Black Bullet - Volume 7 - Chapter Pr

PROLOGUE THE KING OF PLAGUES

Liquid poured from the fountain, around the statue of some god or another. It took in some blue from the sky as it fell and wafted the crisp smell of fresh water into the nostrils of passersby as it broke the surface of the collection pool.

It drove the woman in white to bend a knee, remove one of her long gloves, and slowly plunge her hand inside. It felt good; the cold water was comfortable in the midsummer heat. As she knelt, she could see the corroded aluminum of single-yen coins and the rusted copper of ten-yen pieces that had sunk to the bottom.

Letting her mind go as she flicked her wrist around, the woman could feel all the dust and muck from the world around her vanish into thin air. But the serenity didn’t last long. She heard heavy footsteps on the stone pavement behind her.

“It is time, Lady Seitenshi.”

“Have you figured out where the Neck and Solomon’s Ring are yet, Kikunojo?” asked the Seitenshi, the head of government in Tokyo Area, as she turned around.

The chief aide’s face didn’t move a single muscle. “We are currently searching for it, my lady.”

“Have you discussed things with Satomi yet?”

“If I could say so, my lady, I am against entrusting any of that to him in the first place.”

The Seitenshi rose and surveyed the large, gray-haired man behind her, just in time to see him finally drop his brows a little. “Would it be overstepping my bounds,” she said, “to ask why?”

“My lady, he is merely a civsec officer. You are granting him far too much responsibility.”

“You’re certain that Andrei Litvintsev and his people have entered Tokyo Area?”

“We are certain, yes.”

She let out a sigh. “Not exactly a rosy future, is it?”

“We had best focus on the summit ahead of us first.”

“……”

“Less than enthusiastic, my lady?”

The Seitenshi closed her eyes for a moment before slowly opening them.

“Let’s get going.”

She followed Kikunojo across the stepping stones. They strode through a tree-lined, well-manicured lawn, up to a roaring wall of water. The moment she stood in front of it, the water flow stopped dead, a combination of face-detecting sensors and actuators bringing a corridor into view.

Passing through a damp, square gazebo and an artificial waterfall on the other side, she found herself holding her hat down fast against a brisk side wind. All she could hear was the rustling grass under her feet as she looked up from under her hat, regarding a chalk-white building looming under the clear blue sky.

This was Akasaka Palace, the government’s guest house and reception hall for official ceremonies. It had been heavily refurbished after the Gastrea War, but the off-white granite and pondering sense of symmetry remained just as it was in its 1909 opening.

Proceeding past the security guards in black and through the front door, the Seitenshi was met with a room laden with décor just as intricate and gaudy as her own palace. An attendant guided them to the mighty door that opened the way to the White Phoenix Room.

“It’s now or never, my lady.”

The Seitenshi felt the sweat on her palms through the gloves. She could palpably feel her pulsing heart through her crossed arms.

“…What happens beyond these doors could change the entire future of Tokyo Area, couldn’t it?”

Don’t let your guard down, she told herself. You’re dealing with people incredibly gifted at making others slip up—with the extensive experience required to freely wield that talent, no less.

She took a deep breath and started to open the door. It made more of a heavy thudding sound than she expected, enough to make the conversation beyond skid to a halt as the people inside turned their eyes to her at once. She didn’t flinch. That much, at least, she was expecting.

The room, modeled after what the late-era French royal family preferred in the eighteenth century, was thrown into a chest-splitting silence. There was a fresco on the ceiling, the curtains lined with gold fiber. It was uniformly laid out in off-white and golden colors, topped off with a grandiose, 800-kilogram chandelier that shone so brightly, it was hard to look at directly.

The Seitenshi walked up to her appointed desk. Kikunojo pulled out the chair for her as she sat.

“Were you out picking flowers, Lady Seitenshi?”

A jab at her for being a woman, perhaps. It was painfully difficult to retain a cool face against such a malignant joke.

“I apologize for being late, President Saitake. Please continue.”

Sougen Saitake, head of Osaka Area and a man whose face eternally evoked that of a lion in midpounce, gave an embarrassed grimace and snorted, as if he was the one being affronted. As he did, the Seitenshi surveyed the collection of elderly men surrounding her, and let out a little sigh at their eminent-looking visages. They were all seated in one room: the leaders of the Osaka, Sendai, Hakata, and Hokkaido Areas.

