Black Bullet - Volume 5 - Chapter 1.02

2

It was mid-August, and even with the Gastrea War decimating population figures worldwide, global climate change was still a serious problem.

The latest way it manifested itself was in the tundra—the eternally frozen land up north. Now that the permafrost wasn’t so permanent any longer, the animal and plant carcasses caught under the ice were starting to decompose, unleashing an astonishing amount of methane into the atmosphere and further accelerating the warming trend. The media were on it like hyenas, of course.

The human race was releasing only a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide that it used to, but they were still inheriting the cost for all the excesses of generations past. For all anyone knew, it was well beyond the point that anything could be done about it.

Even when operating at full blast, the air-conditioning unit back at the office could do little against the 39 degree Celsius temperature outside. The droning of the cicadas began to sound like a plea for help in the occupants’ ears.

At least it was quiet inside the office. Solemn, even, in a way. Tina, Enju, and Rentaro were at their seats, meekly examining one another as the sweat poured down.

In a corner of the Tendo Civil Security Agency, lit diagonally by soft light from the setting sun, lounge chairs were positioned around a glass table. It was meant for conducting conversations with paying customers, although in practice it wasn’t used for this purpose too often.

Kisara Tendo, wearing an apron tied over her school uniform, appeared through the noren curtain separating the lounge from the kitchen area, setting four plates on the glass table. The one placed in front of Rentaro emanated a sweet scent that found its way into his nostrils as the steam washed against his face. It was enough to make his stomach growl.

Settling down with her own plate, Kisara closed her eyes and put her hands together.

“All right, everyone. Ready to get started?”

Rentaro and Enju did the same, but just as they were about to tuck in, someone shouted “Wait a minute!” in a panic.

Tina looked around in abject bewilderment, then pointed at her plate.

“Um…what is this?”

Rentaro followed Tina’s eyes down to the object placed on her lily-white plate. It was shaped like a somewhat elongated diamond, laid upon the plate in all its purple, tuberous glory.

“What is it? …Well, it’s a potato, right? A sweet potato, to be exact. A perennial root vegetable from the family Convolvulaceae.”

“Th-that’s not really what I meant… I mean, is this all? This is all we have for dinner tonight?”

Kisara placed an index finger on her chin, having apparent trouble understanding Tina’s complaint. “Hmmm,” she muttered, before slapping a fist against her hand. “I got it! Just a minute, okay?”

Tina breathed a sigh of relief as Kisara ventured back into the kitchen. “Wow, President Tendo, you sure can be a prankster sometimes!”

Before long, Kisara cheerfully came back out, plinking a cup down in front of Tina.

“Here you go. A glass of tap water. All the seconds you want, too.”

Tina’s face stiffened for a moment.

“Uhhmm, President…? Is our agency really this short on money?”

“It’s desperate.”

“Wh-what’s on the menu tomorrow?”

“Bean and bean-sprout soup. Also, plain udon noodles. I’ve got some bread crusts that the bakery gave me for free, too.”

“What about the day after that?”

“Sautéed bean sprouts and bread crusts.”

“And the next day?”

“Bread crusts.”

Tina began to see a pattern emerge.

“Umm, and f-four days from now?”

Kisara, impressed that she even dared to ask, gave herself a confident thump on the chest and smiled warmly.

“Well, on the fourth day, I figure we’d change it up a little and go with fried bread crusts!”

“That’s the same thing!” Tina shouted. “Just because they eat fried food all the time in the US doesn’t mean I have to!”

This triggered a sudden mood swing on Kisara’s part. She stood up and slapped her hands against the table.

“What do you want from me?! We’ve completed exactly zero cases this month, too! I was preparing beefsteaks for all of us tonight, but Satomi’s such an idiot that we’re out the entire bounty! And we even had you on site this time, Tina…!”

Rentaro scratched the back of his head. He was certainly not expecting the Katagiri Civil Security Agency to scavenge his (okay, their) kill like that. The end result was all too clear, however: Today, the civsec experts at the Tendo agency were going hungry.

“But why,” asked Enju as she poked at her sweet potato with a finger, “are we always so penniless like this?”

“Yeah.” Tina nodded, seeing the logic in this. “Where’s our pay from the Third Kanto Battle, Kisara?”

The Tendo Civil Security Agency, after all, had at least three major jobs under its belt. The Kagetane Hiruko terror incident; foiling the attempt on the Seitenshi’s life; and more or less snapping victory from the jaws of defeat during the Third Kanto Battle. Each should have generated a nontrivial payment on its own.

