BLACK BULLET 6

CHAPTER 03

HOTARU KOURO

1

It was with an overwhelming sense of chagrin that Shigetoku Tadashima, inspector from Magata Station, eyed Atsuro Hitsuma as he opened the interrogation room’s door. Tadashima nonetheless gave his direct superior from police HQ a dutiful salute.

“How are things going?” Hitsuma asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger.

“Well,” the barrel-chested Tadashima replied, “why don’t you see for yourself?”

On the other side of the room’s one-way mirror, they could see an elderly man in the interrogation room, answering questions. His face was darkly tanned, and his hair was a salt-and-pepper mix. The puffiness of his face made his eyes appear deeply sunken in their sockets. Tadashima knew through years of detective experience that a person’s personality and life experiences were often written on their face, and judging by this man’s, he surmised the man had led a tough, hardscrabble life.

“Who’s he?” Hitsuma inquired.

“Yuuki Iwama. Fifty-six; taxi driver. An eyewitness said he let a couple who looked like Rentaro Satomi and Hotaru Kouro into his cab, so we have him in for questioning at the moment. He swears he doesn’t remember taking a fare from anyone like that.”

“There’s no kind of record on the taxi’s computer about where he went, or when?”

“Turns out he didn’t have one,” Tadashima replied. “It looks like his taxi firm engages in some pretty drastic cost cutting in order to keep their fares the lowest in Tokyo Area.”

“What’s your gut telling you about him, Inspector?”

“Ah, he’s probably got something.”

Hitsuma crossed his arms together. “Do you think we can get it out of him?”

“He’s just a person of interest at this point. We can’t press him too hard. But did you visit the apartment with the body yet?”

“I stopped by for just a bit. It was…a heartbreaking scene.” Hitsuma shook his head in an expression of sorrow, but his words rung hollow, like an unpracticed actor reading a script for the first time.

After all, the word heartbreaking tended to be thrown around a lot, in contrived displays of empathy.

Tadashima had been first on the scene. The high-rise apartment complex that Gastrea forensic pathologist Ayame Surumi called home was the picture of hell itself, the survivors breathing wild tales of tire-shaped monsters attacking them. The police had found two of the wheeled machines as they cased the place, both with its innards destroyed. He shook off the thought before his mind could flash back to the grisly sights that remained tattooed to the backs of his eyelids.

“The doctor Rentaro Satomi visited was killed in her bathroom,” Tadashima began. “She had been dead for a fairly long period of time, so he couldn’t be the guy for that one. Immediately after, those crazy machines started their building-wide rampage—and, once again, Rentaro Satomi started coming to people’s rescue.

“What I really don’t get, though, is the body in the elevator. We found it in the car after the cable snapped and it fell to the second-level basement. It was so badly dismembered that we haven’t been able to get an ID yet, but the body had some kind of electronic parts infused within it. I mean, this is crazy. Why are there all these bodies wherever Rentaro Satomi goes?”

“What do you think, Inspector?”

Tadashima looked up to find Hitsuma gauging him carefully, his face serious. Tadashima felt something cold behind that stare as he tried to assemble his thoughts.

“It’s pretty clear to me there’s some nonpolice entity pursuing him. What I don’t understand is what kind of motive Rentaro Satomi could possibly have. Given that they made contact with Dr. Kakujo posing as the victim’s relatives, they must have some kind of mission or goal in mind. They might even be trying to clear their name, for all I know.”

“……”

“Do you think it’s time,” Tadashima continued, deliberately trying to fight off Hitsuma’s eerie silence, “that we made this a public investigation?”

“We can’t do that,” Hitsuma replied, his tone indicative of how ridiculous the idea was to him. “The news already reported that Rentaro Satomi fell off the Magata Plaza Hotel and drowned in the river. If people find out he’s been shrugging off police pursuit and skipping around Tokyo Area scot-free this whole time, it’s going to be an absolute embarrassment. All we have to do is secretly arrest him and say that we plucked him out of the river earlier.”

That’s “all” we have to do? Tadashima found himself wondering. Hitsuma, whether he knew of the inspector’s doubts or not, turned his eyes to the one-way mirror, taking in the interrogation.

“This would be a lot easier,” he whispered in a monotone, “if that cabbie would just tell us what he knows already.”

His release from police custody ultimately had to wait until two in the morning.

The moment taxi driver Yuuki Iwama left the front entrance, he was greeted by the sticky summer night air. The high humidity raised his discomfort level off the charts. Brooding over his stressful day, he turned the car’s ignition. They said they’d let him know if they needed anything else, but given how they had acted, they’d no doubt be calling his company’s office again soon. He was exhausted to the core and not particularly enthusiastic about running a night shift now, so he simply drove home instead.

He texted his wife as he did, figuring there was a chance she was still awake. No answer. To him, it was both a disappointment and a relief. It was easy for him to imagine the torrent of questions she’d unleash once he confessed where he’d been. She may have been the love of his life, but there was no way he could reveal who had climbed into his taxi hours earlier.

Soon, he pulled up to his home, in a quiet neighborhood outside the main city. His eyebrows arched up as he did. The lights were on, and he sensed there was activity inside. He pulled into the driveway to park the car in the garage, wondering what she was doing at this time of night.

Then he noticed that the lawn mower was still out in the yard. That wasn’t normal. His wife was so picky about that sort of thing. The moment she spotted so much as a speck of dirt on the kitchen floor, out she came with the dustpan and broom.

The door was unlocked, emitting a soft creak as he pushed down on the lever to open it. The front foyer was littered with shoes and mud tracks, as if something heavy had been dragged through.

It was like…like someone had attacked his wife while she was doing yard work and dragged her inside. Wasn’t it? Yuuki cursed his own overactive imagination as he reached back outside and pushed the doorbell. A pair of shrill tones echoed across the house.

There was no response. No, hang on—he could just barely hear something coming from the living room down the hall.

His pulse started to race, his breathing quick and shallow. There was no doubt in his mind that something bad was going on. He grabbed the ceramic flower vase by the front door, spilled out its contents, and held it by the neck to use as a weapon. He didn’t bother to remove his shoes as he stepped back in.

As he approached the living room, he realized that the sound was muffled groaning. Once he was at the doorway, Yuuki resolved himself, then jumped into the room.

The sight shocked him.

“Izuho!”

His wife was lying on the living room floor, hands and legs bound with tape, blindfolded and gagged. She looked like the cocoon of a bagworm moth as she groaned.

Yuuki ran to her in a panic, only to find his arms restrained from behind and something sharp and cold pressed against his neck. A knife blade, probably.

“Don’t turn around,” a low, threatening voice intoned. His body tensed up, sweat running down his forehead.

A home invasion?

“Who—who are you…?”

“I could tell you,” the voice replied calmly, “but if I did, there’d be no saving you or this woman.”

It was clear from the tone that the owner of the voice was uninterested in further questioning along these lines.

“I want to ask you one thing. Where did you drop off Rentaro Satomi and Hotaru Kouro?”

This is no robbery at all. This guy’s in pursuit of that freaky civsec pair. Yuuki was too intimidated to make any kind of reaction.

“You have two choices,” the voice continued. “Give me the location, or give me the location after I hurt you.”

“After you hurt me…?”

“I’ll start with the nails. Twenty of them. Not yours—the girl’s. Once I’m done with that, I’ll take off the fingers next. You can speak up anytime if you feel like talking.”

Yuuki let the vase fall out of his hand. It shattered loudly against the floor. He shook his head, not minding the shallow cut the knife made against his neck. Tears poured from his eyes.

“No… Stop. Anything but that.”

“Okay. So you know what you have to do, right?”

In his mind, Yuuki brought his hands up to Rentaro’s. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.

“District 18. Nagatoro City. The illegal-immigrant slum.”

“Right.”

The knife lowered, and the darkness behind him lessened.

A sharp silence descended as he gingerly looked over his shoulder.

Not a trace of the home invader remained.

The moment Yuuki realized he was safe, he immediately fell to his knees on the floor.

After what seemed like the millionth investigation meeting at Magata Station, Hitsuma was eating a not so palatable catered box lunch when the phone rang. Looking at the name, he stood up, walked to an empty part of a nearby hallway, and answered it.

“Swordtail? Why didn’t you go through Nest? Is it that important?”

“I found out where they got off the taxi. It’s in Nagatoro City, District 18. The illegal squatter camp.”

“Nice work. I’ll get an operation together ASAP. Is that all?”

His conversational partner, for some reason, was oddly silent. After a moment, though, he continued, his voice low and emotionless.

“Is it true Hummingbird got killed?”

Hitsuma hesitated for a moment.

“…Yes.”

“Well, it figures, what with how she swaggered around all the time. Pfft. Wish she realized how much work this put on me before she went off and died like that.”

“You better watch yourself, too. This isn’t any normal job.”

“No worries.”

Hitsuma stared at his phone for a few moments after the call ended. If his next move failed on him again, he’d have no choice but to deploy Swordtail himself. He didn’t want to go that far—not for a single target like this—but he nonetheless had zero doubt that the man would make short work of Rentaro Satomi and his accomplice.

He walked back to the office snickering to himself, carefully hiding the smile of joy trying to make its way to his face.

2

Rentaro Satomi, together with Hotaru Kouro, passed through the curtain together. “Thank you!” a voice shouted.

Back at the public bathhouse, all the lights were out. It was dark, shockingly so if your eyes were used to the light, but the stars in the sky helped to light the pathway ahead. His entire body felt comfortably warm as he noticed Hotaru looking at him, cheeks flushed red after the bath.

“That wasn’t bad,” she said. “I was wondering why you wanted to visit the bathhouse out of nowhere.”

“Yeah,” he breathlessly replied. “I’m glad it was up to your standards, Princess.”

To him, as long as he didn’t think about his current circumstances too much, walking under the stars down this path devoid of people was almost…fun. Refreshing.

He checked the time. Two a.m. His shirt had shrunk a bit after he washed it at the laundromat next to the bathhouse, and he tugged at it uncomfortably as he stretched out his torso.

Hotaru’s ripped tank top had been stitched back together with a sewing kit. There were still bloodstains on it, but the wash had faded them to the point where you wouldn’t notice unless it was pointed out.

It had only been about seven hours since the intense confrontation they’d had with Hummingbird in the apartment. Rentaro couldn’t exactly settle down for a nice bath with all the raw wounds on his body, so he had to wait until no other customers were around and be satisfied with rubbing a wet towel against himself to get the sweat and dead skin off.

But he was still in decent enough shape. The gunshot wound in his left leg, caused by a ricocheting bullet during the Hummingbird battle, had been fully taken care of, and the bullet removed. Walking, at least, wouldn’t make it any worse. Normally he’d rush right over to a hospital instead of jerry-rigging his own treatment like this, but as a fugitive from the law, the health system had little to offer him right now.

“You never took a bath with Suibara or anything?”

Hotaru flashed a resentful look. “Why do you care? Are you…? Rentaro, did you actually share the bathtub with your own Initiator?”

Rentaro, bewildered, scratched his head awkwardly. “She kept pestering me about it until I said yes… Damn it, I knew other civsec pairs didn’t do that. She tricked me!”

Hotaru sighed and gave Rentaro a commiserating nod. “Rentaro, you should really watch how you act in public. You’re pretty well-known for stuff like needing a ten-year-old girl to get off, and walking around town at night with a pair of panties on your head, and things like that.”

“Things like… Wait, what?”

Hotaru turned aside.

“Hey, why’re you averting your eyes like that?”

She remained silent, her countenance uneasy. Rentaro was about to ask another question, a particular and unfathomable fear dawning on him, when someone walked past them.

He had a feeling the person was watching them. Before he knew it, his heart froze over.

Rentaro took out a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and put them on, then slipped a glove over his Super-Varanium artificial hand, shining a dull black in the starlight. He’d purchased a pair of gloves after conferring with Hotaru and deciding he should at least hide his face and hands in public.

Yesterday, Rentaro took the girl along with him to Shidao University Hospital, where Dr. Kakujo pointed them to the apartment of Gastrea pathologist Dr. Surumi. That was where Hummingbird decided to strike at them. He still had no idea how Hummingbird had picked up on their movements, but one plausible theory was that someone had spotted him out on the street and reported it to the authorities.

Another possibility: security cameras. Whenever one of the countless surveillance cams scoping out Tokyo Area spotted a Gastrea, an embedded algorithm would use cues like heat-radiation patterns to identify the type and send alerts to all civsec officers in the vicinity. A few modifications to the software code behind that system, and it’d be entirely possible to have the cameras search for specific faces—or eyeball patterns, for that matter—to identify a person.

In both of those cases, sunglasses would have an immediate defensive effect. But—

“Dahh! I can’t take this!”

Rentaro ripped the glasses off. Wearing sunglasses at night wasn’t much different from putting on a blindfold. He’d bump into things, making him seem even more suspicious to passing strangers than if the glasses were off. Hotaru didn’t care much about this, however: “Being dressed in all black like that makes you suspicious-looking enough already,” she’d said curtly when Rentaro had brought it up.

He and Hotaru were on speaking terms again, at least, but Rentaro still had some lingering discomfort about their clash during the Hummingbird battle.

—“I told you. The only reason I’m working with you is so I could hunt down the enemies after your blood. You’ve been the best decoy I could ever have hoped for. If you think we’ve got some kind of partnership going on, let me assure you, it’s all in your head. I always hated you, anyway.”

—“If you’re so hell-bent on saving people’s lives, why didn’t you save Kihachi’s?”

She must have picked up on the current awkwardness between them, too. Whenever she talked, she kept it short. Every time, it seemed to end in an awkward silence. And when that happened, all they heard as they walked down the shuttered shopping area was the sound of their own footsteps. It was hard to say how long the most recent silence lasted before she finally opened her mouth once more.

