Black Bullet - Volume 7 - Chapter 2.06

6

He didn’t bother asking for change as he threw a wad of cash at the cabbie before flying out of the car. It was brighter outside than he’d expected, forcing him to shade his eyes. It was cold, but the eastern sun had already risen. The waves made soothing sounds, something they’d no doubt be doing a thousand years from now.

By comparison, the offshore prison had undergone some major transformations since his last visit yesterday. There was now a tinge of blood to the salty sea breeze. He could feel his body tense up.

As he ran across the long wharf, he began to see a large number of onlookers jostling for position, along with the police officers trying to keep them away. “Hey, no entry—” a guard shouted at Rentaro. He stopped midsentence once Rentaro took his civsec license out and tossed it at him.

The elderly guard looked at it, then made a face at him. “You guys horning in on our territory again? This ain’t no Gastrea job.”

“But there’s a chance an Initiator was involved with this, right? That oughta give me the right to go in.”

“Pfft…”

The guard rolled his eyes as he lifted the police tape for Rentaro. “Show me who’s in charge of the scene,” he asked. The guard motioned for him to follow and started walking.

He took advantage of this invitation to scope out the rather noisy surroundings. This artificial island usually housed nothing but prisoners, guards, and their families; now it was full of forensics guys, local police, even a few special-forces men. In a way, one could describe it as a festival-like atmosphere, although not a very happy one.

Underneath the crape myrtle flowers that blossomed by the outer walls, there were a few red spider lilies strutting their stuff, a bold crimson color as they rocked in the wind. There was no telling where their seeds could’ve flown in from. Nearby, Rentaro could see blood spatters, human figures outlined in tape on the floor, and a seemingly infinite number of bullet holes.

“That tape… Which side were they on?”

“I dunno.”

The scene inside the prison was even uglier than the one outside. On their way in, Rentaro passed by the SAT (Special Assault Team), all decked out in bulletproof gear, assault rifles, light machine guns, and more. Fatigue was written all over their faces; they must not have gotten any sleep since their overnight deployment.

After that, Rentaro passed a guard prodding a handcuffed prisoner down the hall. The prisoner alternated between muttering to himself and cursing at the guard as he stubbornly held his ground for as long as he could.

“Move it!” the guard shouted, running past Rentaro’s elderly guide just as they reached the large door that led to the monitor control room. The remains of some barricades were nearby, indicating that combat must’ve happened here as well.

There was a small crowd in front of the door. Rentaro saluted them, and then the forensics crew, decked out in jumpsuits and identifying armbands, cleared the way for him.

That brought the girl on the floor into view.

“…”

The field of psychology tells us that people use clothing to appeal to others, to adjust how they want to look to the world around them. It was clear that the girl sprawled out at Rentaro’s feet wanted people to know that she considered herself a rebel. One could imagine a career in punk rock for her, cameras flashing nonstop as she surfed over a crowd of passionate, screaming fans. She had probably imagined it, too.

Along those lines, her dream had come true. The “camera flashing” part, at least, although the cameras belonged to the police crime-scene unit instead of some entertainment outlet.

The direct cause of death, Rentaro presumed, was shock brought on by the slashing claw wound to her abdomen. The strike had plucked out a great deal of her innards, making sickening red designs on the floor. The wound, which looked like it was administered by a grizzly bear, left much of her stomach cavity open for the world to observe.

She was looking straight at Rentaro now, eyes still full of surprise. Chances were, she didn’t have enough time to comprehend what had happened to her before the end came.

“Ritsu Urabe. She’s an Initiator, IP Rank number 550.”

Rentaro turned around to find a plainclothes police detective in short sleeves addressing him. He had a square jaw, black hair that was graying in spots, and black-framed glasses that gave him an intellectual look, although his thick eyebrows suggested an equally strong will beneath the smarts.

“You running the scene, sir?”

“I’m the one. Yoshitatsu Akutsu, superintendent.”

He took a cigarette out of his chest pocket and lit it up.

“Uh, you shouldn’t be smoking at a crime scene.”

“Ah, lay off. I wouldn’t be able to stand this stench unless I masked it with something stronger… Hey, we’re done here, right? Let’s send ’er on her way!”

He motioned to the crime-scene officials, who had just finished taping up the girl’s outlines on the floor. They responded by loading her on a stretcher, putting a white cloth over her, and carrying her off.

