Outbreak Company: Volume 9, page 6
part #9 of Outbreak Company Series
“You say it’s just a blood draw, but what if the needle is dipped in poison?” I asked.
“You mean the disposable, mass-produced hypodermic needle?” Matoba-san and the health worker both grinned a little.
To be fair, they were doing the blood draws with disposables from a medical supplies company so big even I had heard of them, and the needles came out of sealed packages. You had to open a new one for each draw, then throw it away when you were done.
“If you’re still that worried, maybe you’d like to borrow a scalpel and make a cut yourself? It’s all the same to us as long as we can get a little blood,” the tech offered.
Meanwhile, Minori-san had rolled up her sleeve and stood in front of the tech, who tore open a new needle package and started the blood draw...
We looked at each other.
“All right,” I said. “Um, what about Myusel and Elvia?”
“They would be included,” Matoba-san said. “In fact, they could be threatened by diseases that mean virtually nothing to the rest of us, due to a lack of immunity. We would love to do full medical exams on them in the interest of making vaccines or discovering other treatments.”
I guess that made sense—hadn’t the Martians in H. G. Wells’ classic SF tale War of the Worlds been destroyed by the common cold or something?
Anyway, we didn’t have a choice. I turned to Elvia and Myusel and said, “So, uh... I guess this is something everybody has to do? Do you guys even understand what a communicable disease is? If we have any, they don’t want us to bring them into Japan, so they have to check us to see if there are any in our bodies.”
“Hmm...” Myusel and Elvia looked at each other. It didn’t seem like this was making much sense to them.
“Look, anyway,” I said, “all they want is to draw a little blood. They’ll stick you with a needle like that, and it’ll sort of pinch a little, but just roll with it and it’ll be over in a minute.”
“Um, o-okay.”
“Yeah, all right.”
Both girls nodded. The technician drew blood from me, then Elvia, then Myusel with complete confidence. My friends from the other world understandably squeaked a little when the needle went in, but there was no crying or fighting, and the blood draw ended successfully.
“We appreciate your cooperation,” the tech said. “We’ll be running a few other tests—checking your weight, doing an x-ray, and so on. After that’s all done, you’ll find some clothes to change into in the next room. Just pick whatever you like. Meanwhile, we’ll be fast-tracking the results of these blood draws.” Then the tech left the building.
The rest of the tests followed, and then we went into the next room, and just as the technician had said, a fairly wide selection of clothing was hanging there. There were a handful of JSDF uniforms, certainly, but the majority of the stuff was actually civilian clothing.
“Remember that the hyperspace tunnel and this whole facility are top secret,” Minori-san said, grabbing an outfit off the rack. “It would look suspicious for Mount Fuji to be crawling with soldiers, so we usually change into civilian clothing.”
“Oh... That makes sense.”
“You can pass, Shinichi-kun, but Myusel and Elvia will need to change. Elvia especially.”
“Why me?” the beast girl asked, her eyes wide.
“The ears... and the tail.”
“...Er?” Elvia put one hand over her ears and the other on her tail.
Hey. That was a pretty cute pose. Elvia was usually so freewheeling, I didn’t get to see her looking embarrassed or self-conscious much, and it was sort of sweet.
“Maybe something like this?” Minori-san said, holding up a hooded half-coat and a cap lined with some kind of fake fur. Both excellent “ear hiders.”
She passed the coat to Elvia and the hat to Myusel. “Try this on, Myusel.”
“Uh, all right.”
“As for the rest of your outfit...”
“Um, can I not go out like this?” Myusel asked. “I made some adjustments to my uniform before we left the mansion. I added some places to keep magic rocks or sprites...”
“Ah...” Minori-san stopped and thought about that for a moment. Then she said, “Okay. For the time being, we can just pretend you’re one of those slightly ‘off’ kids who cosplays constantly.”
Wait, are we really going with that?!
