Web of light. Part 1-7. part 26

Part 26. The Treaty of Kauji and Yuto. Yu's walk to the nail polish store.

Interlude 17. The Office of the Social Controller/Director of the Regional Branch of the Social Committee in Takamiya city. Sugowara Kouji

When the door closed behind the last of the Amakawa clan, Sugowara "held his face" for another twenty seconds by inertia, staring "into nowhere", then exhaled sharply and leaned back in his chair. He pulled a napkin out of a drawer and wiped his face. He shook his head, trying to put his thoughts together, and looked at the tabletop. He sighed again. What a conversation, damn it! And after all, he had dragged that damn Amakawa out for an interview, well, what did it cost him to be satisfied with the sight of Kaname, at his wife's behest, "building" a social control department. He wanted to get acquainted... He got acquainted.

Sugowara has been a good magician since childhood, and later became a good exorcist. The reserve in the lower half of the norm for the Jinguji combat wing and the initially good reaction became a pass for responsible "street" work for him. And after ten years of service, first as part of combat groups, and then as a junior commander, he was promoted to the "external" department of the clan's combat wing. Jinguji's interests stretched all over the world, from Europe, which was built up even more densely in Japan, to the colossal expanses of Texas, from the ice of Mary Blade Land to the Chukchi plague on the coast of the Bering Strait. And everywhere Sugowara destroyed the spirits. Reasonable and unreasonable, weak and average. I had to face really strong specimens a couple of times, and once I even had a chance to participate in battle. He did not grab stars from the sky, there were no dizzying feats, but he and his subordinates produced consistently high results. Kalashnikov, armor reinforced with magic, and a straight meter-long blade — he had not parted with them for years. We should not forget that the Jinguji "private magical special forces" did not disdain to use not only against yokai, people also sometimes needed to prescribe a dozen metal pills, and for some, a fireball. You can't get a grenade launcher or a thermobaric capsule flamethrower into some places...

Sugowara had only one problem: he was only a second-generation magician. And he had a very low origin: his father was a Japanese Korean. Not to say that titles and awards bypassed him, of course, not to compare with the bearers of the surname Dzhinguji from the younger family, but by 2002 he occupied the place that colonels occupy in the army. That's it, the ceiling: then the places for the crescent moon carriers began: the tasks became too strategic. With good reason, counting on the hand of the daughter of the younger family, he worked quietly for three years... and then Merukhi Jinguji came to the post of head of the clan. The death of her grandfather and the changes within the clan were extremely clear... and Sugowara was offered to resign. Yes, just like that, abruptly: they say, your work was harmful, Kouji-san, so it's time to relax and settle down, find a match for yourself... Roughly speaking, the chances of joining a younger family are reset. And no one cared about the totality of the merits. The 37-year-old colonel, who was still young, turned over his supervisor's head directly to the administration of the Eldest Family with the question of whether he, Sugowara, could get a place corresponding to his current position, with the expectation of sitting for six months or a year until passions subsided, and it would be possible to gently remind the administration of the Clan head of the promise. Well, he got his assignment. And earned another enemy.

You can't work for a big corporation and not make enemies. The system of checks and balances implies that there will be a lot of squabbling for every warm spot... and that it is customary to get rid of the checks. No, at first everything was great: after dragging many of his "staff", which he often recruited from "competitors" who had left their posts, this guaranteed a small percentage of informers and instigators, he began to delve into his new job. And he got into it. Two, two regional offices in two years. They were, of course, smaller than his office in the million-plus city, but their personnel were mostly "weaklings" and failed magicians. The funny thing is that civilian staff were recruited to the Committee's empty offices in just a couple of days, which was suggestive... not the most pleasant.

