Cherry Blossom Girls International

by Harmon Cooper

  “By all means,” I said as we made our way to the upper level, Stella and pink-haired cosplaying Grace falling in line behind us. There was a 7-11 off to the right, a national chain of coffee shops that I had already seen in Ueno called Doutor, a place to buy affordable shoes and a 100-yen shop, which I guessed was like the Dollar Generals we had hawking cheap shit in the States.

  “Um…” Dorian looked around for a moment and spotted an alleyway. “Let’s try this one.”

  “Will do,” I told her. We made our way through the alley and came to a residential area, with a different coffee shop on the lower floor of one of the buildings. Turning around, it was hard to imagine that such a bustling subway station was only a stone’s throw away.

  It gave me an appreciation for not only the usage of space, but the usage of boundaries.

  “This is better,” Grace said.

  “Yes, we can just meet you on that rooftop there,” said Stella. “You don’t need to come down to us; I’ll easily be able to take us up there.”

  “Okay,” Dorian said. She started to step away and stopped, turning back to me.

  “We won’t be very long,” I assured her.

  “I think she wants a hug,” Grace said with a giggle.

  “Grace…” I mumbled under my breath. For someone that could read minds, sometimes Grace severely lacked people skills.

  Regardless, I hugged it out with Dorian, and once no one was looking, she disappeared in a purple flash.

  “So, let’s get to down to business,” I said as we turned back to the main thoroughfare, smiling at Grace and Stella.

  “I will find a translator for us,” said Grace once we exited the alley, the three of us now looking down at the crowd moving in and out of the subway station.

  “How do you do that exactly?”

  “You could do it as well, if you tried,” she told me. “The same way we do it in America: just listen to people’s thoughts.”

  I silenced my own thoughts for a moment, and as I did so it was like someone increased the volume of all the thoughts around me.

  I had gotten better at dealing with Grace’s telepathic power, able to completely block out all the voices around me. When I wanted to hear them, I simply imagined a couple of fingers on a volume knob, turning it up.

  Duh.

  As all the Japanese chatter entered my head, I started to notice people thinking in other languages, English even. I still didn’t know exactly how telepathy worked, but it did, and it wasn’t long before I was only focused on the English speakers.

  And from there, Grace took over, finding people who could speak English and Japanese.

  Eventually, we settled on a woman who was a professional translator. She was half-Japanese half-Brazilian, and had spent most of her life between Tokyo and Los Angeles.

  She stopped whatever she was doing and immediately came to us, both hands on her bag as she bowed.

  “Great, thanks for joining us,” said Grace.

  “My pleasure,” she said, her head still bowed at Grace. “I believe the first thing we should do is head to the police station. We can get a list of all the foreigners who are currently registered in Setagaya.”

  “That’s not a bad idea. Did you come up with that?” I asked Grace.

  She gave me a funny look, which I interpreted to mean, “Of course I did.”

  “How far is the station from here?” I asked. “Should we take another train?”

  Our translator shook her head. “It isn’t a very far walk. We could take the train, but we would only get off one stop later. Would you prefer to take the train? Or would you prefer to walk?”

  “Let’s walk,” Stella said. “I would rather not be on the train unless it is absolutely necessary. If we are attacked there, it could be more dangerous for us.”

  “Good thinking,” I told her.

  “You seem to operate under the assumption that Ingrid is the only one with brains,” she said as she followed the woman, who had already started briskly walking to the main road.

  “Sorry if it comes off like that; totally not my intention.”

  I saw a McStarbucks and could smell the strange mixture of burger and coffee that I had grown so familiar with. For some reason, this made my mouth water, and I almost suggested stopping for a burger, you know, for scientific purposes, when Grace grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly.

  “You don’t need a burger,” she said.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  We passed a few foreigners, who looked at me with repressed jealousy when they saw the hot, pink-haired Japanese woman holding my hand. Grace sensed that they were looking, and stopped, bringing me in for a kiss.

  “Oh, please,” Stella started to say. “Do you two ever take anything seriously?”

  “We’re just here as tourists,” Grace reminded her with a wink. “If we find out anything else, then I’ll consider that our good fortune.”

  “It’s not far from here,” our translator said. “Just a couple more streets. There’s a grocery store, and the police station is across from the grocery store.”

  “I’ve never been in a Japanese grocery store before…”

  The translator chuckled at my statement. “It is not that much different than an EBAYmazon Whole Foods in America. Kind of an exclusive feel, limited quantities, well-arranged. That’s how I would describe it anyway.”

  “Good to know,” I said as we continued down the street. There were cars whipping by, tons of pedestrians on bikes too. I saw a few mothers pushing strollers; others were riding bikes with kids in the front and an occasional toddler on a tricycle behind them.

  Call them weird, call them somewhat isolated, but the Japanese people were healthy as fuck. I’d only seen a handful of overweight people, and even then, these people were still several pant sizes smaller than an overweight American.