A historic moment—the first official summit between all five heads of state in the islands of Japan.

It was sort of like a G5 summit that Japan had all to itself. One had to wonder how apt that comparison was, but Tokyo Area’s responsibilities as host were still nothing to gloss over.

“Now, can we get back to the Japanese national flag issue, please?”

The voice, accompanied by a rapping on the table, came from what the Seitenshi was pretty sure was the Hakata—

“Which issue is this, Prime Minister Kaihoko?”

There were deep lines drawn across the dark, tanned skin of Masamori Kaihoko, prime minister of the southern-lying Hakata Area. His hair was a salt-and-pepper mix, and his deep-set, heavy eyebrows only added to the physical threat he exuded whenever he spoke.

“Right now,” Kaihoko huffily began, “Japan is still using the red-and-white hinomaru as its official flag, but it’s been taking a beating in my native Area. People say the red circle resembles the eye of a Gastrea too much. What I’m suggesting is that we change it—change it to anything, really. A yellow circle, a black one, whatever.”

“Well, make it a black circle, then,” the man sitting next to him said as he nodded amicably. “As a Varanium-producing Area, a black circle would represent what we’re all about perfectly.”

This was the newly appointed prime minister of the Hokkaido Area to the north. He enjoyed nervously fussing with his monocle whenever he spoke, a rather distinct five-o’clock shadow of a mustache encircling his lips.

The suggestion was not one the Seitenshi was willing to let slide. “Prime Minister Juzouji,” she said, “I think we should consider the role of tradition here. There is intense meaning, after all, to the things our ancestors helped protect for us.”

“So, you’re telling me to ignore the will of my constituency?”

The Seitenshi turned to Kaihoko. “Yes,” she began, “I know you’re up for election soon, Mr. Kaihoko. But focusing on the day-to-day whims of the people will leave your administration rudderless. A successful government needs to run on guiding principles, lest it run the risk of losing its mandate to lead.”

The head of Hakata Area closed his opened jaw tightly, raising an eyebrow in rage.

“Damn it, girl…”

“I’m glad we have an understanding,” the Seitenshi calmly replied to the heedless name-calling. Maybe this was working her way. Maybe she had what it took to fend off Kaihoko and Juzouji—these weather-beaten career politicians—after all.

Saitake raised a bony hand, sneering at the others in his room. “Let me weigh in, then,” he rasped. “I wanted to ask about the Cassiopeia Project…”

“Yes,” the Seitenshi instantly replied. “I would like to see work proceed as quickly as possible on that.”

She was expecting this to come up. Cassiopeia involved building a vast underground rail network, using gigantic tunnel-boring machines to link the five Areas together. It was a central part of the Seitenshi’s political platform, and it was a project she fervently wanted to see take root, no matter how much political capital it took.

“An underground network”—she spoke clearly as she sized up her peers one by one—“will not only energize the economies of all five of our Areas; it will also serve as a symbol of peace and harmony between us. It will kindle a new, and substantial, light of hope within our people—the hope that mankind is capable of striking back against the Gastrea menace.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that…”

A shiver ran down the Seitenshi’s spine as a subdued voice spoke up for the first time. It came from the prime minister of Sendai Area: His hair was completely white, right down to the eyebrows, and it had receded to the point where it existed only in a pair of tufts around his ears. It made the top of his head shine, like he had oiled it before coming in. The combination of protruding cheekbones and small, beady eyes gave him a gorillalike appearance, and his eyes shone with what seemed like a deep suspicion of everyone and everything around him.

It was enough to make her unconsciously straighten her posture. That took a lot. She was in the same room with Sougen Saitake, a man whom she was fairly certain had tried to kill her not long ago; Masamori Kaihoko, every bit Saitake’s equal when it came to extreme beliefs and aggressive politics; and Tsukihiko Juzouji, still a complete question mark when it came to his abilities as head of state. But it was Muramaro Ino, prime minister of Sendai Area, whom the Seitenshi considered to be the eye of this typhoon that the summit was shaping up to be.

“By which I mean,” Ino muttered, putting heavy emphasis on each syllable, “that it is simply not realistic. How much time and money do you think that would require? Perhaps you have the financial freedom for it, Lady Seitenshi, but we might all be old and senile by the time they hold the ribbon-cutting ceremony.”

