This was just not her week.
Ryouko Kusakabe, the commander of the Anti-Spirit Team sat inside one of the conference rooms of the military base she was in. The room was filled with rows of chairs as it was usually used to review battle footage against past spirits. Though now, it was only her inside the room, the lights were off and the projector hanging from the ceiling replayed the latest footage.
Ryouko watched the footage with heavy eyes, she hadn't been able to sleep much lately, not after what happened that day.
It was supposed to be a normal operation against a spirit. While her team had never successfully killed a spirit despite the fact that was why the AST was created, she never complained. Spirits were dangerous beings, she didn't like her record of failures, but she was content with the results, as long as they drove the spirit away and suffered no casualties, she would be happy.
But then a new spirit appeared, and the higher ups immediately ordered them to deploy. Ryouko fought back against the order, they had zero information on the spirit, what its abilities were, and more importantly, what its personality was like. Was it a timid spirit? Did it hesitate to kill? Did it prefer long range or close combat? Too many questions that if answered, could have changed how they approached the spirit.
She was against the order until they had sufficient information, but her protests meant nothing. She could only grind her teeth and accept the order or be court martialed and be replaced by someone who might not even care about the girls within the AST.
And that was another point. Many of the members of the AST were still young girls, many of which still attended high school and had normal lives outside their military service. The higher ups didn't care about the wellbeing about these girls, they happily send them to fight monstrous beings capable of leveling cities. And now, they were doing it again. She could guess that the higher ups were pressured by DEM who are researching spirits but rarely ever sent their own forces who she knew were much more capable than the AST when fighting spirits.
And so, they deployed. They spotted the spirit code named Knight and opened fire, catching it off guard with a missile attack. The spirit was launched into a building.
As the dust settled and Knight emerged unscathed, the AST opened fired once more, peppering her with machine gun fire and more missiles, but it did nothing to annoy the spirit. Firearms were mostly useless against spirits, usually used to distract or gauge its abilities. Though they had special ammo types and since the spirit didn't seem to be using any shielding, Ryouko ordered her team to switch to armor piercing.
Then, the problem child of the AST, Origami Tobiichi, decided to disobey orders and engage in melee combat, rushing straight at the spirit. Ryouko had to quickly order everyone to cease fire to prevent friendly fire, she knew she was going to give Origami plenty of scolding later.
Yet, the melee stopped as soon as it started as Origami was quickly knocked out of the battle by having her face slammed into the ground by Knight.
Knight's body burst into crimson lightning, her blade absorbing it and creating a tower of crimson lightning that reached into the sky. Knight raised the sword above her head.
"Boil over!"
Ryouko commanded her team to put everything they had into their personal shields as the energy readings skyrocketed.
"Wrath of the planet!"
Yet, it was all meaningless.
"CLARENT BLOOD ARTHUR!"
And just like that, the AST was reduced to half...
She paused the combat footage and let out a depressed sigh.
So many lives were lost in an instant, their training and equipment, meaningless in front of the spirit.
Then she changed the footage to the most recent battle against the spirit code named Nightmare, she didn't bother paying attention much to the beginning of the footage, losing herself in thought.
The AST was left in shambles. After the battle with Knight, their numbers dropped even more afterward as many of the girls were traumatized by the power of the spirit and the death of their comrades who were also their friends.
The hardest part was informing the families of those who died. It was even harder when she couldn't even explain why they died. The AST wasn't known to the public, the people didn't know that Japan had a unit of high-school aged girls dedicated to hunting spirits, hell, the public didn't even know the existence of spirits.
Ryouko had to lie to those families, saying the girls were caught up in a spacequake which claimed their lives. Some families who had ties to the military and were more informed were easier to talk to, but that didn't mean it wasn't still difficult to tell them that their daughter who should be in school, living a normal life died in combat.
The position of the AST was so severe that Ryouko thought it would be disbanded, finding new recruits was already hard enough given the nature of the AST. It would take several months before the AST was back to full strength. She couldn't even send a proper team to respond to the appearance of Nightmare. But that changed when DEM decided to be generous and send one of its best wizards, Mana Takamiya the only person to have killed a spirit, or so she was told.
During the fight against Nightmare, the AST mainly provided a supporting role, but it didn't matter since Mana quickly dispatched the spirit effortlessly.
It made Ryouko question why the AST even exists if DEM had such powerful wizards. It made her question why DEM was allowed to have such powerful individuals under them without any restrictions.
She turned off the projector, leaving the room dark with only a few dim lights. Ryouko reached into her pocket and pulled out a flask, opening it and drinking all its contents. She didn't care if she was still at work.
She had thought about retiring early, she was getting older, and she still hadn't found a boyfriend. But she couldn't just leave the girls alone, especially those that still stayed even after such a traumatic event.
She looked to her desk, still stacked with papers she had yet to review and sign. Letting out another sigh, she got back to work.
...
...
A few weeks had passed since Shiori met Knight, and she hadn't seen her since. She didn't know when Knight would return, but when she did, Shiori would ask for her name. That day she had completely forgotten to ask one of the most basic things you ask someone you meet for the first time! She didn't even realize this until Kotori was debriefing her then ask what the spirit's name was.
