Karappo no hoshi
Jidai wo zero kara hajimeyou-
Yuri slammed his hand down on the alarm beside his bed and climbed out of bed. His bedroom was small, with most of the space taken up by the bed and narrow shelves filled with books and comics lining the walls. There was no window. It was dimly lit by an interior light that flashed on and off along with the alarm, and which would be shining at full brightness by the time Yuri had finished getting ready for the morning.
The hero stretched and half-stumbled into the adjoined bathroom. In the mirror he saw one side of his face was red from sleeping on it. He would probably have bed head too, were his hair long enough for it. He didn’t need to shave, but then, he rarely did. All of his hair grew much more slowly than average. It was convenient at times, but he actually wished it grew faster here; he liked the rugged, I-haven’t-shaved-for-two-days look.
He released a sigh at the inabilities of flesh and, after a quick sit on the toilet, stripped out of the loose shirt and flannel pants he used for pajamas before jumping into the stand-up shower. The hero mechanically cleaned, dried and clothed himself, choosing his usual trousers and long coat, with a simple black t-shirt underneath. He wasn’t planning on going out today and was in the mood for something simple.
With one final check of the mirror, the young hero closed the door to his rooms and descended the stairs of his flat. The domestic gave way for the strange as he descended. beautiful wooden walls became aluminum-lined. comfortable steps became metal grating. Even the lighting shifted from a pleasant yellow to a more industrial blue as more emphasis was placed on certain locations at the occasional expense of gentle radiance.
One short metal hallway later and Yuri reached a large, open room. The walls were lined with monitors and in its center stood an elaborate console. This was Yuri’s command center.
“Good morning, Yuri Smirnov.”
The emissary stood to the side of the roof, inexplicably lit by an unseen light. Once again Yuri found himself wondering what they did while he was sleeping. He knew the angel didn’t need sleep, or at least needed so little of it as not to matter. Somehow the idea of them staying up each night playing games on the central console stuck out in the hero’s mind, but he quickly shook it off as fantasy. Not that an angel was above that sort of thing, but this one simply didn’t seem the type.
The emissary had the indistinct body that was peculiar to their order. The eye tended to roll over the features rather than take them it and even when Yuri could focus on them, they often changed from glance to glance. They were definitely a woman. They definitely had a somewhat motherly appearance. Anything beyond that was anybodies guess.
“Mornin’” Yuri waved noncommittally to the angel and headed for the kettle. He popped a bag Earl Grey into a mug and, once the water was ready, added a generous helping of honey to help hide the cheap flavour. One of the things he sourly missed from his home, one of the few things, was being around other people who knew how to make the good stuff. He could probably find a demon that could make it if he looked hard enough, but that would open him to a whole host of new problems. It wasn’t worth the headache.
Tea now in hand, Yuri pulled a binder from a bookshelf full of them and sat at the central terminal, putting the book he had collected to one side as he made his morning checks. The security system recorded no entrees last night. The update on his commission in Angel Grove was a little behind schedule after a small setback. A new issue of the DaiKami hit newsstands late last evening.
“I’ll have to pick that up,” Yuri muttered to himself.
With a final glance to the terminal, Yuri took a small sip of his tea and, feeling that it didn’t burn his mouth, another longer one. Then he picked up the folder and opened it to one of several pre-marked pages. “So, let’s work on the Tengu problem...”