“You know,” she began, “when I brushed you off and went upstairs, everybody up there was already dead. They must’ve all had parents, and families, and brothers and sisters, too.” She shook her head. “I had no idea there are people out there who can…do that. Without a second thought.”

The events in that building must have given her something to think about.

“Yeah, so you see, then?” Rentaro said. “Those are the types of guys we’re fighting against.”

As he thought about whether saying any more would be prudent, he heard the sound of a faraway siren ripping through the silence. The pair immediately looked at each other. Hotaru, at least, responded instantly, looking into the night sky as she focused her hearing to discern where the siren came from.

Gradually, they could hear it echoing closer and closer: the now-familiar sound of a police cruiser.

Rentaro and Hotaru slipped into a narrow alleyway behind a nearby building, breathing silently as they kept themselves hidden. It smelled like oxidized oil.

Before long, two of the dreaded police cars whizzed by the alley. Taking a moment to crane their heads around the corner, checking to make sure the police didn’t make a U-turn, the two then stepped back onto the street.

The cars were gone, it seemed. They didn’t seem like the typical patrol—they were going too fast for that. Maybe it was some other crime in progress.

“My hideout’s in that direction.”

Rentaro gulped.

“No way.”

The denial seemed to ring hollow as the portent of Hotaru’s observation wriggled its way into his brain. If her suggestion was correct, coming directly home after this would be a singularly bad idea. It might just be his current guilt complex writ large, but right now, they couldn’t afford to take any chances. All that awaited on the other side of that risk was their arrest, followed by an inescapable guilty verdict.

“Are there any tall buildings around here?”

“No, but… Here, let me go look.”

Before Rentaro could say anything, Hotaru’s eyes turned a crimson red. The next moment, there was a blast of wind—and she was gone. Looking upward, he spotted her atop one of the arched streetlights that lined the asphalt at regular intervals.

This flustered him. Even if this was a deserted avenue in the middle of the night, there were still cars sporadically passing by. If one of the Cursed Children was spotted in a town like this, there’d be at least one or two people screaming in a panic before long. That would drive more people to come out, and after that, there’d be no more defusing the situation.

Hotaru, whether aware of that or not, pointed forward. “I don’t see them yet,” she intoned. “Let’s get a little closer.” Then, with another dartlike leap, she was atop the next streetlight. Rentaro opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again, resigning himself to his fate as he followed along.

This tense march down the street continued for a few moments—until Hotaru suddenly stopped. Rentaro realized what it was immediately. The glass-lined building in front of them was awash in dull, red, flashing lights. Reflections from police cars, no doubt. Not just one or two, either.

Hotaru came back down to Rentaro, heels clicking softly against the pavement.

“I saw them.”

“No dice, huh?”

She shook her head. “We better abandon that hideout. It’s dangerous here.”

Rentaro shivered. He was the one who suggested visiting the bathhouse, growing increasingly sick of the dingy, cramped bathroom at home. It wasn’t a decision he brooded over for particularly long before making it. But, by sheer coincidence, that decision had a profound effect on their fates. If they had been at home, they’d absolutely be subject to soul-withering police interrogation right now.

The two backtracked on their previous path. There was no destination in mind. They just had to get out of there.

But both had made the mistake of focusing on the police force behind their backs. Now they could see another police car—reinforcements, maybe—coming toward them. It didn’t have its siren on, so by the time they noticed it, it was already disturbingly close.

Ducking into an alley would be all but telling the cops they were suspicious. Rentaro took Hotaru’s hand. Hotaru gave a surprised look, but she quickly picked up on his intentions. She gripped his hand tightly.

“Just keep it as natural as you can.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Hotaru nod. The police car in front of them, its exhaust pipe making a soft sound, was no more than twenty meters away. He found himself turning his eyes downward.

The headlights illuminated their bodies from the chest down. The sound of tires scratching against the pavement as the car moved on sounded unnaturally loud to their ears. For some reason, the car was on the shoulder of the road, slowing down as it drove by. Rentaro lowered his head farther down as the car finally passed them.

Is it going?

As the two continued walking, they could hear the sound of the tires stopping on the pavement behind them, followed by a door opening and closing.

Rentaro closed his eyes. God help me.

Taking a lightning-fast look behind him, he could see two police officers walking their way, flashlights in hand.

“Excuse me! Couple over there.”

Rentaro pretended not to hear, trying his hardest to keep his pace naturally slow and his legs from shaking. Using a finger, he suggested turning into a nearby alley. They hadn’t discussed this at all yet, but their movements were still the picture of elegant efficiency.

“Hotaru!” Rentaro said, the moment they were in the alley and out of police sight. She gave a nod in response, then brought her hands around his shoulders.

“Hang on.”

The next moment, he felt an explosive shock wave across his entire body, the g-forces that lifted him up making him feel like his organs were being twisted apart. With Rentaro’s body in tow, Hotaru unleashed her full force, leaping against the sides of looming buildings to ascend. Rentaro’s eyesight lurched from one direction to another, almost causing him to bite his tongue.

He didn’t immediately faint on the spot once they reached the roof because of the supersonic speeds he had already experienced at the hands of his usual Initiator.

Looking down, they spotted the two officers walking around the alley, dismayed at not finding them there. He pulled back, trying not to make a sound, and gauged the situation as a lukewarm wind hit his face. Before long, the cops would radio in this potential sighting of Rentaro Satomi and Hotaru Kouro, and the entire block would be crawling with police. They needed to head out ASAP.

“That taxi driver must’ve blabbed about where we were,” Hotaru whined in an uncharacteristically gloomy tone. The thought occurred to Rentaro the moment he realized their hideout was discovered. He had deliberately put it out of mind.

“Even if he did, that’s our fault.”

If they’d wanted to, they could have either threatened or bribed the driver to keep quiet. But they hadn’t. Rentaro trusted him, and so did Hotaru. No matter what happened or didn’t happen to them, the responsibility for it all came down upon themselves.

“It’s sad, though.”

“Yeah.”

Their eyes met. Hotaru emitted a lonely smile, eyes sparkling. Rentaro could feel his pulse grow heavy. This was an Initiator, a person who walked the fine line between little girl and grown woman, between human and Gastrea. How could she show off such a…threatening smile?

Rentaro averted his eyes, just to make sure her face didn’t enthrall him any more than it already did.

Turning the knob, Rentaro opened the metal door. It creaked loudly in protest.

The cheap flashlight they purchased from a convenience store was proving to be worth even less than the pittance Rentaro paid for it. It took the combination of its feeble beam and Hotaru’s phone backlight to fully illuminate the area around them.

The walls were white in the otherwise featureless room, as were the two columns in the middle of the large chamber. The floor, made of marble and feldspar, was even whiter. Rentaro attempted to move a pile of unused stone to sit on, only to be rewarded with a choking fog of white dust. He regretted forgetting to buy an anti-dust mask when he was at the store.

“Koff-koff… Well, this ought to work.”

They had checked to make sure this sculpture studio was abandoned before going in. Rentaro closed the rusty shutter of the window, cutting off the moonlight. The room grew even darker, adding to its horror-film atmosphere. The eeriness unnerved him a little, but he resolved to put up with it. If any light from the flashlight made its way outside and someone reported it, they’d have to find yet another place to take shelter for the night.

Rentaro sat down, resting against a column as he propped the flashlight on the floor. Hotaru, seated next to him, gave a frustrated scowl.

“I can’t sleep like this. There aren’t even any pillows.”

“Just be glad we got a roof over us, okay?”

They had naturally considered checking into a hotel, but—after extensive debate—decided against it. The police weren’t that stupid. Once they realized Rentaro wouldn’t be coming back to their hideout, they’d send people to hit up all the hotels in the region. They might already be disseminating wanted posters to all the front desks in a ten-minute radius. They couldn’t just waltz into that flytrap.

“So what’re we gonna do now?”

“Well…” Rentaro strung the words together as he stared at the floor. “I’m wondering about that Gastrea corpse with the star marking on it. I know defeated Gastrea get processed after a certain waiting period, so it’s got to be in storage somewhere or another. I was thinking we could start there.”

Hotaru nodded.

“Um, also…about that assassin we faced, Hummingbird…”

“Yeah, I was thinking about her, too,” Rentaro said. “She had the same five-pointed star at the base of her thigh. That, and she had two wings around it, not just one.”

Hotaru opened her eyes wide. “She did?”

“Yeah.”

“What does that mean, though?”

“I have no idea.”

With that being the only hint to go on, they clearly had a need for more intel.

The pair spent a little more time discussing their future activities before their voices trailed off. In the silence, evening cicadas chittered here and there.

Suddenly, Rentaro felt something warm and soft on top of his left hand, which was planted on the floor. Surprised, he looked down to find Hotaru’s palm above his.

“I…I killed someone.”

Hotaru was small, balled up on the floor, using her left arm to hold her knees tight against her body. Rentaro watched her for a few moments. “Hotaru,” he offered softly. “If you were scared to kill someone, that’s your sanity giving you a heads-up. You have to make sure you don’t forget how that feels. Once you pass that point, you won’t be able to hold out against it any longer.”

“What happens if I don’t get scared anymore?”

“You won’t be a person anymore. You’ll just be a murderer, a barbarian seeking the thrill of carnage… I dunno. Call it what you will. But it’s nothing good.”

“All right. Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

Behind the words, Hotaru looked depressed, clearly left at a loss to break out of this line of thinking. Suddenly, Rentaro realized he was mentally overlapping Hotaru’s face with that of another girl he knew. Part of the Satomi family. A ball of energy.

He shook his head, wondering what was wrong with him as he tried to keep his voice cheerful. “Hey, Hotaru, you mind if I ask you a stupid question?”

“What?”

“You called it…‘enhanced regenerative skills,’ didn’t you?—your ability? If someone shot you in the head or whatever, you’d be dead for at least a little while, right?”

“If by ‘dead’ you mean my pulse would stop, my pupils would dilate, and my heart would stop beating…then sure.”

“Um…so is there a heaven, or whatever?”

Hotaru’s eyes were as big as saucers for a moment. Then she heaved a weighty sigh and turned her back to him. Rentaro winced.

“Wh-what?”

“Wow. That really was a stupid question. Nobody’s ever asked me that one before.”

That was the last thing Rentaro expected from her. But after a moment, Hotaru looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Are you religious at all?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you, then. There’s not. It’s just like passing out. It goes all black and you lose consciousness.”

“Why’d you ask if I was religious?”

“Well,” Hotaru said with a self-effacing grin, “I figured you’d be disappointed if I said there wasn’t any heaven. Besides, even if there was one, I’m sure not getting in. Heaven’s for humans, right? That counts me out right there.”

3

A light rain had been pattering outside the window since morning as a depressingly overcast sky dominated the scene.

The clerk’s sleepy eyes suggested he’d had a late and alcohol-powered night. His puffy face indicated a history of wild partying with next-morning regrets. His lab coat was wrinkled and bent out of shape, and his unkempt hairstyle made him look old beyond his years.

“All right,” said the man, introducing himself as Shibata. “So you came here this early in the morning just because you wanted to see Gastrea number 440?”

“Is there a problem with that?”

“No, not really, but… All right. Lemme see your license, please.”

“Here.”

Hotaru placed her license in the palm of the annoyed man. This piqued his interest for a moment: He eyed Rentaro up and down. It wasn’t a written rule, but it was customary for the Promoter to provide his license in situations like these. Rentaro’s, of course, was still confiscated by the Seitenshi.

“Um, I…I forgot mine at home.”

“Oh. Well, the Initiator’s is fine, too. Sign here, please.”

Hotaru, keeping her cool perfectly, signed the papers. Then she looked ahead, Rentaro following her gaze.

They peered down the long corridor behind Shibata’s shabby-looking desk chair, iron bars preventing their access. Wind echoed from beyond; it must have been getting into the dimly lit hallway from somewhere. The air ahead was chilly, too, no doubt to help preserve the corpses. Hotaru rubbed her arms for warmth.

The two had arrived at this Gastrea cadaver storage site at the crack of dawn. Sumire’s university hospital had a storage depot of its own, but compared to this specialized facility, it was pretty low-key.

Shibata thrust a key into the lock and turned it. With a rusty creak, the door opened inward, and he led the pair into the corridor.

The blue LED lighting on the ceiling added to the site’s overall creepiness, and the group’s footsteps echoed against the hard flooring across the hallway.

Suddenly, Shibata stopped and turned to the pair. “Y’know, why do they bother with those iron bars, anyway?” he asked. “They’re already dead by the time they get sent here, aren’t they?”

“There’ve been cases in the past where a Gastrea we thought was dead revived itself, or some offspring in the womb made their way out and caused all kinds of chaos. So that’s why.”

Just thinking about that frustrated Rentaro. There was never any telling. A pandemic could just start in there, for all he knew.

Soon, Shibata stepped into one of the side rooms. Rentaro and Hotaru followed. The moment they entered, they felt the air grow even colder.

It was a small room, about 150 square feet or so, and its walls were lined from top to bottom with handles. At first glance, it looked like a bank’s safe-deposit vault, but each handle opened a cadaver compartment about twice the size of ones at a morgue. And inside one was the Gastrea with the star symbol that had captured Dr. Surumi’s attention and ultimately led to her doom.

Rentaro watched expectantly as Shibata searched for the right box, using some notes on a piece of paper for reference. Then he turned around and beckoned to them. Hefting the handle open, he raised a hand to block his face from the intense cold inside, like opening a freezer.

Before them was a rectangular box plenty large enough to comfortably house a human being lying down. Rentaro patiently waited for the cold mist to dissipate, only to reveal—

“Huh?”

There was nothing inside.

“Hmm? Well, that’s weird.”

Shibata made an almost comical grimace as he thumbed through the documents in his binder. “Oooh, yeah, guess we were just a little bit too late. One of the processing managers came to pick it up about half an hour ago.”