No, he wasn't afraid. Including getting stained in the blood of their own subordinates, after all, no one forced them to go to the Committee. Moreover, the situation did not require immediate action, since everything would begin only after the departure of the police combat groups. Tsuchimikado... Their operatives looked down on people like him... oh, yes! They had every reason to do so. Such a colossal amount of strength, and everyone had it, and it was imposed on the fighter's well-honed reflexes and combat coordination. It is clear that after the departure of these "lanterns", the yokai will pour into the resulting darkness... and the faint glow of the Jinguji magicians will be like an advertisement for a restaurant for them.

Actually, there were several ways to solve the problem:

You could have just run away, written for dismissal, and let it be as it was known. Of course, Tokyo will not stop protecting Kyoto either. But what was he working for all these years? A very bad option.

You can make a blind defense, after all, especially large fish may not come, but the "Private guard of Dzhinguji" still had an arsenal. Don't go out one at a time and don't take off your armor until you're in a fortified camp. Thus, it is not possible to attack singly and knock out the fighters. And fuck who's going to do what to them. But he obviously won't be able to manage the office, even physically, and so he will have to move to a more convenient place for defense. This is a bad option. He will undoubtedly be asked to resign from his position.

You can block the aura completely by receiving a seal upon contacting the central office. But despite the fact that he will not be asked to resign from his position, a magician who refuses to use the gift for the sake of security is far from the best page in his portfolio, and he will be in control for the rest of his days... which, again, may come ahead of schedule. In the end, with the aura blocked, he will lose half of his abilities, but the opportunity to get into a duel, for example... or get a "sudden" ticket to the place of the clash, where he will immediately be killed by a yokai — like two fingers. A bad option.

You can just defend a well-fortified building. True, it is rather reinforced and prepared for detection, but this is also quite a lot. There will be losses, unlike a convenient base. The worst part is that there will be civilian casualties. The central office didn't care about civilians, as long as the losses could be masked for the city and replenished, but this game would not be in favor of the magicians. So far, the option remained bad, but it did not promise Sugowara unbearable problems, only very unpleasant ones. The situation without protection could not last more than a year, otherwise official Tokyo was in danger of being left without most of the regional offices...

..But then the Amakawa kid got caught.

Perhaps it's not surprising that the names of the founding families are well-known among exorcists. Therefore, when he heard the operators talking about how the head of the department had ordered Amakawa to be removed from the list because of "that terrible slut Kaname," he naturally "made a stand." His hunting instincts were right-it was the same Amakawa, the boy heir named Yuto. Having picked up the documents about the boy through the terminal (and the inspection was supposed to deal with him anyway), he found the current orders given, among other things... Merukha Jinguji. A CRM system is cool, but when an order comes from such a big shot about minimizing contacts, it makes you think, right? It turned out to be not so difficult to find out the details through the connections available in Tokyo, and the initial desire to just look at the heir of the old clan (as well as check the work of his seal, otherwise he would definitely not be forgiven for the death of such a person on his territory) turned into a desire to talk a little, or better yet, try to win the kid over. Oh, nothing like that, but a situation in which most of the chances are to fall upside down predisposes to slight violations of instructions.

He decided, scheduled a meeting, put it on the calendar (the secretary will take care of everything), but it wasn't there. On Monday, he was picked up on the phone by the headmaster of the heir to the clan's junior school. He was not afraid to reach the director of the regional committee with an urgent request to release his student from the interview. During the conversation, the young heir's rather good organizational achievements suddenly came to light. Ha! And he thought he was an uneducated child, who was also scandalously taken away from the clan residence by his parents. Well, if that's the case, the chances of getting a useful profit based on the results of the meeting increased dramatically. It was already possible to negotiate with a trained child, a word in clans was always equated to a contract at a price. I also had to arrange with Kaname to bring his protégé personally and take him around the building a bit to create the right mood, so to speak.