It seemed he meant to get a laugh out of the last sentence. But in the heavy-handed atmosphere, it never had a chance.

“Prime Minister Ino, I don’t know if you’ve been following recent advances in tunnel development, but the progress they’ve been making is simply astonishing. If we could deploy shield machines in Tokyo Area and Sendai Area, we could create a true physical link between the two Areas far more quickly than you’d think.”

“Mm, yes,” Ino responded leisurely as he scratched his head. Her argument, as she feared, had fallen on deaf ears.

Linking all five Areas together by rail would drastically reduce transport costs. It would also take Hokkaido Area’s inexpensive agricultural produce, Osaka Area’s heavy-industry manufacturing, and Tokyo Area’s world-leading Varanium supply and collate them together into a united front for Japanese trade.

She was sure Sendai Area’s farmers and manufacturers were lobbying Ino against the idea. The think tanks that had Ino’s ear were similarly interested in protecting their vested interests, no doubt.

In a way, the Seitenshi couldn’t help but smile to herself at the irony. As recently as ten years ago, there was just a single nation known as Japan; now, in 2031, it was hard to picture reunification happening anytime soon. But that was what she wanted to see in her lifetime—five Areas returning to one and resurrecting the country of Japan. Right now, however, she suspected that Gastrea weren’t necessarily the greatest obstacle after all.

In the end, and no doubt to Ino’s great relief, no agreement was made on the Cassiopeia Project. It was delayed again, and the Seitenshi would have to settle for that. The other heads of state agreed it was too early to decide on everything in this meeting, that they needed to bring the proposal back home for deliberation. But if these old men didn’t have the discretionary power to act on the idea, who else in their governments would?

It wasn’t until the group began to wrap up their discussions, which touched on everything from macroeconomics to energy and climate-change issues, that the taciturn Ino decided to speak up.

“By the way…”

—Maybe he had picked this exact moment to speak, once everyone had started to soften their stances a little.

“I understand Tokyo Area possesses something called the Inheritance of the Seven Stars.”

The Seitenshi’s eyelids burst wide open. She exchanged glances with Kikunojo, standing next to her.

“Where did you hear about this ‘Inheritance’?”

“Well,” Ino said with a gloom-inducing laugh, “I do have something like an information agency at my disposal. It’s just idle gossip, I imagine, but according to the chatter that’s been related to me, Tokyo Area is allegedly using a mysterious object known as the Inheritance of the Seven Stars as a catalyst to summon a Stage Five Gastrea—a Zodiac. There’s no truth to it, is there?”

“I can’t answer that,” the Seitenshi said curtly.

Ino’s eyes glinted with suspicion. “What does that reply mean, I wonder? There’s no need for constraint. It would be perfectly fine to laugh it off as the idle gossip that it is.”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Well! So now the leader professing to be the great uniter of the five Areas is hiding things from the rest of us?”

The Seitenshi was at a loss for an answer. She knew this was bad. She was concocting a situation for herself where she was all but inviting her peers to interrogate her.

“I apologize, but this is conflicting with Tokyo Area classified material.”

Her voice held none of the calm coolness from before, nor was there even the slightest indication a reply would do anything to soothe the supreme awkwardness of the room. But, mercifully, Ino did not pursue her any further. The summit came to a close—one where they had failed to find a compromise on nearly every topic.

But in the space of just a few days, the discord between the two would trigger events potent enough to change the world.

“Keep your hands moving! Get back to your posts!”

The shouting from the field boss echoed across the cavern, almost physically driving him to take up the grip of the jackhammer and drive the chisel down into the hard rock beneath. He pushed the throttle lever, and the resulting pneumatic action battered the hammer’s Varanium chisel into the rock. The overpowering earthen smell in the air, combined with the bone-rattling jackhammer recoil, made him instinctively keep one eye shut.

A dank, humid underground cavern was never an ideal work environment. The man found himself regularly lowering the hammer grip just so he could wipe the sweat from his brow. All around him, under the dim light of a bare bulb, other hammerers, faces dirty with thick, heavy dust, were loading crushed rock into a conveyor. From here, in this pit, it wasn’t clear whether it was afternoon or evening.

