meitori | open post

"Tsukasa-sensei," Tadase said. "He was the first King. He knows more than anyone. Follow me."

The first king was a teacher at the school?

Yuuta was starting to be not surprised at this point.

"Alright. Lead the way."

He nodded and headed out of the royal garden. "It is a bit of a walk," he said, apologetically. "This time of day her is more likely to be in the observatory than his office."

Yuuta gave him another look of disbelief. What kind of school was this? He was going to have to do some research when he got home once more, or at least find some blue prints or those aerial map views.

"That's fine," he said. "I'm not going to shy away from a walk if it means protecting my niece and nephew."

Another nod as he led Yuuta down a narrow but neat wood lined path. They could walk along side each other, but only just. It was peaceful out here, and lovely, but there was nothing about it that seemed to fit in with an elementary school. It was about a ten minute walk before the planetarium came into veiw. The chain was down, so Tadase led him in. Kiseki, his chara, zoomed in ahead.

Tadase led Yuuta into a large circular room full of movie theater seats around a central projector. A thin man with pale hair sat in one of the seats, sipping his tea. "Welcome," he said, not looking up as the "sky" overhead shifted into a deep red sunset. "I shall take it from here, Hotori-san," he said kindly.

Tadase bowed deeply to the man, then to Yuuta. "Unless you need anything else....?" he offered Yuuta.

Yuuta was pretty sure that what he thought of the world, his place in it, and some certainties of it were no longer true. He was clearly being introduced into another reality—one he had not been aware of. That, or he was in a very long and lucid anime-influenced dream.

“No, besides answers,” he replied. “Among them how best to help as soon as possible.”

As important as gaining the full picture and as much information as possible was, he was itching to do something already. He already knew that he had calls to make. His grandmother would absolutely join forces with them to defeat these people (and beings) who threatened her great-grandchildren and other children everywhere. She would even rope others into the cause, knowing their hearts would be aligned to protecting the innocent and thwarting their plans.

But he held those impulses back. He needed information first.

"Please, return to the others, they are waiting," the man said to Tadase.

The young boy nodded, bowed, and left.

The man tickled the chara gently with one finger. "Always a pleasure to see you again. All the same, go on now, my friend."

The small chara nodded and floated off.

The man sipped his tea waiting. When the door closed he looked to Yuuta. "you wish to know how to help? Even if the answer isn't the one you are hoping for?"

That made Yuuta suspicious. Even more so than he was when all of this started.

"It depends upon what your answers are," he said. "I do want to help, but I might have to draw some lines."

He nodded, considering Yuuta. "Good. It wouldn't be very comforting if you were the sort of person to say you'd anything without knowing what was being asked of you."

"Then what will you be asking of me?" he asked. "And how much of it is negotiable?"

He could see himself in a supportive role: giving rides, helping with injuries, making sure that others had a safe place to recover and rest, making sure that communication was maintained. Maybe even helping with some magical aspects, if anything between his and theirs meshed or crossed over.

"The most important things I will be asking of you will be the hardest. And I am sorry that I have to insist upon them. The first is trusting those children. The second is to keep most of your help subtle an behind the scenes. There is much we can do for them from back here, so long as they aren't aware of it. Bit by bit those children are shaping who they are. Who they will be. And we need to trust them enough to allow it. That said, there are many ways we can still help. But as the adults it falls upon us to be subtle where they cannot be."

Yuuta considered this carefully. The specific duties was on par with what he had expected—they were not going to fight these monsters directly, but … It was not as if he did not trust children and teenagers to learn and grow under normal circumstances. But this was hardly that. His own life experiences had molded him into the person he was today, but many of those experiences were violent and traumatic. He would not wish them upon anyone.

“Why is this being placed upon the shoulders of children?” he asked.

What if these children, someday, asked the very same question?

Their innocence was already at risk. Why were they being made to fight? He was not arguing to keep them in the dark, but why were they literally being dragged into a magical war in a world where there were already literal wars being fought?

“Why should we be subtle when we should be whistle blowing this?”

"This is on them for a number of reasons. One of which being that they stepped up. Part of it is that Easter is using the young and adults might hurt them or not take them seriously enough. Some of it is that while some rare adults like you and I can see the spirits, the powers needed to fight this battle can only be harnessed by children with their hearts open, their minds not yet set into adult ideas of what is and is not possible." He sipped his tea and shook his head lightly. "Think about it, whistle blow to who? Those of us who are adults and can see that his happening are rare. And even if not... in this case there is something fragile here that would be broken if we are not subtle."

Yuuta was silent for a moment. These were the answers he was hoping for—this was all pretty fantastical, unless someone was already in the know that such things were possible. He was just wondering if these others had done their due diligence to do all they could to protect these children who were shouldering a responsibility only the cruelest of beings could come up with.

However, that was what they were dealing with, wasn’t it?

Absolute, sure cruelty.

He wished that they could just whistle blow this to the entire world, have entire armies by their sides to protect these children and all other children. But when it came to the magical and supernatural, it was simply a fact that they could not.

“What is this fragile thing?” he asked.

He gave the smallest of sad smiles and set a finger lightly against his own lips; indicating that he couldn't even speak of it.

He gave him a smile back, understanding.

Certain things could not be spoken about. Not now, perhaps not until later, maybe ever. It just depended upon how it all went.

"Well, at the end of the day, you can count on me. I just hope that you can be as transparent as you can without endangering the children or your overall mission of protecting them."

"I thank you, and I shall take you up on that offer. Between us, hopefully we can be the subtle invisible support that they need. I do have a task for you, if you are ready for one, though the difficult part will be not acting," he warned.

"My nieces and nephews are in danger," he replied. There was no 'if'. "What is it?"

"I need you to start researching Easter, the company not the holiday." Easter being one of those big mega corps with their fingers in nearly every pie from financing to bulk product to stadiums and concert spaces and celebrity management. "I have done quite a bit, but it is possible that they are aware of my investigations and I may not have the most accurate information."

Yuuta nodded. "I can do that."

It is not something he speaks much of, but growing up as he had ... given who his father is ... He has a few fingers in different things too. More importantly, he has a network who can be much harder to detect and much more thorough in their investigations. They are not people to be messed around with.

But they would be happy to help Yuuta out. They had younger children and teens they cared about as well.

"Shall we meet again next week for an update?"

"I look forward to it. Perhaps three hours after school lets out for the young ones?"

"Yes, I can meet you then."

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time skip? i can edit this :)