“Processing manager?”

Shibata rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you guys civsecs? You don’t know how Gastrea get processed around here?”

“Is it a problem if I don’t?” an agitated Rentaro replied. The clerk winced a bit.

“Okay, so when they find a Gastrea, an alert comes out and whichever civsec neutralizes it first gets the reward, right? If it’s a type we’ve never encountered before, we bring on a pathologist to perform an autopsy and examine its heart and brain and stuff for vulnerabilities. Once that’s done, it’s stored in here for a period of time. Then, every month, a processing manager comes in, picks up the bodies, and takes them away for cremation. They gotta be really careful with the incineration, too, to make sure no internal viruses survive it.”

“Cremated? So they burn all the Gastrea bodies they take out of here?”

“Ninety-nine percent, yeah. Some of ’em get stuffed or used for experimentation or whatever, but that’s just the really exceptional cases. Too bad you guys didn’t come here sooner, huh?”

“That’s…” Rentaro felt his head go hazy. Their one remaining lead had been snapped. If they hit a dead end there, they were completely done for.

“Hmm? Hang on.”

Shibata, realizing something, lifted his head from the binder and gave his guests a quizzical look.

“We don’t have any Gastrea pickups scheduled today…”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t really know myself. The processing manager comes at a pre-scheduled day once a month to pick up Gastrea cadavers, but I guess he showed up here this morning, too. That’s the first time they’ve ever shown up unannounced, I think. And what’s more, the only Gastrea they took was the one you guys are here to examine.”

Hotaru and Rentaro exchanged glances. “Hotaru,” Rentaro whispered to her, “this ‘processing manager’ guy…”

“He’s probably part of Hummingbird’s group. That, or someone close to them. Either way, now we know they’re busy trying to hide the evidence.”

Which meant, if considered another way, getting a chance to examine the corpse would be problematic for that group. Which, in turn, meant that this star-bearing Gastrea was more valuable to Rentaro and Hotaru than ever before.

“They must know what we’re trying to do by now. So they made off with the corpse unannounced, even though they knew other people would notice that. Damn it…”

Hotaru, her memory perhaps jogged by this, turned to Shibata. “Um, Mr. Shibata, does this process manager come in with a truck or something to haul the bodies out?”

“Yeah. A big one. One of those moving-van jobbies.”

“And you said he came in about half an hour ago?”

Shibata nodded again.

“Could you maybe call the truck to get it back here?”

Rentaro froze.

“Like, that binder…”

Before he could finish the thought, Hotaru took the binder from Shibata’s hands and showed it to Rentaro. The sheaf of papers inside included the form Hotaru signed when they first came in. It was a basic sort of visitor log, including entries for names, times, IDs or civsec-license checks, addresses, phone numbers, and reasons for the visit—a truly classic piece of government paperwork.

Hotaru’s finger was pointed at the words “Nagahara Transport” recorded in the log thirty minutes prior. She must have been suggesting they contact the Nagahara Transport driver, presumably still in traffic somewhere, and order him back to the site.

“But do you think the phone number on there’s real?” she asked.

“Hey, uh,” the incredulous-looking Shibata interrupted, “I don’t know what you guys are talking about, but—”

“I think that’s probably gonna be the same person from Nagahara that always comes here,” Rentaro said, crossing his arms. “Not that I saw him, but if it was some random guy coming in unannounced on a new schedule, I’m pretty sure this guard would’ve stopped him. But if we make contact with him, how do we get his truck back here?”

“Umm…” He watched as Hotaru dropped her head down. But just as he started to think they’d hit a wall, another thought crossed his mind:

“Well, look, more than anything else, they want to get their hands on that Gastrea with the star, right? If we said that they found another Gastrea corpse with a star on it, that oughta make them come back, don’t you think?”

“That’s it!” she exclaimed.

The sound of Hotaru’s unexpectedly loud reaction bounced off the walls. She blushed and coughed nervously, regretting the outburst.

“…Um, I mean, yeah, that works for me.”

Rentaro turned to Shibata. “Could I ask you for some help?”

Shibata winced at having the spear turned in his direction. “What? Why do I have to do that? I don’t really like lying to people, and stuff…”

“Well, listen, you probably like your job to be pretty slow-paced, right?”

“Huh? My job? Well…it’s a little too boring here sometimes, yeah, but I sure don’t like it when it’s real busy, either. Why do you ask?”

“If we let that Gastrea get away, thousands of people might die. The morgues are gonna be so full of human cadavers, they’ll have to use this site for temporary storage.”

Shibata’s expression froze. “What…do you mean…?”

“Please. Don’t ask me anything. Just help me out a little. We’re not gonna be a bother to you.”

A few moments of hesitation. Then:

“…All right. I don’t really know what’s going on, but I’ll trust you guys. If y’all are pranking me this early in the morning, though, it sure ain’t funny.”

Then Shibata briskly sprang into action, the sleepyheaded, bleary stare from earlier now a thing of the past. Reaching for a nearby phone, he picked up the receiver and dialed a number.

“Um, hello? Is this Nagahara Transport?” he began cheerfully. “Hey, thanks for all your hard work! I’m just calling ’cause you guys showed up here earlier to pick up a Gastrea for us…? Right, right, that transport…”

Rentaro left the building, taking Hotaru along with him. The drizzle from earlier was now a barely perceptible sprinkle, albeit one falling almost horizontally in the strong winds. They noticed a trash can tumbling along the street at high speed. The weather report said the rain would die down by the end of the day—but if it was starting up this early in the morning, Rentaro pictured a soggy day ahead.

The two ran across the street to a coffee shop and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. There were almost no customers. They took a table by the window, which afforded them a full view of the Gastrea morgue. Amid the rain-blotted landscape, the gray exterior of the morgue remained still, emitting a uniquely melancholy atmosphere. It was still just nine in the morning. The seconds ticked as they sat, taking in the pitter-patter of the rain as they silently drank their coffee, their boredom driving both to blankly stare outside.

They had done everything they could. Picking up a random Gastrea from the morgue, they had used the photograph they found in Dr. Surumi’s apartment as a reference to scrawl a star on its corpse in permanent marker. Compared to the photo, it was pretty clearly an inept imitation. They used a little bodily fluid to blur it a bit, just barely giving it a semblance of likeness.

Now they just had to wait.

“Feels kinda like we’re in a detective drama or something, doesn’t it?”

“Detective? You’re a prisoner. That’s too dumb to even bother replying to.”

Rentaro’s eyebrows twitched, his lips pursing. “I’m not a prisoner! I haven’t even received a verdict yet.”

“Ahh, same difference.”

“God damn it, you…”

“Pfft.”

“Pfft!”

The pair turned their backs to each other. As a date, it was a failure. Wondering why his life had to end up like this, Rentaro summoned his composure and decided to have a late breakfast. He wanted something sweet in order to keep his blood-sugar level high, so he opted for a packet of glazed mini donuts.

He was rather robotically reaching for the fourth one, sweet enough to make his teeth feel like they were going to melt, when a truck with the Nagahara Transport logo silently appeared and sidled up next to the morgue.

That was probably the one. It was manned by two people. One of them, in a gray jumpsuit, climbed out and went to the door while the other one stayed in the cab.

Rentaro and Hotaru excused themselves from the coffee shop and cut a wide path around the truck, not bothering with an umbrella. They approached it from the side, taking in the aroma of the exhaust and the sound of the idling engine. They could see the driver in the side mirror, having a smoke and listening to the radio. He didn’t seem to have noticed them. Hotaru’s face stiffened, but Rentaro raised a hand to stop her. This clearly annoyed her.

“Why not? There’s only one of them.”

“We don’t know if they’re the enemy yet. Let’s tail them and see what they do.”

From behind the truck, they approached a yellow taxi and tapped against the window. The napping driver lifted his hat off his face and sleepily squinted at them. He blinked a few times, half-suspicious of this set of customers, before pushing a button to open the back door for them.

“Where to?”

The moment he stepped inside, Rentaro pointed at the truck ahead.

“That truck’s gonna take off soon. I want you to follow it for me.”

The driver flashed a surprised look at them. The memory of yesterday’s taxi trip ending in disaster resurrected itself in Rentaro’s mind. In a near daze, he made up a story to convince the driver. Whatever it was—Rentaro forgot all the details about five seconds after concocting them—it worked well enough that the still-dubious driver gripped the steering wheel and turned his eyes to the truck. The windshield wipers rhythmically swung to and fro, brushing the misty rain off the glass. Other droplets dripped down the windows, merging with one another to form larger, faster spheres.

Nobody said anything.

After a while, a large Gastrea stretcher came out of the building. The processing manager wheeled it out, a large white sheet covering it, and brought it to the truck’s container. Surveying his surroundings, he knocked at the door, waiting a certain interval before each knock.

After a moment, another processing manager emerged. This made Rentaro’s heart skip a beat. There were more, after all. Why was one stationed inside the container itself? As he thought about this, the two carried the Gastrea off the stretcher. It was too dark to see inside the container, but a brief glint of light made him arch his eyebrows.

“Hotaru, did you see that?”

“See what?”

“…Ah, never mind, then.”

Part of him prayed it was just his imagination. If that glint was from what Rentaro thought it was, it proved that this truck’s intentions were very sinister indeed.

The engine sprang into action as the truck slowly shuddered to life. The taxi followed behind, keeping a prudent distance. The light rain fell in a powdery drizzle, the mechanical, metronome-like motion of the wipers adding to the sense of emptiness inside the car. Everyone kept their attention forward, breath bated.

The taxi was a stopgap measure, but Rentaro had to admit: This was a gifted driver. Visibility through the windshield wasn’t exactly high, but he did a magnificent job of not coming too close while staying in perfect sync with the truck.

Soon, they were entering an expressway—but once they passed the toll, things began to change. The truck suddenly swerved into the right lane, rapidly accelerating. Rentaro hurriedly instructed the driver to speed up, but right when he did, the truck applied the brakes.

He furrowed his brows at this behavior, only to arch them wide at the next instant. Was this the truck driver’s way, maybe, of discovering any cars that might be following them? It had to be. They had cast the line, and now they were sure they caught a nibble.

Then, the next moment, the truck accelerated. This time, it wasn’t stopping. It whizzed down the road at high speed, snaking its way through traffic as it gradually began to disappear from sight.

“It’s getting away! Follow them!” Rentaro said, half rising to his feet. The resulting burst of speed from the taxi sent him right back in his seat. The engine roared, shaking the entire vehicle. The speedometer blew past one hundred kilometers per hour, just barely skirting the speed limit on the expressway. The resulting speed sent them back behind the truck, next to it, and then in front of it. The rain-soaked view and wet pavement were undoubtedly affecting the grip of the tires. Even a single steering mistake could have led to disaster on the road.

“I—I really can’t go faster than this!” the driver finally shouted. The engine sounded like an F1 car. But thanks to his hard work, the truck was now firmly back in sight. The taxi’s lighter weight gave it the advantage over a fully loaded container truck.

Rentaro instructed the driver to approach the truck’s side from the left. They waited until they had an open spot for the move, but suddenly, the truck tried to run them off the road at breakneck speed. They braked just in time to avoid being sandwiched between the truck and the guardrail.

A cold sweat ran down his body. But the real fear for Rentaro came when he saw what was inside the now-open container. Squinting at the sight, he gazed in wonder. The metallic weapon he caught a glimpse of earlier was bolted to the floor of the truck, its ferocious muzzle aimed squarely at them.

It was a Browning M2 heavy machine gun: a supremely powerful, full-auto, .50-caliber rifle that even saw use in anti-tank warfare, although its primary purpose was for downing planes or penetrating armor. In many ways, it wasn’t a machine gun so much as a machine cannon. It was not something a Gastrea transport company would just happen to have bumping around inside its trucks.

The enemies working against Rentaro must have fixed on to his intentions by then. They were preparing for anything and everything.

The processing manager in the container pulled the giant machine gun’s cocking handle, readying it for fire, and aimed its sights squarely on the taxi.

We’re dead, said the sixth sense that worked beneath Rentaro’s intellectual mind.

Then the flash, and the gunshots.

The car spun out with a screech, sending Rentaro’s viewpoint reeling. He was jostled in his seat, bewildered, and then he saw the taxi spin toward the concrete wall lining the highway. He shut his eyes tight.

“Rentaro!”

Suddenly, there was an impact at his side, followed by the feeling of being pushed into the air. Then, the sound of something shattering.

But there was none of the pain he expected. The wind was rushing against his cheeks, too strongly for his tastes, and the summer rain—still falling down almost sideways—beat against his body. He could hear his school uniform fluttering in the gale.

He opened his eyes a slit and was finally clued in: He was in the air. And like a piece of carry-on baggage, he was hanging off the arm of Hotaru Kouro, who was gritting her teeth above him. At the last possible moment before the collision, she had lifted herself from the car and escaped with Rentaro, too.

“We’re falling,” she said, interrupting Rentaro before he had a chance to give his thanks. He was suddenly pulled down by gravity, the rain-soaked pavement on the ground approaching at terminal velocity.

But before it could reach them, they rolled together onto the roof of a passing truck, shrugging off the impact and just barely slipping right off the edge before steadying their balance.

The damage to his semicircular canals made Rentaro’s head spin to the point of nausea. He tried his hardest to gain a grasp of his situation, raising his head upward.

He had thought they were on top of the enemy’s truck for a moment, but they weren’t. That truck was overtaking the cars in front of them at high speed in the rain, all but laughing at them as it sped away.

Instinctively, he took a look behind them. “How’s the taxi driver?!”

“Look in front of you! You’re gonna die!”

Rentaro closed his eyes for three seconds, just enough time to keep him from falling into panic mode. Mentally, he forced himself to switch gears. “Hotaru!” he shouted. “Can you reach that truck by yourself?”