To Hitoshi Kamisu, it felt like he had taken his life and tossed it right into an antlion pit.

He was inside one of the mines that dotted the Unexplored Territory beyond the Monoliths. Before the Gastrea War broke out in 2021, he was importing and selling cosmetics to people. That evaporated quickly, and in the Gastrea-infested postwar era, where all aircraft were required by law to have civsec-piloted escort planes to protect them from bird- and insect-type Gastrea, the resulting costs no longer made the risk/reward ratio at all feasible.

Back in college, Hitoshi read somewhere—maybe from Darwin, but maybe not—that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Along those lines, Japan in the postwar years, so drastically changed in every way by the Gastrea, was nothing he was capable of adapting to. He had more than enough money in the bank to reestablish himself, but something made him too timid to try much of anything anymore. Instead of taking risks and challenging himself to new heights, he was perfectly happy to cruise along and watch his finances gradually dwindle.

Rock bottom didn’t come along until ten or so years later. He was more or less kidnapped by yakuza seeking redress for some financial debts. That was the beginning of Hitoshi Kamisu, Varanium miner. It was simple, brain-dead work, nothing with any discernible future potential to it.

B3F, the assigned floor Hitoshi had descended to in the mine elevator, was both darker and gradually narrower the deeper it went. The iron beams supporting the ceiling were nothing he felt safe counting on. A coworker told him that modern technology had all but eliminated cave-ins, but this operation was an illegal one—unauthorized mining run by a front firm for the yakuza—so there was no telling how much of this “technology” was up to code.

He was shaken out of bed each morning, fed a breakfast that was never particularly good, then forced to work until evening before he collapsed back into his shabby blankets. Anything that could give him the current time, like a watch or cell phone, had been confiscated from him first thing, so it was hard to know for sure, but his body clock told him it was between one and two in the afternoon.

The thing that really exasperated him about this job was how it took a good hundred kilograms of ore to extract a single Troy ounce (around thirty-one grams, apparently) of Varanium. It was his job to hammer through all that ore.

On more than a few occasions, he found himself jerked out of bed after having dreams of Gastrea screaming at him in deep, hoarse cries. Civsecs were handling security duty here 24-7, but the kind of civsecs the yakuza dug up weren’t much more than criminals themselves—birds of a feather, and all that. Their job seemed to be less security and more about rounding up miners who went AWOL. And besides, the miners here all had money troubles with the yakuza. They all knew, should a powerful Gastrea come strolling along, the yakuza sure as hell weren’t gonna spend any more money rescuing their asses.

“Yo! How many times I gotta tell you? Keep your hands moving!”

Hitoshi grunted to himself and returned to work.

A shuddering boom sent the light bulb flickering as pebbles and dust shook free from the ceiling. Waves of surprise ensued from the miners. Hitoshi thought it was some kind of controlled blasting work, but another faraway boom made dust fall from above again. Cold sweat ran down his arms, his heart racing. He didn’t like this.

The sound gradually grew to a rhythm. By the seventh time, the boom was close enough to trigger earthquakelike shaking. Hitoshi fell, his legs going out from under him as his hip painfully struck the floor. It was coming closer. It was almost like—

“Are those some kind of footsteps…?”

The words, muttered to no one in particular, were like a seed of anxiety planting itself in his heart. It sprouted in an instant, with vines of terror entwining his body. Before anyone could even shout “Run!” he was already in action. The field boss was screaming at everyone to return to their posts, but Hitoshi knew his heart wasn’t in it. The managers were outnumbered, and they had no motive to fend back the oncoming rush of bodies.

The mine elevator, packed to the gills with people surrounding him, shook as it emitted ominous, shrill creaking sounds, like fingernails on a chalkboard. The hardy miners onboard all cringed, fearful of a ceiling collapse. What was this? What was going on?

Soon, the car made it to ground level. The fence surrounding it was quickly swept away. Hiroshi jumped over to the frame of the nearby hoisting tower, groaning at the sharp light piercing his vision—it must have been afternoon after all.

But the next moment, everything went dark as the sun disappeared. Hitoshi looked up at the sky, unsure of what had happened.