There wasn’t much of a physical resemblance, but the aura Superintendent Akutsu presented to Rentaro reminded him a lot of Detective Tadashima, his old acquaintance. Probably just as stubborn and in the trenches as Tadashima, too, he thought. And once Rentaro was sure of that, he knew exactly how to deal with him.

“Do you really need to bother with doing up the entire crime scene like this, sir?”

“We gotta make it clear who killed who before anything else. Sentencing gets to be a pain in the ass if you skip that part.”

“Oh. Makes sense.” Rentaro turned to Akutsu. “Has the riot been stopped?”

Akutsu shut his eyes for a bit, blowing tobacco smoke from both nostrils.

“More or less.”

The news all but horrified Rentaro this morning. Last night, a riot had broken out at the offshore prison, leading to the escape of no less than three hundred and eighty inmates. They had taken a hundred and twenty people hostage, including the guards who didn’t make it out in time and their families who lived on the Mega-Float; they’d managed to take over the entire island for a period of time. They asked for a ransom and safe passage out of Tokyo Area, and promised to shoot one hostage dead every hour that passed beyond their deadline, although the time they gave was clearly not enough to satisfy their demands.

They followed through with their threat, taking their first victim once the deadline came along, despite the efforts of police negotiators. Eyewitnesses talked to the media about the despair, spreading like a disease across the hostages’ faces, when the news went around.

“I’m impressed you got things under control in less than half a day.”

“Don’t thank me. Save the compliments for our SAT teams on the ground. They swam their way through the minefield, entered through the prison’s back entrance, and took control of the prison’s monitor control room. There they activated the tear-gas sprays across the entire prison and synced that with their assault from the front door.”

Akutsu blew some smoke into the air, deep lines around his eyes.

“We lost a few of the hostages, sadly, but that was the whole reason why speed was so important. Even as it is, we’re running into some serious shortages in beds and free prison cells.”

“Any SAT casualties?”

“None at all, they said.”

Rentaro was astonished. “Talk about some real pros.”

Akutsu gave him a look. “Oh, like you’re one to talk. You subdued an entire team of SAT officers barehanded back at the Magata Plaza Hotel, didn’t you? I mean, that’s not even human, man. You know? Some ‘Hero of Tokyo Area’ you are.”

Rentaro had been about to take out his license, but it turned out there was no need for that.

“So you know me?”

“Of course I do. And just in case you didn’t know, there’s, oh, a thousand guys in police headquarters who’d love to kill you right now. Our HR situation is a complete mess, thanks to you taking down Commissioner Hitsuma and all those other managers. I’m supposed to be a superintendent, but I’m having to do police-chief duties on the side, too. To hell with that shit. I wanna be out on the streets, not behind some creaky old desk.”

“Well, keep it up, and I’ll make you commissioner before too long.”

“Oh, God, anything but that,” Akutsu said, grinning as he waved his hands at him.

“So, was there someone named Andrei Litvintsev among the dead or injured prisoners?”

“Nope,” the superintendent said, “no one like that. There might be a chance he’s still hiding out on the island somewhere, but I sincerely doubt it. According to the prisoners we interrogated, he went out of his cell with a whole group of people and pretty much immediately vanished.”

Akutsu flipped open his notebook, bringing it up to his horn rims so that it was practically touching.

“Other prisoners witnessed a single motorboat roaring away from this island. They wired the minefield behind the prison so they could set it off whenever they wanted, but if nothing went boom out there, I’d say our suspects somehow got their hands on the safe route out to sea.”

“Well, yeah. The first thing they did was take over the control room and turn off all the security. They definitely did their homework.”

Akutsu scratched his head in aggravation. “Damn it. Why does this have to happen just before we’re gonna go to war or somethin’ with Sendai Area?”

If only he knew how related those two things were.

“Um,” a voice said from behind. Rentaro turned around to find a younger officer, looking a bit agitated as he fiddled with the brim of his hat.

“Are you Rentaro Satomi? There’s a woman here to see you.”

Oh, now what? Rentaro tsked to himself. This isn’t the time.

“Tell her I’m busy.”