Kisara looked oddly startled for a moment. Then she turned her eyes upward, cheeks reddening. “Listen, Satomi,” she mumbled. “I kept this under wraps until now, but about two months before the Hiruko case, our finances pretty much hit the limit and I couldn’t pay the lease on the office any longer. So I, uh… I kind of borrowed some money.”

“From where?” Rentaro asked, already dreading the potential answer. Kisara replied by bashfully pointing up at the ceiling. Their upstairs neighbors—Kofu Finance, the friendly neighborhood yakuza-funded loan shark.

“You might be too stupid to realize this,” Kisara dolefully continued, “but when you take out a loan, there’s something called ‘compounding interest.’ For example, let’s say I borrowed a million yen, right? After ten days, they’d apply ten percent interest on it, so now I have to pay back 1.1 million instead. Then, ten days after that, they add on ten percent of that 1.1 million figure…so then it becomes 1.21 million.”

That was all it took for Tina to put her hands to her face and start crying. Rentaro, for his part, closed his eyes tightly and silently apologized to her. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Tina. It’s not your fault our president is so clueless.

“What’d you use for collateral when you borrowed the money?”

“Y’organs.”

“Buh?”

Kisara said it a little too quickly for Rentaro to pick up.

“I said…your organs, Satomi. Like, Abe up there said your lungs and corneas and stuff would go for a lot of money, so…”

“Wuh?”

Kisara, cheeks still flushed, put her hands on her hips. “Look, you’re my employee, Satomi,” she sulked. “I’m the president, and that means you’re mine. Plus, you get to work for one of the cutest presidents out there. A cornea or spleen or two is more than a fair price for that!”

Rentaro stared at Kisara. There were no words.

—Did I just have this girl I like order me to hand over my internal organs?

Enju looked equally disgusted, but in another moment her eyes were back down upon her plate.

“So these potatoes…”

Kisara ran a hand up through her black hair. “Uh-huh,” she intoned. “Kind of the Last Supper, if you know what I mean. Starting today, it’s nothing but bean sprouts and bread crusts, day in, day out. By which I mean six days, because starting day seven, we’re gonna have nothing but water to live on. I hope you enjoy all the luxury I’m giving you tonight.”

The group listlessly stared at the sweet potatoes on each respective plate. A sudden quiet descended upon the office.

Enju silently raised a hand. “I have a suggestion on how we can split these,” she said. “We should divide Kisara’s potato into thirds and give one piece each to me, Tina, and Rentaro.”

“Wh-why is that?”

“We three couldn’t survive three days without food or water, but with all the nutrients you have stored in your breasts, Kisara, I’m sure you’d be all right for at least a year or so.”

“Oh, a year without food or water, huh?” Now it was Kisara’s turn to raise her voice. “I’m not a monster! Besides, Enju, you’re always picking on me about my chest, but it’s not like this is all wine and roses for me! They make my shoulders all sore, there are never any nice-looking bras my size, I keep getting prickly heat all over them…”

Sadly, the pain Kisara’s gifts gave her was not shared with the others.

“Daaaaaahhhh!” Stricken by a sudden case of breast hysteria, Enju lunged over the table toward Kisara. “If you don’t want them, let me take them from you! Give me back the boobs you sucked away from me!”

“Ow ow ow ow! Stop pulling at them, Enju! You’re gonna rip them off!”

Tina shot Rentaro a nervous look. Rentaro shook his head at her and sighed. “The hunger’s just getting us all worked up.” Then he turned toward Kisara, an offhand premonition crossing his mind.

“Hey, um, we are kind of the ‘saviors of Tokyo Area’ and everything, aren’t we? Shouldn’t that earn us at least a little more regular work?”

Kisara, finally a safe distance away from Enju’s ferocious attack, turned back toward him. “It is,” she said, her breath ragged. “Someplace on the east coast of the United States wanted us to eliminate a great white shark Gastrea that’s been appearing around the beach. Apparently it’s been chewing up all the local shark fishermen with gusto, and the local oceanographers and police chiefs don’t know what to do about it. How’s that sound to you?”

“It sounds like something we better leave to an underwater specialist. What else?”

Kisara ripped a page from the memo pad next to the office’s landline phone. “Here, I’ll read it to you,” she said. “‘They’re late with my food delivery again; do something about it.’ ‘I challenge Rentaro Satomi to a duel. Let’s find out which of us is the real man!’ ‘Hey, President Tendo [heavy breathing], what color panties you wearing right now [groan]?’ ‘Get this cockroach out of my closet!’ ‘I want you to kill that good-for-nothing housewife next door for me.’ …That kind of thing.”