“I can’t do that! It’s going one hundred and thirty kilometers an hour!”

Being atop a truck of their own, they were forced to scream at each other. The intense rain and strong wind were lowering both of their core temperatures. Their clothing was completely soaked.

Why couldn’t Enju be around at a time like this…?

Looking ahead, the enemy truck was still gaining distance on them. The gunfire was gone. The rain was blocking their visibility, as it did for everyone else, and they must’ve opted to hold their fire. But if they got too close to the truck, that could change.

What do I do?

“Okay, Hotaru. Can you carry me and start jumping to other cars?”

Hotaru gave him a stupefied look for a moment, then—after another moment of thought—nodded lightly and stood up on the container truck’s roof.

“I can’t go that far at once.”

Rentaro stood up with her. He was greeted by torrential rain and a wall of air pressure from in front. It took everything he had to keep from falling off as he wrapped his arms around Hotaru’s stomach from behind. She turned halfway back at him—and then, with a steely resolve, jumped. They landed on the roof of a black van up ahead, then leapt over to a sedan passing the van on the right. So it went, one after the other, as they caught up to the enemy truck at breakneck speed.

Rentaro was deeply agitated. The wind and rain were one thing, but if she misgauged a single jump, they would both be battered against the pavement and sustain major damage. But Hotaru’s outstandingly nimble moves, all executed at hair’s-breadth timing, came at an accuracy that could only be described as transcendent.

Hotaru Kouro had an innate sense for this, just like Enju. A sense that could never be cultivated by any normal person.

“I see it!”

Squinting through the curtains of rain from behind her shoulder, Rentaro could see the red of the van’s taillights. But it also meant they were in firing range again. In fact, the person manning the gun—spotting the pair of pursuers he was so sure were out of the picture—expressed clear surprise as he leapt for the gun and swung it around.

The anxiety made Rentaro’s blood vessels tense.

“Here it comes!”

An intense barrage of flashes came as the bullets from the Browning tore through the porous concrete in front of their car like a pile of dirt. The holes forced the vehicle to swerve, and left ugly scars on the road.

But Hotaru wasn’t out to lose. Even nimbler and more accurately than before, she leapt from vehicle to vehicle. The .50-caliber Browning gunfire, missing them by an instant, instead thudded through the engine block of the previous car, triggering an explosion. With a screamlike screech, it spun out and off the road.

With superhuman skill, Hotaru continued her leapfrog act. The heavy machine gun traced her path in the air, turning her footholds into scrap one by one. The unending torrent made the rain evaporate in midair, with Hotaru and Rentaro threading the needle in between. A bullet brushed by Rentaro’s cheek at supersonic speed, making a twing sound as it did—but all he could do was fight off the g-forces tugging at his body, gritting his teeth until they were nearly in pain.

“There’s too much fire! I can’t get close!”

Finding herself running short on footholds to jump on, Hotaru was rapidly cornered. The rows of cars behind them were a pockmarked hellscape.

Rentaro’s mind raced, trying to find a solution—then the sight before him drained the color from his face.

“Hotaru! Tunnel!”

The tunnel through the low hill in front of them was no more than three and a half meters tall. They couldn’t execute any flying leaps in there—and once that advantage was taken from them, they were dead.

This is it, thought Rentaro as he shut his eyes tight.

But then, like a bolt of lightning, an idea ran across his brain:

“Hotaru, can you run on the ceiling?”

Hotaru shot him a look, mouth agape. But she must have grasped the question a moment later, because she turned forward again, jaw determined.

“Just three seconds. Make them count.”

The rapidly approaching tunnel entrance loomed, looking like the hideous maw of a demon roaring in laughter.

With a loud whoosh, they were in. For just a moment, the curtain of rain lifted, clearing the scene around them. The machine gun swiveled and locked on to them. But Hotaru jumped just a blink in advance.

Immediately afterward came gunshots, followed by an explosive shock wave. But they didn’t look back. They didn’t have time to.

Ignoring the scene behind her, Hotaru leapt up and landed on the ceiling, running horizontally across it.

“Rentaro!”

Now upside down, Rentaro released his hands from Hotaru’s midsection and—as if swinging on a flying trapeze from his feet—took a position inverted from the ceiling. His hands free, he gripped his Beretta handgun and held it up—or down, in this case. The truck was in his sights. He quieted his breathing, closed his eyes—and unleashed his eye. A geometric pattern emerged in its iris, performing calculations at lightning speed. The hems of his clothing flapped impatiently in the wind, all but expressing the panic within Rentaro’s own mind.

Look at what you did, you bastards. All those civilian victims.

Seeing Rentaro size him up with the look of an enraged beast, the enemy gunner must have been scared witless. His whole body trembled as he tried his best to turn the gun’s muzzle toward him. But it was too late.

Rentaro fired three times. He was aiming next to the gunner—at the rear left tire.

The moment the hole opened in the nitrogen-stuffed tire, it immediately burst, the high inside pressure seeking an escape. The truck lurched, its driver misjudging his steering, then collided against the right-hand tunnel wall. He had applied the brakes, but the force of nearly 120 kilometers an hour against the wall lifted the truck up into the air, sending it to its side and spewing metallic shrapnel on the ground as it bounced and rolled another thirty meters or so. The gunner was thrown clear of the vehicle, striking the ground.

But Rentaro, from his less-than-ideal firing position, was facing some recoil of his own. It was one thing for a lightweight Initiator to run across the ceiling. It was quite another for her to support Rentaro’s weight at the same time.

Just as the floaty feeling of being thrown by something flashed back to his mind, he found the asphalt down below rapidly approaching his head.

He balled himself up, taking the impact at the top of a shoulder as he bounced up into the air. Pain seared across his brain as he was sent spinning off by the force.

Ensuring he was no longer in motion, Rentaro shakily pulled his body up, hands on the road as he tried to keep from ejecting the contents of his stomach. With unsteady steps, he ran toward Hotaru, who had fallen from the ceiling in similar fashion.

“Hotaru! Hey, Hotaru!”

He kneeled down and slapped her cheek. She must have fallen headfirst. There she lay on her back, fresh blood dampening the side of her head. She was motionless.

After repeatedly calling for her, Rentaro saw Hotaru’s eyelids blink a few times then groggily force themselves open.

“You are so stupid. I can regenerate myself, remember? I’m a lot more solidly built than you are.”

Rentaro breathed a sigh of relief.

“That’s not the problem,” he said, “you idiot.”

Because she healed faster than most, she failed to realize that the sight of a wounded child lying on the ground was what concerned Rentaro.

“What about the van?”

He turned around, startled. “I’ll check it out,” he said, picking up the Beretta on the ground before advancing slowly on the vehicle. It was on its side, now blocking all lanes of the tunnel. The traffic behind it was stopped, the chaos on the other side already clear to his ears.

One of the jumpsuited processing managers was hurt and bleeding from his head. The other two were bruised and dazed but not seriously injured. After a crash as spectacular as that, Rentaro was surprised nobody was killed. Only one was conscious, and just barely, but the injuries would prevent resistance for the moment.

Going around back, he found two Gastrea corpses thrown from the rear of the chilled container.

Finally found you.

There was the Gastrea that he drew the fake pentagram on, and next to it, the Gastrea in the picture he’d found at Dr. Surumi’s home.

It was an impressive sight. At nearly six meters long, its extended proboscis made for an eerily eye-catching silhouette. It had wings like an insect, its rib cage exaggerated and basket-shaped. Rentaro couldn’t guess what biological elements clashed against one another to create this.

“That’s definitely the one Kihachi and I killed a month ago,” Hotaru said, clearly put off by the Gastrea at her feet.

This was what started this whole mess in the first place. When Dr. Surumi discovered the star marking on this Gastrea and conducted an autopsy—she found something. And that something erased both her and Suibara. There had to be something on this Gastrea body that linked it to the Black Swan Project, still a total mystery to Rentaro. It had to, or else it’d be the end of the road for him.

Snapping on the nitrile-rubber gloves that he borrowed from the morgue, Rentaro ignored his sense of disgust as he examined the stomach area, the surgical scar easily noticeable across it. When he opened the incision, he was greeted by a sharp, acrid stench that permeated deep into his eyes, battering his mucous membranes and making him turn his face away.

But there was no time to linger. The police must have known by then about the gunfight on the expressway. He needed to wrap this up in around two minutes if he wanted enough time to flee.

So he stuck his arm in. Through the thin layer of rubber, he could feel the slippery flesh around the stomach on his fingertips as he brought the heart into view. It was the whole, translucent organ, like the innards of some giant squid—and the star mark he was seeking was right nearby.

He removed his knife from his waist. Slowly, carefully, he cut out a square of surrounding tissue and put it inside a film case he had along with him. He also took a sample of the epidermis, the outer skin layer, just in case.

The squishy heap and its samples were already decomposing on him. He thought about, and simultaneously dreaded, the idea of ducking into a nearby grocery store for some dry ice. But he still had some other business to handle.

Moving to the driver’s side of the truck, he opened the door and grabbed the still-conscious processor by the collar, setting him down on the ground. He had a cut on his cheek, a bloodstain on his jumpsuit at chest level, and a look of sheer animosity in his eyes as he silently glared upward.

“You got nowhere to run,” the man warned.

“Where were you going to take this Gastrea?”

The processor did not reply.

“Why did your group try to take the Gastrea away?”

The man was silent.

“What’s the Black Swan Project?”

“……”

“Answer me, you asshole!”

The anger was clear in his voice as he lifted a fist into the air. Something grabbed at it.

It was Hotaru, and she was shaking her head.

“It’s time.”

His temper made him fail to notice, but if he strained his ears a little, he could hear the sirens. Rentaro gave the jumpsuited man another vengeful glare. There was so much he wanted to ask him, but it wasn’t like he could kidnap him and run. Damn it.

“Where to next, Rentaro?”

Rentaro brought the film case up to Hotaru and lightly shook his head. “We need access to a facility where we can have this tissue sample analyzed,” he said, his voice low. “I dunno if it’s something any old lab could help us with, but there’s one person I think we can count on.”

He took one more half turn toward his prisoner.

“Relay a message to Hitsuma and Dark Stalker for me. Tell ’em I’m gonna get Enju, Tina, and Kisara back.”

Then he turned back ahead and fled with Hotaru.

4

Tsurayuki Kimishima tightened his jaw, checking the sturdiness of his stool as he sat down on it. He had been silent for three hours already, his eyes transfixed on the floor.

Suddenly, a pair of hands slapped down on the steel desk in front of him.

“Look, will you just talk already? Huh? How long d’you think you can get away with that?”

The tiny room they were in made the body of the detective, his crew cut making him look the very picture of a high-school gym instructor, seem to loom even larger than normal. The passing shower had grown stronger, making the humidity in the interrogation room intense.

Tsurayuki lifted his face slightly from his jumpsuit, stained with blood and soot. “I’m using my right to remain silent,” he steadfastly said. “Get me a lawyer. I’m not saying anything until then.”

It was a more than effective way to apply further fuel to the detective’s anger.

“What’s with that attitude you got? Huh? Do you have any idea what kind of situation you’re in right now? That gunfire you and your pals sprayed all over the expressway killed people. Why was there a machine gun mounted on your truck in the first place? Where did you obtain that from? Where were you going to take the Gastrea bodies?”

The detective glared at Tsurayuki, crawling back into his shell of silence. He found himself drawing his lips back in anger—perhaps a perverse smile at the futility of it all.

“All right. Once I’m done raking your ass over the coals, I’m tossing you into lockup. I hope you don’t miss the outside world too much, because you ain’t gonna be breathing fresh air for a while.”

Two soft knocks came from the room’s single door.

“Feh,” the detective spat out as he stood up and stormed to the door. “Who is it now?”

And then:

“Oh, hello, um…!”

Suddenly the detective seemed intimidated. Tsurayuki looked over, wondering what was up.

“But…,” he continued. “But that’d…” Then he fell silent.

Tsurayuki was left alone in the interrogation room for a while, but when the door opened again, someone new stepped inside.

It was a younger man with a long face, adorned by a pair of silver-framed glasses that gave him an air of intelligence. He had to be a detective if he was in there, but who was he? The suspense made Tsurayuki swallow nervously as he looked up.

The man stopped in front of him, then suddenly spread his arms wide.

“I’m here to protect you.”

The man before him rolled up his suit and the shirt sleeve underneath. On his upper arm was a five-pointed star, three of the points adorned with ornately designed wings.

A shock ran across Tsurayuki’s spine. He shot to his feet and bowed.

“Please pardon me, sir! I wasn’t expecting a three-wing in here.”

“My name is Atsuro Hitsuma. Don’t worry. There’s no surveillance in this room.”

“How are my friends doing?”

“They’re undergoing treatment at a hospital. Under police observation, of course. Tell me what happened.”

“Y-yes, sir! I managed to burn the two Gastrea at the last minute before the police could seize them…but they took a tissue sample from it.”

“Where do you think they went?”

“They’re getting closer to the plan. I’m sure they’ll look for someplace where they can analyze that sample. A lab facility as high-level as that…”

Hitsuma steeled his eyes behind his glasses.

“Shiba Heavy Weapons?”

Getting out of the car, Tadashima used his suit jacket as an umbrella, scurrying through the rainstorm toward Magata Station. He ignored those around him as he thundered into the building, his pace quickening as he passed right by the office with the specially assigned investigation team he was supposed to be leading.

Instead, he went straight under a sign reading CRIMINAL AFFAIRS. It was quiet, devoid of detectives at the moment. They were all out pursuing leads in the Rentaro Satomi fugitive case.

Once it became clear to everyone that Rentaro Satomi was alive, the investigation team, previously figuring they’d be disbanded before long, reverted into a hive of activity. Now they had another incident to cover—a messy crime scene covering a fairly hefty stretch of freeway.

