Rising Sun and the Golden Moon

Chapter 8

Yakumo POV

After the dinner party, Toya opened a portal to my apartment in Tokyo. And yes, it’s got the best view in Japan. My penthouse overlooks Tokyo from Roppongi with a bit of the view taking in Tokyo Tower. I don’t care much for the dark furniture, I blame Toya for that, so to bring life to the apartment, I requested gold accents, and bright colors to lighten up my apartment. Honestly, I think Toya was a vampire in his previous life considering his love affair with dark colors. That workaholic needs to get laid. And soon.

I woke up the next morning with a hangover, not even sure where it came from. All I remember was watching a movie and drinking apple juice. Or at least it looked like apple juice. Or maybe it was mugicha (wheat tea)? Oh, whatever, I’ll have my “servant” Toya get me some more apple juice today. I meandered into the kitchen to scavenge what food we had left from my party the other night, and I beheld a glorious piece of cake. I felt like I won the lottery, devouring my strawberry shortcake. Then entering the kitchen, walked in on the Lord of Darkness himself and he looked like he had a more severe hangover than I did.

“Toya, what’s wrong dude?” I asked with a piece of cake in my mouth.

“I spent all night looking for this anomaly, and nothing. Nothing on the sensors, no sightings from our agents, it’s like this anomaly doesn’t exist. I feel like my father is sending me off on a wild goose chase.”

“Well, I hope the king sent us here to find a goose made of gold,” I replied to Toya.

My cake is almost gone.... sad day. I said to myself.

“What happened to all the whiskey, Yakumo?” Toya held up my empty glass apple juice bottle.

“Um, it's empty…” I shrugged as I shifted into my 11-year-old form and ran back to my room hoping to avoid the wrath of the crown prince. I guess I'll be the one to go to the grocery store and get some later.

“Yakumo!” I heard Toya yelling as I bolted away. Toya caught me by the collar of my blue dinosaur shirt just in front of my bedroom door.

“Yakumo, our elder brother Takeru will be coming by to take over my shift. I want this anomaly found asap. The longer we wait, the higher the chance that people might get hurt.”

I know Toya is desperate when he asks our big brother Takeru for help. Sure, Takeru is a whole lot stronger than Toya when it comes to using magic and physical fighting plus he is definitely more fun to be around than this vampire fox.

Toya went to bed or a coffin, not sure which one. I on the other hand had better things to do than find a dangerous anomaly. I had to beat Toya’s high score on our favorite video game. I lost track of the time of how long I was playing on the Playstation 4 but when I got up to feed my empty stomach, Takeru was sitting beside me.

“Dude, when did you get here?” I asked Takeru.

“I just got here. Do you know what happened to all the whiskey?” Big T as I call him, asked me.

“I drank it last night, I think. Anyway, we need to get groceries and other things. I’m thinking that Toya needs a day off and relax. The guy has been working non-stop, between the increase in demon portals and this new anomaly, he’s going to ruin his health.”

“I see your point. This is why you and I are going to find this anomaly together. Today.”

We can find this anomaly and we are going to have some fun in the process. I say to myself.

Takeru POV

“Let me set up my gear in the intelligence room...” I explained to Yakumo, then got cut off mid-sentence by my adopted, over-excited little brother.

“What can I do? What can I do?” Yakumo asked me, jumping up and down on the couch.

“Well, for one, maybe clean up your mess in your room. It smells like there is a dead animal in there. Wait, is that where the anomaly is? Are you hiding the anomaly Momo?”

“No! I’m not hiding anything dangerous in there. Not this time.” Yakumo quickly replied and ran to his room, which I am hoping he will clean up. I know he hates the nickname I have for him, but it suits him. In his true raccoon form, he’s a small round furry creature that reminds me of peaches or Momo in Japanese.

When I got to the intelligence room, all the seats were empty. I guess, Toya did an all-nighter again and sent his staff home this morning. Taking a nearby seat, I opened my bag and pulled out my laptop computer. I connected my computer to hardware that resembled an old-fashioned radio with a rhombus-shaped copper wire coil antenna connected to a small sky-colored stone emitting blue light. I then pulled out the screen showing a map of the entire city of Tokyo. There were blue dots everywhere on my grid, some dark blue others faded into a light blue. The blue dots represent legal demons, the darker the shade, the deadlier they are. Red beacons were for anomalies such as witches, dragons, unregistered demons, and other shifters that are not registered into my system. There was a purple dot that represented Frank, our visiting Shaman. Although he has been living in Japan and working for my father since before I was born. I didn’t really know where Frank went as he has never caused any trouble since I have known him.

I ran a few systems of code into my computer. No red beacon or signal showed up on my Tokyo grid. The lack of a red dot on the screen means the anomaly has not appeared at the moment. I then typed in to check the past few days, the range of time from 5 days ago until this morning before I opened my computer. One signal appeared somewhere in Haneda airport moving into Tokyo.

“This must be the signal of the anomaly which father was talking about,” I said out loud.

I then watched the signal move until it came to a stop. I zoomed into the map and learned that the anomaly stopped at Hamamatsu-cho station and moved to a nearby cafe. I fast-forwarded the screen and noticed that the anomaly was there for a while.

I stared at my screen for a few minutes, trying to figure out what was going on with this anomaly.

“Looks like the anomaly is a human. If it was an animal then it would probably be all over the news, unless it is something invisible or too small.” I said out loud again.

“It’s an invisible human animal!” A high-pitched evil laugh echoed behind me.