Tokyo Ravens - Volume 9 - Chapter 1.2

Part 2 
Wind rushed by him immediately after he rose into the air. Touji's hair, from which he had taken off the bandanna, became disheveled. On the other hand, Yukikaze galloped into the air without any fear of the night wind. Right after him was the shikigami Suzuka sat on. It was like a chase scene. 
But this chase had been tainted with despair from the very start. 
"What are you going to do!?" 
"Stop Harutora!" 
"How!?" 
"I don't know!" 
The force of the wind was very strong. Touji and Suzuka's throats became hoarse as they conversed. 
In the end, even Touji wasn't sure what to do. But he couldn't just sit still. 
In front of him was the darkness of the night along with a giant-winged silhouette faintly illuminated from below by the streetlights. An alien raven. But its flight was still very awkward. It dropped while it tried to glide. It beat its wings chaotically, suddenly swerving and bouncing as if it had stumbled. Its unstable, twisted trajectory seemed to directly portray the feelings of its master. 
But at the same time, it was like a wounded, violent, wild beast. 
"Damn. That...... 
...Idiotic bastard......!" 
Anyway, he would try getting closer. Fortunately, although his movements were clumsy, it seemed like the Raven's Wing was currently under Harutora's control. Then as long as Harutora didn't tell it to, it wouldn't launch an attack. Of course, he couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't 'counterattack'. 
"Yukikaze!" 
He shook the reins and Yukikaze sped up again. 
He wasn't sure how fast the Raven's Wing normally flew, but Yukikaze steadily closed the distance to the snaking Raven's Wing. As he predicted, there were no attacks aimed at him, but he could feel that the Raven's Wing was alerted to his presence, even if Harutora wasn't. 
"Harutora!" 
Touji leaned out and yelled. 
"Calm down! Land for now! Harutora!" 
"............" 
Though he shouted, Harutora didn't give him a reply. Yukikaze accelerated again, getting side by side with the Raven's Wing. Then, Suzuka's shikigami circled around to the other side of Harutora as Touji was. When they had created a formation with the Raven's Wing in the middle, Suzuka yelled: "Bakatora!" 
But Harutora didn't stop. 
Just then, the Raven's Wing suddenly swerved and Yukikaze dipped to the side almost simultaneously. Touji, who was leaning to the side, hastily grabbed the reins tightly. Immediately after, narrow figures tore through the night sky, flitting past the rapidly-swerving Raven's Wing. 
Gray swallows. They were 'WA1 Swallow Whips'. Moreover, there wasn't just one. After it was a second, then a third. When Touji hastily stabilized his position on the dodging Yukikaze, a total of ten Swallow Whips were dancing centered on the Raven's Wing. "What!?" Touji couldn't help but gape. 
"A Mystical Investigator? Here!?" 
Swallow Whips belonged to the ranks of manmade shikigami and were called binding shikigami as they were in a specific category. It was a manmade shikigami designed for the Mystical Crime Investigation Department whose main use was to capture magic-using criminals. Most of the time, Mystical Investigators didn't mistake their target practitioner. 
"Careful!" 
Suzuka shouted a warning in a panic. 
"These things are modified! They're basically different things!" 
'Swallow Whips' were commercially available manmade shikigami created by the Witchcraft Corporation. But it wasn't strange for Mystical Investigators to personally make various minor adjustments in most cases before use. 
But it seemed like, as Suzuka had predicted, that the magic of the high-speed Swallow Whips flying before them had been heavily modified. Indeed, Touji had seen this kind of binding shikigami several times but the Swallow Whips before him now felt different from the things he had seen before. Their mobility and most importantly their coordinated movements as a group of ten were different. 
"Could it be......!?" 
...They were being controlled by one person? 
As if responding to his suspicion, the ten Swallow Whips moved together, surrounding the Raven's Coat like a pair of hands. 
They kept a close distance to the irregularly-flying Raven's Wing, maintaining their surrounding formation completely orderly. Their group mobility made them seem like a single organism. 

Ten gray swallows surrounding a giant raven. 
