Black Bullet - Volume 1 - Chapter 2.1

BLACK BULLET 

CHAPTER 02

THE CURSED CHILDREN

1

As the morning light filtered through the clouds in beltlike shapes, the sparrows chirped and frolicked on the branches. In the vacant lot behind the apartment building where Rentaro and Enju lived, eight boys and girls were gathered, looking up at Rentaro with bright eyes. Rentaro thought they looked familiar, and it turned out that they were all Enju’s classmates.

Stifling a yawn, Rentaro stood stock-still in the vacant lot with his bed hair. Uncomfortably, he fidgeted and moved his body, sending his gaze to the heavens. “What, so basically you want to be my disciples?”

“That’s right!” said the kids.

Looking askance at the kids who responded with voices loud enough to overpower him, Rentaro, at a loss, started at Enju, looking pleased with herself next to him. “Hey, Enju… I want to politely send these kids home, so what should I do?”

“Aw, don’t be like that,” she said. “You can train them a little.”

The disheartened Rentaro sighed. Apparently, this had all started when Enju had spread word around her school that Rentaro was a martial arts master. Thanks to that, Rentaro had been shaken awake early in the morning, and he had to give up the morning of a rare day off. Normally, this was the time when he could stay in bed and try to go back to sleep.

“Master! Is it true that you can shock a grizzly to death with just your eyes?” said one child. The truth had been embellished with surprising momentum.

“Master! Is it true that you annihilated a whole marine battalion with your bare hands?” said another child. Apparently, he also killed marines.

“Master! Is it true that you stopped a nuclear warhead and threw it back?” said yet another. Rentaro shot a reproachful look at Enju. Just how hard are you trying to make this?

When their eyes met, Enju gave him a thumbs-up and an earnest look with complete faith in him that said, “Rentaro can do anything!”

Rentaro wanted to sigh again. The problem with Enju was that part of her seriously believed that he could do anything. Rentaro scratched his head. Everyone went through a phase where they projected themselves onto their favorite superheroes. It wasn’t like he didn’t feel the need to protect the dreams of innocent boys and girls. He nodded decisively and prepared himself. First impressions were important in times like these. Anyway, kids were no problem. Easy. “All right you guys, thanks for coming. I am the great Rentaro Satomi!”

Silence.

Rentaro couldn’t take it anymore, and he blinked his eyelids rapidly, sending a call for help to Enju.

Enju grinned and waved at him. It was almost refreshing how the message didn’t reach her at all.

“Um, well, you guys, the concept of Tendo Martial Arts was created by the originator, Sukekiyo Tendo. To put it simply, the basics of Tendo Martial Arts are the First Style punches, the Second Style kicks, and the Third Style that covers everything else. Sorry to dash your expectations, but I’m only a beginner and can’t do that much. There are many hidden secrets that I can’t teach you yet—”

“Master! We don’t care about that. Just teach us your special move!”

“Dang it, I guess I have no choice.” Disconcerted by the children’s short attention spans, Rentaro went to stand in front of the single maple tree in the vacant lot. He lowered his hips, shifted into the basic Infinite Stance, and inhaled deeply. “Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 3”—he exhaled sharply and dispatched a punch with a twisting circular motion—“Rokuro Kabuto!” His fist hit the tree with a heavy thud, and the maple shook as leaves fluttered down. Rentaro exhaled and returned to his stance. Then, he turned around abruptly. “H-how was that?”

“What? It was too fast. I couldn’t see what was going on!”

“It was just a punch.”

“Seemed kinda lame.”

“Right?”

“Make the tree fall down!”

“I want my money back!”

“Asshole, asshole!”

Rentaro was at his wits’ end. What should I do? I just wanna punch these kids. “W-well, you know. This was just a warm-up. I have a technique I’ve been saving. One of the Tendo Martial Arts hidden secrets, Second Style, Number 11: Inzen Kokutei.”

“Ooh!”

“That one sounds a little cooler.”