A wave of hopelessness crashed over Rentaro. What do people think civsec officers do all day, anyway?

“Okay, well, do we have any other way to make money?”

“You could always work at the gay bar on the first floor, Satomi. They said they’d start you at 8,000 yen an hour.”

“Why don’t you work at the cabaret on the second floor, Kisara? They said they’d give you 10,000!”

“……”

Between the yakuza on the fourth floor, the den mother running the cabaret on the second, and the strapping lads behind the bar on the first, there was something about the Happy Building that kept its tenants either slaphappy or trigger-happy all the year through. Rentaro, given the choice, preferred not to deal with them.

“Still,” Enju murmured, her face harboring serious contemplation. “We might not be wrapping up any jobs, but I heard the number of Gastrea sightings is creeping up.”

Rentaro nodded at the observation. “Yeah. A little too much, if you ask me.”

Whenever a Gastrea was sighted or caught on a security camera, an alert mail was automatically sent to all civsec officers within a ten-kilometer radius. From there, it was an all-out first-come, first-served Gastrea competition. Agencies may have occasionally worked with one another, but generally, whoever struck the killing blow first would get the entire bounty from the government.

That was how civsec agencies kept the books balanced—never receiving formal requests, just hoping the right Gastrea crept along at the right place and time—but the sheer number of incidents lately was getting crazy. The alerts would force Rentaro out of bed in the middle of the night, its shrill, piercing beep even going off during class before summer break began, making his teachers want to stab him.

None of these invaders had triggered a Pandemic yet, thanks to a citizenry well used to evacuation and a herd of civsecs always rushing to the scene in time, but the sheer numbers would put anyone on edge. And to someplace like Tendo Civil Security Agency, getting tossed this way and that by all these alerts and always missing out on the kill by the barest of margins, it was starting to become downright frustrating.

“Is there another Monolith problem, maybe?”

“No way.”

Rentaro was quick to reject Kisara’s question, but his voice trailing off showed that he wasn’t too convinced himself. The previous Third Kanto Battle took place because of a defect in a Monolith, something thought to be impervious to damage. It was a completely avoidable, manmade disaster.

The only sure thing when it came to security was that there was no such thing as a sure thing. It hadn’t even been a month since Tokyo Area paid a dear price for failing to realize that.

The eyes of the agency’s employees wandered over to the window. On the other side, draped in a dark red, the line of Monoliths stood tall, their tops hidden by a line of clouds.

“This really doesn’t taste good…”

Turning back, Rentaro found Tina chewing on the potato, her face puckered. Enju, driven by curiosity, took a bite herself, only to bunch up her face and stick her tongue out.

“Nnh! This isn’t cooked all the way through.”

“Um, really?” said a confused Kisara.

Enju sighed. “Kisara, you should really have Rentaro teach you how to cook sometime. For real.”

The sheltered little rich girl shrugged despondently in response. After a moment, she dejectedly turned her eyes upward.

“Could you?”

“Uh, sure.”

With another deep sigh, Kisara dragged her feet over to the reproduction of some Klimt masterpiece across from her ebony-colored desk. Slipping her hand behind it, she took out a thin envelope.

“All right,” she said, burying a 10,000-yen note in his hand. “Here. My private stash, if you want to call it that. Go buy something with this. You can have Enju and Tina do the shopping.”

The two girls’ faces sparkled with joy.

“We’ll try to keep it as cheap as possible!” Enju said with a wave as she took Tina out of the office.

The sound of them clanging down the stairs faded away, silence reigning once again. It was half past seven in the evening. The wretched-sounding drone and clicking of the evening cicadas filled up the emptiness, and across from the now deep purple sky, the last weak rays of sunshine were dimly lighting the room. Once the sunlight disappeared for good, a nearly full moon drifted into the heavens, the LED lights bordering the signs beyond the window began to systematically flicker into existence, and the Magata neighborhood found new life as a town of the night.

The moldy smell seeped into the room from somewhere.

“We’re alone.”

“We are.” Rentaro stole a glance at the side of Kisara’s face. “And?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you send the girls out shopping because you wanted to talk to me?”

“Well, sort of.”

With practiced hands, Kisara untied the apron behind her back and shook her hair a bit. There was the sound of rustling clothes as the apron fell to her feet. She picked it up and, with the echo of her slip-on loafers, walked over and sat on her ebony work desk, a tad forlorn as she looked at Rentaro.