I resisted the urge to interject my smart remark—as long as we could keep Myusel’s ears hidden, then we could pass her off as “some foreign kid.” Anyway, I knew from when I had first met her that she could hide her ears pretty effectively with her twintails. A large-ish hat would complete the deception.
With Elvia, though, we might not get away so easily. She was going to have to actually change clothes.
“Okay, well, I’ll wait outside,” I said, heading for the door.
“No, you can’t!” The objection came from, of all people, Elvia herself. “I’m s’posed to be your bodyguard, Shinichi-sama! I’m not supposed to take my eyes off you!”
“Well, look, I’ve got Myusel and everything...”
“It takes time to come up with an offensive spell! If you need to respond in an instant, I’m your girl!”
“Well, I mean, that’s true, but...”
So what was I supposed to do?
“It won’t take me long to change, Shinichi-sama. I’d rather you were here.”
“Look, I just don’t think that’s... appropriate?” I looked to Minori-san for salvation.
“You’re worried about this now?” Minori-san sounded downright exasperated “You all changed in the same room when you were doing the movie, right?”
Argh, this wasn’t getting me anywhere. Back during filming, it had been me and Myusel and Petralka, too, and I had been able to somehow find a place to put my eyes, so I’d managed to scrape by. But now it would be just Elvia, stripping down to her underwear, right there in the middle of the—gah! Look away, my eyes!
I was busy struggling with my evil eye (is that what that means?), Elvia was busily taking off her clothing. And since the tube top covering her chest was basically just underwear already, when that came off—when that came off—nggaahhhh.
All bouncy, and jouncy, and jiggly, and two very soft-looking, well, um... (Technical difficulties... Please stand by...)
“Um, Master...” Myusel said from beside me.
“Y—Yef?”
“Should... Should I change, too...?”
“Wh-Why would you do that?!”
Did I really look that happy?!
Wh-What, my hand? What about my hand? It’s not doing anything. It was definitely not stretching out unconsciously toward Elvia’s chest! It was... her tail! That’s it, I was going to touch that big, poofy tail! Please believe me!
“If—If it’s your wish, Master...”
“I-It’s fine, you don’t have to change! I’ve got my hands full with Elvia here; if you did it, too, my Kurobe Dam might break! Not that I know what that means!”
“Shinichi-kun,” Minori-san said, her eyes uncharacteristically cold behind her glasses. “Hasn’t it occurred to you to just turn around?”
“Yeah! Great idea! Gosh, silly me! Kanou Shinichi here, looking at the wall!”
Then I turned my back on Elvia.
But...
“Hey, Minori-sama. How’s this work?”
“Oh, the bra? It goes lengthwise, like—yeah, that’s it.”
“Y-Yikes, it kinda tickles...”
“Just live with it.”
...............
My brain conjured up achingly realistic scenes of a beast girl and a woman soldier sharing a yuri moment. Wait—why was Minori-san in her underwear in my imagination? And why did I feel guilty, like I was peeping into the girls’ changing room...?
“Urgh...”
Turning my back only invited the most depraved fantasies! My fantasies...!
Curse my bounteous imagination! Did they want me to technobreak and die?!
“Master, are you okay?”
“I’m okay... I think!” I answered. I picked a rivet on the wall and stared at it as hard as I could.
So it was a little hectic for a while there. Happily, though, we all got clean bills of health, and with Myusel and Elvia in tow I was finally able to officially come home to Japan.
Minori-san had changed into civilian clothing; she was going to continue to act as my bodyguard. Paperwork had been filed with the JSDF beforehand, and they’d furnished us with a vehicle—a small van that was waiting on the road just outside the Sea of Trees. Minori-san would be our driver.
I think a personal vehicle was the right choice. Things being what they were, Myusel and Elvia seemed more likely to attract attention on the train. I could just imagine the things that might go wrong trying to help them take public transport.
“This is all our luggage, right?” Minori-san said, surveying the pile of bags and wooden boxes in the back of the van.
