Nowa gave a slow nod. He then turned, sweeping his gaze across everyone in the room.
"Right. Before this council business... does anyone remember what happened to my rune moto?"
Marisa's eyes immediately gleamed with the light. "You mean that cool iron thing?! The one Sakuya was on when you three finally came back with Reimu?!"
Nowa nodded. "Yeah. I can't remember where I parked it."
"It sank, Beckitzer," Sakuya stated. She continued as he glanced at her. "After you tossed Reimu and I into the air to avoid the mimic's final attack, the vehicle sank into the Misty Lake."
"Ugh." Nowa slumped his shoulders with a sigh. "It's gonna be all clogged with lake gunk, huh?" He straightened up. "Right. I'm going to retrieve it."
"Give it up Nowa… The kappas have probably already fished it out by now," Reimu said with a deadpan tone.
Nowa looked to Reimu. "Kappa which-craft-what now?"
His question was buried behind Marisa's vibrating excitement. "A trip to the Kappa's hideout?! I'm coming with you, Ze! I gotta see their faces when they try to figure out your tech! It'll be a great learning experience!"
Reimu let out a long-suffering sigh, already foreseeing the incident. "Just don't start a fight. They're territorial about 'found' technology. And don't agree to any of Nitori's 'deals'. They always end with you owning useless items."
"Like I said, who's Nitori?!" He asked once more, yet buried behind by Remilia's schemes.
"An excellent idea! A brief excursion before the midday council. Sakuya, accompany them. Ensure our Mr. Beckitzer's property is returned promptly and that the kappa understand the SDM takes a keen interest in his belongings." Her eyes lit up.
Nowa made a "time-out" gesture with his hands. "Wait! Wait! Wait!" All eyes turned to him (except for Patchouli's, which remained on the text). "There's no need to go anywhere. I just need to step outside and place it there."
Marisa's head tilted in curiosity. "What do you mean…? Wait—" Her eyes then gleamed with mischievous understanding. "You're recalling it back! Like what you did with the conjured coins two days ago, aren't you, Ze!?"
Nowa nodded, a conspiratorial smirk on his face. "Yes, my Mushroom Kid, glad you remember it, heh." His smirk widened. "This way, these 'kappas' will be so confused about where it went. A little prank for taking my stuff."
Before he could take a step toward the door, Sakuya was suddenly there, having closed the distance. She stood directly in his path, her expression utterly serious.
"Before you step outside," she stated, her gaze pointedly dropping to his robe-covered pajamas. "You need to change your clothes."
Nowa rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine. The tyranny of decorum," he muttered under his breath.
Marisa found the situation hilarious. "Hah! Even a reality-warper can't beat the Chief Maid's dress code!"
Reimu gave a subtle nod of approval to Sakuya.
At that moment, Sakuya turned her head slightly, as if on cue. A fairy maid scurried forward, presenting Nowa's dark blue jacket, the very one that had saved Sakuya's life. Sakuya took it and the fairy bowed and walked away.
She turned and offered the jacket to Nowa. As he took it, his fingers immediately found the spot on the wrist. His eyebrows rose in genuine surprise.
"Huh…" he said, his tone shifting from annoyed to impressed.
He held it up, examining the seam. "The torn wrist was patched. Perfectly." His eyes lifted to meet hers. "Did you stitch this? My clothes don't use silk... they use a self-reinforcing magical thread. Did you replicate that?"
Sakuya met his gaze, her expression as composed as ever, but with an undeniable professional pride. "A simple stitch would have been an insult to the craftsmanship," she stated, her voice even. "Lady Patchouli analyzed the thread's arrangement and helped me replicate its enchantment to the best of my ability. It is the least I could do, considering its service."
He was visibly taken aback, he briefly glanced at Patchouli on the table before returning to Sakuya. His usual cynicism was disarmed by the sheer effort displayed as they did it in just a single night. He ran his thumb over the flawless seam. Visually, it was a perfect match. But beneath his thumb, he could feel the magic, the familiar signature of his original thread, now seamlessly married to the distinct, meticulous resonance of Sakuya's work. The flow was perfect.
"You... did good." He began. "Better than good. It's perfect." A soft smile touched his lips.
Marisa stared. "Whoa. What's a 'self-reinforcing magical thread'?!"
From Patchouli's seat, she didn't bother lowering the newspaper before her. "It's a silk with enhanced mana circulation conductor for the hidden micro-runes built in the cloth he made."
Nowa chuckled once. "Correct."
Marisa's mouth fell. "No way! That's so hardcore and so cool!"
Remilia watched from her seat with a delighted, knowing smirk, sipping her tea as if observing a perfectly executed play.
Nowa took off the robe, handing it to Sakuya and she took it, already folding it. Then, with a snap of his fingers, his pajamas were replaced in a seamless instant by his familiar attire: a white t-shirt, long grey pants, and dark leather boots. He then slipped the repaired jacket on with a look of quiet pride.
Marisa's jaw fell open. Reimu who just sat on the chair, jolted in her seat, a surprised blink breaking her deadpan expression.
Sakuya, Remilia, and Patchouli (who just glanced up from her text with mild interest before returning to it) remained unfazed, already seen to this particular trick of his yesterday.
