Black Bullet - Volume 7 - Chapter 2.04

4

“Yulia Kochenkova,” the Seitenshi said as she looked at the photograph that popped up. “Andrei Litvintsev’s Initiator; the strongest of the former Belarus region. She was once a member of Witch Squadron, a special-forces unit manned exclusively by Initiators. Her Gastrea factor is the cheetah.”

It was past seven in the evening at Rentaro Satomi’s darkened apartment. The crystal in the middle of it shone blue, just like it had the day before, as it projected a holographic window into space. Rentaro tapped the photo, expanding it out. The girl, in what looked like a hidden-camera photo, was turned toward the left, lips pulled tight in an off-putting expression.

“Cheetah…?”

“Yes. Oriented for speed. The same type of Initiator as Enju, in other words.”

Rentaro whistled in astonishment. The cheetah required no introduction. It was the fastest hunter in the animal kingdom, clocking speeds upward of 110 kilometers an hour. An Initiator’s strength in battle was far from wholly dependent on their animal-based Gastrea element. But, Rentaro thought, if it’s a cheetah we’re talking about, that’s practically a thoroughbred among Initiators.

“What’s her IP Rank?”

The Seitenshi paused for a moment before reluctantly blurting out the number. Rentaro reacted by rubbing his arms nervously, a chill coming over him. If that number was for real, this might turn out to be the toughest job assignment he’d ever taken.

“You haven’t run into her before, have you, Mr. Satomi?”

“If we had run into her half a year ago,” Rentaro said, embittered, “Enju and I would be dead right now.”

The Seitenshi fell silent at this statement, taking a sip of tea from the low table. “Ten years ago,” she said, “when Belarus was by and large obliterated by the viruses released by the King of Plagues, Yulia Kochenkova’s mother just barely managed to flee to Russia safely. She gave birth to her at a refugee camp set up by the Russian government, but she died soon after from a postpartum infection and fever. Any well-equipped medical facility would have been able to save her life, but that just didn’t exist at the time.”

“…How are Cursed Children treated in Russia?”

“About as bad as it gets,” came the melancholy reply. “Moscow Area is the largest colony in Russia, and they agreed to take in all refugees without any restrictions, leading to a severe financial crunch that affected the lives of all Russians. That, to say the least, led to discontent. Rumors went around that the Belarusians were all infected with delayed-action viruses from the King of Plagues.

“This ultimately led to a sort of caste system put in place across Russia after the war. Refugees from Greater Minsk were the low rung on the ladder, and among them, the Cursed Children—they’re literally called the House of Witches in Russian—are barely even treated as human. They were almost wiped out from the region entirely before the Russians realized the threat from outside Gastrea and formed the Witch Squadron to fight them. Kochenkova was lucky to still be alive when she joined them. She was found curled up in some alleyway, eating rotten food, and she didn’t even have the strength to bat away the flies around her face.”

The Seitenshi closed her eyes. Rentaro had known her long enough to understand what she was thinking. She was at it again—feeling personal sympathy, personal pain for the plight of people she had no chance on earth of saving. He didn’t see that as a waste of time per se, but in her position, he thought, it was important to pick her battles.

She continued her silence. Was she just being stubborn? Or was she truly as holy as the aura she portrayed, still searching in the darkness for a better answer to the problems Rentaro had resigned himself to abandoning long ago?

“So?” he asked, breaking his chain of thought. “What happened then?”

“She received a high level of education in the squadron, something she still feels an enormous debt of gratitude for. Reportedly she met Litvintsev around the same time.”

The Seitenshi turned toward Rentaro.

“Mr. Satomi, if you don’t mind me asking about your gut feeling on this… How did you do with Litvintsev?”

“He’s definitely pulling the strings.” Rentaro bit his lip as he recalled the previous afternoon. “He’s a dangerous man, and he’s sharp as a knife, too.”

Damn it all. There’s so little time left, too.

Then Rentaro noticed something warm on top of the clenched fists over his knees. Surprised, he looked up to find the Seitenshi, in all her pale beauty, right next to him. He swiveled his eyes back down, only to find her smooth, velvety long gloves covering his own hands.

“This hasn’t ended yet. We need to place our hopes on tomorrow.”

“Y-yeah…”

Rentaro found himself reflexively rearing back at the sight of the beautiful, snowlike face, the glossy lips, just a few centimeters from his body. Her breath, the breath of a woman who a rich real-estate developer once reportedly expressed a desire to spend his entire fortune on a pair of lace gloves for, was beating against his neck.

This situation—the two alone in a man’s apartment with only the crystal’s erratic illumination to light them—was probably something he should have been better prepared for. He gave her a look. “What is it, Mr. Satomi?” she replied innocently.

He turned back toward the photo of Yulia, racked with guilt from the assorted unpleasant situations his mind conjured up.

“…So we’re basically one hundred percent sure she’s in Tokyo Area, right?”

“Her current whereabouts are unknown. She managed to evade our investigators, and I’m sure it’ll be all but impossible to get a bead on her again.”

The lights went back on, the crystal automatically turning off in response.

“I’m back!”

Turning around, Rentaro found Enju at the light switch, removing her shoes by the front door.

“I made a new Initiator friend today. You wanna hear about her?”

Rentaro waved his hand in front of his face. After their conversation just now, he preferred not to think about Initiators for a while to come.

“Welcome back, Enju,” the Seitenshi said graciously.

“Why’s Lady Seitenshi acting like a newlywed wife around you, Rentaro?”

“Huh?”

“Rentaro,” she angrily continued, “I want my customary welcome-back peck on the cheek.”

“We never do that.”

This made Enju jump up and down indignantly. “I don’t care! I wanna kiss!”

Why she was choosing this hill to make her last stand on, Rentaro had to wonder as he tossed Enju into the bathroom and made her wash her hands and gargle.

“I’m gonna skip school tomorrow, Rentaro,” she said, sticking her head out the doorway with a cup in her hand, “so I can help you find the terrorists, okay?”

“You’ve got school tomorrow?” Rentaro asked. He had just gotten word that Magata High School was giving students the day off tomorrow, in light of the whole King of Plagues scare.

“Yeah. They’re going on a field trip to some power plant in the Outer Districts. The teacher said it didn’t see any action during the Third Kanto Battle, so it won’t get caught up in a war this time, either, so…”

This exasperated Rentaro. What a place I got Enju into, he thought to himself. But then he realized this could be a good chance for him.

“Yeah, you go to school tomorrow, Enju. You just got into it; you oughta take every chance you have to get into the swing of things. You don’t have to worry about us.”

“But isn’t there gonna be a war if we don’t…?”

Rentaro patted Enju a few times on the head. “It’s fine. If I need your help, I promise I’ll contact you.”

She nodded, albeit with some reservations.

Enju’s already had two schools taken from her, Rentaro thought. I won’t let it happen a third time.