“Listen, Satomi… I’ve been offered an arranged marriage.”

She looked at the surprised Rentaro, then back down at her feet as she began swinging her long, thin legs back and forth.

“It came to me through Shigaki. I told him I didn’t want anything like that yet, but he’s done a lot for me, so I couldn’t just turn him down…”

Through Shigaki, huh…? Having that name brought up left even Rentaro in a weak position. Senichi Shigaki, once a butler at the Tendo residence, was probably approaching fifty-six years old this year. He had known Rentaro and Kisara since back when they lived in the Tendo manor. Even after he retired, he had helped them through all sorts of issues in their lives.

Most important, though, was that (on paper) he was the manager of the Tendo Civil Security Agency, not to mention Rentaro and Kisara’s more-or-less legal guardian. They owed him a lot. She couldn’t dismiss his offer out of hand.

“But why now?”

Kisara had long been disinherited from the Tendo family will. If she was still considered a Tendo woman, it wouldn’t be unusual for her to be forced into a succession of arranged (or even forced) marriage proposals starting at sixteen—a sort of modern human sacrifice still prevalent in Japanese high society. But now that she was de facto not a Tendo, she could no longer effectively function as a tool for a strategic marriage.

What were Shigaki’s aims, making a request like that? Kisara seemed to understand Rentaro’s doubts, but merely shook her head in response. “I don’t know. But you’d know the guy pretty well, Satomi.”

“I would?”

Kisara took a piece of paper out from the desk and gave it to Rentaro. The moment he saw it, he felt a jolt of surprise.

“Atsuro Hitsuma…? …Why?”

The headshot, printed upon the fancy cotton paper used for the résumé-like introductory papers, stared blankly in response. He was somewhat oval-faced, wearing silver-framed eyeglasses and projecting an air of intellectual ease.

“We must have both been eleven, right? The last time we saw Hitsuma.”

Sliding his eyes down, Rentaro saw that he was a police superintendent, working at Tokyo’s metropolitan police department after passing the civil-servant exam. His whole family was in law enforcement, his father the commissioner of the entire force. A brilliant record, all written down in elegant block-style lettering.

He seemed like the embodiment of the perfect man—tall, handsome, highly educated, well paid. But before any of that…he used to be Kisara’s fiancé, too.

“I thought the whole thing was broken off after you left the family, Kisara.”

“I know. So did I. What could Shigaki be thinking at this point…?”

Rentaro could feel something spread out from his chest—something he couldn’t describe, but wanted none of. He didn’t want to hear anything else from her—for some reason, he was seized by an impulse to get up and walk out of the room immediately. But instead he silently handed the résumé back to Kisara, acting like it was nothing.

“So when’re you gonna meet him?”

“…Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

Which meant the proposal must’ve come a long time ago.

“So you’ve already agreed to meet, or…?”

Kisara twirled her hair around her finger as she averted her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to hide it or anything. It was just kind of hard for me to say it…so I wound up dragging it out all the way to today.”

Rentaro realized he had been unconsciously clenching his fists so hard that he could feel his nails against his skin. Kisara lifted her head.

“I want you to be there for me, Satomi. As my attendant.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Hitsuma is going to have his mother and father as attendants, and Shigaki was going to act as both my manager and attendant, but I still need someone else. I don’t really have anyone to ask besides you, so… Please. I know this is unusual, but would you mind accompanying me to the meeting?”

“……Fine by me.”

“Really? Good.”

The beauty in black breathed a sigh of relief, but still anxiously darted her eyes back toward Rentaro.

“What do you think, Satomi?”

“What…?”

“Are you, like, against it?”

Of course he was. Just imagining Kisara being held in the arms of another man made him feel sick to his stomach.

But Rentaro knew well enough by now. This was Kisara Tendo. A proper girl, from a proper family. The class system may have disappeared from modern Japanese society long ago, but among super-rich families like the Tendos, things hadn’t changed much.

If she was a Tendo girl, it was only common sense that she would marry the scion of another suitably wealthy family. The idea of her running off with some stray dog instead was preposterous. Ever since it was founded, the Tendo family had never allowed a single exception to this ironclad rule.

Practically speaking, Kisara should never have even exchanged words with the mere adopted child she shared a home with—nor had any other personal connection, for the rest of either of their lives.

That was something the Tendo private tutor imprinted deep into Rentaro’s mind from the moment he was taken in, almost to the point of brainwashing. “Listen,” she would say. “Tendos aren’t like regular people. Don’t you dare catch yourself acting like you’re one of them.”

