Black Bullet - Volume 5 - Chapter 1.13

13

The Magata Plaza Hotel was even more gaudy and ostentatious than what he was picturing. The lounge café, an open-air setup underneath the lobby’s vaulted ceiling, was separated from the rest of the world by a series of connected glass pieces, all in assorted geometric shapes.

A combination of recessed lights and a chandelier filled the space with warm orange light, the atmosphere tied together with the calm melodies of classical music.

A waiter made his way between the tables, each covered with a prim white tablecloth. Occasionally one would see men in expensive-looking business attire or pastel-colored Oxford shirts, entertaining their lady friends with impassioned discussions about what the Varanium industry would be like in ten years or whatnot.

Although it was theoretically open to the public, the café’s customers all seemed to be overnight guests. Perhaps this was a bad time after all, Rentaro thought, as he began to regret the uncharacteristic location he selected. The sight of a nervous-looking young man in a dirt-stained school uniform fidgeting by himself at one of these tables was bound to stand out a fair bit.

His mind was a frazzled mess, and not merely because of the cups of coffee he drank just to give his hands something to do. Looking at the clock on the wall, there were less than ten minutes until the appointed hour. He doubted the police could have targeted this hotel before the end of the evening, but looking back, opting for such a public place was hasty thinking on his part.

Rentaro was isolated, helpless. The police could figure out where someone like that would attempt to spend the night. He could rough it outdoors for a night or two, but sooner or later, he’d want a roof over his head again. Once he did, the first place they’d scope out would be hotels like these.

When the time hit twenty-five minutes after eight, Rentaro decided to ditch the café. He was too worried that something might’ve happened to Kisara.

“Are you eating alone?”

Rentaro’s face darted up at the voice. A smiling young man was peering down at him. He was about the same size as Rentaro and couldn’t have been much older. The navy-blue stand-up collar on his uniform looked familiar to him. It was from Nukagari High School in District 9, not far from where he lived. The smile seemed friendly enough. For someone like Rentaro, whose facial setup made it seem like he was faking every smile no matter how hard he tried, the warmth behind this one almost made him envious.

The mystery kid shook a deck of cards in front of his face.

“Care for some blackjack, maybe?”

“Uh, no, I…”

Before Rentaro could piece together a coherent response, the boy sat down across from him and dealt him two cards from the deck, turning one of them faceup—the king of clubs. Well, Rentaro thought, guess I missed my timing. Better just play a game with him, then shoo him away. He very reluctantly turned the other card. It was an ace of diamonds—and since an ace counts as eleven as long as the total doesn’t exceed twenty-one, this meant his total was twenty-one, a natural blackjack. The boy’s own cards totaled sixteen, so Rentaro won with absolutely no effort on his part.

The boy grinned and opened his palms wide. “Congratulations!” he said. “You’re just like what the rumors say, Rentaro Satomi. Guess you really do have the luck of the heavens on your side, huh?”

Rentaro’s shoulders twitched.

“Why do you know my name?”

The boy put the used cards into a separate pile and began setting up a second game. “If you’re looking for Kisara Tendo, she’s not coming,” he said indifferently.

Rentaro instinctively began to lift himself from his seat. “And you are…?”

The boy ignored the question, eyes on the game as he pointed at the deck—his signal for another hand. This irked Rentaro, but he still sat back down, figuring he wasn’t going to start swinging at him here in public. Picking up the corners of his facedown cards, he saw he had an eighteen—nothing worth taking a further risk on. Then his opponent revealed his cards. Another eighteen. A push.

The boy placed his elbows on the table and crossed his arms together, fixing his gaze on Rentaro.

“We went through all the trouble of taking care of Suibara and the Public Security guys and pinning the blame on you, but you’re just so stubborn, aren’t you? You keep running on us, so our entire blueprint’s about to fall apart. That’s pretty grave news for us. We’ve already decided on our script—Suibara tried to blackmail you, you killed him out of desperation. It’s a little too late for rewrites.”

“So are you—?”

“—The New World Creation Project. Nice to meet some of the old alumni. I was built to surpass you.”

It was like someone hit the side of his head with a hammer.

“That’s crazy…”

If Rentaro was pursuing a case that already cost the lives of Suibara and a Public Security officer, he was prepared to deal with not just the police, but other, more nefarious organizations. He didn’t know who was involved with it—he had only a hazy idea of its structure, really—but he was convinced it was far more dangerous than anything the police could do to him.

What he wasn’t expecting was for this assassin group to track him down less than two hours after his escape. He would’ve laughed it off at the time, but here it was, all laid out in front of him. The sight of this perfectly composed kid sharing a table with him was an utter shock. He fell silent for a moment. The boy picked up the slack.