“I told her several times that this was authorized-personnel only, but she refuses to listen to me, and”—the officer hesitated for a moment—“I didn’t get a good look at her face because she’s got the hood up on her outfit, but she’s really beautiful. Like, elegant, or something. So I had a really hard time saying no to her, but…”

Rentaro’s temples throbbed. He didn’t like where this was going at all. He zoomed around to find someone jumping up and down among the throngs behind the police tape, waving frantically.

“Mr. Satomi! It’s me!”

He brought a hand to his face. “Get over here,” he shouted, raising the tape and grabbing the girl’s hand. A few moments later, they were in a more secluded area on the island, behind the prison itself.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The girl pulled down her hood, revealing her clear, pale skin and snow-white hair shining keenly in the sunlight. It couldn’t have been anyone but the Seitenshi.

“I couldn’t allow myself to merely sit alone in your home while you were running about, trying to handle my request. I know I can help you, Mr. Satomi. Besides, my disguise is perfect.”

The Seitenshi spun around in place, and the bottom of her skirt lifted into the air as if floating. She was wearing a collared white dress with a white jacket and a pair of white boots to tie the outfit together. Smiling, she lowered the jacket’s light hood.

She was, in a word, beautiful.

Any annoyance Rentaro felt at her presence was instantly banished as the beauty, indescribable by mere words, floored him. He realized he had never seen her in anything other than her formal palace dress. As a full-fledged public figure, she wore that outfit every waking hour of her life; it was another way to inform her citizens that she was in their service.

Seeing her do away with that, even for disguise purposes, indicated to Rentaro that something deep within the Seitenshi had changed. He wondered if he was improper to think it.

Realizing she had stunned him into silence, the Seitenshi timidly lowered her head. But her eyes looked up, toward his, as if begging for something.

“Does it…look good on me?”

Rentaro turned his back to her.

“Uh, if you’re gonna disguise yourself, try picking one that won’t make ten out of ten men passing by try to ask you out.”

The Seitenshi blushed, bowing her head even farther.

“Oh, Mr. Satomi, are you…?”

Just before things got even more awkward, three crime-scene handlers arrived from around the corner of the opposite building, chatting with one another. The Seitenshi hurriedly put her hood back on.

Rentaro breathed a sigh of relief. Then he realized she was looking right at the group of chatting men.

“I’m impressed the police force is still functioning as normal. There might be war tomorrow, for all we know. I suppose we owe that to Kikunojo’s managerial skills.”

Rentaro sized up the group. “Nah,” he rebutted. “Disaster experts call it normalcy bias.”

She looked up at him with large, questioning eyes. “Normalcy bias?”

“Yeah. When someone’s facing an upcoming disaster, it’s hard to make them pull the switch that says ‘Hey, this is really bad, we need to do something.’ People can be surprisingly lazy like that. Plus, if everyone around you’s acting normal and you’re the only one freaking out, people find that embarrassing. Even if there’s a hot iron right at your feet, a lot of people can’t make themselves take action at all.”

“I think people were a lot more on edge during the Third Kanto Battle, though…”

“Well, that’s because everyone knows that a Monolith falling down spells instant annihilation for all of us. The Gastrea War was only ten years ago, and we’ve had a handful of Pandemics since then, so everyone in the Area’s used to the evacuation drills by now. But the last time people fought against one another in large-scale combat here in Japan was in World War II, back in 1945. Pretty much everyone who experienced that for themselves is dead, so none of us are capable of imagining what’ll happen next. They’re probably thinking something like, ‘Well, maybe it won’t be as bad as a Pandemic, at least.’”

The Seitenshi despondently narrowed her eyes. “Oh, but it could wind up so much worse, though…”

Rentaro crossed his arms. “The real problem,” he observed, “is over in Sendai Area. Like, things are a lot more urgent for them, because they’re seriously in danger of being wiped off the map. I wish I knew what Ino was gonna do next…”

“Hey! Guys!” a man shouted to the trio on the other side, running up to them. “Check out the TV! It’s crazy!”

The trio exchanged looks, nodded, and followed the newcomer. Rentaro turned to the woman beside him. She was already gazing at him.

“We should go, too.”

They entered the prison, following closely behind the trio as they filed into the cafeteria. There was a single LCD TV attached to one wall of the cavernous chamber, assorted police detectives and crime-scene officials fanned around it in a crowd. They all watched the screen with bated breath, the air tense. Rentaro had to stand on his toes to get a look.

A chill ran down his spine.

