It was a little after lunch time when we went back down the station. Rush hour was over, and the only people that remained in the station were workers and those that found themselves late. In any case, less crowded than it was before, and a good time for some on-field investigations. But yet, I felt something weird, something missing, "Aren't we supposed to ask for permission to do some on-field work?"
"Look around you, no one cares about us." I looked around and she was right, everyone seemed to just ignore us, even if we were looking below benches and over garbage. Almost as if, "We're invisible. It's one of the basic things you learn from the field. But it wouldn't last."
"I get it. Invisibility is a massive mana drain, even with some ridiculous mana reserves it would take only a few minutes before it's fully depleted. So how long do we have here?"
She sat down by a bench and breathed, "About fifty minutes. I have plentiful mana reserves, but forty is the danger zone."
The danger zone, the point of which she can only commit to the invisibility, where she won't be able to cast any other spells. If it took us that long it'd be worrisome, if we were attacked during that time it'd be even worse, "Let's hurry then."
"Right, well. The first thing we should do is look at the security footage on that day." With her hands behind her back she merrily went on towards the security booths in the station.
"If it came down to it, I am quite skilled in lock picking."
"We wouldn't need that. Come on now, these places use smart locks and such." She said, with a somewhat proud tone in her voice, "It is by my father's decree, after all."
Figured. Lock picking as a skill is heavily influenced by magic after all, in such a place where magic is proliferated then perhaps things like those aren't normalized, "Still, would you know how to get in through a smart lock?"
"Of course I do! It is quite easy, you know? After all, it is by my design." Huh, fascinating, she designed the smart locks used across the city.
Wait, wouldn't that mean she'd be free to enter any grounds that used it? "How can the city let you operate with so much trust?"
"Hm? We aren't operating on any trusts. If we were, we wouldn't have to go invisible, we'd just go in. Look, the people outside don't know how exactly the night parade operates, just that we do it effectively, get that in your head and we won't have trouble." She stopped in front of a locked door, beside it was mechanical contraption, a lock it seems. Plasma swirled around its buttons which floated above a platform.
To call it smart would be an overstatement to regular technology. This felt more like an invention of magecraft rather than anything made with the metals of the Earth. It definitely was different, but I wouldn't call it as advanced as the technology of the outside world.
However, its uniqueness does lend it some merit. I don't think there's any hackers from the outside world that could reliably hack through this kind of "Smart technology." So, I was curious as to how Lady Yuki would handle it.
"The world flows through my fingers. The leylines converge on its tips, with it, the breath of the city. The dancing of the cosmos, they tell me a future born brightly can never be found once more. Lest Takamagahara wrests itself from the hands of its captors." She spoke as magical energy started to come to her hands. It distorted the light around it, making it seem that the buttons were swirling around her arms.
"--It's simple," She continued, "But it's not something that people frequently think about, so it never catches on. The key is simply to force it in. But I must say, something like this is only I, the head of the Night Parade, can do. My mana reserves are astronomical, and thus I can push through."
"So, it's a brute forcing method only you can do?"
"Yes. But it tends to be an uncouth method, and I typically dislike doing it unless I find myself too lazy to look for the key itself." With a push of her hands, the buttons of the platform fell and formed to complete the door itself, "Well then, ladies first!" She declared as she pushed the door open and went inside. She seemed excited so I went in after to make sure she doesn't make too much of a fuss there herself.
Inside the security room was a plethora of screens that showed footage from various cameras all across the station complex. From Jiangshi station to its connecting hallways, as well as its neighbor stations, Shiisaa and Makami. On the side was a rack full of vintage video tapes. It seems as though despite the technological advancements of this city, most still choose to use such primitive technology.
But I digressed, taped on these videotapes, and marked with a felt tip marker were various dates that seemed to indicate when and where each videotape was recorded. Obviously, we looked for the one that recorded Jiangshi station the night that the alleged murder happened.
I looked around the rack and saw nothing out of the ordinary. It really was just a bunch of videotapes. I… I don't actually know what day it is, though I reckon I will just find it if I look for the highest number. That always seems to work, and right now the highest number is… 11/12/53. So obviously I point to, "That one!"
Yuki looked at the rack, and over to the tape that I pointed at. She examined it for a bit before declaring, "Good job. At least some logic faculties work in your mind." She commented, it kind of stung but I didn't think much of it, "Thank you." And that seemed to make it all alright, "Now then…"
She picked up the video tape, as well as the few days before and after it then, "I know you can't just make knives and guns. Can you do me a favor here and make some dummy tapes?" The way she asked with such sincerity does bring joy to my heart.
However, "I know how to make them, but I don't want to… you know."
"I know, that's why I'm telling you that you don't have to make exact copies. You've seen what they look like, you can approximate it. That's good enough. It's not as though they'll notice especially if you blend it really well." She argued, I couldn't exactly fight against that.
A certain part of me does want to go all out, to create the most steadily manufactured and ordinary video tape, with the tape markers with the exact texturized feel that the original had. I knew how to do it, I knew how to create them with those exact parameters.
I can recreate a world in the palm of my hands if I so desired.
But desire is the root of all evil, and the pursuit of fleeting desire is how one perishes in both body and soul, "Alright." And so, I focus my mind on creating some scuffed video tapes. Soon, the black rectangles manifest in my hand. Made so it looks like it, but not quite like it. A false imitation, a terrible copy.
But it was good enough. To the overworked security man, it wouldn't look anything out of the ordinary. If anything, it looked exceedingly ordinary. Just another videotape in the rack of videotapes. And even more so that nothing really happened there. At least nothing that they know of.
Or "If, for some reason, these security guards got tipped off, wouldn't they take extra care to look after these video tapes?"
"That they're out in the open means they don't care for it at all. Or maybe…" She looked at the tape of her hands, somewhat wary of their contents, "Ah, it doesn't matter. We'll see it once we see it." She threw the videotapes to the air as they disappeared into flakes of dust that, with some form of wind magic, flew towards the hem of her skirt. There, the flakes of dust remained, as if embedded there.
If that was her storage space, then I really wanted to know how it worked. I should ask her soon. But what I didn't realize was that my eyes were trained deeply into the hem of her dress for quite a while. A whole five seconds. Long enough for her to notice that I was staring for far too long, "My goodness!" She belted out, "Please, dare not look at a maiden's dress for that long. Are you not trying to achieve a higher form of existence by removing oneself from desire!?"
"A-ah! I'm sorry." I bowed in apology, but she just chuckled.
"I was just teasing," She smiled, "Come now. Our work here in the station isn't done yet!" She exited the security room, careful not to trip any other alarms. I followed afterwards, as she closed the door and redid the lock.