On Astral Tides: From Humble Freelancer To Astral Emperor

Fifty-Three

Man, I’m not sure how this has happened to me… The girl sitting in front of me at the fancy café was super attractive. And super young. I would rate her as good-looking as Shaeula or Eri-chan, if in a different style. Her legs are so slender and look great in those jeans, and … I swallowed nervously and looked away. I am not a pervert interested in hitting on high-school girls. Most definitely not. I am the perfect gentleman.

Ignoring the awkward thoughts that had been repeating through my head since we sat down I looked across at Shaeula. “So, what do you mean she has good eyes?”

Shaeula grinned, finishing off her drink as I signalled over a waitress to order the crepe plate Kana-chan had requested. “I mean she can see the aether. Not perfectly, I would wager, but enough to notice that we are constantly drawing on it-it.”

I finished ordering and turned back to them. “I see. So I guess shrine maidens are special, eh? I always thought it was a job young girls did to earn a bit of pocket money, not that it was genuinely spiritual.”

“Well, it is like that for a lot of girls, big bro. But my family has run the local shrine for generations. You may have heard of it. Shirohebizumi shrine.”

Man, when she calls me big bro it feels itchy… I mean, I know my sister calls me that all the time, but that makes sense. Eri-chan did too, but we’ve known her for ever. This girl I’ve only known five minutes… plus she’s hellishly attractive… no, keep it together.

Trying hard not to blush I continued the conversation. “Shirohebizumi? That’s my local shrine. Quite the coincidence.” Damn, that was a stupid thing to say, we are only a metro stop away from it, so it makes sense…

“Isn’t it? You must come and visit us big bro. It isn’t just me, we have lots of cute shrine maidens. You’d really like it.” She was fluttering her eyelashes and looking at me coquettishly. This was out of my area of expertise. Luckily I was saved from answering by the return of the waitress with the crepe plate and more drinks.

“I am very sure he would indeed enjoy looking at attractive young girls.” Shaeula slandered me, in between delicate bites of the newly arrived sweets. “But that is not important. What is important are your reasons for accosting us. Curiosity, or-or…?”

She trailed off, her amber eyes hard. The bright expression of Kana-chan slipped for just a second as she met her stare, but then she was smiling as if nothing had happened. Maybe it’s my imagination.

“Well, as a shrine maiden to a distinguished lineage, we have our fair share of tales about spiritual abnormalities. And to see two just walking about as though nothing was unusual…” she leaned closer, conspiratorially, not seeming to care that she was showing quite the cleavage under her t-shirt. “… There’s a big meeting coming up between all the shrines in Honshu. It’s a real big deal. Lots of rumours are flying around. And then I see you two. It makes me wonder, Shaeula-chan, big bro. You can’t blame me for that, can you?”

“Hmm. Drop that –chan, I find it rather unbecoming.” Shaeula grumbled. “I can understand your interest, but have you not considered we may be trying to keep our presence secret?” She scowled momentarily, before her expression changed to one of pleasure as she ate another bite of crepe. Feeling my wry look on her she flushed and went back to her interrogation. “Do you not think perhaps confronting such … abnormalities… as you called us, might perhaps be rather dangerous-dangerous?”

“No way!” Kana-chan said brightly. “Big bro looks like the dependable type, and a girl as cute as you couldn’t possibly hurt a kindred spirit such as myself. I just knew you were going to be friendly. You even treated me here, right?”

Wow. That’s a lousy reason. She’s either super confident, or a total airhead. Either way, looking like she does with those character traits, I bet she must be popular with both guys and girls…

“Dependable?” Shaeula continued. “Well I must admit he has proved useful up to now. So, the more pressing concern is what do you want from us now-now?”

“I’d like to know more about this aether. Is that like what we call spiritual power? My father can create a flame using only spiritual energy, though it’s only enough to light a cigarette. But your abnormalities blaze far brighter than his.” Her eyes were gleaming with interest.

“I see.” Shaeula nodded slowly. Turning back to me she sighed. “So Akio, it is your decision what we do with this girl. I fear that the timing of her discovery is rather vexing though-though.”

That’s true. We had used up the majority of our wind energy and aether on the clerk earlier, and while our natural recovery and the transfer from our Territory was topping us up, we did not have enough to use Shaeula’s befuddling winds. And it might not even work on Kana-chan, as she has some ability herself... still, this is the first time I have found anyone who has any sort of powers like me here on the Material plane. This is both a risk and an opportunity…

Kana-chan was fidgeting as I pondered, though she wasn’t forgetting to eat the crepes, competing with Shaeula to grab the choicest morsels. Making a decision I looked at her intently, and her face flushed.

“All right then, if we were to show you how we use our aether what would you do with the knowledge? Obviously as you can imagine we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. After all, we didn’t know anything about your shrine having people with magical abilities either, so you obviously keep it to yourselves too, right?”

Kana-chan nodded in agreement, looking a little relieved. “Of course, big bro. That only stands to reason. Being able to do things other people can’t is only useful if the abilities you can use are powerful. With the meagre things we can do we’d just end up in a research lab somewhere, getting dissected like we were aliens.” She shuddered cutely, wrapping her arms around her decent chest. “Not the way a pretty girl like me should end up. I’ll only tell my father and grandfather at the shrine.”