“My code name is Dark Stalker, but my real one is Yuga Mitsugi. You can call me whichever one you like more. Glad to get to know you. I’ve been assigned to your execution.”

“That’s bullshit! The New World Creation Project never got off the ground!”

“So what does that make me, then?” Yuga said, the spite becoming clear in his voice. “Some kind of ghost? Satomi, we need you as a sacrifice. Tina Sprout’s going to be executed. Kisara Tendo’s going to be trained to destroy the Tendo family. Enju Aihara’s actually got her next Promoter assigned to her already. He’s a bad seed. A buddy killer. Worse than you’d ever imagine. And once you’re found guilty, the whole picture’s complete.”

So everything from the very start…

“I’ve been told to ask you this, so I will,” Yuga blithely continued as Rentaro gritted his teeth in anger. “Where is the memory card Suibara gave you?”

Rentaro stopped himself from asking What’s that? just in time. He had no memory of Suibara giving him anything like that. But his instincts told him that if his foes had the wrong idea, he needed to find a way to exploit it.

“If I give it to you, what’ll you do?”

“That’ll be your best way to assure this meeting ends as amicably as possible. It’ll give you the right to shut up and get back in your cage. You’ll get to keep your life.”

“That’s a load of crap, and you know it.”

Yuga laughed derisively at his conversation partner. “So that’s the end of negotiations?”

“We never started negotiating in the first place.”

“Well, I suppose that means I’ll have to kill you and strip it from you instead. Which is really stupid of you, you know that? I gave you a chance at survival and everything.”

Invisible sparks flew between them. They could have exploded at any time. Rentaro quelled his emotions and analyzed his enemy’s war power. Yuga, calmly seated in front of him, was average in size and height. His physique wasn’t much different from his own. His capabilities, though, were a complete unknown. If he was really part of the enhanced-soldier project, at least part of him had to be cybernetic.

If Sumire was correct, in fact, these were the guys who killed Kenji Houbara and Saya Takamura—the New Humanity Creation Project specimens who were completed ahead of Rentaro. People with real experience in the Gastrea War.

Losing this battle would mean New Humanity would be forced to completely submit to New World. For the sake of the dead, at least, he couldn’t afford to lose.

He made a tight fist beneath the table.

“Well, should we get started? Where did you—?”

Seizing the first move, he swung his leg and kicked the table upward.

The guests around them nervously shouted. Yuga’s surprised expression was soon masked by the table’s circular shape as it knocked itself over. Standing up, Rentaro planted his left foot on the ground, lowered his hips, and kicked the middle of the table with his right leg. From Yuga’s perspective, not only did the table block his field of vision—the obstacle was advancing upon him. There was no way he could dodge it.

—That conviction was why the sight of Yuga easily leaping high over the table and advancing upon his vision was something Rentaro failed to instantly react to.

Realizing he was about to unleash a flying kick, Rentaro promptly wrapped the tablecloth on the floor around his toes and kicked it up, sending it flying. The white cloth billowed in the air, catching Yuga’s body. The moment he used every bit of his agility to crouch down, Yuga’s kick scraped just past his ear.

Rentaro had only a moment to shake the sweat off before he adjusted his stance toward the cloth-covered, mummylike Yuga.

Tendo Martial Arts Second Style, Number 16—

“How about…this!”

—Inzen Kokutenfu.

The roundhouse kick, delivered with all his might, slapped home against the side of the struggling Yuga’s head. He was sent into the air, crashing into an adjacent table. Plates of dinner meals flipped into the air, and the shrill sound of shattering porcelain rang through the lounge. The guests’ shouts were escalating into a panic.

He felt he had something good going. But, in the next moment, it was Rentaro yelping in surprise.

Yuga wasn’t down. He had carved a pair of large gouges in the carpet as the kick drew him back, but he wasn’t knocked down—he had blocked it. No forward vision at all, and he blocked it. Unless he was tapping directly into Rentaro’s mind, that shouldn’t have been possible.

His adversary finally tore the tablecloth off his body. The moment Rentaro saw his face beneath, his eyes opened wide enough to nearly tear his eyelids off.

A pair of geometric shapes were laid over his irises, both rapidly spinning.

“That…that’s crazy…”

Both his eyes are cybernetic? That’s like saying he’s—

“Oof. Guess you noticed, huh? Didn’t I tell you I was built to surpass you?” Yuga, the very picture of calm composure, pointed a finger at his right eye. “This is the 21-Form Enhanced, an improved version of the 21-Form Varanium Artificial Eye. Compared to what you got, all of this model’s specs received major upgrades.”

“The 21-Form Enhanced…?”

Who did that?

The 21-Form Varanium Artificial Eye, developed by Sumire, was just one reason why she was hailed as one of the Four Sages. Your typical member of the scientific community, as he understood it, wouldn’t be able to decipher even its basic workings.

