CHAPTER 1
Those Seeking Riches and Battles
Third Friday of January
The station wagon sped through Academy City, an urban center built upon cleared land in the western part of Tokyo. In the vehicle were three young men: Ritoku Komaba, Shiage Hamazura, and a man known only as Hanzou. They belonged to a delinquent group named Skill-Out.
Hamazura, who was gripping the steering wheel, clearly wasn’t old enough to have his driver’s license yet. That couldn’t be compared to the two other rules they were breaking, though.
The first was that the station wagon itself was a stolen vehicle.
The second was that an ATM, which they’d picked up using heavy machinery, was shoved in the backseat.
Their station wagon barreled along roads lined with wind turbines, driving along underneath blimps that drifted in the blue skies.
“Hoo, boy. You’re telling me this one machine has, like, twenty million in it?” breathed Hanzou, his eyes glittering as he looked at the ATM, its screen shattered and chassis broken. Then, to Hamazura, the one right in front of him in the driver’s seat at the wheel, he said, “I knew scouting you was a good idea. Without a guy who could tear out the machine’s anti-earthquake reinforcements with construction equipment, there’s no way we could’ve pulled this shit off.”
“Wait, then how’ve you been getting money before now?”
“Hmm? Oh, I’ve just been stealing sheet metal and scampering away as fast as my little legs can carry me.”
“That’s so lame, though!!”
“To be honest, it would be way faster to drag some weakling into an alley and hit ’em a few times. But hey, Komaba’s the type who doesn’t lay a hand on weak little women and children.”
“Well, now that we have this, we’ll be livin’ large for a while!!”
Hamazura and Hanzou bellowed laughter like a couple of idiots, but Komaba didn’t react despite being mentioned. Hamazura checked the rearview mirror. The large, broad man just sat there silently like he was waiting on the sidelines for a chance that would never come.
“What’s up with Komaba?”
“Ah. You probably noticed earlier. Back when some random guy tried running up on an elementary school with a crossbow—right at the beginning of the third term, too—Komaba punched him like five meters away with only his fist. After that surprising show of kindness, it’s no wonder the little girl adores him. I’d think he’s probably still really embarrassed.”
Komaba, a hulking gorilla who could bring children to tears with just one look, gave a start, shifting his shoulders.
“Huh…? But I think he’s on his PDA looking at an Internet shopping website. Staring at this XL-sized Santa outfit and white beard. Been all stiff for about ten minutes now.”
Komaba twitched again—or wait, was he trembling?
“Well, you said it yourself, didn’t you, leader? She was all, Santa Claus really exists, right…? And then he went, Yeah, he’ll come at the end of the year—a real roughneck Santa Claus!!”
The pair of idiots continued their uproarious laughter, commenting on how there was no way that would ever happen when Komaba abruptly squeezed the PDA in his hand like it was a wet rag and shouted, “Graaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!”
“Oh no! Did Komaba go insane from all the embarrassment?!”
And despite Komaba not exactly being seated at the steering wheel, the station wagon slid unnaturally to one side anyway.
“So, Hamazura, you’re telling me there’s a way to break into an ATM?” Hanzou asked as they continued on their way to the hideout.
“Uh, yeah. I’ll handle the disassembly, too. There’s a…what’s it called? A capsule thing inside the safe. You can’t be rough prying it open.”
“A capsule?”
“Yeah, with fluorescent paint in it. If you don’t open it properly, it’ll mark all the bills, and then they’re useless,” explained Hamazura, adding in warning, “So don’t touch it until we get to the hideout.”
“Hamazura…what could this be, you think?”
“Damn it, Komaba!! I just told you not to touch it like five seconds ago—wait, what?”
Hamazura glanced at the rearview mirror, then stopped.
Between Ritoku Komaba’s large fingers was a long, thin stick that looked like a USB drive.
Oh, shit. Hamazura paled.
In a subdued voice, Komaba muttered, “…It looks like a GPS transmitter, but…”
That was the exact moment a shrill siren started blaring right behind them. No one needed to check to know that the lights flashing behind them were red. It was a high-speed vehicle, based on a sports car—the sort of cruiser driven by Anti-Skill, the city’s peacekeepers.
And right in front of them, in the middle of the road about a hundred meters up ahead, was a formation of specialized barricade robots: Giant and cylindrical, these machines were equipped with thick cushioning material all around. They looked like giant scrolls stood up on their sides as they rotated, unfurling to set up a soft, thick wall blocking off the road in the blink of an eye.
As the finishing touch, a few Anti-Skill cruisers slid to a stop right on the other side of the barricade, bolstering the rampart’s defenses even further.
Hanzou’s hands went to his head. “We’re caught between a rock and a soft place! What the hell do we do now, Hamazura?!”