“…I think it’d be a good match. If it works out okay and you wind up being happy with it, I bet Enju and Tina would love that.”

“You, too, Satomi?”

Light reflected from a passing car’s high beams streaked across the room for an instant, bathing Rentaro’s and Kisara’s heads in white light. He looked up, straight at Kisara.

“Of course.”

For some reason, the reply made Kisara lower her head, her face like a wounded animal. After a moment, she forced a smile, trying her best to bottle it up.

“Yeah…I guess so. It’s not like we were ever exactly a pair or anything, besides. I’m acting pretty stupid, aren’t I?”

She gave herself a light bop on the head and stuck out her tongue, determined to laugh it all away.

That was the last straw.

“Hey, I’m gonna go look for Enju and Tina. I’m kinda worried about them.”

Rentaro turned around as he finished, going through the office door before he could hear whatever Kisara said in response.

As he quickly descended the staircase, trying his hardest to leave the Happy Building as fast as humanly possible, he felt a small jolt in his right shoulder. His mind was so occupied with Kisara that it took him a beat before he realized who he had bumped into.

“Hey! Hey, is that you, Rentaro?”

He looked up in surprise to find the face of a man, one who had only just begun to climb the building’s stairs. Traces of happiness streaked across that face. He was young, maybe about Rentaro’s age. His face was long, his brow broad, and his hair a shade between brown and orange. His pointed gaze gave him the look of a street thug, but something about his smile made him seem oddly charming when he flashed it.

Rentaro combed his memory—he looked familiar to him. The man before him began to overlap with the face of a boy from his memory. He let out a yelp.

“Wait, are you Suibara? Kihachi Suibara, year four, class five, seat ten?”

That was apparently the right answer. The man gave him a broad grin and stuffed his hands into his jeans. “Yuh-huh…Rentaro Satomi, year four, class five, seat nine…” Before he could finish saying it, Suibara’s arms were around Rentaro. “Damn, it’s been years!” he exclaimed. “Hope you’ve been doing good, you bastard!”

“Y-yeah, you, too.”

Rentaro’s vision lurched to and fro as this unexpected old friend jostled him in his arms. But instead of enjoying this almost too-perfect chance encounter, another sensation made the hairs on his neck stand on end.

He looked up at the roof of the building in front of him. “But, Suibara, what are you doing here? You haven’t started cruising cabarets or gay bars at age sixteen or anything, right…?” He noticed the Rolex on Suibara’s wrist as he spoke. “And I guess you aren’t poor enough that you’re borrowing money from the yakuza, either.”

“Of course not, you dumbass,” an astonished Suibara replied, eyes half-closed.

“So—”

Suibara thrust a thumb toward his face.

“You guessed it! I’m here to visit the Tendo Civil Security Agency. I’m a client, Rentaro.”

—A client? This childhood friend that he hadn’t spoken to in years was a client? Between this and Hitsuma’s name coming up a moment ago, a lot of old friends were popping up in the oddest of places.

Suibara shrugged at the notably bewildered Rentaro. “Well, we ain’t just gonna stand by the stairs here, are we? Show me where your company is!”

“Um…”

Rentaro hesitated. He had just half-forcibly ended a conversation with Kisara and all but sprinted out of the office. Something told him trudging back up wasn’t a good idea right now.

He shook his head. No. I gotta get this client back to our place. Why am I acting so guilty about this?

Leading the way for Suibara, Rentaro stood before the Tendo office door. It was already dark out, but there was no sign of a light inside. Pushing the door open, he saw Kisara sitting in her office chair, staring forlornly out the window. Once she noticed them, she shot back to her feet and bounded up to them.

“Oh, good, Satomi,” she gasped. “I was thinking about some stuff just now, and—!” She stopped abruptly, presumably noticing Suibara behind him.

Rentaro could barely stand the awkwardness of it all, but kept it off his face. “I got a client,” he whispered.

Kisara, looking happy about something else up to now, froze. She hung her head back down, as if heartbroken.

“Oh…”

What the hell? Rentaro thought. A few hours ago, you were practically pleading for a client to come in through the door.

Suibara hurriedly intervened. “Um, I’m sorry, did I come at a bad time or something?”

Kisara shook her head before Rentaro could open his mouth. “No, not at all. Good evening. My name’s Kisara Tendo, and I’m the president.” With a shallow smile, she extended a hand. Suibara, a surprised look on his face, gingerly accepted.