Hitsuma was just on his way out of the interrogation room.

“Superintendent Hitsuma! What’d you do with the suspect?”

“He’ll be put in custody at the main HQ for the time being, Inspector.”

“What?” Tadashima groaned. “Sir, with all due respect, that’s complete bullshit! The taxi driver’s in critical condition. We’ve got four people dead, shot by that heavy machine gun. I couldn’t even tell you how many casualties there are. It’s like a goddamned field hospital right now, where they were taken to. I have no idea what’s going on here. For the sake of the victims, at the very least, someone needs to pry open the suspect’s mouth with a pair of pliers—and that’s my job, sir! Let me through, please!”

“That’s a commissioner order, Inspector.”

The response came point-blank. It put Tadashima over the edge.

“Superintendent, you know as well as I do that I’m not one to talk when it comes to ignoring orders…but what you’re doing right now is textbook interfering with a police investigation! What are you trying to do, deceiving the commissioner like this? Please, sir, I want to be on your side here, but…”

Hitsuma did not answer. He simply looked down at him with a cold, lifeless stare. Looking at those eyes, Tadashima could feel the full depth of the chasm that now yawned out between them. Even if the entire world turned upside down, there would be no changing his mind any longer. That was all too clear now.

Tadashima spun around. “We’re done working together. I’m taking action on my own from now on.”

“We were told by the investigation headquarters that we are to operate as a two-man team. If you decide to take action on your own volition, I reserve the right to report that to my superiors.”

“You’re the one acting on your own volition! If you don’t like it, feel free to rat on me or punish me or whatever you like.”

Tadashima started walking—right out of the police department. He never looked back. Hitsuma, watching him go, made sure he was firmly out of sight before sighing and shaking his head.

“We have to get rid of him now,” said a new voice. “Otherwise it’s just gonna get worse.”

Somewhere along the line, Dark Stalker—Yuga Mitsugi—had sidled up next to him. The operative shot a sharp glance at Tadashima.

Hitsuma shook his head again to stay him. “No. If my partner gets killed, I’d have to personally answer to that. Leave him. We’re acting just as shady as he is.”

With effort, Yuga relaxed his gaze and shrugged. “So what’s the plan then, Mr. Hitsuma? ’Cause this isn’t really going too well right now, is it? Like, three of our members arrested for a mass shooting?”

“It won’t be a problem,” Hitsuma said as his middle finger propped up the bridge of his glasses. “The two unconscious suspects in the hospital are going to go into cardiac arrest. We’re planning to have Tsurayuki Kimishima write a note in his cell and hang himself. No leaks, no nothing.”

“Not a stone left unturned, huh?”

“Not a one. You make a mistake, you pay for it.”

“If you seriously want to eliminate Rentaro Satomi, you need to use me.”

“The decision’s already been made. He’s been assigned to Swordtail. You’re on standby.”

Yuga gave him a cold, sideways glance, then silently disappeared down a station hallway, sulking.

There was no doubting his skills in battle, Hitsuma thought to himself, but there was something unfathomable about Yuga still; it was hard to read what he was thinking at any given point. In the end, it was easier to control a pure, unadulterated warrior over someone with a few threads dangling loose.

It was eight in the evening. Glancing outside, he saw that the skies, spitting rain since the morning, were finally starting to clear up. It was going to be a humid night.

5

The rain lifted as darkness began to entwine itself around the area, the occasional streetlight sprouting off the ground drawing a spotlight through the black.

Rentaro, Hotaru in tow, peeked up from behind a wall, peering into the open space in front of him—or, rather, a certain section of it.

“Neat, huh?”

“It’s like some kind of samurai mansion…”

From over the mud walls that encompassed the property, they could see the roof of a three-story building that looked straight out of a samurai drama. In fact, it seemed like someone had purchased the remains of some shogunate-era manor and moved the entire thing to use as a private residence. It was home to Miori Shiba, daughter of the head of Shiba Heavy Weapons.

Shiba was commonly known as a key supplier of weapons to the police and self-defense force. It was also involved with leading technical research in a wealth of fields, from electronic devices to ballistics calculation and DNA analysis for police investigations. And yet here was this house, going well beyond a penchant for Japanese aesthetics and looking more like a stubborn refusal to face modernity.

It was clear, at least, that Miori’s fondness for traditional Japanese styles was not just an odd quirk on her part but a policy upheld by her entire family. And the main question now was how they were going to find Miori in this massive complex and convince her to help them out.

As a fugitive from the law, he doubted he could expect a friendly welcome when he rang the doorbell. Quite the opposite, in fact. Rentaro craned his head up again, tracing the wall’s perimeter with his eyes. Then he ducked back down, finding exactly what he was expecting up there.

“People, huh?”

“Yeah. People.”

There was a car near the front gate, positioned to be as inconspicuous as possible. It wasn’t a black-and-white patrol car—a sight Rentaro was beyond tired of—but he guessed it was probably still the authorities.

If the front gate wasn’t happening, it was time to find a weaker spot they could prod.

“I’ll go on ahead,” Rentaro said. “Could you just take me to the top of this fence?”

“No, I’ll go. Why’re we trying to convince her, anyway? Let’s just kidnap this Miori woman and make her do our bidding.”

“Wh-what?” a bewildered Rentaro replied.

Hotaru snorted at him. “I’m just saying, it’d be a lot quicker to break out some firepower and make her bend to our will. That’s how it works with the targets I’ve beaten up until now, anyway.”

“Yeah, right. You think I’d ever let someone as unstable as you near Miori?”

“…Look, I don’t know what kind of idea you’ve got about me, but I’m just trying to handle this in the best way possible, using the best means possible. And if my way’s the most efficient, then what’s the problem?”

Rentaro wanted to bury his face in his hands.

“Look, there’s no guarantee Miori would listen to you, but she’ll listen to me, okay?”

“Glad to see you’re so confident about that. How about a little friendly competition, then?”

“What in the world are you—?”

Suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed his body, and he was seized by a violent acceleration as the ground fell out from under him.

When his feet felt terra firma again, they were on top of the fence.

“Get down.”

He followed Hotaru’s lead, falling to his hands and knees without having any idea what he was doing. He could hear the clacking of ceramics underneath him, the dampened kawara roof tiles rubbing against his stomach.

Up there, they could see the wide entirety of the Shiba residence in one fell swoop. The sight made Rentaro temporarily forget his mission with an appreciative sigh.

Below him, stone garden lanterns lit darkened pathways at regular intervals, leading to a square gazebo. The gazebo was perched atop an island in the middle of a large pond that dominated the central area of the property. Traditional washbasins were located here and there along the walkways, too, and a number of buildings dotted the paths, adding spice to the view wherever he looked.

The Shiba family was living in the midst of an imperial Japanese garden. But it was more than just simple beauty. Surveillance cameras were whirring left and right at strategic locations throughout, and Rentaro could see a security officer or two patrolling the premises.

“Let’s see which one of us can find Miori first. If I do, I’ll make her do our bidding my way. It’s the same thing in the end, right?”

Hotaru stood up on the fence before Rentaro could stop her, then soundlessly dashed across the tiled surface.

Rentaro was both stunned and disgusted. He knew this alliance—between a girl burning for revenge and a civsec stupid enough to fall into the trap he was in—was on thin ice from the start. It was a team of convenience for both sides, and every now and then, it was bleedingly obvious that they lived in completely different worlds. As long as revenge was all she lived for, he supposed she wouldn’t even bother taking notice of how many good intentions and would-be ideas she’d trample over along the way.

What a menace I’ve teamed up with, Rentaro thought. There was no way he could leave Miori in her hands.

Not, of course, that he had any idea where Miori was. He sized up the property once more, his mind at an impasse. It was 8 p.m. Common sense indicated to him that the family was either at the dinner table or enjoying an evening bath. It chagrined him to think of it, but Hotaru—zooming right for the main building—very likely had the right idea.

Come to think of it, Miori had confided in him once that the intensity of her schedule—school, practice, the private after-school learning center her parents made her go to—was seriously getting on her nerves. It had been a rare moment for her usual free-wheeling self to complain like that, and it stuck in his mind because of it.

She had confessed to having a home tutor, as well as private instruction in the traditional arts of folk dance, the koto harp, and archery. Miori’s parents seemed intent on meticulously quashing any time the girl could possibly have to herself. The stress must have made her drop her guard around him—that one time, at least.

…Archery?

A thought occurred to Rentaro as he scanned the property. Soon, he found what he was looking for: a dilapidated structure, really nothing but a horse barn compared to the splendor of the main residence. A bit beyond it, he could see a pair of targets lined up, the little kasumi-mato used in Japanese archery. They were too far away to be distinctly visible.

He considered this for a moment, then nodded to himself. There were about eight meters between the fence top and the ground, but leaping off the steeply sloped roof that topped the mud-stone perimeter fence would take no small bit of courage. He sidled down and sat on the edge, legs dangling.

Then all of a sudden, one of the wet tiles came loose underneath him. Rentaro swung out for a handhold but missed the structure entirely. He scrambled to hang on but felt a sudden sense of weightlessness instead.

The dark of the ground came upon him too quickly to incite fear. He planted down on the dirt, a shock wave crossing his spine and going all the way to the top of his head. Still, just barely managing to stay on his feet, he instantly found a darker shadow hurtling toward him from above. Rentaro threw his hands above his head just in time to catch it.

Even though the roof tile that fell with him had the grace not to shatter and reveal his position, the experience was still greatly embarrassing. It really would be pitiful if he was discovered in such a pathetic state.

Just then, a nearby animal’s snarl hit his ears, and Rentaro froze.

It was the third piece of the security puzzle, after the cameras and the guards.

Cursing himself for not noticing it when he was still safe, Rentaro wiped the sweat from his brow and turned toward the sound.

Their eyes met, revealing to Rentaro a pile of reddish-brown muscle giving him a supremely masculine glare despite the difference in species. Its head was wedge-shaped, its ears cropped but still bolt upright in the air.

The watchdog of Shiba Acres gave another ill-foreboding growl.

A Doberman pinscher.

…That part of the complex wasn’t very traditional.

Security would be there soon. No time to waste. His adversary kept its rear end bent, ready to pounce if an attack appeared imminent. Then with a growl, it lunged, aiming straight for Rentaro’s neck. It was exactly what he expected, which made both dodging it and landing a chop against the base of the dog’s throat not terribly difficult.

Rentaro dragged the limp Doberman to the nearby woods, where he hid, too. Right on cue, a security guard ran up to the scene. Rentaro held his breath, assessing the guard from the dark, tall grass. A flashlight beam whizzed past him, the brightness making him blink. The guard restlessly shook his head and, after a moment, sighed. “Right,” he said to nobody, maybe embarrassed about getting worked up over a false alarm, as he disappeared from view.

Rentaro let out a broad sigh of relief, then proceeded along, keeping himself hidden among the lines of pine trees as he took a wide turn around the pond and toward the archery range.

The canola oil burning in the stone lanterns emitted a bittersweet aroma, the flame flickering in the wind and slightly altering the shape of Rentaro’s shadow as it let out a thin sort of warmth. Perhaps the residents were holding some kind of party inside, because the wind brushing his cheek brought with it the sound of cheering and old-style Japanese court music.

Finishing his arc around the pond, he poked his head up from behind a stone, finally able to take in the range ahead.

With a light thunk, an arrow buried itself in one of the targets in the distance.

Someone was there.

Clearing away the rain-glistened reeds before him, Rentaro bent down and carefully approached the range from the rear. There was another whoosh in the air, followed by the sound of something thudding into something else. His eyes, now used to the darkness, clearly saw a girl on the other side, the white of her archery uniform visible in the night.

She had a chest protector on, her bow drawn as she stayed alert. It was a very elegant pose, and the sweat glistening on her face made it all the more alluring to him.

But her expression through the dimly lit air was less than content. It was like she was practicing her skills in order to shake off some nagging doubt in her mind.

“Staying pretty active in this heat, huh?”

“Who’s that?!”

He raised his hands into the air to show his innocence. There was no artificial lighting in the range, despite the late hour. Her eyes must have been just as used to the dark as his.

She gave a look of surprise, followed by a gasp.

“My dear Satomi? Are you the real thing…?”

“Do I look like a fake?”

Rentaro expected this to be followed up by her usual silliness. Probably along the lines of At this time of night? Were you trying to sneak in my room for a little hanky-panky? Oh, such an honor, or the like. But with another whoosh, something thudded just past his side.

Rentaro stopped; looking aside, he saw the shaft of a duralumin arrow vibrating in the air, practically in front of his nose.

“They said you were dead,” Miori whispered, shaking as her hands clutched the bowstring. “You have no idea how worried I was.”

Shocked, Rentaro felt deadly ashamed of his lackluster self-introduction. As far as the TV news was concerned, he had either drowned or bled to death near the Magata Plaza Hotel. That would explain the look of confused discontent he had seen on her face all the way across the archery range a moment earlier.

“I’m sorry I made you worry.”

There was a twinge of pain in Miori’s downturned eyes.

“Satomi… Satomi dear, did you really…really…kill him?”

“No!” he replied instinctively, only to draw back and weakly shake his head. “I don’t know if you’ll believe me or not, but I’ve been framed. Will you give me some time to explain myself…please?”

Miori nodded silently, beckoning him to continue. So Rentaro gave a quick summary of everything that had happened to him thus far—the bizarre request from a familiar client; the client’s subsequent assassination; his arrest and escape; the girl he was working with now; and the mysterious Black Swan Project they were trying to blow the door open on.

By the time he was done, a look of supreme relief was clear on Miori’s face.

“Guess you never had it in you to kill in the first place, hmm?”

Rentaro stuck his hands in his pockets and pouted. “What’d you think?”

“Hey, did you hear, though, my sweet Satomi? I heard a rumor saying Kisara’s gonna get married soon.”