“It’s just the name, idiot.”

“We won’t be able to tell until we see it, right?”

Thinking, I’ll show them this time, Rentaro turned back to the tall tree, jumping with enough spirit to kick down the tree. “Tendo Martial Arts Second Style, Number 11—”

Abruptly, Rentaro’s consciousness was drawn back to the incident in the meeting room the day before. Going around and around in his head was one of the phrases Kagetane had let slip. New Humanity Creation Project. Questions filled his mind.

The Seitenshi had said, “As I am sure you all know, currently, Tokyo Area is protected by the barrier of the Monoliths. I will omit the details for now, but if the Inheritance of the Seven Stars is misused, it could create a large hole in a corner of a Monolith. If that happens, Tokyo Area will be overrun by a storm of death. Time is of the essence. You must retrieve the Inheritance of the Seven Stars.”

Rentaro narrowed the corners of his eyes. No matter what, he could not lose to that man—to Kagetane Hiruko.

Tightening his lower abs, he fixed his glare on the trunk. “Here I go. Hidden secret—” At that moment, out of the corner of his eye, he could see a boy who had gotten bored and was playing with a soccer ball kick the ball right for Rentaro. “Argh!”

The start of his move was easily shut down, and Rentaro fell out of position and into a ditch headfirst. The sound of laughter filled the air. He couldn’t meet Enju’s eyes as he held his temple and shook his head.

“Lame! Super-lame! He couldn’t kill a beetle with that weak kick.”

A beetle…?

“I’ve had enough. Let’s go home and play Playstation.”

“Yeah!” the other kids chorused.

“H-hey, wait, you guys—” Rentaro’s pose was in vain, and Enju’s classmates left one by one, leaving Rentaro and Enju by themselves.

Enju started stamping her feet too late. “Drat it, come back! Rentaro really is amazing! He’s amazing at night, too!”

“G-give me a break…” Checking the time, Rentaro saw that it was still morning. But after all that, he didn’t think he could go back to sleep.

“Enju, is there anywhere you want to go?”

Enju’s face brightened in an instant, and she jumped up and down with joy. “Shopping!”

“Okay, okay. We’ll go, we’ll go!”

Getting off the crowded train that smelled of sour sweat, Enju pulled Rentaro’s hand and he stumbled forward as she dragged him to the toy store. And it wasn’t just any toy store—it was a large-scale toy store that rented out a whole floor of a large electronics store. Because it was a weekend, it was crowded, and there were many people who brought their families.

Looking at a child who screamed coquettishly sandwiched between her parents, who were holding her hands, Rentaro wondered how he and Enju looked to other people.

Rentaro played around with a toy block puzzle sample, and as if his hands remembered the sensation, he was gradually filled with a sense of nostalgia. “It was a long time ago, but I used to play with stuff like this with Kisara. It’s kind of unexpected that you’d like this sort of thing, too.”

“My business is with these things over here.” As she said this, she pointed her finger at the cartoon merchandise section where an extra-large IMOD display stood.

Rentaro could read the words Tenchu Girls written in a decorative font. Now that he thought about it, wasn’t Enju talking to her classmate about this show yesterday?

“What’s this show about?” he asked.

He then regretted asking about the show even though he wasn’t actually interested because Enju turned to him and said, “Wanna know?” with glittering eyes.

Summarizing what Enju told him triumphantly, the story was about Oishi Kuranosuke Yoshiko (magical girl), whose foster father, Asano, was killed. Swearing revenge, Yoshiko gathered forty-seven warriors (magical girls) from around the country to raid the Kira estate. Apparently, it was an epic, long-running cartoon.

He had heard something about how “Ako samurai magical girl shows” had become popular recently. “Even though it’s a magical girl show, it’s a story about revenge?” he said.

“Aha, but that is what’s good about it,” said Enju.