  About the only thing I’d noticed so far, and this was from what I’d seen on the subway, was that some of the Japanese women had chubby legs. This didn’t seem to match the rest of their body, and I had no idea how to interpret it.

  I guess they skipped leg day?

  “Focus,” Grace told me, offering me a sharp elbow. “Those are stupid thoughts.”

  “Sorry,” I said as I looked around, hoping to… Well, I didn’t know what I was hoping to discover; I figured we’d get the best information at the police station.

  Eventually, we crossed a small overpass, cars zipping under us, and came to a police station set into the corner of a building, which kind of reminded me of a package store back in Connecticut.

  “I will do the talking,” the translator said, her eyes flashing white and then returning to their normal color.

  “That’s why we brought you,” I told her.

  The Japanese police officer listened carefully as our translator gave him her spiel. I didn’t know what her angle was, but I assumed that Grace was also somewhat using his mind, with complete control over hers.

  Since I was a little more in tune than I normally was, I could hear his thoughts when we stepped into the small police station, his thoughts quiet and polite, very contained.

  And I still couldn’t get over how strange this was.

  If you put someone in Japan with no knowledge of world history and told him that they had been one of the instigators of the Second World War, that person would be hard-pressed to believe you.

  Seeing the place now, how orderly it was, how clean the streets were, and the politeness of its citizens made it very hard to believe that nearly a hundred years ago, these dudes were plotting the attack on Pearl Harbor.

  Damn, was history a bitch.

  After listening to the translator for a moment, the policeman nodded and called for someone in the back.

  Another officer came out, this one dressed the exact same way: black slacks, pressed black jacket, blue shirt, tie, no gun in sight. They wore normal police belts, with a bunch of little pockets and a pair of handcuffs, and the one who’d just stepped o
ut had what looked to be some type of taser with a yellow grip.

  The two started speaking for a moment, and then turned back to our translator, continuing the conversation.

  What’s going on? I thought to Grace. Also, feel free not to respond to me if you are busy concentrating.

  I looked to Stella and grinned. The vector manipulator with her trademark Dutch braid nodded, giving me a playful thumbs up.

  I looked back at her in shock, wondering why she was being so friendly.

  She shrugged, and that was that, back to being typical Stella.

  Would I ever crack her?

  I did not mean that in a salacious way, but I guess it could be interpreted as such…

  The second policeman went to the back of the small station and returned to the front desk a moment later, yet another police officer with him, this one a woman. She was dressed in the same way, kind of cute, actually, but giving me a look hard enough to crack frozen steel.

  And no, that last line didn’t make sense, but this one was fierce, and it was the first thing that came to my mind.

  The policewoman spoke quietly, confirming with the translator what she was looking for, and then confirming it with the other two officers. The first officer that we had spoken to, a slightly older man, smiled and bowed to the three of us.

  “It’s working,” Grace said, but I could tell by the way she was focused that she was straining a bit.

  Her eyes kept going white and returning to their, well, not natural color, but the color she was keeping at the time.

  I glanced back at Stella to see if she was getting bored and caught her yawning. I smiled at her, and she gave me a dirty look.

  The female officer sat behind a computer, click-clacking away at her keyboard when the door swung open behind us. I heard the printer go off and ignored the door, assuming it was the wind.

  Still focused on the translator and the police officers, Grace nodded her approval, the translator launching back into Japanese. I heard the translator say something like “Dah-men-nu Lo-ru-du,” and felt like a badass for knowing exactly what she was talking about.

  A force shoved me forward into the front desk. I hit it hard, the wind instantly knocked out of me.

  What the fuck!?

  I turned to see Stella and Grace collide, their heads snapping together, both immediately falling to the side.

  Grace’s face whipped to the right and left, blood spraying out of her nose and onto the floor. By the time I was back to my feet, the same thing was happening to Stella, as if someone were sitting on top of her, striking her.

  I pushed a telekinetic bubble forward and heard something collide with the back wall. Grace and Stella slid to the floor in the opposite direction, the translator running with her hands over her head, the police officers standing in stunned silence.

  The next thing I experienced was an intense punch to the gut, pain blooming through me as I bent over, and another punch connected with my chin, sending me up and back into the front desk.

  My glasses flew off my face as I lost my shifted form.

  “Grace…”

  But there was no response as I slid into a puddle of pain on the floor.

  Another blunt force hit me in the chest, almost cracking one of my ribs, my sternum screaming out in pain.

  It was hard to breathe now, each breath tasting of blood.

  Everything was starting to dim.

  I tried to get to my feet, looking straight ahead to catch Stella’s body quake, the sound of an impact reaching my ears. My hand grazed against my glasses and I instinctively put them on my face, everything suddenly becoming clearer.

  I heard the umph! of something hitting Grace square in the stomach. Her body suddenly went droopy, the psychic shifter now in her true form.

  Fuck…

  Just as I was getting up to my knees, I felt a hand clasp the back of my neck and lift me, pulling me over to Stella and Grace, my body being dragged through blood.

  So I did it.

  Just as everything was starting to go black, I focused on the sky I had seen earlier, the one over the overpass, and…

  Disappeared in a purple flash.