A wave of pain, similar to a strike against his head with a hammer, coursed through Rentaro.

Kisara? Marrying?

“To whom?”

“Uh, someone named Hitsuma from the police.”

Him—

The rage was enough to practically add a red tint to his eyesight. The possibility should have been obvious to him long ago. He had thought his foe sent Enju to the IISO, Tina to jail, and the Tendo Civil Security Agency into de facto oblivion because he feared the strength of their Initiators. He was wrong.

“I keep on calling and texting Kisara, but she won’t respond to anything I give her. You know what’s up with that, Satomi?”

The distressing mental image of Hitsuma ravaging Kisara flickered into his brain. It nauseated him. He hung his head, eyes closed tightly as his fists began to shake.

Kisara…

I want to see them. Everything else can wait. I want to rescue Enju, and Tina, and hold them in my arms. I want to rescue Kisara, and apologize for all the horrible things I said to her. Then everything could be normal again—

“I…”

“…Oh, were you busy?”

Hotaru chose this moment to speak up from her perch atop the roof over the bow stations. Working her way to the ground, she sidled up to Miori.

“Who’s this?” Miori asked her.

“Hotaru Kouro. I’m with this guy. We kind of have a few common goals.” Then she looked at Rentaro, as if that was all the explanation she felt she owed the girl whose property she was on. “The archery range, huh? You got me there.”

“Heh. Yep. I found her first. So hands off.”

Hotaru raised her hands up, eyes closed in surrender, and shrugged.

“Um, so what’s this about?” Miori asked Rentaro. “Is this the girl you said you were working with?”

He thought for a moment before responding. “Miori… Thanks for telling me about Kisara’s marriage. But I can’t go see her yet.”

He fished around in his pocket for something that felt smooth and cold in his hand, and showed it to Miori. The film case was packed with dry ice, ventilation holes on the top of the cap.

“There’s tissue from a certain Gastrea inside this case. It’s almost certainly linked to this whole frame job. I need access to a lab where we can analyze it.”

Gripping the steering wheel of the black Mercedes-Benz, Rentaro adjusted his position in the seat beneath the belt and tensed his body. It had been a while. Trying to remember everything he learned at driving school, he checked the signs around him and pushed down on the accelerator. The car awkwardly lurched forward.

Given how this was his first shot at driving a vehicle as relentlessly fancy as this, he couldn’t be blamed for a few butterflies.

“A civsec license lets you drive pretty much anything, hmm?” Miori bouncily observed from the passenger seat.

“Don’t talk to me. If I hit something, it’s gonna be your fault.”

“Promoters can drive anything except tanks and fighter jets,” Hotaru added from the rear, her head the only part visible from the front seat. “If you’re an Initiator, though, all that license gets you is anti-corrosion drugs. It’s pretty useless.”

“Sounds pretty nice. Maybe I should score one of those.”

Rentaro took time from intensely focusing on the road up ahead to snort at Miori. “It doesn’t come that quick, you know.”

Miori, who had taken a moment to change into a kimono before leaving, opened up her hand fan and covered her mouth as she fanned her face. “I just figured, anything you have, I should have, too. See what I mean, Satomi dearest?”

“Ugh.”

“I think the fact that someone on Rentaro’s level can score a license so easily says a lot about the whole system, too,” Hotaru added.

“Are you guys trying to start a fight with me?”

“Oh, turn right, here.”

Rentaro half swerved at Miori’s command, barely making the turn.

“So where’re we going, anyway?” he asked a moment later.

“Shiba Heavy Weapons HQ.”

The light turned red ahead. The car quietly decelerated. Rentaro found himself checking the rearview mirror to make sure nobody was following them. When they took the Mercedes out of the property, they asked Miori’s normal chauffeur to take out the limousine she used for commuting to school as a lure for the detective parked out front. He had taken the bait—the Mercedes had made it out of the premises without a hitch—but now was no time to let their guard down.

A digital clock stood out clearly against the neon blur of the cityscape before them. It was approaching 10 p.m.

Before long, they spotted a building just a little bit taller than the rest of the glowing, dazzling edifices around it. He expected it to be mostly abandoned at this time of night but was surprised to find a few windows still shining bright. At least a few employees were burning the midnight oil.

“Twenty-four hours a day, there’s always somebody here,” Miori humble-bragged, guessing at Rentaro’s thoughts.

“Shiba Heavy Weapons takes up all the floors here?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Boy, you must be raking it in.”

He meant to chide her with that, but Miori just brought a kimono sleeve up to her mouth and gave him a graceful titter. “We do,” she said. “Our weapons make us a lot of profit, and—sad to say—they’ll probably continue to do so for a while to come. It’s a dangerous world out there.”

“It doesn’t bug you at all?” he asked. “Making weapons meant for killing people, and stuff?”

“Well, we sell bulletproof gear and armored vehicles for dealing with that, too, so…”

“Making the problem, then selling the solution, huh?” Rentaro muttered. Or he would have, had he not quashed the sentiment right before it tried to escape his lips. He was hardly one to talk. He was armed at nearly all times, theoretically so he could engage Gastrea at a moment’s notice, and he even had explosive charges installed within his body. Whether he resented Shiba Heavy Weapons or not, he was practically the culmination of their labor.

The car entered the parking lot, rolling up to what looked like a security checkpoint. The guard glared at first, suspicious of these late-night visitors, but when he saw Miori’s smiling face emerge from beneath the tinted glass, things changed quickly. “Oh, pardon me, ma’am!” he said, standing at attention. “You can go on ahead.”

As they pressed on to Shiba premises, Rentaro realized that his mouth had gone slightly agape. In front of the entrance, there was a team of security guards that—between their Shiba-labeled, full-body combat gear and the assault rifles in their hands—looked like they belonged to some special-forces team. Maybe a paramilitary force, even. And judging by the way they patrolled in tandem, Rentaro observed, they were clearly well-trained.

“Odd how the security’s a lot tighter here than at your house.”

Miori gave off a bewitching smile, as if Rentaro had just complimented her. “I told you, it’s a dangerous world out there. If anything ever happens, they’re trained to suppress Gastrea in place of the police or civsecs. It’s all Shiba equipment from head to toe, too, so it makes for good advertising.”

“Huh,” Rentaro said as he steered the car past them. Now that he was closer, he could see that what he thought were bulletproof vests were actually state-of-the-art Shiba combat exoskeletons, protecting body joints while boosting overall muscular strength about 80 percent. They were among the best of their kind, posting astonishing anti–shock wave and anti-penetration results in testing.

Rentaro had seen them in a catalog once, then briskly closed it shut when he saw how many zeroes were in the prices. But as he heard it, being part of the Shiba Heavy Weapons family would pretty much grant him the keys to the vault when it came to access. It made him a tad jealous.

Miori gauged his response, her eyes slitted and curious.

“Y’know, Satomi dear, do you think you could beat those guys if you really felt like it?”

Rentaro silently shook his head. Being attacked by a squad of well-trained, heavily armed troopers like these… He wouldn’t last long.

Now the car approached the entrance to the main building. Miori got out, sporting all the grace of an actress at the Oscars. Rentaro, similarly sporting his gloves and sunglasses, followed suit, as did Hotaru.

The lobby entrance was completely glass-lined, and the security guards inside quickened Rentaro’s pulse. Miori may have agreed to help him, but that didn’t mean everyone at Shiba from the mailroom on up was his friend now. The guard quizzically sized up Rentaro and his party, which made Rentaro’s heart beat even faster.

“Good evening, Miori. What brings you here this late?”

“Oh, you know, this and that. Do y’know if anyone’s left in the analysis lab down on the third basement floor?”

The man at the front desk took a moment to check his display-mounted glasses. “No,” he replied, “they’re all gone for the night.”

“Okay, well, we’ll be down there for just a sec. These are my friends. Thanks!”

With a delicate wave of her hand, she pressed on. Rentaro and Hotaru solemnly followed, feeling eyes on their backs as they boarded the elevator and pushed the B3 button. As the doors closed, Rentaro heaved a stress-relieving sigh and removed his disguise gear.

“You think they recognized me?”

“I dunno,” Miori sneered playfully, “but I don’t think sunglasses at night ever give off too friendly a vibe, you know?”

Hotaru looked up. “Your family doesn’t say anything about you visiting the office late-night, Miori?”

“Ooh, you called me by my first name and everything,” Miori sarcastically replied before putting her fist against her chest. “Nothing to worry about there, though. I get into all kinds of naughty stuff. One time, I came here at like two in the morning and took out blueprints for guns and stuff.”

With a beep, the elevator opened. Ahead was total darkness. It was a bit humid, suggesting the central air was off. The echoing of their footsteps told Rentaro that the ceiling was pretty high.

“Anyway,” Miori said as she ran a pass through a nearby magnetic reader, “welcome, my dear Satomi.”

Suddenly, the room was flooded with bright light, forcing Rentaro to shield his eyes and squint. Lights activated one by one across the floor, and only when they were all on did Rentaro realize the sheer enormity of the place. It looked every bit like an experimental laboratory, complete with rooms walled by reinforced see-through glass. Beakers, flasks, and a motley array of other lab tools lined the visible desks. Rentaro recognized what the centrifuges looked like, at least, but there was no telling what the giant plastic box one row down was. A DNA sequencer, maybe?

Miori had shown Rentaro around her company’s gun manufacturing facility once—a very factorylike atmosphere. This, on the other hand, looked clean, refined, and—for lack of a better term—like the future.

“Can I have the sample you need analyzed, please?”

“You’re gonna do it? Can you do that?”

She responded by taking another fan out from her kimono, this one iron-ribbed. Spreading it wide, she batted it at herself proudly.

“Well, ask a silly question! There’s no machine in this entire building I can’t use.”

Rentaro, honestly astonished, took the film case with the Gastrea tissue sample out of his pocket and tossed it to Miori.

“Thanks.”

“You got it,” Miori replied with an endearing wink before turning her back to them and padding away in her sandals. Watching her go, Rentaro whispered another Thanks to her in his mind.

6

“What?!”

The blanket flew off his body as he rose, causing some of the other detectives to give him questioning stares. Inspector Shigetoku Tadashima paid them no mind as he pressed his phone against his ear. On the other end of the line, he could hear Yoshikawa, one of his detectives, blabber into the phone, his obvious excitement causing his tongue to trip over itself.

“I said Miori Shiba, daughter of the president of Shiba Heavy Weapons, has gone missing. I was staking out the front gate, and the limousine she always uses came out the exit. I tailed it. It stopped in front of Magata High School, where she goes for class. So I waited for a while, but no Miori came out. I took a peek into the limo’s interior, and that’s when I realized someone pulled the wool over my eyes. Then I—”

Tadashima ended the call before his coworker could finish, grabbed his jacket from the desk corner it was slumped over, and leapt out of the station’s nap room, putting his jacket on as he stormed down the hall.

It had to be Rentaro Satomi. But what was he doing, taking the president’s daughter with him? Unless they knew why, searching the city would be fruitless…

“Hey, wait a minute, please!”

Turning toward the strained voice behind him, he found a square-shouldered female officer approaching him, standing tall as she inserted herself between Tadashima and the exit ahead.

“How long have you gone without any sleep, sir? You should really take a longer break first.”

“The suspect’s not gonna wait until I’m done napping!”

“You’re going to wreck your health! You aren’t that young anymore.”

“If this is all it takes to wreck my health, I’m not cut out to be a detective, anyway!”

He tried to push off the officer, already taken aback by his threatening tone, when something occurred to him. He took a closer look at her face.

“Hey, Shiba Heavy Weapons helps the force out a lot, too, right?”

The inspector’s sudden question further surprised the newcomer. “Y-yes,” she managed to reply, rubbing her chin as she thought it over. “They supply us with weaponry; they take on some of the criminal-science work for us…ballistics analysis, blood testing, DNA… That’s all part of their work—”

“That’s it!”

“Huh?”

“Great. Good job, Officer! The Shiba Heavy Weapons HQ building. Get me as much backup as we got available. I’m going on ahead.”

Tadashima provided as much appreciation as he could for the glassy-eyed officer, then spun in place and flew out of Magata Station.

Rentaro Satomi and his gang, for whatever reason, had their sights on a truck loaded with Gastrea. Whatever they picked up from that, they had to be analyzing it somewhere. Which made the theory that they were running around with some kind of concrete goal in mind seem even more plausible for him now.

Tadashima turned the key in his vehicle, then pushed down as hard as he could on the accelerator.

Test fluid flowed through a lab-room flask as Miori expertly operated the analysis machine. Watching off to the side, Rentaro realized his amateur knowledge gave him no clue how far along in the process she was. He didn’t have much else to do, so he headed for the stairway, figuring he might as well gain an understanding of the building’s setup while he was there.

Checking the position of the emergency exits, he opened the metal door and started climbing the dimly lit stairwell. The rhythmic tapping of his soles against the flat stone helped energize his thought process.

He had already been targeted once by Hummingbird. The hideout they took such great pains to keep safe was now discovered. The enemy, whoever it was, was damn talented at sniffing him out. For all he knew, their gnarled hands were circling themselves around his neck at this very minute—

This is stupid.

Shaking off his paranoid delusions, he examined the plate on the wall and realized he was on the first floor. He decided to turn around, not wanting to run into those security guards again—and just as he did, he stopped at what sounded like an explosion.

A gunshot. A sound familiar enough to understand immediately.

Cold metal hit his ear as he placed it against the emergency-exit door. Another gunshot from the other side. This time, he could tell it was a small-caliber, high-speed round. That pretty much IDed the culprit. An assault rifle.

The gunshots continued off and on, followed by the sound of glass shattering. Then the sounds of scuffling, interspersed with screaming. Then, complete silence.

His palms coated with sweat, Rentaro slowly, soundlessly, cracked open the door. The thick stench of blood through it made his body shiver. Summoning up his resolve, he opened it all the way—only to groan at what he saw.