“I-I see…” He looked toward the sword in the special section. It was a sharp, silver Japanese sword where only the handle had been made to look like a magical stick. Apparently, it was called the Stick Blade. Watching the trailer, he saw the atrocious face of the heroine, Tenchu Red, as she screamed, “Dieeeee!” and swung her large war sword.

Rentaro couldn’t tell what they were going for. Besides, they didn’t use magic at all. Looking at the price tags of the Stick Blade and magical girl costumes in the most prominent part of the display, he involuntarily let out a groan. “Why are they so expensive…?”

“Expensive? They seem normal to me. I will buy it with my own money, so you do not have to worry about your wallet.” Enju said just that over her shoulder and then started looking through the large piles of merchandise.

“What do you think of this?” What Enju eventually brought to show Rentaro was a bracelet. It had chrome silver-plating over an engraved design. It was probably made of aluminum or something, since it felt very light when he held it.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s the bracelet that the Tenchu Girls wear. It’s proof that the forty-seven warriors are friends, and it cracks when a friend tricks another friend or lies to them, so they can tell when a friend is lying.”

“Oh? Sounds like the folktale of the broken mirror.”

“What’s that?”

Rentaro explained. “It’s a story I heard from Doc a long time ago. It’s a folktale about a couple who lived apart, so they broke a mirror in half and each took a piece as proof that they would meet again. However, the wife broke her vows and cheated on her husband. And so, the mirror broke and turned into a bird that flew to where her husband was, and in the end, they divorced. Now, Aihara, what is the moral of this folktale?”

“It’s to not get caught cheating, sir!”

“Huh?”

Enju put her chin in her hand. “But they are kind of similar. That broken mirror thing must have stolen the idea from Tenchu Girls.”

“It doesn’t matter who stole the idea from whom. By the way, how much is that?”

“6,980 yen. It’s so cheap!”

“That’s expensive! That’s two months’ worth of food for me.” Rentaro didn’t even have a chance to stop her before she went to the register and bought it.

“Here, Rentaro. Put this on your arm, too.”

“What, me, too?”

“It’s a pair of bracelets. Who will wear it with me if not you, Rentaro?”

Seeing that Enju put it on her right wrist, Rentaro also started putting it on his right wrist, but then changed his mind and put it on his left.

Enju smirked as she looked at him.

“Wh-what?” he said.

“We match now, like a couple. Now you cannot deceive me or lie to me. Cheating with another woman is forbidden. If you become charmed by Kisara’s breasts, the bracelet will crack, as well.”

“What? I, Rentaro Satomi, love Enju Aihara…,” he said sarcastically. “It didn’t crack.”

“That’s because it’s the truth.”

“Damn it, is that how you’re gonna take it?”

After they left the department store, they walked hand in hand talking about nothing in particular. It was mostly Enju nattering on about something, and Rentaro nodding and agreeing with her, but he felt the gloom from the day before lift just from talking to her.

Rentaro stopped suddenly, seeing the Seitenshi on one of the TVs in the street. It looked like recorded footage from a news show, and her stern expression was completely different from the day before. She was talking about how she was planning to propose another bill to respect the basic human rights of the Cursed Children, the much-talked-about New Gastrea Law.

Rentaro wondered if the bill would pass. He fervently hoped that it would. Rentaro squeezed Enju’s hand, which was still in his.

Just a short while ago, it was normal for Cursed Children to be delivered in secret alongside a river, then killed before they could even open their eyes, and because of their incomplete regeneration abilities, they often became the target of their parents’ extreme abuse. It was also said that parents with Gastrea shock—an aftereffect of the war where a person would go into shock if they saw red eyes—could not even look their own children in the eyes. Also, because the shape of their DNA was contaminated by the Gastrea virus, even if a paternity test were conducted, it could not be proven that they were related by blood. Because of this, there were those who even went so far as to wonder whether or not they were human.

Since pretty much all of the generation that experienced the Great War, the Stolen Generation, had the potential to practice prejudice against the Cursed Children, there were extremely few who could be called these girls’ allies.