  Chapter Nineteen: The Fastest Way to Get Around Tokyo

  My body reformed in the sky above the overpass.

  “Ahhh!” I teleported away again, this time hopefully a bit higher than I’d been before.

  This didn’t slow the speed of time or anything, but it did give me a second to look to the left, and see that there was a residential building that I could likely teleport to.

  And it wasn’t Gideon thinking at this point.

  No, there was no way I was acting this instinctively if not for adrenaline and the sheer will to live, which seemed to have slowed down time just a hair.

  I poofed away again, and not a moment too soon. Had I fallen for another few seconds, I would have been smashed by a Japanese transport vehicle.

  Even as I reappeared on the rooftop, I heard the vehicle blaze by in my head.

  I stumbled forward, short breaths making it hard to oxygenate my blood.

  Grace… I thought aloud.

  Grace…

  I had to go back. No one else was here; only I had the ability to do something. And I had truly fucked up. For some reason, I hadn’t activated my power nullification skill, and now…

  Shit...

  Leaning with my hand on an air conditioner unit, I licked my lips and tasted blood, flashes of red dotting my peripheral vision.

  I jammed my hand in my pocket, going for Father’s vial.

  My strength gave way and I fell to my knee just as a portal opened up in front of the police station.

  Still with Father’s blood in my free hand, I dragged my ragged ass over to the edge of the building and looked out to see…

  No…

  The albino shapeshifter stepped out of the portal, taking Dorian’s form as she rose into the air, a sphere of energy forming around her.

  I ducked down; my vision started to blur again. Now partially on my back, and my head and upper neck resting against the parapet, I uncapped Father’s vial and flipped it with a shaky hand, dabbing my thumb with his blood.

  I was presented with two channels, and as much as I wanted to take the left channel, which indicated his Reality Manipulation ability, I knew it was too risky; I still needed to keep Grace’s telepathic power on deck.

  So I took Father’s healing power, my eyes clenched shut as I focused on pushing Grace’s shapeshifter ability out.

  My lungs filled with air almost instantly.

  My breaths started to grow deeper, filling my core, strength returning to my arms.

  I capped the vial and stuffed it back in my pocket.

  My vision was clearing up some. It was still filled with needles around the edge, but things were starting to make better sense, or maybe my brain was benefiting from my healing capability.

  A dangerous cocktail of chemicals surged through me, but at least my ribs were starting to reform, and if there had been any internal organ damage, hopefully it was getting better as well.

  “I have to get back…” I whispered to myself. “You have to do this…”

  None of the other CBGs were here for me to depend on; it was up to me to save Grace and Stella.

  And just as I was about to get to my feet, the albino landed, the sphere of energy now like a slow-moving waterfall as it filtered away.

  “Ah, Gideon, we finally meet again,” she said in her British accent as she took a step closer to me.

  She was still in Dorian’s form, which only made this even stranger. A small comet began spiraling up her arm, and as she approached, she turned her hand around, the comet forming into a floating fireball of sorts in her palm.

  “Don’t worry,” she assured me with a sneering grin, “you’re not going to die just yet. Our Lord would like to have a conversation with you, pick your brain for a spell.”

  “You really don’t know who you are fucking with, do you?�
��

  I activated Jules’ nullification ability, and managed to step aside just in time as the woman stumbled forward, now powerless.

  She caught her balance at the edge of the roof and turned to me, looking down at her hands, even jumping as she tried to rise into the air.

  “What the bloody hell have you done?”

  “See you at the bottom,” I said as I charged at her, shoving her over the edge of the roof.

  I turned away before she hit the ground, not wanting to see the impact.

  I’d never done something like that before, never just pushed someone to their death.

  But what she did…

  What she did to the others, or what she would have done…

  It was justifiable.

  Deep breaths in and out, I turned back to the edge of the roof just as another portal opened in front of the police station, that hairy motherfucker known as Bae stepping out, confirming that Natalie was somehow working with Damon.

  And it was then that I saw Stella and Grace’s bodies being dragged into the portal by an invisible force.

  Here we go, I thought, as I looked at a location on the street and prepared to teleport.

  Crack!

  A blast of energy hit the edge of the roof, sending me flying backward.

  The albino woman flew back into the air, keeping her distance this time.

  You idiot, Gideon, I thought as I scrambled to get to my feet, pushing my glasses back down onto my head. How they stayed on was beyond me, but the left lens was now cracked, making it a bit harder to see.

  Jules’s power nullification ability had a limited range, and that was without the fact I was at sixty-percent of whatever his power was.

  Sure, I had pushed the woman over the edge of the roof, but as she got closer to the ground, she had gained access to her power again.

  And now that she knew what I could do, she merely stayed back, forming another ball of cosmic energy, aiming it at the rooftop to cause maximum damage.

  “You can try to run,” she said, her bangs, Dorian’s bangs, whipping out of her face, “but I will catch you eventually.”

  Boom!

  I only barely made it to the next rooftop.