As he stood there in a state of near-total desperation, he heard someone say, “Um, excuse me, sir…” from behind Yuga’s back. He was a muscular hotel employee clad in a black suit, clearly a bouncer or something of the sort, and now he was placing a hand on Yuga’s shoulder in a belated attempt to restore order.

“I can’t have you brawling in here, guys; you’re interfering with other—”

With a sharp blam, the man spouted a fountain of blood as he arced through the air, flipped over and unconscious the moment he hit the floor. The backward punch Yuga unleashed without even turning around smashed cleanly against his chin.

“Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!”

There was a series of ear-piercing screams as the hotel guests, their panic unleashed by the sheer bizarreness of the situation, began to swarm toward the revolving door at the hotel’s entrance like an avalanche. Amid the echoing screams and shouts, only Rentaro and Yuga remained quiet, a distance away from each other as opponent sized up opponent.

Yuga reached down to his waist and took something out. It was no coincidence, perhaps, that it was almost exactly where Rentaro liked to keep his gun.

In Yuga’s hand now was a Browning automatic revolver, high-powered. Yuga raised it up, cocked it, and pointed the barrel forward, his squinting eyes focused on his prey. Rentaro could feel the murderous rage already. The shrill drone of the alarm drifted away as his mind immersed itself in the situation. He swallowed hard, his heart beating like a drum.

Ignoring for the moment the question of why he even had cybernetic eyes, Rentaro decided to consider his position. His own artificial eye was built for gunners’ work—to help him predict the path of a bullet, from the barrel to the target. But if his foe had the same capability, how effective would that remain? There were fewer than ten meters between them, but to him, it may as well have been a yawning chasm.

Quietly, Rentaro closed his eyes.

Don’t get scared.

Along with his keen, natural eye, his artificial one began its high-speed calculations. He could feel a burning pain behind his eyelid as it began to heat up. As Rentaro’s vision began to go into a bizarre sort of slow motion with the overclocking of his eye, Yuga’s finger tapped against the trigger and slowly began to squeeze. For a single-action weapon, it had a uniquely long and sticky stroke, a trademark of high-powered revolvers. With his focus turned up to maximum, Rentaro could even hear the trigger spring creak as it was being compressed.

Soon, the bar attached to the trigger did its work on the sear, the hammer swinging its way forward, the firing pin inside the breechblock striking the bottom of the cartridge.

Then, with an explosive flash, the bullet spiraled its way out of the barrel with 339 foot-pounds of muzzle energy, plowing its way straight toward him.

Rentaro calculated his escape route and started moving.

The sight of hotel bystanders screaming and crawling out the hotel door in a panic was quickly noticed by Inspector Tadashima, whose crew of officers was secretly staking out the building from the outside.

“Superintendent!”

Hitsuma, accepting the radio call from his director’s van, replied an “All right” and nodded to the man beside him. “Inspector, the commissioner just gave the order to deploy a Special Assault Team.”

“An SAT?! Do we really need to go that far?”

Hitsuma brought in a blue-uniformed special-forces captain. They saluted each other.

“Captain, I need you to bring your guys in. Take the fugitive dead or alive; just get the situation under control ASAP.”

“B-but, Superintendent Hitsuma, Lady Seitenshi said to not hurt the fugitive as much as possible…”

“I think we’ve got some wires crossed, Captain. I want you to shoot the fugitive down. You have my backup on that.”

Just then, a single gunshot rumbled its way across the hotel, as Rentaro Satomi and an unknown teenage boy began to wage battle in the middle of the lounge.

“What in the…?” Tadashima groaned.

The battle proceeded in bizarre fashion. The mystery kid would fire off a succession of shots, and Rentaro would step to the side or back to dodge them all. Not only that, but whenever there was an opening, he’d edge that much closer to his opponent. By the fifth shot, he was at point-blank range, the point where fists would decide the path of the fight.

Rentaro unleashed three punches from his arms. All of them would have ended the match right there, if they landed in the right place. The kid deflected them, retaliating with a high kick of his own. Rentaro bent his chin back to dodge it as he unleashed a horizontal chop designed to smash against his opponent’s throat.

It was a dizzying array of attacks, dodges, and further counters, like an elaborate martial-arts demonstration. The number of strikes offered by each fighter in the space of a single second made any side observer’s head swim. They appeared to be looking at each other, but in a way, they were both looking somewhere much farther off. When he realized they were simultaneously dodging attacks while piecing together a strategy for their next ten strikes, Tadashima’s entire body shuddered.

This wasn’t the sort of battle any human being could tag into.

What in the hell is going on?

Tadashima slipped a hand inside of his suit and tightened his grip on the revolver in his holster. He was going in after the first SAT assault.