"You can do that, Ze?!" Marisa beamed, stars practically in her eyes.
Nowa shrugged, nonchalant. "Yeah. It's handy."
Marisa gasped in awe.
He paused.
"Right. Time to retrieve my moto." He glanced back over his shoulder at Sakuya, who handed the folded robe at the fairy maid. "Where can I park it, Miss Time Keeper?"
Sakuya turned her head at him. "The central courtyard will do. Please be mindful of the rose bushes."
Nowa offered a soft smirk and waved dismissively. "Sure, sure, I will," he said, already walking toward the exit.
Marisa went to his side. "Wait, I'm coming too!"
Moments later, they emerged into the morning light. Nowa positioned himself on the paved stone of the courtyard. Marisa vibrated with anticipation beside him. Rather than invoking a grand power, he simply drew a single, glowing rune gem from his pouch.
"You're not going to use the 50ms Author to recall it?" Marisa asked.
Nowa glanced at her. "There's no need for unnecessarily mutilating magic, alright? Besides, my runes are the alternative to the 50ms Author anyway." He turned his focus to the gem, his fingers tracing specific symbols.
"Woah," Marisa breathed, her eyes scanning the elegant complexity of the runework.
He placed the gem on the ground, activated it with a touch, and whispered, "Vehicle teleport."
The air shwooped.
In the space where there was nothing, the Rusi Classic 250 rune version now stood, dripping wet. A small, confused fish flopped on the seat for a moment before plunging to the cobblestones. Nowa casually brushed the water off the leather.
Marisa beamed with awe, instantly zipping around the moto, her eyes scanning every rune and engine.
"It's even cooler up close!"
Nowa saw a tiny scratch mark on the outside engine chassis as he wiped the water off. He sighed. "Knew it. How do I sue them for property damage? Bruh."
Unbeknownst to them, their prank had already landed…
Moments ago in Genbu Ravine on Youkai Mountain. Nitori Kawashiro was in a state of pure engineering bliss. The rune moto, freshly soaked with lake water, was suspended in her workshop on a complex series of clamps and stands.
"Fascinating! Absolutely fascinating!" she said, a small crowd of fellow kappa engineers behind her.
She turned at them and aimed a wrench at the moto's frame. "Look at this! No combustion engine! No propeller! No steam piston! The energy signature is... it's structured! It's like the laws of physics themselves are being politely asked to move aside!"
She tapped the handlebars with a reverence. "The material is a simple iron alloy, but the molecular bonds are reinforced by some kind of... conceptual reinforcement magic. It's not just strong; it believes it's strong!" Her voice dropped to a whisper as she traced the dormant rune. "And these patterns... it's a language, I can't read it. But it feels like a language of pure function. This isn't just technology; it's an advance high technological engineering with magic!"
She was practically vibrating, the devices on her backpack whirring in excitement as well. "This is the find of the century! We learn its secrets, and we'll be able to build... everything better! Our submarines will fly! Our cameras will see tomorrow! This is—"
Minutes later, Nitori turned to her toolbench.
"Pass me the plier, will you? I think I can isolate the—"
Shwoop.
She turned back with the plier in hand, and froze.
The clamps hung empty. A single drop of lake water fell from the highest clamp and landed with a sploosh on the floor.
For ten full seconds, Nitori was a statue, her brain refusing to accept what had happened from her eyes.
Minutes later.
"...And it was just gone!" Nitori sputtered, her face flushed with a mixture of panic and indignation. She gestured wildly at the empty clamps before her skeptical peers.
"Are you sure you secured the clamps properly, Nitori?" one asked, scratching her head. "That thing was heavy. Maybe the hydraulics failed and it fell, and... rolled away?"
"It didn't roll!" Nitori cried, her voice hitting an ultrasonic pitch of frustration. "It was suspended! There's no 'a way' to roll to! It was in the middle of the room! It didn't fall, it vanished! There was a... a conceptual interference where it used to be!"
Another kappa, an elder with goggles pushed up on her forehead, folded her arms. "A 'conceptual interference'? Nitori, you've been overworking. Maybe you just... imagined the whole thing? The stress of a big find can do that."
"I DID NOT IMAGINE IT!" she yelled, grabbing her own hat in frustration. "It was real! I had sensor readings! Look!"
She frantically shoved the diagnostic device at them. The screen was blank, save for a single, blinking error message: TARGET MODEL NOT FOUND.
"See?! 'Model not found'! That object doesn't have a model! This proves it!"
The other kappa peered at the error message. "Looks like your gadget just glitched, Nitori. Probably shorted out from all the lake water."
Nitori let out a strangled groan of defeat, slumping against her workbench.
'They're thinking differently than me! This was a technology of ideas and will, that they would never understand at all!'
She stared at the empty space, the ghost of the moto's revolutionary runes painted in her mind. The excitement had been replaced by absolute curiosity.
"Fine," she muttered. "Don't believe me." Her eyes narrowed with fierce determination. "But it was here. And someone... or something... that can make a thing like that just appear and disappear... is out there."
She clenched a fist. 'This isn't over…! The greatest technology of my life just been delivered at my doorstep and now it was snatched away. And I, Nitori Kawashiro, was not a kappa engineer who gave up on that technology that easily!'