And so Amakawa arrived, went through the scanning weave... and Sugowara Kouji realized that he wanted such an amulet. One of Amakawa's legendary artifacts perfectly concealed the aura of a child magician, at least with weak scanners, the protection could not be overloaded. But the fact that this amulet by itself was not a foil — it was something with something. How is it? By absorbing magic, you accumulate magic in yourself. Where's your own background? Everything turned out one to one. Kouji decided to take a chance. Of course, kid, and even under the amulet (which, however, unlike the seal, can simply be mechanically removed!) He won't be able to do anything, but get his hands on at least one of these priceless amulets that work in violation of the principles of the basics of magical amulet construction... It was worth the risk. Take a chance, but LIKE THIS? To personally let the spirits into the guarded city?! Even if they were controlled, even if they were tamed, but one famous Crimson Blade of Noihara could arrange a fun life for all the available magicians at once. And if there are several? There was a risk of losing his head, not his position... and it's good if Yokai kills him, and not his own punishers. But the amulet or amulets and the affection in the eyes of Prince Amakawa, who had sharply increased in "value," were not worth the risk. And it remains to be seen whether the combat team will be able to make it through the hot call if something really strong arrives, as it is guaranteed to tangle with Yuto-kun's retinue... and then they will arrive. The game has gone to other stakes, and the young Kues, and the Merukhs, can appreciate all the efforts to prepare their possible husband and son-in-law, respectively. Sugowara Kouji got up from his chair and took a couple of walks around the office — from the glass corner to the corner with the painting and back. He gave the "prince" a manual on Mystical Houses on a flash drive right away, and Tsuchi stayed in the city for the time being... so, you need to carefully wrap the beaks of especially brazen woodpeckers, slowly and with all the taste. And wait. The next step is yours, Yuto-kun!

Chapter 122.

Some time after the meeting ended, I was still able to drive all the experiences "deep": meditation, which I eventually fell into right on the bus, helped clear my mind of emotions. After that, I finally took out my phone and called my friends: first Rinko, then Hiroe, and then her father to inform her that I had already left on my own. Now you can think about the results...

At first, I decided to go straight home, but then I was overcome with paranoia: you never know what is written on a flash drive, maybe a keylogger or a Trojan... moreover, in the director's computer, he may be from the Committee's own security service. Probably not, but the thought "what if" got to me so much with its itch that I spat, got off the bus halfway and went to the nearest computer club. There, I opened the contents of the drive and looked at the only Word file, entitled "methodice_covered." Wow, 74 megabytes. Come on... damn it! Ye-es, human laziness is universal. The tutorial turned out to be a tutorial from about the seventies of the last century, blindly scanned without recognition and pasted with pictures directly into the Word document page by page. Moreover, the book that served as the basis was marked in different handwriting in the margins and between the lines of the text, something like "to destroy enemy equipment "hidden" from the outside of the applied technique, it is necessary to disrupt the concentration of the magician or spirit supporting the collapsed space" and handwritten comments "best of all with a bullet in the head" and "is there nothing inside at all?" Chuckling, I remembered the GP's textbook in the sixth book, where Rowling's hero, thanks to such "notes", was unrealistically steering on "potions". Is it the same principle here?

After sending it to the printer and receiving a stack of sheets (thank you, thank you, Japan! if it weren't for the compact recording, I would have splurged on three hundred sheets, but there are only 64), meticulously checked whether the text was correctly typed everywhere. After making sure everything was OK, I bought a "file" and formatted the flash drive. I thought about it, and after leaving the club, I put the drive in the trash. After walking two blocks, I thought about it some more and pulled into another computer club along the way. Thank Kami, there was a scanner with an auto-sensor. I wonder how many times the unfortunate document has been subjected to such iterations? Judging by the quality, I'm not the first or even the fifth.

* * *

Thanks to all these unplanned walks, I eventually had to come home even later than the girls, who were still scheduled to visit the "group". But I decided not to rush it. After getting on the bus, I pulled out the papers and began to read: the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach was gradually giving way after the difficult negotiations, and the chocolate bar, even though it was pretty disgusting, replenishes calories well. And I'll eat some normal Shizuka's cooking at home. It was convenient for me to calm my nerves alone with an interesting text while still "there".