Not that Tadashima could have known, but there was no way a battle whose participants could conduct the entire thought process—observation, comprehension, action—behind each move in a hundredth of a second could ever be stopped by a team of regular people, whose comparatively paltry muscle-reflex time never had a chance of reaching below 0.20 seconds.

The core processors behind each of their cybernetic eyes calculated furiously, straining near their maximum output to find a hole to exploit.

But, gradually, the battle began to demonstrate a certain one-sidedness.

“Gah!”

Taking a kick that made it feel like he was about to be reunited with the contents of his stomach, Rentaro found himself falling over a nearby upturned table. A flurry of glass shards rained upon him.

“We’re working with different specs here, okay? Different specs.”

Ahead of him, he could hazily see Yuga, calm and content as he opened his arms to him. Rentaro gritted his teeth as he stood up, readying himself for battle on unsteady legs. Yuga, observing his actions in detail, snorted.

“I know, Satomi. You’ve applied force to your right hamstring, your right femoral bicep muscle, and the ulnar extensor and ulnar flexor muscles on your left wrist. You’re planning to feint with a left and strike me with a mid-level kick, aren’t you? That’s gonna be a poor move, though. Once we exchange blows for the thirty-seventh time, I’m going to smash your skull bone to pieces. Checkmate.”

Startled, Rentaro tossed his accumulated tactical analysis into his mental garbage can and began to conceive a new strategy.

“Oh, are you changing gears now? That’s gonna be even worse. If you lunge at me to try to pin me down, I’ll break your jaw in ten moves or less. Checkmate.”

“No…”

The short circuit taking place in his brain made it impossible for Rentaro to even formulate a plan. He found himself edging back in fear.

Yuga lowered his stance, a self-assured smile on his face. The moment he did, a team of blue-suited assault troops streamed through the entrance and windows behind Yuga, charging for both of them.

The SAT? Why?

This was going too fast. The alarm bell only just started ringing a second ago.

The situation was beyond Rentaro’s comprehension, but he could tell they weren’t exactly here to rescue him. He had to get out of there. Now.

At that moment, a move flashed across his brain like lightning. A move that could completely turn the tables.

So how about this?

Tearing through the skin on his right leg, he revealed his artificial limb, the black chrome shining brilliantly in the light. The striker hit the cartridge hidden inside his leg, the ejector kicking it away.

“Raaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!”

Leaving his body to the power of inertia, Rentaro kicked. His foot was aimed at the floor beneath the carpet. His Super-Varanium toes tore through the fabric, pulverizing both the marble beneath it and the bare concrete beneath that as it blew all the debris forward.

The results were akin to a directional anti-personnel mine, one with a lethal, unavoidable payload of shrapnel.

The rock and marble, now crushed into several hundreds, several thousands of shards, unerringly advanced upon the SAT troops and Yuga. Even one of them striking anyone’s head would cause a sure concussion—and if not, a few dozen of those striking Yuga’s armorless frame could very likely result in multiple bone fractures.

But, amazingly, Yuga covered up his face and plunged right into the storm of shrapnel. An innumerable amount of fragments pounded against his entire body. Blood flew. His clothes were ripped to pieces. But he still made it through the shockwave.

By the time he realized Yuga was at his chest, the heel of his palm right against his breast, it was all too late. The blood drained from Rentaro’s face as he witnessed the twisted look of joy on his opponent’s.

“I admire your performance, Satomi. Good-bye.”

He twisted his palm. A paralyzing pain took Rentaro, as if the torsion was applied directly to his internal organs. Picturing the cold hand of death clasping itself around his heart, he quickly spun his body, kicked at the floor, and flew back, avoiding lethal injury. Something heavy smashed into his back, knocking the air out of his lungs.

The next thing he knew, Rentaro had flown into an elevator car, panting for breath. Yuga was positioned for a follow-up strike. Reflexively, Rentaro jabbed his finger against the DOOR CLOSE button and the one for the top floor. The door closed so slowly, he wanted to scream—and Yuga was advancing on him the whole time.

Just as Rentaro thought his adversary disappeared behind the heavy doors, Yuga let out a shuddering kick to prevent his escape. With the sickening sound of twisting, crushing metal, the door began to dent inward.

The entire elevator car shook, bits of wall tile falling off and plinking against the floor. It took Rentaro some time to realize this disaster was engineered entirely by a single kick.

Still, after a moment or two of thought, the cable hoist installed at the top of the shaft apparently decided to haul the elevator up. The elevator rose with a slow, listless, but nevertheless constant force.