Moreover, it was like a group of hyenas hunting a wild beast. Though they wouldn't attack directly, they stayed on his tail. Even if the Raven's Wing bat its wings powerfully trying to shake them off, they were able to dodge easily and lightly as if entrusting themselves to the wind, and it couldn't even touch them. Suzuka's eyes widened at those ingenuous movements. 
"How is that possible? They're not dodging automatically. Long-distance control? At this height? How can that be?" 
"Suzuka! Can you trace the practitioner from the magical energy?" 
"I-I'll try!" 
The fact that they weren't sure who was controlling these shikigami made him uncomfortable. If he thought about it properly, it was probably someone from the Mystical Investigators, but how could he have gotten wind of this? No, come to think of it, Harutora and the others had been monitored by unknown people when they had been at the male dorm. Had it been a mistaken judgment that they had called off their surveillance for now? 
...Damn. What should they do!? 
He wanted to stop Harutora, but he couldn't act recklessly since he didn't understand the goal of the practitioner controlling the Swallow Whips before him. Suzuka was trying to search for the location of the practitioner, but tracking things back to the practitioner required extraordinary technique and her current strength was limited because of her seal. Though she was focusing on her surroundings, tracking down magical energy was a strenuous effort. 
Then, while Touji and Suzuka were tied up, the Raven's Wing - Harutora - was the first to move. 
"...Don't get in the way!" 
With a flap, the Raven's Wing's lower hem spread open like an explosion, stopping immediately. Yukikaze and Suzuka's shikigami were taken by surprise and passed by Harutora, immediately turning back. The swallows also overshot him and their formation was ruined, but they corrected their trajectories with the slightest adjustments and continued chasing the Raven's Wing. But the Raven's Wing spread its lower hem again, rising into a higher space before they recomposed their formation. 
The Raven's Wing repeated this complex maneuver, drawing out an arc while rotating downwards. The ten Swallow Whips accurately followed its movements, agilely chasing after it. Never mind the latter, but the movements of the former really didn't feel like the movements of a human carrying another. Every time the bottom hem of the Raven's Wing billowed like a wing, golden light danced in the night sky like stardust. 
But the swallows were not inferior by comparison. They didn't all make the same movements, but rather subtly changed their formation while steadily approaching the Raven's Wing. Similarly, the Raven's Wing didn't give them any opportunity to flank it. "Ridiculous." Touji suppressed his restless mood. 
Then, it was time for the Swallow Whips to act. 
Two of them spread their wings at the same time, their feathers 'stretching'. Like their name, their wings became several whips, covering the Raven's Wing. They carried out the 'binding' that was the shikigamis' original usage. The Raven's Wing viewed this as an 'attack'. Making use of a momentary opportunity to slip through the whips that extended from the two binding shikigami, its hem flashed. The front of the Raven's Wing's wing instantly turned into a sharp blade, cutting apart the Swallow Whips' wings with one slash. 
However, the Swallow Whips - the practitioner controlling the group of shikigami - wasn't concerned about the shikigamis' wounds. After the first two, the swallows that were left started going to catch the Raven's Wing in twos and threes. 
The whips extending from the gray swallows approached. The Raven's Wing flitted around to its heart's content, shredding them all. Complex, mechanical, and precise. In the eyes of the observers, it looked like some sort of performance. 
Lag flashed across the cut Swallow Whips and they stopped moving. 
But. 
...What's going on? That's strange. 
The Raven's Wing continued counterattacking, but the enemy numbers didn't decrease. The cut Swallow Whips stopped from lag and then immediately flapped their wings to return to the formation. Moreover, the places they had been cut in had already recovered by the time they returned to the next wave of attacks. Of course, this was a function that ordinary Swallow Whips couldn't possibly have. 
Their means of attack slowly became stronger as well. The number of shikigami simultaneously extending whips went from two to three and then four. A continuous attack without any gaps. Alongside, the Raven's Wing's responses started becoming sluggish. 
Then, the moment one finally entangled it, the other nine instantly flitted towards the Raven's Wing which prepared to escape upwards. Though the Raven's Wing fended off two of them, the other swallows all transformed into whips, binding up the Raven's Wing along with Harutora and Natsume. 