Honestly, Rentaro thought the problem was more than he himself could bear. If the top official of Tokyo Area was a person who understood their circumstances, he wanted to welcome her with open arms. In fact, he would rather just leave everything to the Seitenshi.

“Oww, Rentaro. Let go of me,” said Enju.

He suddenly came back to the present and let go of the hand he had been holding. When he looked, the news had already moved on to the next topic, and Enju was looking up at him with a confused expression on her face. “Sorry, I was out of it. Let’s go.”

As he turned, he noticed a crowd had formed on the other side of the street. As he tilted his head, wondering what was going on, he heard an angry roar from the other side of the street that made the ground shake, and the thirst for blood emitted by the gathered onlookers drifted over to where he and Enju were. He didn’t know why, but he had a bad feeling about this and stood, unable to move.

The only reason Rentaro, who was completely average in athletic and shooting ability, had been able to survive this long as a civil officer was that his hunches were never wrong. That hunch told Rentaro to get away from this place as quickly as possible. “Enju, it’ll take a little longer, but let’s go home from the other side—”

“Catch her!” At almost the same time a rough voice screamed these words, the crowd broke apart and a single girl ran out. The girl was carrying a supermarket basket full of food. The logo on the basket was from a large chain that Rentaro had also been to before.

When the girl looked at Enju and Rentaro standing in her way, she stopped suddenly. Rentaro couldn’t move, feeling as if he had been bound hand and foot. She was wearing a denim skirt with a leather belt and a tasteful white tunic. However, her face was sooty, and her clothes bore similarly sooty stains that made it unclear when the clothes had last been washed, and there were signs of repairs in many places. Like the food she was currently hugging close to her, they had probably also been stolen.

He could tell at a glance that she was a child who lived in the Outer District. In addition, the girl’s eyes that reflected Rentaro and Enju were wine-red. Like Enju, she was one of the Cursed Children.

The countless hands that reached out from behind ended their long face-off. When the grown men and women used their hands to violently push down her back, even Rentaro could hear the sad creak of her bones clearly. The fruits and vegetables fell out of the basket around Rentaro’s feet.

“Let go!” The girl’s handsome face, which had been forced to lick the asphalt, twisted, and she bared teeth like a tiger’s as she thrashed and raged. Not a single onlooker had pity for her.

“You thief! You’re the trash of Tokyo Area.”

“All right, good job! Take that, you stupid Gastrea.”

“Shut up! Stop screaming, you murderer.”

“If only you Red-Eyes didn’t kill all my relatives…”

“Go to hell, you Red Devil!”

Rentaro tapped the shoulder of someone near him. “Hey, why is she…?”

“What do you mean, why? That brat stole food and then half-killed the security guard who tried to stop her!”

Looking at Enju’s face, it was pale, as he expected, and she was shaking. At that moment, the girl whose name they didn’t even know looked at Enju.

As long as one of the Cursed Children hid her red eyes, she looked just like a normal girl on the outside. That was why there was no way she could have known that Enju was one of the Cursed Children by looking at her. But for some reason, the girl looked at Enju and reached out her freed hand, asking for help.

Rentaro quickly brushed that hand away and glared at her. Stop it. Don’t get Enju involved.

The girl drew a sharp breath and looked at Rentaro’s expression, her fear clearly showing.

“What in the world are you all doing?” At the moment, police officers cut through the crowd to settle the situation. The pair consisted of a skinny man with glasses and a well-built man with a crew cut. Rentaro calmed his heart, thinking inside that this lynch-mob-like situation would finally end. However, the police officer with glasses let out a cold “Oh” as he saw the now-silent crowd holding the girl down and lording it over her. Forcing the girl to her feet, strangely without even really asking the people around what had happened, he put handcuffs on her wrists.

Giving the dumbstruck Rentaro a sideways glance, the man with the glasses saluted a representative of the crowd with thanks, pushed the girl into the police car, and drove off. Did that police officer really know what crime the girl had committed?