Rentaro gritted his teeth at the grinding pain as he rolled up the long-sleeve shirt he was wearing. The mark Yuga’s palm had left on his chest was a sickeningly deep shade of blue. What kind of strike could damage the human body so profoundly? All he knew was that Yuga meant that last move to be his finisher. If it had hit him full bore, he’d be dead right now.

That was the New World Creation Project.

“Damn it…!” He sighed deeply as he stared at the ceiling, languid.

Despite losing his prey, Yuga—eyes staring at the elevator’s floor indicator to see where Rentaro would escape—felt perfectly refreshed in his heart. The edges of his lips curled upward.

“The game begins, Satomi. Just try to escape this hotel alive.”

“Halt!”

Suddenly, a rather impolite voice flew at him from behind.

“Put the gun down and put your hands on your head!”

He narrowed his eyes, annoyed at the interlopers ruining the mood. As he expected, a large force had their eyes and guns pointed at him.

They were clad in blue, which nicely framed their black bulletproof vests and the visored helmets on their heads. The front line wielded handguns and riot shields, the troops behind them armed with submachine guns. It was the SAT.

Yuga very reluctantly put his left hand above his head, the right one pointing at a pocket in his light jacket. Receiving a nod of permission, he slowly, deliberately took out a card holder and threw it on the ground.

An SAT team member gingerly picked it up, fixing his gaze upon it. It contained a civil security license.

Yuga was not a Promoter, nor did he have an Initiator partner. It was a fake, given by his “employer” to make it easier for him to walk around armed in public, but the special-forces team would never have a chance to confirm that.

“Oh, what, you’re a civsec? What’re you doing here?”

“I heard about him escaping on the news. I spotted him on the street, and as a fellow civsec, I felt it was my duty to do something about this. Guess he got away, though.”

The SAT member tossed the case back at Yuga and waved him away. “All right, you can go. We’ll take over the scene.”

Yuga shrugged and walked toward the entrance. Just as he did, two detectives came through the revolving door. One was clearly Hitsuma—tall and handsome, even from afar—but who was that worn-out old guy next to him?

Hitsuma clapped his hands to get the SAT troops’ attention. “All right, hurry up and cut off the elevator’s main and backup power. Once we trap Rentaro Satomi in there, you guys take the stairs up. I have another team coming down from the roof; we’ll close in on him from both sides. Do not let the fugitive get away.”

With a single order, the hall filled with noise as the SAT crew divided into two groups, one running for the emergency stairwell. As he passed by Hitsuma, Yuga took advantage of the loud footsteps to whisper into his ear.

“I’m ambushing Satomi from another point.”

“Don’t make this harder for me, Dark Stalker. Not even I can cover for you forever.”

“I know, Mr. Hitsuma.”

The whole interaction took place without so much as their eyes meeting. Once Yuga emerged out the revolving door, he found a small herd of police cars, their lights bouncing off every surface in the area around the hotel. A hot, sticky wind blew against his face, but it still felt weirdly refreshing to him as he looked up at the Magata Plaza Hotel, looming large in the night sky.

They had already allowed him to escape once. If Rentaro made it out of the hotel, the police’s reputation would be at stake. There was no doubt they’d pull out every stop to hunt him down.

From this point forward, Yuga’s adversary would be the SAT.

Rentaro slapped his cheeks to mentally refresh himself. He couldn’t sit in this car forever.

Before long, the elevators would shut off. They’d operate a circuit breaker or two, he figured, to make sure only his elevator would stop in place. This meant the car would turn into a giant metal tomb. He’d just have to sit there and wait for his arrest.

But how am I gonna get out of this hotel…?

Looking at the floor indicator, he found the hotel spanned a total of thirty-two floors. He pushed the 20 button, nearest to where he was now, and in a few moments, the door opened with a chipper beep.

Then the light in the elevator shut off, darkening his vision. Just as the door was about to close, it stopped cold for good. Rentaro had no time to be startled—he knew immediately what had happened. A bead of cold sweat ran down his back.

The lights were still on in the corridor he stepped into—recessed lights, illuminating the beige wallpaper. Towels, nightgowns, and other detritus lined the floors. Perhaps unnerved by the sudden alarms, most of the guests on this floor left their doors wide open, fleeing the scene with whatever they could grab. In other words, most of them were long gone. He couldn’t sense anyone nearby.

Keeping his guard up, Rentaro crept up to a twentieth-floor window and carefully looked down. The police had already arrived, and the flashing lights of their cars silently revealed the multilayered perimeter they built around the hotel, ringed by yellow police tape. Beyond that, a crowd of reporters and onlookers teemed. There wasn’t enough room for so much as an ant to slip through.

Suddenly hearing a rotor from afar, he squinted at the sky, spotting a helicopter restlessly spinning its searchlight around. Rentaro edged away from the window as the ray of light swept past it.