"Harutora!?" 
The Raven's Wing lost its flight ability like a bird caught in a net, starting to fall freely in a parabola. Touji and Suzuka hastily chased behind it. At some point, the scenery below them had changed from residential streets to roads with masses of buildings. The Raven's Wing hurtled towards the wall of one of them. Touji desperately shook the reins, but he would be too late. 
He was going to collide. 
In the moment he believed that: 
"...Noumaku saraba tatagyateibyaku saraba bokkeibyaku sarabata tarata senda makarosyada ken gyakigyaki saraba biginnan untarata kanman...! 
Harutora's incantation. It was the Fire Realm magic. At the same time, the Raven's Wing was covered in flame, and the Swallow Whips binding its wings were incinerated. 
"Gah!?" 
Fire spilled forth and Touji shut his eyes. The flame blooming in the night sky instantly burned away all of the shikigami. The Raven's Wing's lower hem flapped in order to clear away their remains. It barrel rolled, avoiding colliding with the building by a hair's breadth. But its movement was even more bizarre than before its struggle. It faltered and dropped down. 
Touji urged Yukikaze on, dashing up to the Raven's Wing in a flash. "Harutora!" he shouted loudly, checking his appearance. 
Harutora glided while desperately staring ahead of him. There was no calm in his eyes. Though he planned on telling him to first land, but judging by the current situation, it was likely that carelessly landing would result in a fall. 
Just then-- 

"Headband! There!" 
Suzuka, who closed in from the side, pointed an arm and shouted loudly. Upon careful observation, there was a building in construction ahead of them. The highest floor had no outer wall, and its steel skeleton was exposed. 
The height was perfect. The moment he considered that, Touji powerfully urged Yukikaze on. 
He had the horse slide in the forward path of the gliding Raven's Wing. "Stop." Harutora's eyes widened and he stopped the Raven's Wing that reflexively tried to attack, changing his trajectory. Hence, he rushed into the unfinished building approaching them from the front. 
"!?" 
Harutora held on to Natsume with both hands. At the same time, the Raven's Wing shot out in front of him to absorb the impact. He managed to pass through the gap between the reinforcements and land on the floor. 
Harutora slid across the floor, carrying Natsume and wrapped by the black coat. Yukikaze followed right after him, landing on the ground and slowing down as the clacks of its horseshoes rang out. 
Harutora and Natsume, covered by the Raven's Coat, crashed through the building materials placed nearby as they slid, only stopping when they were near the center of the floor. Then, they collapsed on their side, exhausted. Touji breathed deeply, lightly patting Yukikaze's neck and stepping down to the floor to approach Harutora. 
Harutora shakily raised his upper body, but even so, he also tried to shelter the motionless Natsume. He panted for breath, his shoulders moving up and down. Though he was mentally and physically exhausted, for now he didn't look injured. 
Touji sternly spoke to his one-year-younger friend with a reproachful tone: 
"Harutora." 
Harutora lowered his head, continuing to pant. 
"Harutora!" 
"............" 
Boom. The night air rumbled. Harutora cringed as if startled, but the still didn't plan on looking up, nor was he prepared to reply to Touji. 
The shikigami Suzuka rode glided in next to the two of them. Suzuka looked at the pair, Harutora with his head lowered and Touji glaring at him, and dismounting wordlessly from the shikigami. 
Touji glanced at Suzuka out of the corner of his eye. 
"......The practitioner?" 
"Sorry......" 
It seemed that she hadn't been able to find the person controlling the Swallow Whips in the end. "I see." Touji didn't blame Suzuka, he just quietly uttered those words. 
Then, as if noticing Suzuka's presence because of the dialogue, the bowed Harutora suddenly turned his head. 
He put his strength into his shaking knees, standing up with a ghastly expression. Then, he rushed towards the timid Suzuka, grabbing her slim shoulders with both hands. 
"Suzuka." 
Harutora stared straight into Suzuka's eyes. 
Then, he spoke those words. 
