RECORD #5: STILL PHOTOS
The Vessels woke up early that one morning. But as soon as they reached the garden, they soon noticed that Hideoki was busy tending the garden.
"Okay. When was the last time I saw Hideoki-san do this?" Itsuki couldn't help asking that soon broke the silence among the group which consisted of him, Shuichi, Misae, and his sister Erika.
"Last year, I guess. Though I'm not sure," Misae answered and proceeded to think about it.
"Well, we're all unsure about that. Besides, Hideoki-san rarely tended the garden. He's usually in his room reading some papers or more often, in the restaurant's kitchen thinking of new dishes to add to the menu." This time, it was Shuichi who said that.
Soon after, Nanami arrived where they were standing and placed her hands on Misae and Itsuki's shoulder.
"It's a yearly habit of my cousin whenever Mariko's birthday would arrive," she said.
"Ah, that's right." Erika nodded when she said that as her reply.
Then they all remembered that it was indeed Mariko's birthday. But this was one of the rare times in ten years that they saw Hideoki personally tend the garden his late wife would usually take care of. The usual person who would do that would either be Eichirou or Akira.
"Speaking of which..." Erika started upon thinking of that and looked around the area, in and out of the mansion. "...where is Eichirou-san? Shouldn't he be helping Hideoki-san, at the least? I mean, it is about Mariko-san, after all."
"He's busy right now."
Misae and Itsuki faced the older woman. "Busy? On what?"
"Today, he said he has to head out early in order to prepare for a photo exhibit to be held two days from now," Nanami explained.
"Oh, right. The photo exhibit. He's been staying up late just for that these past days. I hope he's okay," Misae couldn't help voicing out her worries for the eldest Vessel.
"He was doing it for his mother, so I guess all the stress and fatigue will be worth it in the end."
They all turned to the source of that voice just behind them. They saw Helen looking at Hideoki, but the prominent thing they noticed about her was the scroll she was holding.
"You're early in visiting the bookstore," Nanami commented with a smile. But Helen didn't say anything after that but just returned the older woman's smile.
"I'll be heading out for a while. Tell Mizuhashi-san that I'll be late for the training later."
Nanami nodded and just watched Helen leave the mansion. But not without wondering as to why Helen would head outside for a while.
xxxxxx
That photo exhibit, as Amuro had guessed before, was mentioned in one of the letters sent to the Mizuhashi mansion a week before the letters for Hideoki arrived. Since the anniversary of Mizihashi Mariko's debut to the fashion world fell on the day after her birthday, Eichirou decided to do the exhibit on that day.
He was busy doing the last checks necessary to that location so that all he needed to worry about were the photos to be displayed there.
"Mizuhashi-san, the lighting for the stage is all done."
Eichirou turned to one of the technicians he hired for the job.
"Alright, thanks. Once the photos are all here by tomorrow, I'll ask for your help again to set up the remaining lighting."
The technician agreed and soon proceeded to continue the rest of their task for that day.
After that, Eichirou heaved a sigh and eyed the stage with hopeful eyes.
He has one plan that he wanted to happen for that day and that was for him to be able to talk to someone who had a big part in his mother's life.
But he only had one problem, though.
"Are you sure you could convince 'her' to take part in the exhibit that you're planning for Mariko-san's birthday?" Kanako asked as soon as she approached the photographer.
Once more, Eichirou sighed and faced Kanako who eyed him with worries.
"To be honest, Kana-chan... I don't know. The person I need to talk to didn't even appear to me and my father ever since my mother's death."
And Eichirou was somehow aware of the fact that the said person held a certain amount of grudge towards Mariko.
"Can I leave things to you for a while? I think I need to breathe some fresh air," Eichirou inquired after a while.
Kanako nodded and took the clipboard with the list from Eichirou. "Just make sure the air you decided to breathe in would actually clear your mind."
The photographer laughed at that and finally left the room. He already stood in the hallway and while thinking of something to do to put his plans in motion, he stopped to his tracks when he noticed something on one part of the lobby.