There was no way he could stay on this floor for long. The police already knew the elevator was stopped on floor twenty. But going down was out of the question…which meant his only option was to go up. Rentaro knew all too well that things were only getting worse for him.

Pushing open a metal door beneath a green emergency-exit sign with a little running man on it, he felt a chill wind against his face. In stark contrast to the magnificent interior décor, the rustic emergency stairway was lined with exposed pipes as it spiraled up and down.

Hearing subdued footsteps from below, Rentaro looked over the guardrail to find SAT troopers in riot gear, their faces covered by visors, about seven floors below him. He met eyes with one of them. In a panic, he pulled his face away from the guardrail, in tandem with the trooper pointing his gun upward and pulling the trigger.

With a blast muffled by a silencer, a hail of bullets clanged against the rail, making Rentaro snap his head back. Sweating, he crouched down low as he sped off. One way or the other, his only path was upward.

But, after a few floors, he heard a clatter of equally subdued footsteps from above. His spine froze in terror. They must have climbed out from the helicopter.

Realizing he was the victim of a pincer attack and feeling the desperation settle in, Rentaro looked at the metal plate in the stairwell. Floor 26. Opening the metal door, he rolled into the hallway, fairly wide and lined with beige wallpaper, recessed lighting, and familiar-looking doors on both sides. The same as the twentieth floor. Several doors were open, left unattended by panicking evacuees, some leaving their shoes and even their wallets on the floor as they stumbled away.

He had to stand his ground here.

Rentaro thought about barricading himself in an empty room, but the voice of reason stopped him. He was dealing with professionals at resolving standoffs and disarming terrorist groups. What chance would he have?

He ducked into the nearest room, went up to the bathroom mirror, and took an elbow to it. With a dry cracking sound, it shattered. He chose a suitable piece, left the room, dove left at a T intersection, plastered himself against the wall, and pointed the mirror fragment at the hallway he had just left, pulling his wrist back as he adjusted the angle.

As he guessed, he heard the faint creak of the emergency-exit door, stirring up the otherwise-stagnant air of the empty hotel.

Here they come. Six of them, with riot shields, in the mirror-image world. Surprisingly, even though they were in heavy headgear, protectors, and combat boots, he could no longer hear them move. Their intense wariness indicated that they were sure of his position.

Quietly, Rentaro wiped a sweaty palm on his pants.

The troopers’ headgear protected their eyes from things like flash grenades. Their submachine guns were a half-and-half mix of Heckler & Koch and Shiba Heavy Weapons, both deadly accurate. Luckily, they hadn’t noticed him yet.

Since he was still in the clothes he wore to the Seitenshi’s palace, Rentaro had neither his wallet nor any sort of gun. He’d have to tackle them empty-handed. An all-or-nothing bull rush at them might allow him time to finish off one or two, but no more than that before someone shot him. But if he stayed still, they’d spot his position, roll a Flash Bang down the hall, and that’d be it. Those things were serious business—between the sound, the light, and the pressure wave from the explosion, they were the perfect weapon for indoor combat zones.

The shockwave, in particular, was powerful enough to break cell phones, wristwatches, and other precision devices. Having one blow up at point-blank range could even cause bone fractures and ruptured eardrums—nothing you could avoid just by closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears.

Rentaro’s pulse quickened, the hairs on his nape sticking out.

What do I do? What do I do? Even as he thought about that, the SAT were following what they learned in training, tackling each doorway in pairs to eliminate blind spots before entering and clearing out the hotel rooms. It was shocking how silent they were.

Something bounced off Rentaro’s foot as he began to walk. Looking down, he realized it was a Magata Plaza Hotel–branded box of matches. A guest must have dropped it in the frenzied confusion earlier.

A flash of intuition struck Rentaro’s mind, and looking straight up, he found exactly what he was looking for. Resolved to his plan, he nodded to himself and performed a move he never thought he’d do in his life.

Suddenly, one of the hallway doors opened, revealing a confused-looking woman wandering out. He thought she might’ve been a straggler who missed the evaluation, but one look, and he knew it. Those empty eyes told Rentaro she was struggling under some sort of illness.

A surprised SAT trooper pulled his gun on her.

“Whoa, wai—”

Before Rentaro could stop him, an empty-sounding blast ripped across the hall as an unfortunate shot bounded its way toward the woman. She fell to her knees, then to the floor. Rentaro sped out to get near her, only to be pushed back by a steel wave of bullets, pulverizing the wall behind him and creating a cloud of dust that got in his eyes.

They got my position, too.

He had no time to think. He dove into a nearby room, took a chair out of it, then stood on it as he struck a match against the flint. A warm flame kindled itself in his hands. He thrust it toward the edge of the ceiling.