And then he saw it—

It made his sense of scale go haywire. That was the only way to put it. From his post in the hoisting tower, he was looking at a long, thin, rippling pile of muscle. Legs lined both sides of its body, each one bursting with bristles and wartlike growths. This thing was right in front of Hitoshi, and to him, it was a majestic sight—one that seemed to make all descriptions of hugeness obsolete.

The long, vertical body, reminiscent of the Great Wall of China, looked like some kind of ringed worm or leech. Its body was upright, its ground-driven legs divided into segments. The more developed of these legs curved outward like scythes while the bottommost ones dug into the earth. It was a mammoth-level Gastrea, and it was right in the midst of crossing over Hitoshi’s hoisting tower. Its stomach portion blocked the sun and scared him out of his wits.

With a mixture of screaming and shouting, the security civsecs fled the scene in all directions, fully abandoning the mine site. And with every step the Gastrea took, Hitoshi’s stomach was jostled and torn by the vibration of the boom. It sent plumes of rock dust flying into the air as it smashed through the portable Monoliths lining the site, chopping them to pieces like a karate demonstration.

Then Hitoshi noticed the large number of saclike growths on the bottom half of the Gastrea. They looked like eggs, and something about them triggered a memory.

“Viral sacs? No…no way.”

He groaned and took a step back.

The Zodiac Gastrea, king of all Gastreas—

“Libra, the King of Plagues…!”

There was no doubt about it. It was one of the creatures that made the entire world shudder ten years ago.

Two hours later, the news had made its way to the nerve center of Tokyo Area—the Seitenshi’s palace in District 1.

The office in the western tower, used by the head of state, was tense. Staffers ran to and fro, confirming sources and trying to figure out a response.

“So, Libra halted its advance at that mine,” the Seitenshi stated calmly, elbows on an enormous work desk. “Where is it?”

Kikunojo, face stern as always, waved a hand. The room darkened, revealing a large holopanel map hovering in midair. It showed a large stretch of Unexplored Territory between the Tokyo and Sendai Areas.

“It sits nearby the Mount Nasu range, in what we would’ve called Tochigi Prefecture ten years ago. We don’t have any record of the government awarding mining rights in the area, so it was probably an illegal operation.”

The Seitenshi stared intently at the holodisplay as it shone in the darkness.

“…So Libra appeared near the midpoint between Tokyo and Sendai. What’s its status?”

“Currently, it has taken up position directly above the mine, coiled like a snake.”

“So it’s stopped moving?”

Kikunojo shook his head. “That I cannot say.”

“What was Libra’s ability again…?”

“The ability to take in tens of thousands of viri, fatal exclusively to human beings, and diffuse them into the air. These viri are not only breathable; they can be absorbed through the upper skin layer. You would need the latest in anti-contamination suits to physically block them. The viri Libra produces are also resistant to ultraviolet light and can make it through the Monolith magnetic field. It went through Russia ten years ago and turned that place into a living hell. The streets were filled with people dying of all kinds of bizarre, unheard-of, and agonizing diseases. The stench of the bodies reportedly made it all the way to Beijing.”

“Hence ‘the King of Plagues,’ I suppose. So what about the viral sacs around its stomach?”

“They are active, my lady.”

“Get our analysts to figure out when it’ll release its viral load.”

“Yes, my lady. Although judging by its abilities, I’d say Sendai Area has more to be concerned about than we do.”

“How so?”

“It’ll catch a ride on the westerly winds.”

The Seitenshi brought a startled hand to her lips.

“Ah, have you already noticed? If Libra releases its viral load at its current location…the weather will have an effect on it, but it’s all but guaranteed to follow the prevailing winds and make a direct hit on Sendai Area.”

“Well, there’s practically no chance of defeating a Zodiac with normal weapons. I only hope Sendai doesn’t get panicky and start firing missiles at it.”

The Seitenshi turned toward a policy secretary next to her.

“Tell Prime Minister Ino that we’re counting on him to make the right decisions.”

“Reporting, sirs!” Suddenly, another secretary burst through the door, panting.

“What is it?”

“Prime Minister Ino has occupied the Tokyo Area embassy in Sendai Area and is presently holding our ambassador! He’s closed off the airports and canceled all flights going to or from Tokyo!”

The Seitenshi felt as though someone had struck her in the face with a hammer. She found herself flying up from her seat.

