Black Bullet - Volume 7 - Chapter 1.01

BLACK BULLET 7

CHAPTER 01

TOKYO AREA HOLIDAY

1

The edge of the sky had just begun to whiten a bit, the thin veneer of red tightening its grasp over the air before sunrise. The rain from the previous day had collected in puddles in the alley, likewise dampening the trees and delivering much-needed nourishment to the undergrowth below.

To young Rentaro Satomi, this particular commute to school was a bit more stressful than usual. Or maybe that stress was being transmitted to him thanks to the girl in pigtails, standing in front of him with her body turned to look at him.

Enju Aihara tugged at both shoulder straps on the bright red backpack she wore.

“I’m outta here.”

Rentaro patted both her shoulders. “One more reminder before you do, Enju. Do not use your powers—for any reason. And skip all your gym classes, too. If you ever get a cut or something—”

“‘Cover it with your hand and run off somewhere secluded, don’t show it healing to anyone,’ blah, blah, blah, right? You ever got anything else to say to me?”

“Hmm… All right.”

Do I really repeat myself that much? Rentaro wondered. He scratched his head over the thought while Enju gave him a fearless smile. “I’m gonna make it this time, okay?” she declared before whirling her ponytails around and raising her hand in a sharp salute. This didn’t exactly put Rentaro at ease, but if Enju was that resolute, there was no point applying further pressure.

Soon, whether she knew about her friend’s concerns or not, Enju disappeared into the early-morning mist without another look back.

“Did she go?”

Rentaro turned around to find an attractive young girl in a black school uniform standing in front of the dojo entrance, accompanied by a girl with blonde hair and emerald-green eyes. Apparently they’d just wrapped up morning practice, what with Kisara Tendo wiping the sweat from her still-flushed cheeks with a towel.

“You worried about her?” she asked.

“Not really…” Rentaro looked back toward the mist-laden path that led to Enju’s school. “It’s more like, ‘Good for her to try school again,’ you know?”

This seemed to somehow put off Kisara as she gave him a side glance.

“People can’t live by themselves, you know. No man is an island.”

Rentaro frowned. “Jeez, she’s got me, doesn’t she?”

It was meant as a show of strength, but then Rentaro realized what it truly was. Here they were, Enju’s grand first day of elementary school at a new place, and neither he nor Enju let themselves act like they were enjoying it at all. Was it really something to celebrate, after all, seeing the time come when she finally wiped the dust off that backpack in a corner of her room? Enju had already been driven from one school after being exposed as one of the Cursed Children—and the open-air classroom she attended afterward ended in even more tragic circumstances.

She was cursed, detested. She had every right to wail about her body, to indulge herself in pity. But she didn’t.

Rentaro never thought for a moment that he had a decent education. That, on the other hand, was one of Enju’s strengths. If there was anything he felt proud about, it was helping her accept herself and access her potential.

All the local schools had worked in tandem with one another to blacklist Enju, so she was traveling to a pretty remote elementary school instead. That was the main reason Enju was up this early—just to travel to class.

“What about you, though, Tina?” Rentaro asked the blonde girl nearby, as she, too, looked down Enju’s path.

“I wanna get some more time to think about it, thanks. Including whether I even need school in the first place.”

“…”

She had a point. Ten years on from that calamity, in this dying world, was there any real indication in life that going to school and finding a regular job was the right thing to do? It was one of the core questions that tugged at the mind of any man or woman, and Tina was running smack-dab into it. In many ways, it was similar to the emptiness people like Rentaro and Kisara, themselves part of the Stolen Generation, were doomed to grapple with.

There was a small rumbling sound from somewhere. Rentaro stopped. Once he realized it was an airplane engine, he spotted a shining dot in the western skies. As its rumbling grew louder, the dot grew larger and larger; just as it seemed to loom impossibly gigantic above them, the craft zoomed by at supersonic speed, leaving a delayed but surprisingly strong wind behind it.

Rentaro shaded his eyes as he looked up; the nearby trees rustled violently, sending a pile of shredded leaves flying through the air. The dot flew away, fast as ever, and already he had to squint to see it.

“Eesh,” Kisara whined as she spat out bits of leaf that went in her mouth. “Are they scrambling this early in the morning?”

“That’s a supporter fighter from the Tokyo Area force, isn’t it? I thought most of ’em got shot down in the Third Kanto Battle.”

“They manufactured a bunch more at breakneck speed, I heard. It’s still kind of just a staring contest right now, but if it actually gets to be a fight, I don’t like our chances all too much. It’s hard to imagine we’re on equal footing with Sendai right now.”

“…You think there’ll really be a war?” a concerned Tina asked.

Rentaro was about to say something to reassure her but stopped just before he began. This time, at least, he had no idea how things would turn out.

“They haven’t contacted you at all, either, Satomi,” a dejected-sounding Kisara said.

Rentaro snorted at the thought. “Why would my name come up? There’s no room for a civsec in international warfare.”

“No, but…like, you’ve gotten pretty involved in stuff like this over the past little while, so…”

“Yeah, well, it’s too complicated this time. Not like the Kanto Battle. If the government needs anybody right now, it’s not civsecs. It’s diplomats who know how to negotiate.”

Rentaro shrugged, only to feel something warm on his palm. The sun was just about ready to peek out above the horizon, its light already making the ground shine.

Kisara clapped her hands, like a teacher asking for her class’s attention.

“Well, it’s times like these when it’s important we stick to the daily routine, all right? We better get ready for school, too. Don’t wanna be late!”