“Uh, hello. I’m Kihachi Suibara.”

“Come on in. It’s kind of dirty, I know, but…” Kisara pushed a button on the remote she had stationed on the desk. Dazzling light poured from the ceiling, making Rentaro instinctively squint.

Pictures drawn by Enju and Tina were strewn around the room, and the would-be dinner of sweet potatoes and nothing else was still laid out on the table. Kisara’s show of humility was clearly anything but a show as the full state of the office came into view.

“I’m sorry. I’ll clean this up in a sec…”

“Oh! No, actually, about that…” Suibara paused a moment before continuing. “I’d prefer to talk to Rentaro alone about this job, actually. Sorry if that’s weird…”

Rentaro and Kisara exchanged glances, and he silently signaled her to leave. The request seemed baffling to him, but he could hardly turn this guy down now. He gave an affirmative nod to Suibara, who nodded back in agreement.

“All right. I’ll go look after Enju and Tina, then.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Once he was sure Kisara was out of sight downstairs, Rentaro cleared the dishes and sat across the table from Suibara. The young man propped his arms on top of the backrest, clearly at ease.

“That’s Kisara Tendo, huh? Man, you were head over heels for her back when we were all kids, weren’t you? She’s gotten dang pretty since then. That’s the most beautiful girl I ever saw in my life, even.”

Rentaro silently agreed. Between his encounters with people like Miori Shiba and the Seitenshi herself, he had run into a lot of women with sirenlike beauty. They had lived long enough together that it would occasionally slip his mind, but to Rentaro, the sight of Kisara side by side with Miori or standing alongside the Seitenshi was always such an embarrassment of riches for him that it’d often take his breath away. And now this beauty was going to discuss a marriage proposal with Atsuro Hitsuma tomorrow. Rentaro shook his head to clear his mind of the distractions plaguing it.

“So, what did you need?”

Suibara studied the office around him like a curious archaeologist. “Oh! So, hey, do you remember how it was when we first met?”

“Hmm? Yeah, I do…”

If he closed his eyes, he could instantly transport his mind back to the fourth year of elementary school. It was four years after Rentaro lost his right arm, his right leg, and his eye. Because he was still growing, he had to have his artificial limbs replaced frequently. The continual pain he experienced each day made him want to die at times.

The way he could hide his metal skin under an artificial human epidermis was a fairly recent invention in the grand scheme of things. In his younger years, during school and for every other hour of the day and night, Rentaro had to live with a pair of dull, black prosthetic limbs for all the world to see.

“Nobody wanted to come near me. They were all freaked out by this weird black arm and leg I had. But you weren’t. I think the rest of the class shunned you, too, right? Because there was one of the Cursed Children in your family.”

“Yeah. My little sister.”

The story of Suibara and his sister ultimately fell down a tragic path. Once the child’s presence was known to the general public, a lot of people naturally began to have a problem with that.

Their mother was the first family member to let it all break her down—the stones her neighbors lobbed through the windows, the filthy diatribes spray-painted on the fence. “If only she wasn’t here,” she’d whisper to herself over and over like a woman possessed—and, unfortunately, Suibara’s father kept a pistol inside a locker at their home for self-defense. Everything was in place for a tragedy.

“We were together in our loneliness,” Rentaro said in profound tones. “That’s why we started hanging out and playing with each other.”

“Yeah!” Suibara excitedly added. “You knew a ton about stuff like fish and bugs, and we’d go running around the hills and stuff. That was so much fun! It’s like just being with you helped me learn all kinds of things, y’know? Like how to catch crayfish with a string, or how to mount an insect specimen.”

His words were all it took to jog his memory. Soon they were sprung to life by the dozen, as if bursting out of a giant toy box. Back when he had no friends and couldn’t even leave the house freely, Rentaro would hole up in the Tendo family library and spend the entire day poring over full-color insect field guides and plant references. After a while, there was no one who could even hope to challenge his knowledge.

“Yeah, and I learned how to trash talk from you, didn’t I?”

Suibara beamed. “Yeah, I remember how you were all ‘to-mah-to’ when we first met.”

Rentaro turned away, cheeks red with embarrassment.

“Ah, shut up. Kisara was really sad once you started rubbing off on me, y’know. She was like, ‘Satomi’s talking like this criminal now!’”

“Oh, don’t give me that crap! Who’s the guy who started imitating me in the first place?”

“Ah, eat shit and die.”

“You first!”

Once their eyes met again, Rentaro and Suibara grinned at each other.