As I said, she was in civilian clothes now, not the uniform I was so used to. Her outer layer was a sort of anorak—a parka-like thing in military green—but under that she was wearing a lavender shirt with white English lettering, a pair of hotpants, black stockings, and a pair of boots. Talk about casual.
To be totally honest, she looked wicked cute. Usually, the uniform made her look sort of grown-up by default (and remember, she was older than me), but the way she looked now, you could have mistaken her for a high-schooler.
But anyway...
“So this is the box with the magic stone in it, right?”
“Yes it is the one Her Majesty gave to me,” Myusel said.
Now that we were outside the Sea of Trees, we were apparently beyond the zone of usable magic; the interpreter rings weren’t working very well. Myusel decided to resort to her stumbling but usable Japanese. Elvia knew a smattering of Japanese vocabulary, but she didn’t have Myusel’s mastery of grammar, and could only manage to speak in small bursts.
“Something wrong...?” Myusel asked.
“No, I was just thinking it’s awfully light for a box that’s supposed to have a rock in it,” Minori-san said, pointing. “Mind if I open it?”
“The court mages, they said to not open unless at the time that I need to use it,” Myusel said.
The stone was essentially like a magical battery: open it up and it would start to release energy, however slowly. I was told that for that reason, the stone had been enclosed in a glass case, as well.
“Hrm, well, okay,” Minori-san said, giving the box a dubious smack.
“Heek!”
“Huh...?” Minori-san said, looking around and blinking. “Myusel? Did you say something?”
“...Eh? Noh...”
“Elvia?”
Elvia made a sort of curious noise in response.
“I guess not,” Minori-san said.
Elvia, for one, had gone around to the front of the van and was examining it with interest. It was the first time she’d ever seen anything like it—it looked awfully different from the army’s LAV—and she was probably eager to sketch it. From that position, we wouldn’t have heard her muttering to herself, and if she’d said anything loud enough for us to hear, Myusel would have certainly noticed it.
“And it wasn’t you, was it, Shinichi-kun? I was sure I heard someone...”
“Maybe you’d hear better if you had a pair of cat ears, Minori-san...”
“Dream on!”
Dumb conversation notwithstanding, we ushered Myusel and Elvia into the van. Minori-san hopped in the driver’s seat, and I rode shotgun.
Minori-san fired the engine and made sure the van was running smoothly; meanwhile, two men in black suits appeared seemingly out of nowhere and looked in the window. “Everything ready?”
“Yes, sir,” Minori-san said with a salute. “No problems.” I guess these guys were from the JSDF, too.
“Get going, then,” the man said. “We’ll tail you for safety.” He pointed to a black van parked about ten meters away. It was bigger than our vehicle, with smoked glass windows. Pretty intimidating stuff.
“Hold on. I didn’t hear anything about this,” Minori-san said with a frown.
“Orders came down from Ichigaya just a little while ago,” the man said expressionlessly.
“Why so sudden? Our only business this time is to take Kanou Shinichi to visit his fam—”
“Orders are orders,” the man interrupted. “The reasons are above our pay grade.”
Yuck. I didn’t like this one bit. Like Matoba-san said, it didn’t look like they were out to murder me immediately (otherwise, they could have just shot or stabbed me without the small talk), but that didn’t make it a whole lot easier to just trust that they really were here for my protection.
“Sergeant Koganuma Minori. These are your written orders. Acknowledge receipt, please.” One of the men passed her a piece of paper.
...Wait, what? I thought Minori-san was a Private First-Class.
“...Orders received,” Minori-san said, but she didn’t look happy about it.
“Good,” the man said, and then he and the other guy went to their van.
“Minori, sama,” Myusel said with obvious concern in her voice, “these people, they were friends of ours?”
“You’re just full of questions I can’t answer, aren’t you?” Minori-san said with a bitter smile.
Minori-san’s alarm at the conversation with the men in suits wasn’t lost on Myusel. And considering how much Japanese she could understand...