“What are you…talking about?”

“Sendai Area’s claiming that we used our Inheritance of the Seven Stars to summon Libra in order to destroy them. They’re asking us repeatedly to withdraw Libra at once. They’re reporting it on TV, too. Look!”

The aide breathlessly brought up a command on the holodisplay. He didn’t even have to change the channel before Prime Minister Ino appeared, standing behind a lectern and shaking his fist in the air.

“Ladies and gentlemen of Sendai Area! As all of you know, our homeland, which was ravaged in the Gastrea War ten years ago, has restored itself to good health thanks to the efforts of every man, woman, and child in this Area. Those efforts are why the United Nations has recognized us as the sovereign nation that we are. But now, the rights we fought so hard for—the right to sovereignty, and to our continued existence—are under mortal threat.”

His eyes, hidden under the drooping flaps on his forehead, suddenly shot open as he rapped at the lectern.

“That threat is none other than Tokyo Area! Our intelligence services have discovered that Tokyo is concealing a new technology that enables them to control Zodiac Gastrea at will.”

“That’s not true!” shouted the Seitenshi, even though she knew it was pointless. “The Inheritance doesn’t have that kind of power!”

“In other words, Sendai Area’s life-or-death situation at the hands of Libra is entirely due to the machinations of the Tokyo Area government. No matter what their intentions are, good or bad, it is clear they have crossed a line no government should ever cross. Thus, we have been forced to take retaliatory measures against the Seitenshi administration in Tokyo in order to defuse this Libra threat. What I am asking you for, citizens of Sendai Area, is—”

That was all she could stand. She waved the panel shut and hung her head low, shaking it softly. An all-penetrating silence enveloped the office.

…He was asking for war. All-out war between the Areas. That was what was on her, and everyone else’s, mind.

The Seitenshi weakly raised her head, drawing the attention of the rest of her staff. They were patiently awaiting her orders.

She fingered the rosary around her neck. Its solid feel between her fingers was the only solace her heart could reach. She took a deep breath.

“We need to release a statement denying all involvement immediately.”

“Will they believe us?”

“The longer we delay, the guiltier we’ll look to them. Also, we’ll need to send a special envoy over to Sendai in secret.”

One of the ministry secretaries gave her a nervous glance. “Would this be a good time to disclose the existence of the Inheritance to the other Areas, do you think?”

“No. Even if we tell all four other Areas about it, I doubt we can expect them to use it in a peaceful manner. And with things as bad as they are now, I doubt Sendai Area would believe much of what we told them. The ideal solution would be to take out Libra with our own forces, but…”

The secretary adjusted his glasses and brought his eyes down upon the documents in front of him.

“…But if we could do that, we would’ve done it ten years ago, I suppose. Libra’s evolved from the DNA of hundreds of thousands of species. Its multi-layered shell can withstand all types of modern weaponry. The only really effective offense we have on hand is nuclear, I think, but…”

“…No,” the Seitenshi promptly interrupted. “It might be Unexplored Territory now, but using nuclear weapons in former Japanese territory would violate the New World Treaty.”

An analyst entered the room with an “excuse me” and spoke into the ear of a secretary, who then nodded.

“The lab’s done with its results. If the viral sacs continue to grow at their current speed, they’ll start to be released five days from now. Sendai Area also sent us a final bulletin indicating that they’ll attack us if Libra isn’t recalled within four days.”

“Four days…”

The clock began to tick in the minds of everyone on hand.

“We’ll need to start figuring out ways to reconcile with them and eliminate Libra right away. If we don’t do something, this hate’s just going to cover the entire world.”

“Lady Seitenshi…”

Turning around, she saw Kikunojo, his eyes now open after an extended period of being closed. They shone coldly, disturbingly so.

“We must isolate the Sendai Area ambassador in his embassy and prepare a retaliation immediately.”

The Seitenshi quietly shook her head.

“We cannot. If hate continues to breed hate, it will lead us all down to hell before long. This whole case might be connected to Solomon’s Ring and the Neck, as well…”

“My lady, is there any point in discussing that with things as they are right now?” The gray-haired man’s half-shouted question cowed the other staffers into submission. Silence returned once more.

