'
'It's a great club, you'll see. I often go there. Everything will be fantastic, believe me.'
'Plus, it's gonna be late if we go there. Tomorrow is... oh yeah, Sunday. Well, I'm not sure...'
'Do you know the band Inter?'
'You bet!'
'They often hang out there. They might be there tonight.' He's obviously a fan. Look at how he lit up! 'They were there just yesterday, celebrating. I'll introduce you if they are there tonight.'
'You know Inter?'
'Hush, be quiet. Yes, so what? Like I said, I am there often, so are they.'
'Is there a chance? Ah, it doesn't matter. Actually, it does. Fine, what time do you want to meet?'
'You tell me. You want to go home, relax, do your homework, get ready, plus traveling. How about 10:00 pm? When you're ready, call me, and I'll tell you where it is and how to get there. You're gonna drive, right?'
'I'll take the metro. I've had enough driving for today,' he chuckled.
'Alright. Look, how do you have one car for both of you, you and your sister? Do you have to wait for each other to be done at school?'
'One car gets us here, but from here, we take two cars.'
'Oh, rich boy!'
'Oh, Mister '15 minutes from home!''
'Or 5 minutes of running, you should add.'
'Shut up, or I'll start crying.'
* * *
'I am at the entrance, but I don't know when I'll get inside. There is a queue here...'
'I'll come out and find you, just step away from the crowd.'
'Mmk. I'm waiting here.' I hung up and got off the sofa, grunting. Getting old. Rydon was a punctual guy. He arrived at the club at two minutes to ten. By then, I had already dawdled with Funtik for three hours and spent another hour at the gym.
At Funtik's, I did a bunch of trivial things. I tried on my new suit and played with the guns; it was too bad the building didn't have a shooting range. By the way, I should go shooting tomorrow. I browsed the Internet searching for new video clips about the new mobile infantry armor designed by the Russians. I found bits and pieces. I read about the 'terrible vandalism' that had taken place in one of the museums in Tokyo. Then I read about another mega-battle on the Free Territories and the commander of mercenaries Frant, who distinguished himself there. These territories were formerly Poland, by the way. Now it's like Ancient Greece: they have city-states and towns, which are governed by their own kings. There is just one detail—there are no Polacks among those little kings. This all happened after World War II, which was even more cruel and destructive in this world than it was in mine.
I spent the remaining hour in the company of two beauties who were two or three years older than me. I knew the girls and had seen them here before with other girls and sometimes guys, too. They weren't aristocrats but they had rich care-takers. I ordered a few cocktails and sat next to them, telling them that I was waiting for a friend and that I was bored by myself and would love it if they brightened up my time there. The girls turned out to be party animals. They were fun, with average intelligence, beautiful, and came here to have fun. They wanted to have a drink, dance, and meet someone, just for a night. What else did I need for a pleasant evening? Their fathers were friends, too, by the way, the Head of some company and his Deputy. In addition, they were sure that their daughters were spending the night at the house of a third girlfriend. That worked out well. At the same time, Rydon could take his mind off school.
'Alright, girls, I'm gonna go and find my friend. You wouldn't mind meeting him, would you?' I asked putting my cell phone away.
'Well, if he's as good as you say,' Mira-chan held out, raising her eyes to the ceiling, supposedly thinking, and twirling a strand of black hair.
'The four of us we will be even more fun,' Tara-chan finished for her, tossing her hair that was as black as her girlfriend's. Overall, they looked alike. They were dressed in knee length, black pleated skirts and white dress shirts. They were cheerful and genuine. And, of course, their hair. However, their hairstyles were different. Mira had a shoulder length bob, and Tara rocked a braid down to her shoulder blades.
'In that case, I'm going to go get the second Knight for the lovely ladies.' Walking out of the club, I looked around. Rydon and some other guy were standing to the right of me. On the left, there was a noisy crowd, not too big and not too small. Next to me, there was a pure-blooded Japanese man nicknamed Vasya. He was our bouncer. His job was to maintain order outside. Inside, we have another bouncer, and his name is also Vasya. This one is Russian though. What's interesting is that the Japanese Vasya got his nickname even before he met the Russian one. We call them Vas-Vas. They're used to each other and work well together, doing their jobs smoothly and wordlessly just as if they were twins.
I came up to Rydon and nodded to him, then slightly bowed to the man:
'Sakurai Shinji.'
'Iudah Miki.' Heh, interesting last name. Almost like Judah.
'He's my driver. I'm thinking he should spend the night inside the club rather than in the car the whole time.'
'You're right. Just one thing, Iudah-san...'
'It's just Iudah to you.'
'Iudah, the thing is... Carrying weapons inside the club isn’t welcomed, not to mention the quantity…' He glared at me.