"Why is she here?" Eichirou couldn't help uttering as soon as he saw Helen looking at one of the paintings hanging by the lobby. "And what's with that painting?"
Weird enough, he could sense something strange about that painting. But what could that strange feeling be?
xxxxxx
Helen left the building long before Eichirou could even approach her.
'Wait, is that girl a speed runner or something? She's fast.'
Despite the disappointment he felt, he just sighed before going inside the building once more. But having his head filled with curiosity with regards to the painting in question, he decided to approach it.
To his confusion, it was the painting of a regally-looking woman clad in a flowing Greek-style white dress. She seemed like a goddess with that outfit.
The painting appeared to be ancient, and definitely something he had never seen before.
Upon looking around, he saw the manager currently fixing one of the paintings displayed in the hallway of that building. Without hesitation, Eichirou approached him.
"Iwasaki-san, do you mind if I ask you something?" Eichirou ventured as soon as he saw the building manager.
The said man approached the young photographer with a cordial smile. "It seems to me that something caught your attention, huh?"
Eichirou smiled before nodding. "So you guessed it." Soon after, his expression turned serious. "It's actually about this painting."
Mr. Iwasaki faced the aforementioned painting and his expression brightened before turning to nostalgia. "I remember your mother smiling at this every time she would look at this."
"My mom?" Now that had truly caught Eichirou's attention.
The building manager nodded. "This was from your mom. She wanted it to be placed somewhere in this building as soon as she received it from a client. From what Mariko-san told me, that client gave it to her as a celebratory gift for her debut."
Okay. How come he had never heard about this?
It only made him unable to say anything. Once again, Eichirou decided to take another look at the painting. But upon looking at it carefully, he was surprised to see the Hundred Heavens' lotus symbol drawn on the ball of light that the woman in the painting was holding.
What was this supposed to mean?
He was supposed to ask Mr. Iwasaki about the identity of the client who gave the painting to his mother, but the beeping coming from his Celestial Shifter soon interrupted him, indicating that another Tarean attack was happening.
"Just great..." Eichirou couldn't help grumbling under his breath.
But then, he didn't have much of a choice. It was his duty.
xxxxxx
At that same moment, the other Vessels got alerted about the attack with their Celestial Shifters beeping at the same time. Itsuki couldn't help groaning before opening his Shifter to assess the situation.
"It's on the Four Clubs Building," Itsuki stated that seemed to have surprised Akira, making everyone focus their attention on the young mechanic.
"Isn't that the building where they held most of the famous exhibits and fashion shows over the years?" Erika asked and Shuichi nodded.
But his attention remained on the distraught-looking Akira.
Misae faced the concerned person with a frown. "Is there something wrong, Akira-kun?"
"That's the same building where Eichirou-san will hold his photo exhibit for him to commemorate Mariko-san's debut in the fashion world."
"Which means, Eichirou is already there. We better hurry."
The rest agreed to Shuichi's words and with the help of Nanami's teleportation ability, they ended up getting transported in front of the Four Clubs Building in a matter of seconds.
"Ah... What just happened here?" Misae could only ask as she and her companions looked around the area the moment they had arrived.
They saw quite an amount of people seemingly petrified.
"They looked as if an ice spell hit them and froze them to spot," Erika said as she walked around cautiously.
"It's not an ice spell that did this," Itsuki stated soon after. The others turned to where the composer was and they saw him touching one of the petrified victims. "They're still warm. No ice magic could preserve the victims' body temperature."
Shuichi nodded as soon as he understood the situation. "That means magic is the only answer as to why they're like this."
"Yeah, but what kind of magic? And what kind of Triske Monster are we going to deal with right now?"
Well, it was the question that they wanted to find answers immediately. And that means they had to find Eichirou as soon as possible. They all went into Four Clubs Building and looked around for any signs of their comrade.
Just like what they saw outside the building, a similar situation could be seen inside, as well. Moments later, the four Vessels heard clashing sounds. That was when they knew the answer, so they all hurried towards the source of the sound.