The screen showed a gigantic centipedal Gastrea, one that made the bare rock surrounding it look like a miniature set. Its face was reptilian, and its legs, outfitted with scythelike serrated blades, seemed to be nearly infinite in number.

It was Libra, the King of Plagues. But what shocked Rentaro wasn’t the sight of Libra itself; it was the translucent viral sacs around its stomach area. They were inflated and taut, like party balloons, and they jiggled around, seemingly ready to release their lethal payload at any moment.

Rentaro wiped sweaty palms on his pants legs.

The scene changed to what was presumably file footage of Ino holding a press conference. The content was nothing if not predictable. The prime minister shook his fist in the air, his speech too loud and anger laden to make out clearly. Among what Rentaro could make out, however: “If Tokyo Area does not withdraw Libra by three a.m. tomorrow, we will launch a simultaneous full-scale attack on both Libra and Tokyo.”

The officers around the TV nervously chattered with one another as the screen returned to the news studio, an anchorman warning viewers to stay away from private weapon manufacturers, self-defense force facilities, and other locations likely to be Sendai Area’s initial targets. He then moved on to a primer on basic anti-disaster preparations.

Rentaro gingerly turned to his side. The Seitenshi, head under the hood, watched the screen sternly.

“Before I fled the palace, I asked them to send a diplomat over to Sendai Area, but…by the looks of things, I doubt they’re making much progress.”

She turned toward him.

“Mr. Satomi, did you notice? Prime Minister Ino may have been incensed, but he did not act like an insane man. He sounded rational to me. Despite how bellicose they’re being with their speeches, wouldn’t it be safe to say that Sendai Area is still hesitating to go through with it? Isn’t this their way of telling anyone who noticed that they’re willing to wait up until the very last moment?”

Rentaro silently admired her for making that observation. She hadn’t become head of a nation out of pure happenstance, after all.

After a while, once the TV news started repeating itself, the Seitenshi shrugged, her face exhausted. “Would it be all right if I rested over there?” she said, pointing to a corner of the cafeteria.

Taking a chair and following her, Rentaro couldn’t help but notice that despite the early-morning hour, there was an oddly spicy scent coming from the kitchen.

“I’m sure the cafeteria staff must be making breakfast for all the police who spent the night handling the riot,” observed the Seitenshi. “I’ll go see if we can get some, too.”

She stood up before he could stop her and talked things over with one of the cooks, who bowed deeply to her. “Here you go,” she said as she carried two trays back, each with a plate of rice curry. Never in Rentaro’s life did he ever imagine the most powerful person in his homeland running waitress duties for him. He wondered what her servants in the palace would think about that as he took in the warm, inviting curry aroma, the spices stimulating his sense of smell in an extremely pleasant fashion.

Although not too enthusiastic about it at first, he picked up a spoonful and brought it to his mouth. Then his eyes shot wide open. It was a perfect harmony—sweet, spicy, and just the right amount of salt. The sensation of the melt-in-your-mouth curry, accompanied by the onions and potatoes in the sauce, made him drown in euphoria. He wasn’t even really thinking about food before the plate arrived, but the next thing he knew, he was taking one spoonful after another, trying to get at every grain of rice.

On the other side of the table, though, there was the Seitenshi, spoon in hand, just staring at her own steaming plate.

“What is it?” he asked.

“No, I…I mean, my meals in the palace were managed for an exact balance of vitamins and nutrients down to the last milligram, so…I was just thinking what they’d say if they saw this.”

“Lady, you’re the head of state. You can eat whatever you want.”

The Seitenshi quietly shook her head. “Not quite. I may be head of state, but that does not put me in a ruling position over my people. I speak for the people who selected me, and I have a duty to give them everything I have.”

She closed her eyes, bringing a hand to her cheek.

“I am blessed, it is true, to receive a great deal of compliments on my appearance. People, for better or worse, seek beauty from me, and if beauty helps my voice come across more clearly to my people, then I would gladly consider my body, too, to be in their service. That is why I strive for beauty, and if I disrupt my nutritional balance, that could cause my beauty to disappear, breaking the unwritten law between myself and my— Mmph!”

Rentaro used the hand that wasn’t shoving a spoonful of curry in her mouth to rub one of his shoulders. Just listening to her go on was making them ache.