After the girl disappeared, the onlookers dispersed in twos and threes after grumbling to themselves. It all happened in a flash. Afterward, only Rentaro and Enju remained. There was no helping it. There was nothing he could have done about it. Feeling uncomfortable, he pulled Enju’s hand to go home. As he did, he looked to his side, surprised. Enju had her hands in fists and was glaring at Rentaro.

“Why didn’t you help that girl, Rentaro?!” she shouted at him.

Rentaro was overpowered. Her eyes had turned a pale red. The people who were scattering looked back their way with suspicious expressions on their faces. Rentaro felt shaken but forced it down inside. “It’s nothing,” he said, willing them to believe him.

Rentaro took Enju’s arm and pulled her into an alleyway between two buildings. From the exhaust pipe came a smell that bothered him. “It couldn’t be helped, Enju. Under those conditions, if they found out your identity, they would have lynched you, too.”

“But you hit away the hand of someone asking for help!” she said.

“There are things that I can and cannot do! Besides, what she did was definitely a crime! Even if the environment of the Outer District is bad, it’s still illegal to commit a crime.” Without thinking, he replied with logic even though he knew it would only put fuel into the fire of Enju’s anger.

Enju shook her head fiercely. “That’s just an excuse. If you wanted to save her, you would have been able to. You are a champion of justice. There is nothing you cannot do!”

“Don’t force your childish illusions on me. I can’t do anything… I can’t do a single thing.” With that, Rentaro suddenly returned to himself. Enju was holding back her sobs as she cried. As he reached out his hand to her shoulder, she stepped away from him.

“Hey, Enju… Could it be… Did you know her?” he said, unsure.

But Enju nodded as she cried. “When I lived in the Outer District, I saw her around. I never talked to her, but she remembered me, too.”

“I can’t believe it. But… But when I hit her hand away, I was desperate. I wasn’t thinking that deeply into it…” Rentaro couldn’t talk anymore after looking at Enju’s eyes. He asked the conscience in his own heart. He didn’t need much time to make a decision. “Enju, can you go home by yourself?”

“Huh?” she said.

Before he knew it, his legs were moving on their own. He dashed out of the alley, and looking quickly left and right, his eyes rested on a boy riding a scooter waiting at a traffic light. Tapping him on the shoulder and making him turn around, Rentaro immediately flashed his civil officer license. “I’m a civsec officer. A Gastrea has appeared in the area, and I need to borrow your scooter.”

“H-hey, wait. What’re you talking about?” said the boy.

“Looking at your build, you’re still in middle school, aren’t you? Think we can settle this peacefully?” Getting agreement from the flinching boy, Rentaro took the scooter from him violently. With a roar of the engine, he made a U-turn and turned it to face the direction the police car had gone earlier.

He didn’t put on a helmet, and he ignored the traffic laws. If he were stopped, he could thrust his civsec license in their faces and make them understand the situation, but he would lose a lot of time.

Weaving dangerously through traffic, Rentaro’s heart was beating hard with nervousness about a danger worse than a collision. Why did the police take the girl away without asking the girl or the victim a single question? What was behind the excessively simplified procedure? Also, it looked like where Rentaro was heading now was not an important police station or even a local police station. If he kept going this way, he would get closer and closer to the Outer District.

Rentaro prayed to the god he didn’t even believe in. Please let me be worrying needlessly. Even as he thought this, the Monolith barrier that had looked so far away grew larger and larger, and there were traces here and there of buildings that had been destroyed and abandoned. The dark side of the flourishing Tokyo Area, the Outer District.

Just as he started thinking maybe he had passed them somewhere, he twisted around and discovered a police car parked next to a radio tower that had been bent in half. Rentaro put the brakes on about thirty meters before he reached it in order to keep from making too much noise. Then, he hid the scooter in what appeared to be the ruins of a gas station and approached carefully.