When they looked around the hall to find Eichirou, they saw the said person had donned his armor and was fighting quite a large group of Gargonemas while trying to fend them off from the other people in the area who weren't affected.
"Eichirou-san!" Misae called out.
Though the blue warrior didn't spare them a glance, his frustration as he took out several Gargonemas in his path could be seen as enough answer. The others soon donned their suits and decided to help SeitenWater.
Soon after, a Triske Monster whose form was based on a camera appeared before the Seitengers.
"Okay. Do any of you know the name of that monster?"
"Seriously, does it even matter?" SeitenLight asked back quite incredulously to SeitenFire's question.
"Hey! It's still needed for a proper introduction, you know."
The rest could only shake their heads, despite the Gargonemas holding them off.
"He introduced himself as Macera earlier when he started petrifying everyone here!" SeitenWater shouted as he continued to deal with Gargonemas on his end.
"Thanks for answering, Eichirou!" SeitenFire still managed to reply before striking the Gargonemas in front of him with a grunt.
While it was happening and when SeitenWater finally destroyed the Gargonemas he was fighting, he ordered the people who weren't petrified to leave the building before the monster could petrify them.
It was a good thing that all of them were still sane enough to do what was needed. But SeitenWater soon noticed that one of those people who got trapped inside the hall refused to leave. He frowned at that.
Wait a minute! Could that be...?
But more important issues got SeitenWater's attention instead and distracted him away from that particular person. He soon noticed Kanako making sure that the other people could escape the building unscathed.
"Kana-chan, once you're done with that, make sure you take that woman out of here, as well. If you must use force to do that, then do it," SeitenWater ordered and pointed to the woman that he saw earlier looking at him.
The young woman followed the direction Eichirou was pointing at and it dawned on her who the woman was.
"Isn't that...?"
SeitenWater nodded once. "Yeah, it's her. My mother's former apprentice, Odagawa Haruna."
Kanako understood SeitenWater's intention and agreed to what he asked her to do. "Don't worry. I'll do it."
And with that, the childhood friends did their respective tasks at hand. Once again, Gargonemas attacked SeitenWater who, in frustration, cast a real freezing spell towards the enemy group before casting a single slash attack powerful enough to eliminate the goons.
He wanted to heave a sigh after doing that, but he couldn't. Especially upon sensing Macera's dark energy, as if charging himself to cast a deadly attack. When SeitenWater looked for the source, he soon confirmed his suspicion, especially when he saw the Triske Monster turn to the escaping Kanako and Haruna and used its camera-like weapon to send a light beam toward the two women.
"Kana-chan, run!" SeitenWater yelled in fear as the thought of his childhood friend getting hurt once again started to cripple him.
Thankfully, the two women managed to evade the first attack and ran fast with no turning back. SeitenWater gripped his Hyakureider tight and eyed the Triske Monster in anger for nearly hurting Kanako and his mother's former apprentice.
"You're going to pay for that!" he exclaimed in rage and charged toward Macera who just cackled and waited for the blue warrior to attack.
Not long after, Macera cast the same deadly spell towards the approaching SeitenWater using his camera-like hand by flashing a glaring light from it. Around the same time, however, when SeitenWater was ready to avoid it in order not to be petrified, the lotus symbol on his helmet emanated a flash of blue light that stopped him from running toward the monster.
True enough, the flash of light distracted even the Triske Monster and he used that to fire a barrage of ice attacks toward the monster. To his surprise, SeitenLight used that as a medium to cast her light attack, letting the ice act as reflectors for the white warrior's spell.
This move made Macera retreat, but not without leaving them a warning about the fates of the petrified victims.
"You better not think this is over, Seitengers! You only have 24 hours to defeat me and restore those I've petrified back to normal. Well, I don't think you can even do that. All of you are still weak!"
Though the Seitengers wanted to chase the Triske Monster and end his life, it would be impossible. Not to mention that the monster's warning alarmed them.
"We only have 24 hours? This is a joke, right?"
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