'Iudah, do you have guns on you?' Rydon looked surprised. 'Oh, I see,' he muttered. 'So how many?' The driver just sighed in response.
'Alright, Iudah, promise me that no one is gonna see them unless it's an emergency. I can negotiate with the guards. Also, I'd very much appreciate it
if this whole situation stayed within our little company. Rydon?'
'Um... right! of course.'
'Iudah?' Silence. 'Iudah, are you a spy or a guard?'
'I promise,' he surrendered. 'Twice.'
'Great.'
'I'll be invisible, Okhayashi-san.'
'Alright. Let's go then,' I waved my hand.
'Wait here a few minutes.' I ran to the security room that also functioned as reception, warned them about my guests, and came back.
'Let's move.' Passing Vasya, I nodded in response to his tenacious look.
'I know.'
'What do you know?' Rydon whispered in my ear.
'About the weapons.'
'How did you know? I didn't even notice.'
'Firearms is my area. I have an eye for these things.'
'Oh, I see.'
Of course, that was crap. Rydon was a hand-to-hand fighter and just a teenager, so he didn't understand. Iudah, however, was not swallowing it. Gunplay teaches one to handle weapons, not detect whether another person is carrying them or not, especially when that person wants to hide their weapons. This involves a completely different kind of skill. However, it's possible that soldiers of high ranks could be capable of something like that.
'By the way, get ready, Rydon,' I stopped my buddy at the entrance. 'I'm going to introduce you to two beautiful girls. So gather all your aristocratic poise and don't disgrace yourself.'
'Couldn't you have told me this earlier?' he hissed.
'What if you’d run away?'
'Do you take me for a child or something? Pffft. I'm always happy to meet a beautiful girl,' he said, puffed up. 'Especially two.'
'Awesome. Don't be shy. The girls are fun and easy-going. Trust me, it's gonna be great.'
'Enough treating me like a child.' Sure, like I don't know you, teenagers. But maybe I'm a fool, and the aristocrat is no longer a virgin.
'Awesome. Come on!' As we were approaching our table, I could sense that Rydon tensed up. I was generally becoming far too sensitive lately. Am I turning into an Empath or something? That was strange because empathy was the prerogative of women and witches. Roughly speaking, we see life, they feel it. Men feel emotions just as women see life. That is, they’re lousy at it.
There were no empty seats next to our table. I couldn't see whether there were any free tables at all in the club because the hall was shaped in the letter 'U', with a bar in the middle. What I saw, however, was two other guys standing next to our table hitting on our girls.
'Limited spots tonight,' I said looking around. 'You'll have to sit at the bar counter for now,' I turned to Iudah. 'You can see us from there pretty well,' I pointed at the table where we were heading. The driver nodded and followed in the direction of his new 'target.'
'Girls, we are here!'
'What took you so long?' they asked in sync.
'Our apologies,' I slightly bowed and smiled. Then I turned to the strangers. They looked at each other, and one of them lifted his hands in dismay.
'Sorry. We thought they were joking about waiting for someone. Well, we won't be bothering you any longer.' Great! That's reasonable. Look at Rydon, what a shrewd dude! He’d already taken his place beside Mira while I was dealing with the competitors.
'Well,' I said, taking the seat next to Tara. 'Let's get acquainted.'
For the next hour, we had a good time. Another hour later, we started addressing each other by our names without suffixes. During this time, the females had a 'bathroom break' five times, where they most likely had a good gossip about us. And at the end of the third hour, Tara whispered in my ear.
'Shinji, I know you have a permanent VIP room. 'What do you think of helping our friends get to understand each other better?' Hugging the girl, I quietly surveyed the room. Iudah was still sitting at the bar talking to some woman. He glanced at us and saw intimate whispering at our table. Well, why not? I don't think his parents will punish me too hard for that. It'd be different if I seduced his sister or else...
'Guys, I need to leave for a few minutes,' I only received fleeting glances in response. Now it was obvious they needed a room. I came up to the counter and sat next to Iudah so that he could hear everything. It was my strategy to cover up. If he was not gonna stop me, they could have their fun.
'Hey Shotgun!'
'Do you have a load on, little bastard?' he had a really deep voice.
'Can you tell?'
'Can't tell by looking at you,' I'm not surprised to hear that as my 'body control' skills are pretty good, 'but your friends look pretty wasted.'
'We're all drunks. I drink at night, and you—during the day. You chill when you can. Speaking of chilling... Could you give me the keys for two VIP rooms? Yep. I have plans too.'
Tinkering under the counter for a while, he emerged with two key cards marked '5' and '6.'
'Think again, little philanderer,' he said placing them in front of me. 'You're only sixteen.'
'They don't care. Don't be jealous. Take a vacation instead.' Shotgun gave me a pouty look:
'Who's gonna take care of the club? It’ll fall apart without me here. Is that what you want?'