He wondered why he was sneaking around like this, but for now, he trusted his hunch. He approached the police car, going around through the dilapidated buildings in front of him and cutting in. The first floor of one of the buildings he passed through was only exposed steel beams, and the concrete walls inside were scraped away, with wallpaper and wiring drooping like a horror movie. When he touched it with his hand, something plasterlike peeled off and crumbled away. It was hard to believe that it had only been abandoned for ten years. It was dead silent around him, and there was no sign or shadow of people anywhere.

Crouching as he approached the police car, he peeked inside, but as he suspected, neither the girl nor the police officers were inside. Disgusted with himself for being inwardly relieved, he turned his attention to the radio tower facility, and began moving toward it. Going under the broken iron fence, he heard unexpected voices and hurriedly leaned his back against a nearby wall.

Slowly peeking around the corner, he saw the backs of the skinny spectacled officer and the crew cut officer. A little distance away, made to stand in front of the iron fence, was the girl from earlier, unmoving. She must have had some idea of what was going to happen to her, and turned pale and shook with uneasiness.

The officers with their backs facing him turned quiet, and Rentaro gulped in the uneasy atmosphere. As he frowned, wondering what in the world would happen next, the silence was suddenly broken by a gunshot.

Blood gushed from the girl’s head, and she fell to her knees. She slowly touched her head and looked at the blood that dripped from it, trying desperately to understand what had just happened. Then, like raindrops came a rush of bullets, and her stomach, chest, arms, and legs were riddled with holes. Her body twitched as if she had been shocked, and she was thrown into the iron fence behind her.

“Shit, she’s still alive?!” As the skinny spectacled officer approached her, he shot three more bullets into her head. The girl fell forward onto the ground, and as a torrent of blood flowed out from where she landed, she stopped moving.

Rentaro covered his mouth with both hands, swallowing the scream that wanted to spill out of him.

The police officers looked as if they had been cursed by something and looked left and right, quickly running away from the scene.

With shaking legs, Rentaro walked over to the girl, got on his knees, and put his hands together. Damn it, Rentaro cursed inwardly. Holding her upright, he hugged her, not caring about getting his clothes dirty. He could feel her body growing cold from blood loss, and Rentaro shook with the rage that welled up within him.

Wasn’t it the job of the civsec officers to bring justice to the innocent citizens? To protect the innocent citizens? And be a champion of justice? Damn it, why the hell did I just watch? I did nothing while a child was being murdered in front of my own eyes! What is right? What is wrong? Who is the enemy I should defeat, anyway?

Rentaro succumbed to his unbearable thoughts and shook his head vehemently. At that moment, the girl in his arms choked and coughed up blood. Rentaro opened his mouth slightly. She was alive. She could still be saved. Before he knew it he was running, the girl in his arms.

IT WAS AROUND 2:00 A.M.

In the spring night’s lingering chill, so unlike the daytime weather, Rentaro staggered home. He didn’t know if it was from exhaustion or not, but he had an almost unbearable thirst and a pounding headache. A lot happened that day, so it could have been the aftershocks of everything.

Now that he thought about it, holding a thirty-something kilogram girl in one arm and driving a scooter took extraordinary strength, but in his desperation, he hadn’t felt her weight. It was probably the same as how some people drew out great strength during a house fire.

As soon as the girl reached the hospital, the ER doctors took her, and she disappeared into the operating room. As the operation took place, Rentaro sat on a chair in the hall being asked questions by another doctor. The doctor made an unpleasant expression when he heard that the girl was from the Outer District and had no relatives. Occasionally, if they operated on an orphan from the Outer District with no family registry, let alone insurance, they would not be able to get the operation fee from anyone, and the hospital would have to bear the cost. If Rentaro had not said he would cover the cost at that time, at the last moment, he probably would have been fed the transparent lie that there were no surgeons available.