It was aimed squarely at the fire alarm system. The heat-detection sensor picked up on the flame from the match, immediately ordering the adjacent sprinkler to activate.

An intense rain sprang up across the floor.

Listening to the SAT team fall into confusion and making sure their fire had stopped, Rentaro looked down the corridor. The scene was exactly what he envisioned. The SAT troopers, their sight robbed by the sprays of water, were a disorganized mess, trying their best to remove their helmets.

This was his chance.

Leaping out from the wall, Rentaro activated his gunpowder-activated artificial leg, firing off a single burst. Thrusters spat out exhaust from the back of his foot.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

His body zoomed at superspeed down the hall, so quickly that he felt like his body would fall apart. Then he smashed right into the SAT men in front of him. Even through their visors, he could tell he had the element of surprise on his side. Keeping the thrust going, he used his pivot leg to give himself rotational force, unleashing a roundhouse kick. It slammed into one of the polycarbonate shields, smashing it along with a trooper’s visor as he was sent flying through the air backward.

The point man—lagging behind because of the potential for friendly fire—along with two troopers desperately trying to rip their helmets off, were struck in the face by a pair of fists launched from Rentaro’s body. Without skipping a beat, he searched for his next target. The heel of his palm applied to another trooper’s chin rattled both the SAT member’s visor and his brain. He finished another with a chop to the throat before his opponent even knew what happened.

One could only guess what the final survivor was thinking, watching his comrades get picked off in less than a second. After an instant of thought, he threw off his submachine gun and tried to take out his backup revolver. It goes without saying that this move was ill-advised. Handguns had little power when one was within closed-fist range of a target. After that point, it all came down to how gifted a martial artist one was.

Rentaro lunged at his chest, grappling at him as he placed a hand above his holster to keep him from drawing. His other hand was placed palm-down on the plating in his bulletproof vest.

“Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 12—”

A bolt of terror flashed across the man’s eyes. But it was all too late.

“—Senkuu Renen!”

With a heavy thump, the very air shook across the floor. The trooper’s body bounced off the floor, eyes lolling upward. The force applied to him at such tight quarters was enough to finish him, no matter how thick the plating on his vest was; that was an ironclad rule in close-quarters combat. This was the unchanging credo that gave Tendo Martial Arts such all-powerful strength.

Amid the torrential rain from the sprinkler, Rentaro quietly took the Infinite Stance, calming his heart just as the five SAT troopers he had faced fell to the floor all at once, flopping over the one Rentaro had defeated first with his roundhouse.

The fight was over. The rain falling around him was warm to the touch, weighing down his school uniform. Sensing the water droplets falling from his hair, his chin, his nose, Rentaro adjusted his breathing for a moment as he remained in his stance. Then, returning to reality, he crouched down next to the woman one of them shot.

“Hey. Hey, hang in there.”

She was shot once in the abdominal area with a 9-mm bullet. It was still lodged in her body.

The woman groggily opened her eyes. “I…I couldn’t sleep… I…I took some…pills…”

Rentaro heard that being forced awake after taking a strong relaxant resulted in intense feelings of anger and the inability to walk steadily. Whatever her illness was, her medicine knocked her out so cold that she couldn’t even respond to that alarm in time. He fetched a towel from a nearby room and pressed it against the open wound to stop the blood. It went bright red in the blink of an eye. The sprinkler water was chilling her body as well. This was nothing first aid could solve for her. And he had no time left to lose.

Giving himself a nod, Rentaro walked over to an SAT trooper—the one who fired the fateful shot at her. Kicking the submachine gun away, he grabbed his knife and gun, holster and all. Making sure he was wholly unarmed, Rentaro crouched down and slapped his cheek.

With a groan, he opened his eyes, trying to hazily focus on Rentaro in front of him. A professional to the core, he didn’t make a noise once he realized the situation, and instead glared at Rentaro.

“You’ve got nowhere to run. Stop filling up your rap sheet.”

Rentaro aimed his gun at him. “Shut up,” he threatened. “That ammo you fired hit an innocent woman. She needs surgery to remove the bullet right now. Can you carry her down to the lobby? Just nod if it’s yes.”

The man looked overwhelmed for a moment, but quickly returned to his usual grave countenance. Still pointing the gun at him, Rentaro made the man pick the woman up and saw him off to the stairwell. Before they left, he grabbed the woman’s hand.

“Stay calm, okay, lady? They’re gonna save you.”

The woman gave him an unfocused look. “You…,” she said, unsteadily. “You’re…a killer… Why’d you…help…?”

“……”

Then the woman extended a hand to him.

“I…ah… Thank—”

“Don’t talk. Just think about staying alive.” Rentaro gave the man a nudge. He looked back a couple times, clearly wanting to say something, before descending the stairwell. Carrying a person down from the twenty-sixth floor was hard work, but a trained SAT trooper could probably deal with it.