“Rentaro,” Suibara said, leaning forward on his sofa deep in thought and lowering his eyes down to his clasped hands. “It probably wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t show this to you first.”

The item he took out from a side pocket made Rentaro gasp. It was a black chunk of metal that made a clink when he put it on the glass table. He spotted a trigger attached to the dull matte-black frame. It was a sixth-generation Glock pistol, one where even the slide was made of a glass-fiber reinforced polymer to reduce the gun’s weight.

Why? was the first question that came to mind. The general public still wasn’t allowed to carry concealed weapons outside their homes. According to the laws of Japan in 2031, there were three types of people allowed to walk around armed in public: the police, members of the self-defense force, and—

Suibara placed something else from his pocket on the gun: a synthetic leather rail-pass holder. Seeing the civsec license inside, complete with ID photo, gave Rentaro the biggest shock of the evening.

“Suibara, you’re a civsec?”

Suibara, grinning, tapped a few buttons on the cell phone in his pocket and showed it to him. The screen showed a photo of a girl, her hair done up in a bob cut, her averted eyes indicating she didn’t enjoy having her picture taken very much.

“Whoa, did you…?”

Failing to notice Rentaro’s astonishment, Suibara soldiered proudly on. “That’s my Initiator. Her name’s Hotaru Kouro, and, man, is she a cutie, am I right? I mean, my grandma used to say, ‘You’re so sweet, I could just eat you up,’ but now I think I get what she was talking—”

“Stop.”

Rentaro, his mind still a jumble, just barely managed to get the syllable out. Suibara’s sister was one of the Cursed Children. It had wrecked the entire family. The idea of him teaming up with another one of them and working the civsec beat was hard for Rentaro to swallow. What’s more, this job meant that he was all but completely dependent on his Initiator if he wanted to stay alive. It had to be a bitter pill.

“Is she…taking the place of your dead sister for you?”

The quiet question made Suibara peevishly turn his face away. “Nothing like that, no. What’s the big deal?” Then, after a moment’s pause, he placed an elbow on the table and rested his chin above it. “You wanna hear about this job for you, or what?”

Rentaro thought about that. A civsec hiring another civsec—subcontracting work, in other words—generally meant the client had a job that was too much work for him to handle alone. That often meant whoever he hired would get the short end of the stick paywise. But despite knowing that bit of conventional wisdom, something still told Rentaro there wasn’t anything conventional at all about Suibara’s job.

“Lay it on me.”

“Now we’re talking,” Suibara replied. But what he had for Rentaro next was a complete reversal of his light, friendly tone.

“So, Rentaro, like… You were the last guinea pig for the Ground Self-Defense Force’s enhanced-soldier project, right?”

This shock was enough to send Rentaro back to his feet.

Why did he know that? Maybe Suibara could surmise that Rentaro’s artificial limbs were black because they were made out of Varanium, but there was no possible way he could’ve connected that with the so-called New Humanity Creation Project.

“Bingo, huh?” Suibara murmured as he glanced sidelong at the stunned, wide-eyed Rentaro. But there was something close to regret on his face, like he’d just realized he was right when he had wanted to be wrong.

“So look, Rentaro, I picked up on some serious shit earlier. Have you ever heard of the New World Creation Project or the Black Swan Project? Either of those names, at least?”

“New World… Black Swan Project? …No.”

The “New World” Creation Project? What’s that? It sounded too close to the “New Humanity” Creation Project.

An ominous premonition started to build in Rentaro’s spine.

“Okay,” Suibara muttered in reply. Then he fell silent for a few moments, staring at the glass ashtray on the table. Rentaro waited patiently for him to go on.

“Well…I don’t know how much you’re aware of this, Rentaro, but among us civsec folk, you’re the subject of a lotta rumors. You were raised by the Tendo family, and I’ve heard that you got personal connections with Lady Seitenshi.” He paused, face turned upward. “So that’s what I’m here for. I want you to get me connected with the Tendo Group or Lady Seitenshi. I don’t care what it takes; I gotta get a person-to-person audience with either her or her aide, Kikunojo Tendo. We’re talking serious crisis mode for all of Tokyo Area, you know what I mean?”

“Is that connected to the projects you just mentioned?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no other middleman you can go through besides me?”

“No. If I try that, there’s no telling where they’ll hear about it.”

“Are you trying to blow the whistle about something? ’Cause if you have any evidence you can give me, I can make sure it gets to her.”

“…I’m sorry. My evidence got stolen.”

“Stolen?”