“I wouldn’t call them friends just yet,” Minori-san said. “But I wouldn’t call them enemies, either. To be honest with you, I don’t know what kind of take the higher-ups have on Shinichi’s little trip home. It happened so fast, they probably haven’t had time to call their meetings and decide what to do, but that makes it all the more likely that someone lower down the totem pole will take matters into their own hands...”
Myusel looked a little confused. “I do not quite understand, but you think there may be trubull, yes?”
“Let’s say I’m feeling cautious,” Minori-san said with a nod.
Then I realized Myusel and Elvia were nodding at each other in the back seat. A second later...
“Uh, Myusel?”
She was mumbling something, and then she was leaning out the open window of our van. She pulled a bottle out of her bag and flung it away. It smashed on the ground, but there was nothing inside.
Wait. Was that—?
“......Tifu murottsu.”
Myusel spoke so softly and calmly that at first, it didn’t even register with me that she was intoning offensive magic. A second later, though, there was a rush of wind, so strong I could feel the lift. The van the two men in suits were riding in went wumph and tilted crazily. It looked like the front tires had come clean off.
“Now, this is our chance,” Myusel said to me and Minori-san. The two of us were just watching, flabbergasted.
No, no, no—no?!
Huh? What?
Had Myusel just attacked a JSDF vehicle?!
“But why...?!” I wailed.
“I am your bodee-guard, Master,” Myusel said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It is not right that dangerous people are following you. Carriages, they do not move if you break the wheels. So I have broken their wheels.”
Minori-san and I looked at each other.
“Shinichi-kun,” she said, leaning in so she could whisper to me.
Minori-san, your, uh, face is very close to mine. Your breathing, I can feel your—ahhhh.
No, no, not the time!
“I just realized,” she said, “there’s something I never told you. Something about that time you were captured by Bahairam.”
“Yes?”
Why was she bringing this up now?
“Myusel grabbed my pistol and threatened Elvia into taking us to Bahairam. I had a thought then—that maybe Myusel gets tunnel vision when it comes to you. She really might do anything for you. She’s got a touch of yandere in her. Lucky you, huh?”
“Is this where you expect me to be all, ‘Yaay! Shinichi loves yanderes!’?”
“I’m just saying, if she starts stirring an empty stewpot, watch out.”
Then Minori-san gunned the engine and got us out of there.
“Hey!” It took the men in black a moment to comprehend what had happened to them, but when they figured out their ride wasn’t going anywhere, they jumped out and started shouting at us. By that time, though, our little van had gotten up some speed, and they weren’t going to catch us on foot.
“Can we really do that?” I asked, looking out the back window at the swiftly shrinking figures of the two men. “They’re JSDF just like you, aren’t they, Minori-san?”
“They’re not with the people who give me orders on the org chart. They must be suits from the Ministry’s information or intelligence divisions. I haven’t heard anything from my superiors, so I don’t have to listen to them.”
She sounded awfully confident about that.
I wasn’t sure that was really allowed—but then again, how many movies had I seen where someone from another department tries to horn in on an investigation or something, and the commander on the ground goes, “I don’t care if you’re military, this isn’t your turf?”
“Is this what they mean when they talk about the dangers of bureaucratic infighting?” I asked.
“I guess you could say that,” Minori-san said. She had a surprisingly happy smile on her face as she hit the gas and picked up speed.
To get from Yamanashi Prefecture, where Mt. Fuji and the Sea of Trees are, to Tokyo, takes about two and a half hours by car.
That, of course, is assuming you don’t get caught in a traffic jam, but when you add in rest stops and whatever else, it’s really closer to three hours. And for people who aren’t used to traveling, that’s a surprisingly long time.
Especially when you’ve just come back from an alternate world to Japan—a journey you couldn’t normally make in three days or three months, let alone three hours—in about thirty minutes. And thus I found I had completely forgotten the reality of those three hours to Tokyo. Add to that my years as a shut-in, during which I’d never taken a long car trip...