“What do we do?” repeated Hamazura, thinking for a moment. “Guess we break through.”
The Anti-Skill officers waiting near the barricade dove aside as the suspects’ car accelerated, its driver clearly flooring it. One officer rolled out of the passenger seat of her high-speed cruiser, which she’d parked on the road just in case—and a moment later, the station wagon smashed through, sending everything flying.
Eighty percent of Academy City’s population was students, and as a result, the crimes that happened in Anti-Skill’s jurisdiction were mostly juvenile offenses. Naturally, those responsible for maintaining the peace had developed and responded with that in mind.
The barricade robots’ cushioning was for safely capturing children. It was too soft to spell instant death upon crashing, unlike a concrete block. In addition, since the parked cruisers were hit side-on, the station wagon had managed to pry open a gap between them, plunging through the barricade all at once while flinging metallic bumper parts all over.
The driver of the chase vehicle that had been pursuing the station wagon panicked, slamming on the brakes just moments before colliding with what was left of the barricade.
In the meantime, the station wagon took a sharp turn and disappeared past an intersection.
“Wow—just, wow!” laughed the officer as she watched them go from her vantage point on the pavement. They had certainly given her an eyeful. “I have the feeling I’ve found another interesting idiot—first time in a while, yeah?”
Hanzou craned his neck to check behind them, then whistled as he watched the scenery blurring away.
“That was crazy!!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know you could bust through that kind of barricade by force!”
“Well, it’s important to figure out what kind of wall it is first,” Hamazura cautioned. “If it was the kind that would have stopped the car even if it meant crushing us flat, or the kind that lets you go past so it can blow your tires out, doing what I did would’ve turned out way worse.”
Meanwhile, Komaba—with a dispassionate look on his face—opened the car window and flung the GPS transmitter outside. “I guess we should probably switch to a different car now.”
“Once we get a little farther. Doesn’t look like anyone’s behind us, but just in case—,” Hamazura began before suddenly being cut off.
With a vroom, a large, specialized vehicle burst out from a side road. While its appearance resembled a tanker, its body was awfully angular and had a bunch of what seemed like armor stuck to it. In any case, it was an extremely rugged-looking truck.
“Gah?!”
Before Hamazura could react, the front of the enormous vehicle rammed into the back corner of the station wagon. The car’s speed remained constant, but its heading was abruptly pushed sixty degrees to the side. The guardrail, which had been right next to them, was closely visible now. Instead of forcing the steering wheel back into its former position, Hamazura let the station wagon continue its slide to prevent it from spinning out completely.
The tires screeched, leaving streaks of black on the road. If he thoughtlessly hit the brakes, he’d instantly lose control. Instead, he expertly used the accelerator to regain stability.
“Shit! What was that?!” cried Hamazura as he looked behind him.
And then his pupils shrank to dots.
The rig had little red lights sitting on its roof.
“Is this a joke?!” he shouted. “That thing can’t possibly be one of Anti-Skill’s cruisers, right?!”
At the same moment, the truck pursuing them made a sharp turn, swinging its rear tank around. It closed in like it had locked on to their station wagon.
Hanzou paled. “Oh, shit!! Looks like they’re tryin’ to kill us after all!!”
Meanwhile, the big-breasted woman in the driver’s seat of the truck—looking like she’d probably flashed her badge and forcibly borrowed the vehicle—called something to them through a loudspeaker in one hand.
“Testing, testing. This is Aiho Yomikawa, Anti-Skill Branch Seven-Three. Robbery, property damage, interference of public duties, the list goes on—you assholes are going straight to hell, you hear me?”
“Damn it!! Listing interference of public duties last totally means that cow is pretty much after us over a grudge!” shouted Hanzou, taking out a handgun.
As if on cue, the truck sped closer with incredible horsepower.
Aiho Yomikawa sat in the driver’s seat of the tanker, gripping the steering wheel—which was as big as a Hula-Hoop—and tried to overtake the station wagon. The man wearing a bandanna and holding a gun was getting ready to lean out of his window, but Yomikawa spun the steering wheel to the side before he could, whipping the tanker’s tail end around and ramming it into the car.
A funny-sounding karaaash went off.
The station wagon was forced to keep driving straight, pinned between the large vehicle and the guardrail as it was; but the guardrail was what gave out first. The station wagon tore through its metal plating, and—having lost control—both it and the truck plowed right into an unmanned warehouse on the side of the road.
They destroyed the thick steel door, sending the piles of cardboard boxes inside the warehouse tumbling all over. Finally, the station wagon and the truck branched off, with the station wagon heading toward another cardboard mountain range and the truck crashing into one of the warehouse’s inside walls.