'Hmm, you're right. Then whip me up two signature drinks, club slave.'
'All giggles to you,' Honda grumbled, making the cocktails. Watching him work always gave me the feeling of a certain dissonance. It's just that Shotgun's butcher-block complexion was hard to associate with his superior bartender abilities.
After getting my drinks and not hearing any objections from Iudah, I headed back to the table. I put the drinks down on the table, sat back down, and embraced Tara's waist. With my other hand, I took the key out of the pocket of my pants and, holding it with two fingers, put my hand on the girl's thigh.
'He should return it to Shotgun afterwards,' I whispered in the ear of the beautiful girl who was nestling up to me.
A few minutes later, Tara asked Mira to go to the bathroom with her. I wondered whether Mira had condoms with her. ‘Body control’ is a very versatile skill with enormous potential. A man can electrify when touched. Without ‘body control’, a man can't become a warlock and definitely can't throw lightning bolts. The ‘body control’ skill was the foundation of at least half of my martial art and other kinds of skills, for example: Push like Jedi's, Dissection, which is not very applicable in this world because of the ‘spirit armor’. There is also Shield, oh wait, actually that doesn't belong in this category. Slide, Gap, Wave, and Lightning Bolt, the only truly long-range technique in the warlock's arsenal. We always focused more on speed. To varying degrees, ‘body control’ can be used by many, but full powers can be used only by warlocks.
Yeah, ‘body control’ is cool. I'm going to ‘bookmark’ my 25-year mark. This mental nonsense is hard to explain, but it stops the age at a chosen period of time. It’s a dangerous feature that is available only to Absolutes. It's eternal youth, in other words, or old age—depending on what age you decided to 'bookmark.' There are two problems. After the first ‘bookmark’, you black out, and if you can't come to your senses on time and make the second ‘bookmark’, you're done for. The body simply switches off: kidneys, lungs, heart, brain. Everything shuts off, and you die without regaining consciousness. No one knows what it depends on - how fast you black out and recover. Some believe it depends on the strength of the warlock, but again, this is so transcendental that it's hard to predict.
The second problem is that there is no evidence of eternal youth. No Absolute has ever lived long enough. Why would one bother at all? Warlocks age slowly anyway mainly because of their ‘body control’, and Absolutes are simply monsters by comparison. For instance, the Spanish guy Bugardzhini Massimo holds the title of the longest living Absolute. He became one when he was 66 and died when he was 99. He was killed by another record holder Pascal Didier. It is said that Massimo never changed and always looked forty.
My former boss, Colonel Vadim Sergeevich Sazonov, necromancer, was a Master, which is one rank below Absol
ute. He celebrated his 78th birthday a couple months before my departure so he looked like he was in his 50s. Go figure if it's worth it.
In fact, only complete freaks and those who were after fame used 'bookmarks,' and that was a narrow circle of people. I can't guarantee 100%, but out of a dozen existing Absolutes only five, including me, had 'bookmarks.' Actually, if you think about it, 25 years old is just too early. Although this time was still far away.
Well, tonight, ‘body control’ will help me avoid catching certain diseases and also arrange a vasectomy, popularly known as sterilization. In fact, it affects both parties and is something that science is not capable of achieving just yet. I am in control of whether I want children or not. Too bad, it's hard to explain to everyone. That would make my life much simpler.
Rydon and Mira had left 5 minutes ago, and Tara perched next to me, resting her head on my shoulder and her palm on my waist. The palm sank lower and lower.
'Listen, Shinji,' she asked, pressing her nose to my cheek, 'Do you by any chance have another key?'
'That's interesting,' I thought, closing the door and putting my hand on Tara's head who lowered to her knees, 'if all Patriarchs were Veterans, would I be able to exonerate Tokyo Dwarf, by publicly banging with a Teacher?'
* * *
'That's it, then.' Okhayashi Dai, a tall, stately man of forty-two years old was taking a report from his son's bodyguard, standing in his beloved rock garden. 'Well, that means I don't have to take care of that anymore. It’s the perfect time for his first night with a woman. What do you have on that guy, Giro?'
Kato Jiro was head of the security service for the Okhayashi clan and at the same time, head of the Kato family. He began his report with a slight bow.
'Sakurai Shinji, sixteen years old. He’s been living alone since he was ten receiving money sent by his parents. He graduated from middle school among the best. He has not belonged to any clubs and has the Disciple rank in hand-to-hand and firearm combat. Regardless of that, he has never been caught in a fight. He's had conflicts with his peers, just like the majority of teenagers, but there are no fights on his record. Despite the absence of his parents, after graduating from middle school, he managed to obtain a firearm permit. He's smart, friendly, able to speak and seeks to be listened to. He had a fairly good relationship with the teachers.'
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