Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 984: Arrival to the Shrines

”And the Circle will speak to Lord Grey through my voice, so he is never juggling all of us. Analyst Sonoda, I’d like you to assist me.”

Sonoda bowed to the High Shrine Maiden at an angle normally reserved for funerals.

”...It will be my honor,” she said, in the steadiest voice of her career.

Her composure survived the assignment, the closing formalities, and the walk to the elevator, in that order.

...

The fireworks were still smoking over the taxiway when the motorcade carried Kaiden Grey’s family out of the airfield, police outriders fore and aft. The city came out to watch it pass.

People lined the route all the way in, filling the overpasses, the station footbridges, and the office windows with the blinds hauled up.

The storefront screens were running the landing broadcast on loop, eleven seconds of handshake at a time.

Emily had her nose to the glass of the second car. ”There are people on every bridge. Sarah. The bridges are full.”

”I can see the bridges, Em.”

”Then say something about them!”

”They’re structurally in danger,” Sarah said.

Leia had given up on the window entirely and was filming herself against it, narrating for her own lens. ”Day one in Japan. The nation is losing its mind. I’m having the time of my life.”

In the lead car, Calypso had discovered that waving out one window produced a roar that rolled down the street after them, so she rationed herself to one wave per block, managing her new superpower responsibly.

At a red light, the chant off the nearest footbridge carried through the glass clearly enough to make out the syllables. Ka-lyp-so! Ka-lyp-so!

”They’re singing my name!” she reported to the rest of the car at full volume, then spent the whole green light waving with both arms, rationing abolished.

Bastet did not wave. She sat straight-backed beside the window with her ears up, being seen, which in her case counted as a public service. Her tail, curled around her own knee, flicked whenever a chant shaped itself into her name.

Alice knelt on the seat backward to watch an entire crossing wave at the motorcade.

”Big brother, that whole intersection is waving at us.”

”Wave back, then.”

”I only wave for you,” Alice said, but she was a good girl, so she waved. Once.

The crossing roared back.

”Alice!”

”Little sister!”

”It’s not your fault, he’s too handsome!”

Her name and her title came through the glass in two languages, and the last of it came from a woman with lungs enough for the whole crossing.

It was the one thing about her the internet had never let go of, and a crossing full of strangers had just decided they were on her side about it.

Alice sat with the sound for a moment. Then she turned back to the window and waved again, slower, letting them have it.

”This country is slowly growing on me,” she decided.

Nyx watched the storefront screens slide past with her chin on her knuckles, smiling wider at each one. ”They took down the noodle ads for you, Kai. The noodle ads. I’ve never been prouder of anyone.”

Kaiden leaned back between them and let the noise wash the last of the federal week off his family.

At the interchange, the recruit buses peeled off toward the Circle’s training campus, where a separate welcome waited on a scale better suited to hundreds of stomachs.

Then the boulevard ended, the noise fell behind, and the cars turned through a gate in a wall that had been keeping the city out since long before the city looked like this.

...

The Moon-Thread lineage kept an estate in the middle of Tokyo, behind stone walls and a canopy of maples old enough to ignore the skyline around them.

The drive curled past a pond and a wooden bridge, and it ended at a main house long enough to have wings. Staff lined the approach in two rows and bowed to the arriving guests as one.

”Okay, holy shit,” Luna announced, climbing out ahead of everyone. ”There’s a pond. There’s a bridge over the pond. Each of those fish must cost a fortune...”

At the foot of the steps waited a woman in a charcoal suit, a silver crescent pinned at her lapel, standing at perfect parade rest. She bowed to Kaiden, crisp and exact.

”Lord Grey. Rin Sonoda, Shogunate Circle.” She offered her card with both hands. ”I am your liaison for the length of your stay. Whatever your family needs, at any hour, I’m happy to be of assistance.”

”At any hour~” Luna repeated from the gravel, in a tone that had no business near a government courtyard.

”!!” For one heartbeat, three months of Sonoda’s certainty wobbled. Had she been wrong after all? Did the household run looser than the broadcasts showed? Did Lord Grey perhaps want-

”She is a professional woman, not your buddy,” Nyx said, steering Luna off by both shoulders. ”Nobody is going to mess with our liaison. Please excuse her, Miss Sonoda.”

Behind the analyst’s straight back, a small hope she would never put in any report quietly died. The findings, at least, stood reconfirmed.

Kaiden accepted the card with both hands, as coached by an attendant over the Pacific. ”Nice to meet you, Sonoda. I hope they warned you how loud this household can get.”

”I have prepared for considerably worse, my lord.”

She bowed to him again with those words, held it well past the point of courtesy, and the tips of her ears were red by the time she straightened.

The mod trio reached the steps in time to catch the exchange, and Sarah slowed mid-step.

”Question,” Sarah said. ”The kitchen inventory somebody sent us for approval last night. Who wrote it?”

”I did,” Sonoda said.

”It lists Luna’s gummy brand. The specific one. It’s not exported. I checked!”

”We import it,” Sonoda said. ”As of today. The first shipment shared your flight.”

The trio stared at her. She held the stare, professionally.

”You run a fan account,” Emily gasped.

”I run an analysis section.”

”With a national budget,” Sarah giggled.

”The section’s mandate is strategic,” Sonoda said, and picked up Emily’s suitcase before the porter could reach it. ”This way, please. Dinner is at seven.”

Inside, the house did its best, and the family happened to it anyway.

Alice claimed the room beside Kaiden’s before the bags were off the cart, and Aria took the one on his other side at an unhurried stroll, her smile daring anyone to object.

”I’m flanked,” Kaiden observed.

”You are~” Aria agreed happily, and closed her door on any appeal.

Alexandra went pale over the tea set, holding one bowl with six points of contact. ”This is four centuries old. I looked it up. I’m putting it down now.”

”Darling! There’s a hot lake inside the house!”

The announcement crossed the garden, the pond, and two closed doors without losing any volume. Calypso had located the bathhouse.

”It’s called an onsen!” Luna bellowed back from a different wing.

Kira and Rika had tripods up in the garden within minutes, one aimed at the maples for establishing shots, one aimed at whatever Calypso did next.

Scarlet went through the house at a browsing pace, and had the name of every member of staff before she reached the second wing.

The rest of the family spread through the wings by sound, doors sliding, names called back and forth, one crash immediately followed by ”Nothing broke!”

Kaiden found the veranda before anyone thought to look for him, and sat down on the boards in the sun.

Bastet toured the guest wing at her own pace, trailing a fingertip along the joinery. ”This house was raised by people who loved their craft,” she declared to nobody in particular, then claimed the sunniest stretch of veranda by lying down on it, bare feet landing in Kaiden’s lap.

Kaiden thumbed absentmindedly at one of his girl’s soles, and she started purring at once.

”Japan’s doing a hell of a job so far,” he said. ”I keep waiting for the catch.”

”Yeah!” Nyx grinned, nodding fervently. She moved behind Kaiden and massaged his shoulders in turn. ”I know they are trying to amaze us, but still. The hospitality in this nation is insane.”

”It truly is,” Alexandra agreed, hovering at the edge of the boards. ”Do we tip? Is tipping rude here? I read that tipping is rude here.”

”Nobody’s tipping anybody,” Kaiden chuckled.

”Sit down, Blondie. You’re on vacation,” Luna giggled.

”...”

And just like that, it was time to see what Japan truly had in store for the gang!