"Suzuka. The Taizan Fukun Ritual. The Taizan Fukun Ritual can revive Natsume. Just like how you wanted to do before, if we use the Taizan Fukun Ritual......" 
He spoke in a vicious tone. 
The ugliness of someone who had succumbed to his delusions - and also one whose soul cried out. 
"Get a grip, Harutora!" 
Touji bellowed angrily, but Harutora didn't listen, staring only at Suzuka. His hands that grabbed Suzuka's shoulders constantly trembled, but he definitely didn't let her escape. 
"Please." 
"No." 
Suzuka replied immediately. 
Her voice that burst out in a wail was cowardly, unbefitting of her usual behavior. 
"Suzuka." 
"No! Don't...... Don't joke around! What are you saying!?" 
"I'm not joking, I'm serious." 
"Shut up! H-Have you forgotten what you said to me back then?" 
Suzuka spoke as if hurling her words, the light of teardrops flashing in the corners of her eyes. He feared that things had developed as he predicted when Harutora escaped from the exorcists. 
However, Suzuka herself still hadn't recovered from the shock of Natsume's death. The scattered words from her mouth trembled because of her wavering and the sound of her desperately crying out pained him. 
"You stopped me like it was natural when I was being arrogant back then! Now you plan on turning away so easily when it's your turn? How could you! How could you! There should be a limit to selfishness! You're, you're despicable!" 
It was basically a sob at the end. Harutora had no intention of letting go of the whimpering Suzuka. 
Suzuka glared at Harutora with her tearful eyes. 
"First...... First off, what about the price? What are you going to do about the cost of the ritual!? Whose life are you going to use for Natsume's......!" 
Her final question was filled with terror, as she already knew the answer. 
Harutora answered clearly after a short silence. 
"I'll die." 
"Don't talk nonsense!" 
"I'm not speaking nonsense. Natsume...... I caused her to die, so that's natural compensation." 
Touji didn't need to see his eyes at all. He was speaking completely seriously. 
"Suzuka, please. I'm begging you." 
Harutora put strength into his hands as he pleaded from the bottom of his heart. Suzuka's eyes widened and tears started trickling from her eyes. She shook her head back and forth while crying. Refusal - but even so, she couldn't escape Harutora's hands. 
He couldn't keep on watching. 
Touji reached out a hand wordlessly, putting it on Harutora's arm. The Raven's Wing didn't react, but Harutora kept clutching Suzuka's shoulders, not planning on backing down. 
Touji spoke, seemingly murmuring to himself: 
"......Is it fine to leave Natsume in that kind of place?" 
He could feel Harutora trembling underneath the fabric of the Raven's Wing. His strength receded. Touji slowly moved Harutora's hand from Suzuka's shoulder. 
After his right hand moved away, his left hand naturally left her shoulder. Suzuka stood still, sniffling. 
In the next moment. 
The Raven's Wing, which had been idle, suddenly fluttered. It pointed its hem towards the corner of the room, like a snake rearing its head into a sickle shape. 
"...My, I apologize for disturbing you while you're busy." 
A voice sounded. Touji, Suzuka, and Harutora turned their heads in surprise. 
The figure of a young man slowly appeared in the darkness. 
A trendy young man wearing slacks and a shirt paired with a vest. No, it would be better to call him a boy than a young man. His age looked to be about the same as Touji's. But he didn't instinctively feel like a 'human'. He was probably a shikigami. Moreover, his presence wasn't that of a manmade shikigami. A servant shikigami. 
Carefully-kept black hair and untanned white skin. He wore an ascot and white gloves. He was dressed like an old aristocrat, but the most remarkable thing about him was the round lens set over his right eye. It was probably a monocle. 
Then, Suzuka froze the moment she saw that monocle. 
"......No way." 
She let out a hoarse voice as if this were a joke. 
Touji and Harutora instantly took up stances, confronting the man who appeared before them. But the man didn't care, leisurely drawing close and then stopping. 
With a calm face, the man smiled refreshingly and said: 
"Nice to meet the other two of you. I'm Yashamaru, please look after me."