Bsshhh!! The steering wheel airbag deployed, inflating directly into Yomikawa’s face.
“Urfh! …Those rotten little brats! I’ll chase them to the ends of the earth in this thing!”
For now, she had to back out of the wall. She pulled on the gearshift and stepped on the accelerator, but the truck wouldn’t even budge.
By the time she realized the vehicle’s crushed body had gotten tangled on something, she saw a few young men come out from the back of the warehouse, all holding guns.
“Not good,” murmured Yomikawa, opening the driver’s side door and rolling out.
An instant later, she heard a rapid bang-bang-bang of several bullets impacting the passenger side.
…A three-round burst? thought Yomikawa with a frown, taking cover behind the vehicle’s tanker. Burst-fire was a mechanism that fired three bullets automatically with one pull of the trigger. The idea was to increase the rate of power while conserving ammunition, but…
“Ow!! Hanzou, are you stupid or something?! Why the hell’d you give this huge magnum a burst mode?! And you can’t even switch to semi-auto!”
“What do you mean? Isn’t it stronger and cooler when you can shoot a lot of bullets?”
“…Was that why you went to the trouble of extending the magazine?”
Great, they’re all idiots, thought Yomikawa. I should be able to manage this.
A handgun modified like that would have so much recoil they’d never be able to hit anything they’re aiming at. Yomikawa was assured of her victory, but suddenly, she noticed something rolling over to her from the rig. An object that looked to be about the size of a soccer ball.
“Ack!”
This time, she ran away as fast as she could.
The concept of Hanzou’s custom burst-fire magnum was obviously idiotic, but it did pack an undeniable punch. Realizing it would be a good idea to keep the Anti-Skill officer from using the rig as cover, Hamazura focused his fire on the fuel tank near the bottom of the driver’s seat.
When he did, he saw the officer frantically running away. She was probably worried the fuel tank would explode.
“Great, we drove her off. That stupid cow—actually, I wish we’d kidnapped her and made her pay for this.”
“…I will not tolerate any sexual assault.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know, Komaba. Anyway, the ATM. We don’t want to get surrounded when she calls in reinforcements. Wonder if the car still moves…”
Then, as Hamazura started toward the station wagon, still stuck underneath a pile of cardboard boxes, something ran into his toes.
He looked down and saw a sphere about the size of a soccer ball on the floor.
A look of horror dawned on his face as Hanzou went white and Komaba—as usual—showed no emotion.
“Hey, Hamazura, isn’t that…?”
“…Yeah…”
It was a huge firework—the kind you’d only see at organized events.
Another glance at the side of the tanker revealed letters reading FUKUOKA EXPLOSIVES . He also saw similar ball-shaped silhouettes scattered throughout the warehouse.
A moment later, there was a click and a flash.
The source was something that looked an awful lot like a torn electric cord, over by the fuel tank that had been underneath the driver’s seat until it was blown off by the overpowered magnum. The tip of it shone with a light blue glow right before it plopped onto the gasoline spreading over the floor.
“““AH?!”””
And thus, the three idiots’ screams were drowned out by bright flowers blooming in the winter sky.
In the end, Hamazura, Hanzou, and Komaba—blown into the sky like the explosive end of a comedy sketch—were arrested by Yomikawa upon her return and thrown into a jail cell. Several other ill-bred-looking delinquent boys shared the room with them, but none of them so much as tried to meet eyes with Hamazura and the others, sensing something from how beat-up and covered in soot they were.
Hamazura, gripping the steel grating in both hands, bowed his head limply. “…I mean, sure, we did something bad by stealing an ATM. But wasn’t that cow even worse?! And all the bills inside the ATM ended up getting burned anyway!!”
“…A fearsome Anti-Skill officer, indeed, when it would actually have been less destructive for her to simply let criminals go free and not pursue them… So they truly exist: Those outrageously happy-go-lucky types you see in detective shows… It seems we cannot underestimate that busty woman…”
“Gah, damn it!! Komaba, she doesn’t count as a kid or some weak little girl, right?! We gotta break out of here somehow and make her pay, with some squeezing and smooshing, like this…!!”
Hamazura wasn’t the only one complaining—even the usually taciturn Komaba was muttering. But it seemed like Hanzou hadn’t been listening for some time now. The explosive fireworks display must have been quite a shock for him, because he’d been sitting in the corner of the cell, arms wrapped around his knees, completely still.
Eventually, appearing to have come to a decision, he opened his mouth slowly.
“Sorry. Hamazura—and Komaba—I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Eh? What’s going on?”
The two of them looked over, and Hanzou looked away, as if unable to endure their gazes.
What he said was short and simple.
“…I think I’m in love.”
““Urgh?!””
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