Rentaro watched him go down, thinking to himself.

The HQ might be panicking about the lack of contact from their SAT group, but once they realized how it doesn’t affect their position all that much, they’d just send in another team. There was no guarantee he’d win next time. And there might be other stragglers like that woman. If he broke down a door or two, grabbed some quivering hotel guest, and took him hostage, that might prevent the cops from making the first move.

“…Don’t be stupid.”

Rentaro immediately shook his head. He made it this far because he wanted to prove his innocence and find the real killer. Committing more crimes for non-self-defense reasons would be putting the cart before the horse.

He took a glance at the floor above him. He knew this great escape had every chance of ending soon, but there was nothing else he could do. He just had to struggle for as long as he could.

Not bothering to stop at the top floor, he continued climbing the stairs, through an AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign and right up to the door leading to the roof. He shook the knob. It didn’t budge. Locked. Activating his artificial arm, he swung a fist right into the middle of it, sending it off its hinges and into the outdoor air.

Stepping onto the roof, he noticed the clouds zipping by at high speed in the night air. The sky was so much closer now; the wind lapping between the high-rise buildings made the sopping-wet Rentaro feel unpleasantly cold.

Running to the edge of the building, Rentaro observed the police lights flash on and off below him. The sound of the helicopter rotors was, thankfully, far away.

Spotting a building in front of him taller than the Plaza Hotel, Rentaro found himself seized by an odd sense of déjà vu. Then he remembered something. His battle against Tina Sprout, the Seitenshi sniper, amid the derelict buildings of the Outer Districts. In order to get under her position, he had used his leg thrusters to launch a series of rapid bursts to leap from building to building. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.

Could that work here, too?

Rentaro took another glance down. The authorities had surrounded the hotel building, but nowhere else. The adjacent building was free. Eyeballing it, he estimated the distance between here and there to be around twenty meters. A wide river flowed between the two buildings. He had made it across a much larger distance, he figured, in the Tina battle. Just do it the same way as before, and it would be a shoo-in.

Can I do this? Can I?

Rentaro brought a palm up to his face. It was shaking slightly. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t scared, but knowing this wasn’t the first time he had faced a deadly leap like this pushed him over the brink.

Walking back from the guardrail, he went all the way to the other side, giving himself ample space to build up a head of steam. He pictured the successful traverse in his mind. One little error in his timing, and he’d be falling straight down to his death. The hotel, if his memory served him, was 147 meters tall—not exactly the duplex down the street. Mess this up, and not only would they have to peel him off the sidewalk; he’d have plenty of time to picture the whole scene on the way down, too.

He stretched out his fingers, forming them into fists and opening them up again to calm the nerves. The sweat came right back to his palms. He inhaled, then exhaled.

Staring at the space in front of him, he started running. Slowly at first, not more than a jog. Then gradually building up speed, then at full blast, making sure not to get his feet tangled.

The guardrail was in sight. He stepped over it, then flung himself into the air. After a moment spent gliding, he felt an odd type of weightlessness as the wind carried him into its current. Simultaneously, he set off a cartridge in his leg. With a bang, he felt acceleration hit him like a wall as it propelled him forward.

Barely managing to squint ahead, he saw thin air spread in front of him. The angle, and the timing of the thruster blast, were perfect. Now he just needed to maintain a steady rhythm of cartridge blasts to keep him—

Suddenly, he felt a shock rip through the side of his stomach.

“—Uh?”

He’d been so sure of his success just moments ago, he couldn’t immediately identify the plume of blood fanning out from his side at first.

From that point forward, the world went into a bizarre sort of slow motion. Rentaro’s body flailed in the air, head pointed straight down. Then he saw it.

There was a gunshot wound on his side. A sniper hit him, in midair, at blazing speed.

The rangefinder almost reflexively activated in his eye, spotting a figure 200 meters off in the distance, on top of a roof with a gigantic light-up billboard on it.

“N…no…”

Feeling gravity do its work on his body, Rentaro was swallowed up in the perpetual darkness.

The smell of hot smoke wisped out from his gun, searing his nostrils.

“Checkmate.”

Yuga, assuming a kneeling posture on the roof, lifted his head up from the night scope mounted on top of his DSR sniper rifle. He turned the handle as he pulled it forward. An empty cartridge flew to the ground.

Standing up, Yuga watched Rentaro fall for a few moments as he took out his cell phone.

“Dark Stalker to Nest. Mission complete. Target silenced. Awaiting further orders.”

“You’re sure you got him?”

“He fell in the river, so I can’t be sure, but falling in water from the height he did is just like impacting concrete. He must’ve broken every bone in his body. My condolences to his family.”