At the end of the eight-hour-long operation, the girl narrowly escaped death. The fact that the bullets were small in caliber, that they were not Varanium but regular lead shots, that as one of the Cursed Children, she had miraculous powers of regeneration, and that she had a tough skull—if any one of those factors were lacking, she would not have been saved, the surgeon who operated on her explained. Thankfully, the graying doctor was someone who understood the circumstances. He said, “You should tell the police who it was who shot her as soon as possible,” but Rentaro only said good-bye with a bitter smile.

He was honestly glad that she had been saved, but he couldn’t completely rejoice when he thought of the operation fee and the cost of the hospital stay that he would have to pay later. On the highway in the middle of the night, Rentaro conscientiously stopped at the traffic light, but looking around, there were no signs of pedestrians or even cars anywhere.

After a while, he finally saw his eight-tatami-mat apartment. The lights were off. Of course, Enju would not be awake so late into the night, but he had hoped that maybe she would be, so he felt a tinge of loneliness.

“You seem tired, Satomi.”

He drew his gun reflexively and pointed it at the voice. Looking slowly behind him, there was a gun pointed at the tip of his nose, as well.

Before it had been customized, it had probably been a Beretta, and in the gas port at the top, there was a muzzle spike attached for close quarters combat. On the large stabilizer to reduce the kickback at the mouth of the gun, there was a bayonet housing attachment. There was also a long extension magazine with extra bullets. On the left side of the slide, there was a party seal that said, “Give the life with dignity.” On the right, it said, “Otherwise, give the death as a martyr.” Embedded in the grip was a medallion modeled after the evil god, Cthulhu. Sharp spikes covered the angles of the weapon. And the one holding the gun was—

“That’s an evil-looking gun you have, Kagetane Hiruko,” said Rentaro.

Kagetane laughed. “Good evening, Satomi.” The mysterious masked man in the tailcoat suddenly lowered his gun. Surprisingly, he had another custom Beretta in a different color. “This black one here is the machine pistol, Spanking Sodomy, and the silver one is called Psychedelic Gospel. My beloved handguns.”

“What do you want?”

“Actually, I came to talk to you. Won’t you lower your gun, too?”

“No.”

“Oh, dear.” Kagetane snapped his fingers with a click. “Kohina, cut off that troublesome right arm.”

“Yes, Papa.”

As Rentaro reflexively jumped backward, the sound of wind accompanied a lighting-speed slash that came at the place where Rentaro had been. Before he knew it, a girl wearing a black dress appeared next to Kagetane. Kohina made a troubled face and looked like she was about to cry. “Come on, don’t move, or I’ll cut off your head by accident,” she said.

Chills ran along his back, and he broke into a cold sweat. Crap, I couldn’t see her sword at all. The next time she attacks—

Again, Kohina kicked up a cloud of dust and disappeared from sight. Even straining his eyes, he couldn’t follow her movements. Rentaro thought he was done for and squeezed his eyes shut.

With a clang, two bodies collided in midair and were blown apart with the sounds of scraping. Surprised comments came from both sides.

“I couldn’t kick her?” said one voice.

“What? I couldn’t slash her?” said another.

“Enju!” Rentaro yelled. Next to Rentaro was Enju, with scorching red eyes.

“Rentaro! Who are they?” Enju asked.

“The enemy.”

Kohina stood with her two swords out as if protecting Kagetane. Her personality seemed to change 180 degrees from her earlier timidity, and she stood firmly on the ground with her Varanium blades crossed in her unique stance. “Be careful, Papa. That one over there… She’s strong. She is probably a kicking specialist Initiator.”

“Oh?” said Kagetane. “You must have a pretty good Initiator for Kohina to think so highly of her.”

Kohina screamed, “You little squirt over there. Tell me your name!”

Enju hopped up and down until her face turned red. “You are little, as well. How rude! I am Enju. Enju Aihara, a Model Rabbit Initiator!”

Kohina kept her face down and grumbled softly to herself. “Enju, Enju, Enju… All right, I’ll remember. I am Model Mantis, Kohina Hiruko. In close combat, I am invincible.” Kohina changed completely and pulled on Kagetane’s sleeve with a sad expression. “Um, can I kill the rabbit? I’ll just leave her head, so can I kill her?”