Suibara nodded grimly.

“My place has been broken into a few times lately. A few things were stolen, including the evidence. The only option I got left is to appeal directly to the Tendo Group or Lady Seitenshi as a living witness. I mean, you’re about the only guy left I can trust.”

This was no longer a friendly chat between old friends. Rentaro rubbed his fingers against his chin.

He had no particular vendetta against Suibara, of course. He’d like to help make that request happen, as much as he was able. The problem was how. Not only was he no longer technically related to Kikunojo; they hadn’t spoken a word to each other since their somewhat…strained conversation after the Kagetane Hiruko case. He doubted Kikunojo wanted to see him much, and the feeling was absolutely mutual.

But the Seitenshi? He literally had her digits. That connection, at least, seemed plausible enough.

“Let me float up one condition. I want you to tell me beforehand what you’d say to Lady Seitenshi.”

“Aw, c’mon, you don’t trust me?”

“We’re talking about the head of state, Suibara. I gotta be careful.”

“…Yeah, I guess so, huh?”

Suibara seemed open to concessions. But then he looked around the office, his body language betraying his uneasiness.

“…Hey, this room ain’t bugged or anything, is it?”

“Huh?”

“You know, bugged. Like, do you trust the guys who live above and below you?”

“Man, who knows?”

Rentaro’s eyes followed his conversation partner’s around the room. The floor and ceiling were surprisingly thin in this building. Sound had a way of traveling around. The walls were plain mortar, too, and it wasn’t exactly a wide margin between this building and the adjacent one.

In a rickety old dump like this, soundproofing would never be a priority. If someone had any sort of decent-grade listening device or parabolic microphone, Suibara’s right to client confidentiality would be worth about as much as a sheet of toilet paper.

“Okay,” Suibara said. “Not here, then. Tomorrow night… You know where they’re building the new Magata City Hall, right? Let’s meet there. But lemme make sure we’re straight on one thing: Once I tell you, you’re in, got it?”

The earnest truthfulness Rentaro saw in Suibara’s eyes made him shudder.

After proposing an exorbitant sum of money for Rentaro’s services, Suibara stood up from the sofa and prepared to leave. Rentaro stood up to see him off, and they chatted about assorted silly little things on the way downstairs.

It was completely dark outside, with women plying their trade and groups of drunken businessmen mingling on the congested city streets. The wind that beat against Rentaro’s skin bore the lukewarm heat of an August night.

Right in front of them, Enju, Tina, and Kisara had returned, their arms laden with well-stuffed shopping bags. They were excitedly laughing and poking at one another as they meandered along, apparently enjoying their night out to the fullest as the streetlights lit them from behind.

Suibara squinted, as if looking at a bright light, then slapped Rentaro heartily on the back. “Rentaro, I’m pretty sure they think you’re involved with me by now. Sorry I got you involved in this, but watch out, okay?”

“They?”

Suibara thrust both hands into his pockets and set off without another glance.

Watching him go, Rentaro realized that he still couldn’t figure out how to parse this within himself—this old friend he just reunited with after so many years. He could practically see lines of depression emanate from Suibara’s back. If this secret of his had to do with that, he would be fine with trying to get it out of him so that they could shoulder the burden equally.

Suibara tried to forget about his sister as soon as he could, way back when. Seeing him involved so deeply with the Cursed Children now was nothing less than astounding. Rentaro didn’t know what changed his mind about it all, but the Initiator taking the place of his sister… How did she feel about it?

Either way, there were several terms Suibara bandied around that Rentaro could never let go unexamined. There was time until tomorrow night. He had some avenues he could research.

“Mm? Did our client leave?”

Looking down, Enju was right next to him, grinning from ear to ear as she held up the spoils of her big night out.

“Look! We picked up all kinds of meats and vegetables on the pre-closing sales. Tonight we’re gonna have a yakiniku party with Kisara’s secret stash!”

Turning his eye toward Kisara, Rentaro realized she was sizing him up at the same time. They turned their eyes elsewhere with near-perfect timing.

Straining to keep the awkwardness from showing up on his face, Rentaro flashed Enju a smile. “Sorry, Enju, but I’m not hungry. You three can eat by yourselves.”

“Ehh?”

Enju’s expression froze. Gradually, it began to grow anxious.

“Why…is that?”

“Oh, no reason. It’s no big deal if a guy wants to eat by himself now and then, is it?”

With that, Rentaro turned around and walked off, making sure he didn’t accidentally catch a glimpse of Kisara’s facial expression as he did.