“My lady,” Kikunojo continued after a moment, voice clearer, “Sendai Area has taken our innocent ambassador hostage and turned their missiles toward us. This is going to enrage our people, and that’s going to turn their minds toward choosing war. If we don’t prepare for that, they’ll call us cowards and probably force you out of office.”

“I don’t care. If that’s what the people want, I will accept it.”

“My lady, who besides you could ever serve as Tokyo Area’s icon? Why don’t you understand that sometimes it’s your job to meekly sit on the throne of power? It is for the long-term good of Tokyo Area.”

“I’m afraid that, this time at least, I cannot listen to your advice.”

She pushed Kikunojo back and was just about to shout some orders at a secretary when she was stopped by Kikunojo’s outstretched arm.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

He motioned a command to his side. Suddenly, a large man in black busted in and held the Seitenshi’s arms in place. For a moment, she couldn’t comprehend what had happened.

“…What is the meaning of this?”

“Lady Seitenshi, I need you to spend some time resting in your room.”

The meaning behind Kikunojo’s severe expression suddenly became clear.

“…So this is a coup?”

Kikunojo furrowed his brows, revealing a sad look for the first time.

“During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, America and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world seven and a half times over. Every one of those was aimed at each other, and at the height of the crisis, the fingers were absolutely on the buttons, my lady. Soviet secretary Khrushchev ultimately accepted US negotiators and kept the world from experiencing full nuclear war. He made the right decision for himself, but it made him weak in the eyes of his own people. It became one of the main reasons why he was deposed not long after. You need to remember, Lady Seitenshi, that sometimes the ‘correct’ decision needs to be dismissed from your mind. I was tasked by the previous Seitenshi to keep you from being overthrown—it is the sole reason why the decrepit old man you see before you has clung to this position.”

“Shame on you! And shame on you for attempting to solve everything through sheer power!”

“No one can measure whether a decision is wise or poor. Not even the history books.”

“It’ll become clear when you rise from your grave and the angel judges you for heaven or hell.”

“So be it. If hell wants me, I’m ready to accept it… Take her away.”

“I can walk by myself,” snapped the Seitenshi as the guard in black shuffled her along. She looked at Kikunojo for another moment or two before turning around and leaving the office.

The light from the three-pronged candlestick warmly flickered, transforming the darkness-enshrouded hallways into a world of sanity and logic.

She never liked the palace at night. Especially in areas without any people around.

Kiyomi Kase, the sole woman among the small army of governmental aides who called the palace home, nervously paced the hall. The painting of a beautiful woman on the wall, created by some famous artist, seemed alive in the darkness, as if waiting for the observer to turn away from her.

Her duty as an aide had kept her at work for nearly the entire previous week, and the amount of work she had today indicated the palace must be turning upside down. Even now, she could see dazzling light come from the western tower. She doubted it’d ever be shut off tonight.

Compared to that, the Seitenshi’s personal chambers on the far edge of the western tower were a sort of fortress of solitude, one that only her personal attendants could ever access.

Kiyomi carried a tray with a steaming bowl of soup and bread. With the Seitenshi under house arrest, the lady was stuck in her rooms, forcing Kiyomi to tend to her meals. But she had yet to show any sign of touching them.

Turning her concerns to getting her mistress to eat something for a change, Kiyomi stood in front of the inner door, placed the candlestick down, and knocked a few times.

“Lady Seitenshi, my apologies for bothering you late at night.”

She stared at the door, decorated with vinelike curving lines. Only the silence of rejection gave her any reply. She knocked and called her again. But the act was just as futile.

Kiyomi sighed. But just as she turned around to go, she could feel the wind from the other side of the keyhole. She brought a hand to it and waved it against the hole a few times. She wasn’t imagining it.

A bad feeling raced across her mind as she called “Excuse me,” stuck the correct key in from her ring, and shot through the door.

There was no sign of anyone inside. The silk curtains fluttered in the air. The right-hand curtain had been removed from the rail—and, oddly enough, was nowhere to be seen.

Taking the candlestick out to the balcony, Kiyomi’s doubts were answered. The curtain was tied to the handrail outside, flowing listlessly in the wind. She had cut the curtain into strips, then made a rope out of it, one that extended down from the third floor to the ground.

When Kiyomi realized what this meant, she dropped the candlestick, bringing both hands to her mouth.

“Oh my God…!”