“How many times do I have to tell you, silly girl,” said Kagetane. “You may not.”

“Aw, I hate you, Papa!”

Kagetane said, “Oh, dear,” and fixed the placement of his silk hat, then turned back to Rentaro. “It looks like things have gotten complicated. Do you want to fight?”

Rentaro kept an eye on Kagetane without letting his guard down and looked around. They were in a residential neighborhood, so if they fought here, there would be more meaningless victims. After biting his bottom lip hard, Rentaro lowered his gun. “Hurry up and say what you have to say, moron. I’m sleepy and still have to study for a quiz next week.”

Kagetane snickered behind his mask and put his gun back in its holster, holding his arms wide open magnanimously with the moon as a backdrop. “Let me get straight to the point. Satomi, will you join me?”

“What did you say?!”

“For some reason, I’ve liked you ever since I first saw you. I thought it’d be a waste to kill you. If you join me, then I won’t.”

“I’m still a civsec officer, you know.”

“What of it? I am a former civsec officer myself. Unfortunately, there will soon be a wild storm that will bring Great Extinction to Tokyo Area. At the moment, I have some strong backup. If you become my ally, you can have money, women, power… I will give you anything you want.”

Rentaro did not say a word.

“Satomi, have you ever thought you wanted to change this unreasonable world? That the way Tokyo Area works is wrong? Have you ever thought that, even once?”

Before he knew it, the image of the girl whose name he didn’t even know resurfaced from the back of his mind. Her head flew back in slow motion, and blood spurted from her forehead. The blood dripped slowly, getting absorbed by the ground. There was the girl, with her eyes refusing to accept what happened, the police officers whose mouths twisted in evil pleasure, and Rentaro, too cowardly to run out to save her because he was afraid he would be killed to keep his mouth shut.

Seeing Rentaro’s hesitation, Kagetane pulled out a white cloth from his pocket and covered the ground, counting to three. When he pulled the cloth off, an attaché case appeared beneath it. “From what I hear, apparently, you are not doing very well economically.” Kagetane used his foot to slide the attaché case over to Rentaro. When the case stopped in front of Rentaro, the lid popped open. Inside, it was stuffed with stacks of bills. “This is just a small gift to express my feelings.”

Rentaro stared at the stacks of bills without moving an inch.

“I hear you make that Enju over there pretend to be human and have her go to school? Why would you do that? Those girls are the shape of the next generation of humans that have gone beyond the current Homo sapiens. The only ones left after the Great Extinction will be us, the strong. Join me, Rentaro Satomi.”

Rentaro kicked the attaché case back with all his strength and shot it three times with his gun. The case jumped, and the bills were riddled with holes. Some of them floated out of the case like petals.

Kagetane looked at the attaché case riddled with holes for a while. “You have made a grave mistake, Satomi.”

“Mistake? If I made a mistake, it was that I didn’t kill you when I first met you, Kagetane Hiruko!”

“Fool! Will you insist on completing your jobs till the end? No matter how hard you work for them, they will only keep betraying you.”

Rentaro glared at Kagetane. Kagetane glared back at Rentaro. Rentaro wasn’t sure how long this went on, but after a while, they could hear the siren of the police car coming to investigate the gunshots.

Kagetane sighed. “We will pick this up again later, Satomi. I don’t like doing things this way very much…but see what happens when you go to school tomorrow. You need to start looking at reality.” Throwing that last line at Rentaro, he took a big leap backward and melted into the darkness.

Staring in the direction Kagetane disappeared, Rentaro asked Enju, “What do you think of his Initiator?”

“She’s strong,” she said. “Frighteningly so.”

“Can you beat her?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see…”

The burden of Kagetane’s last words to him as they parted weighed down on Rentaro, and he couldn’t erase them from his memory.