“What the hell…?”

The first thing Rentaro could see was a security soldier slumped on the ground, as if taking a quick siesta. But some manner of bladed weapon had cut a deep gash in his neck, the initial spray from which was now exhibited in all its horrific glory on a nearby modern-art canvas.

The lobby’s chairs and desks were upturned. There was evidence of corpses being dragged around, as well as spent casings and the like. That, and a wide selection of dead security, the number of which would’ve taken a conscious effort to count. Some had their necks snapped by force, their legs bent in unnatural directions. Others had one or more limbs amputated.

The lights had been knocked out on this floor, except for a night-light on a lone counter, creating a sort of spotlight effect on the front-desk attendant.

His back was turned to Rentaro. Looking closer, there was a puddle of dark liquid at his feet, as if he had just had an accident.

Rentaro sidled around, Beretta in hand, toward the chair. The man was staring straight up, his neck slashed from ear to ear. His wide-open eyes were frozen for all time in a gaze of terror.

He checked for a pulse. No dice.

“Good God…”

Something like twenty security guards, and they were annihilated?

Rentaro’s throat was dry. He tried to swallow his nerves, trying to keep his head on straight. Then he heard another scream from afar, mixed in with rifle fire. Looking toward the front lawn spread out across the Shiba Heavy Weapons entrance, he saw a lone surviving guard swinging his rifle around, firing blindly. Shell shock, no doubt.

“Hey!”

The guard took notice, unfortunately.

“Eeeyaaahh!!” he shouted as he turned the gun on him. Rentaro ducked under the front desk and covered his ears.

He didn’t have to wait long. The glass covering the entrance shattered, as did the lone light fixture still illuminating the lobby. The darkness grew thicker.

“Hold your fire! I’m friendly!”

He risked waving his hand above the desk. Nothing. Then he looked up. The shooter, finally coming to his senses, ran up to him.

“H-help! Help me!”

“What happened?”

The guard had both hands latched on to his headgear, clearly in pain.

“I don’t know! I looked at my buddy and he was hanging in midair. His, his head was stabbed. There was blood spraying everywhere. And then I just… I have no idea.”

“What the hell’s that mean…?!” Rentaro shouted.

“Don’t ask me, man! That’s what I wanna know!”

Sensing that panic was about to set in again, Rentaro put both hands on the guard’s shoulders to calm him. In his clutches, the guard explained that he found one of his coworkers run through with a knife and with a broken neck in a spot where nobody else was in sight—as if killed by an invisible man.

It was extremely hard for anyone sane to believe. If it weren’t for the grisly scene laid out before them—the sheer scope of it—Rentaro would have doubted the guard’s current mental state.

This was that group again. The one pursuing him. They had released their grim reaper yet another time.

Rentaro had already taken care of Hummingbird, the killer of Kenji Houbara. Which meant there were two left…

He already knew the sniper Dark Stalker, aka Yuga Mitsugi, had murdered Giichi Ebihara. This assassin still had something up his sleeve, he sensed—but was he the type who could break people’s necks with his bare hands?

Meanwhile, the killer of Saya Takamura was still at large. Was that person the one behind this?

“I’m gonna get Miori out of this building. That’s the rear entrance back there, right?”

The guard made a face like he just realized the existence of the rear gate for the first time. He made a break for it.

“Whoa! Wait a sec!”

“Get outta here!” the guard shouted behind his back as he ran. “I can’t spend another minute in this hellhole!”

Then something Rentaro found hard to believe happened.

As he ran, from out of thin air, a large knife stabbed through the guard’s exoskeleton and right out the other side. There was a sort of shhkk sound, and then his body was lifted off the ground.

“Ga…aaa…!”

Rentaro stood bolt upright as he witnessed the otherworldly spectacle. What on…?

There was nothing but utterly empty space where the knife had come from. It was like the weapon had leapt up and plunged itself into his chest on its own volition. Did a ghost stab him or something?

“You…monster…!”

The guard writhed violently in midair, kicking at his adversary. Then Rentaro spotted it: a sort of waving of the air, a bit like the noise seen in a poor digital TV signal. The air flickered, and he could see human-shaped visual garbage flicker in and out of sight.

He was there. Someone had stabbed him after all. A pretty large someone, at that.

Could this be—?

Rentaro could think of only one property of physics that could explain this unexplainable sight—and one type of equipment that could make it possible.

“Optical camo…?”

Whispering it to himself didn’t make it any easier to believe.

The ability to bend the light around an object, making it melt into the background. The classic “invisible person,” but something that still went beyond the framework of modern science.

And did this invisible giant lie in ambush there, waiting for his poor victim to run blindly for the rear exit? This was the man who destroyed all this military tech, the pride of Shiba Heavy Weapons?

The guard, still aloft, vomited a round of dark blood, then stopped moving. Tossing the body aside, the invisible man—Rentaro sensed—turned his eyes toward him. Murderous intent radiated from the space.

Rentaro’s breathing grew short and shallow. It was too dangerous to stay there. Using the toe of his shoe, he kicked a rifle on the floor up into his hands, flipping the switch to full-auto mode and firing. It spat out an impressive amount of flash as it sprayed bullets across the wall of a nearby hallway with an ear-piercing roar.

But it was out of ammo in two seconds. Time to run.

Rentaro threw down the weapon and went back down the way he came, half running, half lunging for the stairwell. At the bottom, he tackled the B3 door open.

Hotaru and Miori, looking at a piece of paper, turned to him.

“Satomi, we’ve got the analysis results.”

“The enemy’s here,” he panted. “It’s bad.”

Hotaru narrowed her eyes. “Where?”

“I don’t know. But we can’t stay here.” Rentaro turned. “Miori, that VR training space is still two floors down from here, right? I need to use it.”

“A VR training space?”

“Yeah,” he replied to Hotaru’s doubtful query. “This, ah, enormous cube-shaped space that we use as a battle simulator. We’ll take the guy on in there.”

It was a curt explanation, but one good enough for Hotaru. She nodded. He turned toward Miori again.

“The enemy’s after all three of us. You go to some other room and run the simulator for me. Shut off the door completely so no one can get in.”

“All right. I just explained the results to Hotaru. She’ll give you the story once we’re clear.”

“Got it.”

Rentaro pushed the elevator button, and then set his hand on a gracefully hesitant Miori’s shoulder.

“I really hope you don’t have to die, Satomi dear,” she said in reply.

“Already happened once, apparently. Don’t really feel like having it happen again.”

He nodded at her, conveying his resolve and thanks at the same time. The door closed.

“Let’s go, Hotaru.”

With new determination, Rentaro began to run. Taking three steps at a time as he tore downstairs, he checked the nameplate by the fifth underground floor’s entrance and jumped inside.

Beyond the doorway was a locker room with two Shiba-branded assault rifles. Rentaro grabbed them both and tossed one to Hotaru. Next, he pushed open a nearby door that had a card reader mounted to one side.

Although he was expecting it, the brightness made him raise up his arm in self-defense.

It was a clear white space, so white that it was hard to tell the walls from the floor. It was completely empty, not a speck of dust at their feet. It was surreal, like nothing of this world—and, to someone experiencing it for the first time, a jaw-dropping experience.

Hotaru gingerly took a step forward. The result was enough to convince her the floor was really there, but stupefaction was still written all over her face. Rentaro beckoned her over.

As they walked across the vast cavern, the white began to twist and turn before them. Rentaro felt a sharp sense of dizziness for an instant, then the view around him changed 180 degrees.

It was now dark, humid, and musty. Rentaro could smell dust, and no light came in through the windows, which were framed by bare wood. The scent of rust and decomposing forest matter indicated this “building” had been abandoned for a while.

They were inside a dark, high-ceilinged space. Some kind of storage facility.

“Wh-what’s this?” a wary Hotaru asked.

“The name of the stage is ‘the warehouse,’” Rentaro replied as calmly as possible. “That’s the cool part about VR battle training. You can change the entire combat environment at the push of a button.”

Presumably this stage was Miori’s decision.

“This is…virtual?” Hotaru asked as she curiously poked at a nearby storage crate. Beside her, Rentaro took a penlight out from his hip pocket and swung it around. Large piles of square crates sprung out from the darkness, carelessly layered in haphazard stacks or piles, all covered in a fine coating of dust.

The space seemed resentful of being awoken from its slumber; the only environmental lighting was slight and came from the opposite wall, a surprisingly long distance away. The chamber itself was about as large as a decent-size factory.

Rentaro placed his rifle on top of a nearby crate, deploying its bipod for stability as he aimed at the door they had arrived through. He peered into the dot sight as he gave Hotaru a quick rundown of how to operate the rifle.

“All right. So the enemy’s gonna open this door and run through. He’s using optical camo, so expect him to be invisible. Once it opens, start firing, whether you see anything or not.”

“Gotcha.”

Through the gunsight, Rentaro could see a pale red dot in the center of his view, jiggling to and fro in response to his pinpoint adjustments.

After a few moments, there was a faint clanging sound. The door was being pushed from the other side.

Rentaro’s pulse raced. He sharpened the corners of his eyes, put his finger on the trigger, and pushed down enough to eliminate the play on it. The door opened enough to be slightly ajar.

“Hotaru!”

Full-auto fire ensued. The door was instantly pockmarked with holes, the blinding flash and concussive noise continuing on for what felt like eons. Eternity didn’t last long, however, because the ammo was soon exhausted. A small moment of silence, and then a figure fell forward, onto the warehouse floor, the now unhinged door doing little to break his fall.

Rentaro gave a hand signal to his partner, took out his handgun, and approached. Gradually, he could see a silhouette via the glare behind him—a fully visible one. Either he’d turned off his optical camo or it was destroyed in the barrage.

Rentaro went up to the body, giving it a slight nudge with his foot. No response. Taking that as a cue, Rentaro crouched down and turned the body over. Then he froze.

“It’s not the guy, Hotaru,” Rentaro shouted behind him. “We’ve still got an active hostile!”

The man, presumably in his early thirties and dressed in nothing but a shirt and his boxers, was the security guard who lost his life just a moment ago. The enemy threw the corpse through the door to attract their fire.

“—I’ve been looking for you, ‘New Humanity.’ My name is Swordtail.”

The voice came from behind.

Rentaro turned around just in time to see a knife, floating in the air, descending rapidly upon him.

“Shi—”

Rentaro immediately pictured it—the knife piercing deep into his chest cavity and skewering his heart. But before it became reality, there was a gunshot. It tinged against the knife, sending it across the floor.

Support fire from Hotaru. Rentaro crouched down as she continued the salvo without any rest, firing blindly with both hands.

The bullets carved the warehouse’s walls, but they were just a moment too late. The enemy’s ghostly form had vanished again.

Hotaru grabbed on to Rentaro. Before he could ask why, he felt another powerful acceleration, as if being blown away by an explosion. The girl, reasoning it was too dangerous to remain there, had leapt upward.

“How the hell’re we gonna beat that?!”

“I’m trying to think of something, all right?!”

The two landed in the central area of the warehouse, Rentaro on Hotaru’s back.

“You murdered Saya Takamura, didn’t you?!” he shouted into the unfathomable darkness.

“Hohh,” a voice echoed across the expansive warehouse space, its position impossible to detect. “You’ve dug yourself in that deep and you’re still breathing, huh? No wonder the group’s running itself ragged trying to find you.”

As he spoke, Rentaro’s mind raced for a potential solution. His enemy was invisible, and yet his knife wasn’t. His invisibility was the result of some kind of cloak or vest, perhaps, but whenever he attacked, maybe that meant his weapon had to be exposed for that one moment before the strike.

And it wasn’t like the camo could nullify his footsteps or sense of presence. If the enemy didn’t have any close-quarters weaponry besides that knife, Rentaro could always use his five senses to figure out where he was. If there was a handgun or something on his person, though, that complicated things.

But who is this Swordtail guy, anyway…?

“Lemme guess what you’re thinking right now. It’s something like How’s he able to camouflage his entire body? Right?”

Rentaro’s mouth snapped shut.

“You know how Dark Stalker has a copy of Sumire Muroto’s 21-Form Varanium Artificial Eye. Hummingbird had an upgraded clone of Ain Rand’s Shenfield tech. Meanwhile, I’m installed with something called the ‘Marriott injection,’ something originally meant for mechanized infantry. My nanomaterial-infused skin can bend the light around it at will. It’s the most powerful skill a robot soldier can have, and Arthur Zanuck made it practical for real-life use.”

“Wha—?!”

Arthur Zanuck… He’d heard that name before. One of the so-called Four Sages alongside Sumire. So Swordtail was another one of their skill mimickers… But what did that mean? Whoever was behind the New World Creation Project, what were they trying to—?

Amid the mazelike piles of metal containers strewn all over the place, Rentaro turned his attention left and right, guard ever on the ready. Nobody seemed to be nearby. The sound drained itself from the shabby warehouse, and he felt completely alone. Every cell of his skin was attuned like radar, ready to pick up so much as a pin dropping.

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

“Nice try.”

The human hand that came out of the darkness set a gun to rest comfortably against Rentaro’s temple.

Rentaro reacted. Just before the trigger was pulled, he brushed the gun away and darted his head to the side. There was a loud crack from the gun, then a rush of heat as the bullet grazed his temple.

Rentaro dropped to the floor, executed a forward roll, then got right back on his feet. He drew his gun on the enemy, but he was already gone.

“Don’t you know about me? You would if you’d done your research.”

A half-pitying, half-chiding voice sounded off, this time in point-blank range of his ears. Rentaro was taken by surprise—it was exactly like before, except this time the point of the gun was right at his back.

“You can try as many times as you want. But you can’t win.”

But there, faster than the naked eye could see, Hotaru plowed in.

“Nrh!”