The Seitenshi shot to her feet, shaking with surprise. “Wh-what are you doing?! I—I… Not even my own mother ever did something as brazen as—”

“—It’s impolite to talk with your mouth full.”

It was only then that she realized she hadn’t so much as chewed yet. She covered her mouth, blushing, as she swallowed. Now her eyes were filled with a more pleasant sort of surprise.

“…This is good.”

“Yeah, isn’t it? Isn’t that the whole point? If it’s good, who cares? As long as you’re with me, at least, forget about all that ‘head of state’ crap. If you can’t, then get your ass back in the palace now.”

“Y…es. You’re right… Thank you, Mr. Satomi.”

The Seitenshi gave him a warm, bright smile, so bright that Rentaro couldn’t stand to look at it with the naked eye. Something about the pickled relish the curry came with seemed particularly bittersweet to him, now that he was eating it to hide his embarrassment.

The two fell into an amicable if slightly awkward silence after that, opting to concentrate on their meals instead of idle conversation. It was the Seitenshi who finally broke the ice again.

“You’ve made your rounds around the prison, right, Mr. Satomi?”

“Yeah. Looks like Litvintsev fled on us.”

“Did you notice anything else, though?”

Rentaro’s spoon halted in midair before reaching his mouth.

“There’s one thing that’s bothering me, yeah. There was a dead Initiator sprawled out in front of the control room. She was sent out from the IISO on security detail; Rank 550. Done in by that Kochenkova girl, the one you warned me about yesterday.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“We’re talking about someone who could kill Rank 550 in one strike.”

Rentaro recalled the tigerlike claw wound as well as the death mask of surprise on the victim’s face. He shook his head. “They got us… They really got us. This Yulia Kochenkova girl—I know she’s way more powerful than Enju. I swear, that’s one Initiator I could never let her fight…”

“Mr. Satomi, I’ve been thinking about Litvintsev a little myself, and I’ve been wondering: Why did he take the risk of calling you over if he knew he was going to escape the very next day?”

“…”

“Because here’s my idea. I’m thinking that he wanted to give you a personal message before he left. Something along the lines of…well, ‘Catch me if you can,’ I suppose.”

Bitter, Rentaro crossed his arms, rubbing them with both hands and gritting his teeth. Are you saying you can make the entire world shudder all by yourself? You, a single person? He had to be honest with himself—he didn’t want to get involved with that man ever again. Just seeing the full strength of Yulia in action turned him off the idea for good.

If he kept pursuing Litvintsev, he felt instinctively it’d lead to events that he’d likely regret for the rest of his life. This was, after all, the Russian military he was dealing with. Each one of them a trained professional. Cold-blooded pros who wouldn’t flinch at murder for the sake of their mission. They lived in a different world.

But, at the same time, he also knew that there was no turning back. If he didn’t take action, after all, it would affect the lives of an unimaginably huge number of people.

“This fight isn’t over yet, Mr. Satomi. Let’s rack our brains and figure out where Litvintsev might be hiding.”

Rentaro heaved a sigh and tried to keep his mind serene. “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s start by thinking about where Litvintsev and his crew could have gone.”

The Seitenshi gave him a soft smile. “I’d be glad to help.”

It didn’t matter to him if this was just a brave show she was putting on. He silently ordered himself to think about the future instead as he sat back in his seat and crossed his arms.

“Okay, so do you have any ideas, even rough ones, of where they’re hiding out? They couldn’t have fled Tokyo Area that quickly.”

“That’s what I thought, too. Even if the hull of their motorboat was lined with Varanium, that wouldn’t be enough to engage seafaring Gastrea. I would guess they’re hiding out in Tokyo Area after getting back on land.”

“Could they have taken a plane out of the Area?”

“Tokyo Area’s air defenses are on high alert with the whole Sendai Area threat. They wouldn’t let a single gnat escape the Area right now. There’s a nonzero chance, I suppose, but I think we’d be safe to ignore it.”

Rentaro carefully took his thoughts one step further. “You explained to me a couple days ago that Litvintsev’s people were using Solomon’s Ring and the Scorpion’s Neck to take control of Libra.”

“Right. Stage Fives can communicate with one another via sound and electrical waves, so they might be stimulating the vocal cords taken from Scorpion’s corpse to create those waves. Then they could use the Ring as a translator to exchange messages. To put it another way, they could use the Neck to convince Libra that Scorpion is still alive.”