“All right then, that’s one issue.” I took a drink, wincing a little at the sweetness of the mixed juices. “The second is… what do we get out of it? Even if I was to believe you wouldn’t tell anyone, I fail to see what benefit it is to us?” beside me Shaeula nodded her own agreement.

“Indeed, it would be quite the foolish move to reveal our hand-hand without compensation.”

“Well, I’m not sure what you are looking for, but you can spend time with a lot of cute shrine maidens like me, big bro. surely that’s worth it, no?” she giggled charmingly, but this trailed off at Shaeula’s harsh gaze.

“All right then.” She continued, more serious. “I don’t know what you need, but the shrines of Honshu have far more influence than you think. We all communicate secretly and as I said earlier there is a big meeting going down soon, where all the representatives will be there. I’m not sure whether this has anything to do with you, but there are rumours going around of changing times… it wouldn’t hurt you to have us on your side. It could smooth out a lot of problems.”

I nodded despite myself. Influence in the Material was definitely something we were lacking, that and money. We have had to shoulder a huge risk setting up Shaeula’s koseki and getting her passport. Allies with influence could smooth issues like that out…

Shaeula glanced at me. “It is your decision.”

“So, Kana-chan, are you sure you can promise this? It seems like your father and grandfather hold all the power in the shrine, and there is no reason to assume that they could convince other shrines to support me, is there?”

“That’s a bit hurtful, big bro. you’ll make me cry.” She pouted charmingly, bending again, giving me a further glimpse of her cleavage. Damn she’s either unguarded or doing this on purpose… either way I worry.

“My grandfather heads the shrine, and he adores me. He’ll listen seriously to what I have to say. I am sure he would want to meet with you, and even if you couldn’t come to an arrangement, we get no benefit in saying anything about you, do we?”

That’s true. Oh well, there are risks, but I think the potential rewards outweigh that. If we recharge our energies before the meeting we can likely befuddle our way out of it…

“All right then.” I nodded, bringing a cute ‘yay’ from Kana-chan as she clapped her hands together. “Bear in mind though we’ve used up quite a lot of our power earlier, as we were doing something important. I’m not at my best.”

“I get it. Using up spiritual energy is a pain, it takes so many boring hours and days of meditation to gather it again.” Kana-chan seemed to understand.

“All right then.” I began to draw wind energy and ether from around us, making sure to exclude Kana-chan from the drain. Cycling the energy to my heart and lunar chakras I raised one hand about a foot off the table. Channelling wind the knife that was sitting there suddenly sprang up, flipping into my hand. I guess all my practicing with coins and dice paid off. But man, lifting an object as heavy as a knife is tough.

“Wow, that’s cool big bro.” Kana-chan approved. “Moving objects with spiritual power is a really difficult thing.”

I merely smiled in response, flipping the knife towards Shaeula, who caught it with her own wind, keeping it motionless in the air for three or four seconds before letting it drift gently to the tabletop.

“It’s not really moving objects with our minds.” I explained. “Though we can do that with aether. This is manipulating elemental energies of wind. Really there’s quite a bit more to it than this, but since we’re all tapped out for today you’ll have to take my word for it, give us a day or two and we could do something more impressive.”

“Oh really?” I could see her looking impressed. “You can gather spiritual energy that fast huh? I’m sure my grandfather would like to know about that.” She smiled at me brightly, causing my heart to skip a beat. Damn she’s hot. But I need to stay focused. Shaeula is glowering at me.

“Yes well, I’m not sure if we would be able to teach what we do, but I am open to an exchange of ideas.”

“In that case big bro…” Kana-chan said, taking her mobile phone from her pocket. “How about we swap numbers, then we can arrange a time for you to visit our shrine? The bonus for you is you get to have a hot schoolgirls’ number in your phone, so it’s win-win for you, right?”

“If I want to get arrested, possibly…” I muttered, but we exchanged numbers anyway. Shaeula also took her number. As Kana-chan put her phone away she smiled at her. “I would think you would already be in enough trouble with Shaeula-ch… with Shaeula here.”

“I’ll have you know she’s actually twenty-one.” I protested. I need her to be twenty-one for the business trip. “She just looks young because she’s small and pretty.”

“She is pretty. Now you know two of the prettiest girls in Tokyo. Still, twenty-one eh? If I put you in uniform you’d easily pass in my school.”

I decided to change the subject, as it was really embarrassing. “So, when do you expect I’ll hear from you?”

“Hard to say, but I expect it’ll be soon.” Kana-chan said, finishing off her drink and moving for the last of the crepes. “Are you that eager to get a text from me, big bro? I won’t be sending you any selfies…” she grinned.

“Sure, whatever.” I gave up. “Just let me know.”

As I paid the bill the two girls finished off the last of the crepes, and after a little more uncomfortable banter I saw her off…

********

“Phew, I’m beat after today.” I said to Shaeula as I slumped down in my chair. She was already on the futon, turning on her games console.

“I agree, it was quite the tiring day.” Shaeula agreed. “We should unwind a bit before we enter the Boundary again-again.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” I agreed. As I did so my phone beeped. It was a text from Kana-chan. Wow, she’s quick.

I’m going to talk to my grandfather now big bro. Expect a reply soon. Hope you aren’t missing me too much! Teehee  ~_^ ~_^ ~_^

That’s so… girlish a message. Leaning back in my chair I booted up my PC. Time to kill some time until we get an answer…

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