She internally vowed to learn more about Knight as a person when they meet again. But for now, the last few weeks had been chaotic for Shiori. From Kurumi going on a rampage and targeting the school, to finding out her own sister is a spirit and having to seal her powers which was very awkward, then the twin spirits that appeared during her school trip which she also sealed.
And today, she was on a date with Tohka. They happily walked through town, going to different shops, mainly to sate Tohka's stomach.
"Shiori lets go to that stand! The food smells good!" Tohka said as she dragged Shiori to the stand.
As they got close to the stand, Shiori had to admit the smell was amazing.
"What type of food is this?" Tohka asked.
"It's called Takoyaki" Shiori answered. "I'll buy you some" Which Tohka cheered happily.
Shiori approached the stand to look at the menu, then as she was about to order, a familiar voice spoke.
"Hm? Shiori?"
She turned her head and locked eyes with the cook who was wearing a fox mask, yet hearing that voice, she immediately recognized who it was.
"Knight?"
Mordred removed her mask. "Yo! It's been a while. So, what would you like to order?"
Shiori was stunned, the crew of the Fraxinus were shocked, their jaws dropping. Even Kotori was so shocked the lollipop she had fell out of her mouth. Only Tohka was normal as she stared intently at the Takoyaki, beginning to drool.
"W-What are you doing here?" Shiori couldn't help but ask. The crew of the Fraxinus also wanted to know. There had been no spacial quake to announce Knight had returned. That could only mean Knight never left the world! That meant she was here the whole time!
"I work at this stand along with my subordinates who are working at nearby stands."
"Subordinates?"
"Yep! You see, when we parted ways, I realized that I didn't actually have anywhere to stay, and I didn't have any money. So, I went to the best place there is to get free money. The Yakuza!"
"WHAT?!" Shiori yelled out, causing Tohka to flinch and no longer focus on the food.
"And let me tell you, they were loaded. And it would be a waste to just let them be, so I took over the group and they now work for me. Though some didn't like that arrangement, but they aren't here anymore so it's all good."
Shiori felt her jaw hit the metaphorical floor.
"You took over the Yakuza?" she echoed in disbelief, her voice now much louder than appropriate for someone standing in a public street.
"Yeah," Mordred said with a nonchalant shrug, flipping one of the takoyaki balls with an expert flick of her wrist. "While I was searching for their base, some thugs tried to mug me, so I mugged them back and turns out, they were yakuza, so I beat them up and made them tell me where their base was."
Tohka, still somewhat behind on the conversation, leaned toward Shiori and whispered, "Shiori… what's a 'Yakuza'? Is it a kind of food?"
"I'll explain later." She replied back. "Okay..." she said slowly, trying to recalibrate the situation. "So you're... living here now?"
"Yup. Got an apartment above a pachinko parlor. Not as nice as a castle, but it's got hot water and a flat-screen TV. Oh, and you should meet my lieutenant. She's great with a knife. Maybe too great. Now that I think about it, isn't Violet also really good with a knife?" She muttered that last part to herself.
"Why would she need to be great with a knife?!" Shiori choked.
Mordred simply handed over another tray of takoyaki. "For slicing octopus, of course. What were you thinking, Shiori?"
The sarcasm in her voice was thick, and Shiori had no idea whether she was kidding or not.
"Let me tell you, criminals make excellent employees, well only if you have a lot of strength to beat them into submission. I speak from experience."
As they continued to converse, with Tohka devouring the food at an alarming rate, Kotori was speaking with her crew officers. Ordering them to gather more information about Mordred's movements and to always have eyes on her.
Mordred was an unsealed spirit who now controlled a criminal organization, the need to seal her had skyrocketed in her mind.
Mordred wasn't really concerned with this, she knew that appearing out in public would make Kotori start tracking her. But she didn't mind, she planned on leaving back to Remnant soon after she completed a few goals and gathered some resources and knowledge.
She had been stock piling books, manuals and blueprints to bring back, along with equipment and machinery. Due to her limited inventory space, she would need to do a few trips back and forth.
For her goals in this world. There were some goals that would be difficult to complete. First was to grab a Realizer used by the AST and DEM, this wasn't that big of a problem since she could just attract them using her powers, beat them up and take their loot. The next two goals were to save Nia, the spirit who was captured by DEM and constantly tortured and experimented on. And finally, to kill Issac Westcott, the discount Otto Apocalypse.
But finding Nia was already difficult since she is locked away in a secret DEM facility somewhere in the pacific, and she can't kill Westcott right away since that would mean losing Nia. Who knows where they will go and what those scientists will do once Westcott is killed, so unfortunately, he must remain alive until Nia is saved.
Mordred knew that she would have an opening to kill Westcott when he kidnapped Tohka and made her reverse. Since she didn't watch much of the anime and only read a few major spoilers here and there, this was the only opening she knew that can be exploited.
But first, she needed to find Nia. And how could she do that? There were a few plans in her mind but none of them were all that great. The best plans relied on using Shiori or Kurumi but those wouldn't guarantee locating Nia.
'Oh well, I'm sure future me will be able to come up with something'