“But how are they getting those signals or whatever all the way to Mount Nasu in Tochigi Prefecture? That’s over one hundred and fifty kilometers away as the crow flies. I don’t know anything about wave physics or whatever, but can you send an electrical signal that far without it falling apart?”

“The answer to that is right above your head, Mr. Satomi.”

Rentaro followed the Seitenshi’s pointed finger up to the stained, faded ceiling. A line of tear-gas sprayers was situated directly above. That probably wasn’t what she meant, Rentaro figured. But then it finally struck him:

“Oh! A satellite…?”

The Seitenshi nodded approvingly. “Good. That was some fast thinking, Mr. Satomi. Geosynchronous satellites are generally equipped with relay devices called transponders. A site on Earth’s surface can send a signal up to one, and the transponder will amplify the signal and send it back to another site. That essentially eliminates any physical wave-strength limitations, and I’m sure that’s what Litvintsev and his men are using.”

“Well…wait. Hang on.” Rentaro raised a hand to stop her as he attempted to collate his disparate thoughts. “Aren’t satellites expensive? It’s not like everyone’s allowed to use them.”

“Exactly. As of 2031, most satellite access is restricted to police, civil security, or military usage. Someplace like Shiba Heavy Weapons launching a satellite of their own is the exception to the rule, really. I don’t know if your mobile phone can work via satellite access or not, Mr. Satomi, but if it does, you have the right to own that only because of your civsec license.”

Rentaro nodded. A satellite phone, which by definition never found itself without service access, was a must for civsecs active in places like the Unexplored Territory. Agents like him had permission to use them, as well as military-grade GPS tracking technology.

“Is satellite bandwidth or whatever still that precious these days?”

“Yes. Geosynchronous satellites have a shelf life of five to fifteen years, so they have to be relaunched on regular occasions. The Gastrea War, however, cost most nations the entirety of their space programs. Sagittarius shot down a lot of them during the War, too…”

“Oh…right,” Rentaro said, a sour taste in his mouth.

“So it’s fair to say that wherever Litvintsev and his team are hiding, it’s got to have a satellite uplink and downlink on premises. That’ll narrow our list of candidates pretty quickly.”

“An uplink and a downlink? Is that like sending and receiving data from a satellite?”

“Right, right.”

“Kind of like uploading and downloading, huh?”

The Seitenshi frowned a little, finger on her chin. “Um, not really, is it?”

Rentaro dropped the topic instead of letting it slow their progress. “So, uh, how many places in Tokyo Area would have that kind of up- and downlink capability?”

“One.”

“Huh?” Rentaro asked incredulously. “So that’s gotta be the place, right?”

“No,” the Seitenshi said as she solemnly shook her head. “Not there.”

“What? But—”

“It couldn’t possibly be there. That’s why nobody in the palace is doing anything about it.”

Now there was real force behind her voice. Force that would’ve made anyone hesitate to press on. If she was that insistent about it, Rentaro reasoned, it must have been safe to remove it from the list.

But—damn it, this was getting annoying. Anything he could’ve thought up with his feeble knowledge, the Seitenshi already considered a decade ago. I guess this is the end of the road, Rentaro thought. So this is it? I’m doomed to just sit here and watch Litvintsev engineer all-out war between Tokyo and Sendai?

Just as his mind was about to voyage into dark, murky waters, a helping hand arrived from an unlikely source.

“Oof!” uttered an elderly voice as something pushed Rentaro from the side. It was Superintendent Akutsu, sitting down at the table with a plate of curry in hand. The eyes buried in his wrinkled face swiveled over to his.

“Why’re you guys helping yourself to the food they made for us, huh?” he growled. “And you’ve got your girl here, too? What the hell?”

The Seitenshi’s chair clattered as she got up, face red as an apple as she struggled to say something.

“I…I…I am not Rentaro’s ‘girl,’ good sir…!”

“Good what?”

She covered her mouth, brought the hood down over her head, and sat back down on the chair with a heavy thud.

“Wh-what do you want, though?” Rentaro asked, striving to get the conversation back on track.

“Could’ve sworn I heard that voice before…but anyway, you’re trying to track down Litvintsev, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Akutsu narrowed his eyes and let out a chiding laugh.

“Well, you’re in luck, ’cause we got a witness here who might just know where he ran off to.”