Turning around, Rentaro found that Hotaru had deftly made her way to the giant man’s hand, using her entire body to squeeze the gun out of it. The optical camo flickered out—perhaps not as effective when grappling with a foe like this—revealing an eerily large man in a coat. Rentaro could hear his muscles creaking, screaming for help, all the way from his vantage point.

“God damn—”

But their enemy was still up to the task. His muscles grated one another as he jerked his wrist back, not caring if he dislocated it or not, and shook Hotaru off. Hotaru slammed against the ground back-first. Swordtail drew his gun on her.

By the time Rentaro thought Oh crap, his body was already running, all but slamming into her. As he did, two gunshots overlapped each other. Pain wrenched his back. He gritted his teeth.

Hotaru, held down on the ground, opened her eyes wide in surprise, her eyes shaking. “Rentaro…! What are you—?”

The blood dripping out the back of his school uniform fell upon Hotaru’s face. She shook it off in disbelief and screamed.

“You’re so stupid! I can regenerate myself at will! You didn’t have to—”

“—Shut up!”

Hotaru instantly fell silent.

“I really don’t like that attitude of yours.”

“Stop it! You’re gonna die!”

Swordtail fired another flurry of bullets. They all struck home on his back.

“Gaaaaaahh!!”

Hotaru shook her head back and forth again. “Stop! Please, just stop!” she barely managed to whisper, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“At least let me protect my partner this time!”

“It’s over, kid,” came a voice from behind. There was no way to instantly react to it. The end was near. Rentaro’s body tightened, anticipating the heat from the bullets coming the next instant.

Then he was tossed aside without warning.

Gunshots. Blood sprayed from Hotaru’s left breast, right on the heart. For a moment, Rentaro didn’t realize what had happened.

But Hotaru was dead. The moment he realized it, rage seared him from head to toe.

“You piece of—”

He couldn’t afford to have the enemy go invisible again. He got up, spewing blood, and with all his might, planted his feet on the ground and calmed himself. A cartridge spat itself out of his leg, spinning, and propelled his foot upward.

Tendo Martial Arts Second Style, Number 14—

“Inzen Genmeika!”

The midlevel kick, launched from a low, near-crouching position, found its mark. It hit cleanly on the chest area of the giant, a look of shock burned onto his face.

The force seemed to blow the air in all directions, the propulsion from Rentaro’s leg sending the man flying like so many dead leaves in autumn. He collided with a stack of crates in the center of the room, kicking up plumes of dust as the collapsing pile tumbled over his body.

“Gnh!”

Rentaro’s response was to vomit a thick splatter of blood across the floor. Firing a cartridge with open wounds on his body succeeded in ravaging all his injuries. But he could still move. And if his Tendo Martial Arts skills—further powered up by the jet turbine–like cartridges in his leg—found their target, it would be the same as being struck by a semitruck at full speed. In fact, it was a miracle his adversary’s limbs didn’t get blown off.

As he smelled something pungent among the dust, Rentaro used his free hand to cover his mouth so he didn’t breathe it in. A moment later, he spotted Swordtail’s brown coat. He was lying facedown, surrounded by a carpet of wood splinters, and his coat was the only part visible.

Rentaro went up to his enemy’s feet and, without hesitation, pulled the trigger on his Beretta twice. If the man was playing possum, well, now he wasn’t.

The bullets shredded the coat, sending fabric fibers flying, but there was no blood.

Something was off. Rentaro nudged at the coat with his fingertips, then decided to simply rip it off.

Before he could even consciously acknowledge surprise, his body had already planted itself against a nearby crate. Gingerly daring another look at the coat, he saw a pile of vaguely body-shaped splinters under it, and nothing else. No body.

Rentaro felt something to his left. He pulled his chin back, his body falling in reverse, and a fist the size of a boulder thundered past his head. He was now out of position, and he had no way of evading the foe as he advanced upon him at astounding speed. He, and his combat boot.

“Gah!”

“That wasn’t a bad idea,” a monotonous voice said from across the dark warehouse. By the time Rentaro’s bleary vision focused itself again, he realized Swordtail was standing no more than a meter away from him.

The man was damaged. The cuffs of his pants were frayed, and he was bleeding. Breathing, for him, required heaving his shoulders up and down. Without the coat, he could see that the man, his hulking body shaped something like an inverted triangle, was wearing a black tank top.

“But you just had to go around thinking I was on the same level as somebody like Hummingbird.”

Swordtail aimed his handgun at Rentaro’s head. A bottomless abyss awaited within it.

“You lose.”

“And that arrogance just made you lose.”

No one was more surprised than Swordtail to see a figure perched on top of him, as if he was giving her a piggyback ride.

“You… Why are you…?!”

Hotaru had both feet laced around the bucking Swordtail’s head, using her free hands to draw her twin pistols from behind her back.

“I hope you taste even a tenth of the suffering Kihachi did.”

The next moment, a continual cycle of explosions and muzzle flashes swarmed the area. Fresh, warm blood fell upon Rentaro’s face.

“Aaaahhhhh!”

With a beastlike roar as he desperately tried to peel Hotaru off, Swordtail found himself the target of a merciless pair of .45-caliber handguns as they thudded their payloads into him at point-blank range.

The otherworldly sight didn’t last long. Soon the slide stops popped up on both weapons, indicating they had exhausted their ammo. Hotaru leapt out of the way.

“Ngh…ahh…!”

Swordtail fell to his knees, then face-first onto the ground with a mighty, earth-shaking foom.

“Rentaro!” Hotaru shouted as she all but threw herself at him, embracing his head. He couldn’t feel the sensation, which wasn’t exactly encouraging, but Rentaro weakly nodded nonetheless. The chill from the blood loss was making his eyes heavy. Hotaru shook him as hard as she could.

“We need to get out of here and get you treated!”

He got back on his feet, Hotaru lending him a shoulder, and forced his knees to not buckle. He was cold. He’d lost too much blood; he felt like he’d freeze to death before anything else.

Rentaro took a side glance at Swordtail—only to have the sight shoot a jolt of reenergizing surprise into him.

The huge man was gone without a trace. In his place were bloodstains, with a trail of droplets following out of the room.

“Hotaru… He ran on us…”

“How?! How could he have moved after that?”

“I don’t know…but looks like he did.”

Anyone involved in either the New Humanity or the New World Creation Projects were people with strength beyond all reason. Applying Varanium to human bones and organs had the terrifying power to turn mortal wounds into not-so-mortal ones.

“We gotta go after him… We can’t let him leave with the info we have.”

Swordtail, also known as Jugo Katake, slammed a fist against the wall as he entered the shower room, all but ripping the curtain off the pole as he stormed into a booth. He used the knob to set the temperature to 36 degrees Celsius—suitable for washing blood spatter off his body—and immersed his head in the lukewarm water.

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. Not this, Jugo whispered to himself as he struggled to take hold over his consciousness.

His powerful carbon-nanotube muscles, combined with a spinal column made of self-repairing Varanium alloy, had stopped all the bullets. His blood vessels had constricted themselves to prevent excessive blood loss. The organic transistors implanted in his body had monitored all medical statistics relevant to keeping him alive, making adjustments as necessary.

And yet the flurry of handgun fire Jugo took at point-blank range wasn’t anything he could ignore. Especially given how physical brawn was such a key part of his battle strategy.

The blood now washed off his body, he checked to make sure his optical camo still worked as usual, then flew out of the shower and began his escape. On the elevator he went, jumping over the dead security guards still decorating the first-floor lobby, and soon he was outside, greeted by the murky, humid night air.

He couldn’t shake the frustration that bubbled up. He was supposed to be the brightest star of the New World Creation Project. So how did an obsolete pre-war model leave him in the dust like that?

What part of me could possibly be inferior to him?

“Well, someone just got put through the wringer.”

“Who—?”

He was in the central courtyard of the Shiba Heavy Weapons building when a figure emerged from under one of the poplar trees that dotted the well-kept lawn. Jugo winced in disbelief once the moonlight fully exposed the boy.

“Dark Stalker?!”

He wanted to know what the kid was doing there, but he resisted the urge to ask. This was too good an opportunity to let pass.

“Perfect. Report to Hitsuma through Nest for me. I landed a lethal blow on Hotaru Kouro, but she came back to life. Whatever her Gastrea element is, it gives her an incredible amount of vitality.”

“Yeah? Thanks for the report.”

The carefree, inattentive tone of voice made Jugo wonder if he even realized how vital this was. He swung an arm out, frustrated.

“What’re you doing?! The enemy’s coming! Let me go!”

“Afraid I can’t agree to that.”

“What?”

“I know it’s kind of a summary judgment, but I need to execute you right here. You screw up, you die.”

For a moment, Jugo stared blankly, unsure what Dark Stalker had just said.

“What kind of joke is that?”

“Sorry, but it’s not any kind of joke at all. You lost, and as a result, the group told me they don’t want anything to do with you.”

“I haven’t lost at all yet!”

“You’re the only one who thinks that, you know.”

Hold on… Is he really going to…?

“W-wait a minute. Just give me another chance.”

“Don’t need to.” Yuga brushed his hair back, the spite practically radiating from his face. “Is it that hard to believe? That you might wind up being the executed instead of the executioner sometime?”

There was no way he could. Jugo had given everything to the group. Why would they treat him like this? “…And you think I’m just gonna let myself get killed?” he demanded.

Yuga shrugged. “Well, that’s what I’m here for, anyway.”

Swordtail lowered his body into a battle stance. “That’s insane! You’re the one who deserves to die. Go ahead. Ask Mr. Hitsuma anytime you want. The group isn’t gonna just dump me like that!”

The pain from before was gone now. All the adrenaline his body generated had pushed his ability to sense discomfort deep into his subconscious. He checked his legs, and other parts, too. His organs and respiratory system were damaged, but less than half of Jugo’s body was organic, anyway. Everything else was the fruit of modern bioelectronics, a far cry from anything in nature’s creation.

He lowered his breathing—and with it, his body temperature. Glaring into his adversary’s eyes, he took off, activating his optical camo to make his body a mirage in the wind.

He had heard about Yuga’s cybernetic eyes. But this was exactly the kind of match he wanted—a fighter given a skill so advanced that he couldn’t help but be bound by it in his tactics.

Jugo made no sound as he sidled around his foe, attempting to get closer. Dark Stalker was still looking at Jugo’s position from a moment ago; taking out his auxiliary knife, Jugo approached from the right-hand side like a predator stalking its prey—and then slashed forward at full speed. To someone like him, a veteran of undercover assassination, this was his killer move. By the time his target realized he was under attack, his head would already have been separated from his torso.

Immediately afterward, Dark Stalker’s head would arc through the air. He could picture it already.

But what he didn’t anticipate was his foe’s right hand flying up, his head still pointed forward.

He saw the hand brush against the blade of his knife. Then he heard the crunch of crumpled steel. Jugo’s vision shook, as if he was being electrocuted, and his optical camo peeled right off.

He leapt back reflexively, struggling to regain equilibrium. When he did, Jugo saw his stainless-steel knife in his hand, crushed from the tip of the blade to the handle.

Jugo shuddered as the bladeless handle fell from his hands, unable to believe the sight.

“That’s…crazy…!”

“What is? The fact that you had no idea what you were getting into when you attacked me? Or the fact that lame optical camo of yours was neutralized at the single wave of a hand?”

Dark Stalker smirked and shrugged his shoulders at his adversary, now shocked into submission. “I like that Marriott injection and all the other stuff you use for that invisibility trick of yours,” he said, arms open wide, “but none of that mattered after I got you in my sight. The processors in both of my eyes spotted the way you flexed your muscles and calculated your strategic approach—even the position you’d show up at. It’s almost like they predict the future for me. All I have to do is keep myself from yawning while you telegraph your punches from a mile away.”

“But… But how did you pulverize my knife just by touching it?!” Jugo yelled, looking down at the cracked, shattered pieces of metal on the ground. Come to think of it, he did hear about Dark Stalker being equipped with some kind of experimental armament. “S-some kind of ultrasonic wave device?”

As Jugo finished shouting the question, Yuga was upon him, a lethal palm placed upon his heart.

“Well done. I think you should taste it for yourself, though. Isn’t modern technology amazing? It takes the concepts of physical strength, the idealism of martial arts, and turns it all on its head.”

Then, without any time to curse his regrets, Jugo experienced the vibrating waves from Yuga’s death-dealing palm destroy the very connections between his skin and muscle cells.

“This is my second power. It’s called Vairo-orchestration.”

The pain was intense for Jugo—like his organs were being put through a blender. His heart was quickly pulverized, no time provided to even conceptualize any last words as his consciousness faded into darkness.

There was a splurt, something no simple palm strike could ever produce, as Swordtail coughed up enough blood to form a puddle around his feet. He tottered dangerously, eyes staring in disbelief at Rentaro—before he fell like a tree to the ground. There was no getting back up this time.

Rentaro had made his way out of the Shiba Heavy Weapons building just in time to witness a sight he never expected—two New World Creation Project veterans attempting to kill each other. He couldn’t imagine what brought this chain of events about, but either way, Swordtail had just fallen with a single hit.

Yuga’s victory couldn’t have been more complete. It was barely even a match. A scar in the shape of his hand remained on Swordtail’s chest as the man lay dead on his back. The strike must’ve had the effect of necrotizing the local tissue. Even the palm’s prints were clearly discernible.

It was the same skill that Rentaro had luckily escaped at the Plaza Hotel. If there was an ace up Yuga’s sleeve, that had to be it. Rentaro felt a cold twinge, like someone had slipped an ice cube down the back of his shirt. He steeled himself, fists balled up tight, and began to walk up to Yuga. They were face-to-face again, not ten meters away from each other in the Shiba courtyard.

“Yuga…Mitsugi…” came the resentful, whispered words from Rentaro’s mouth. Ever since they’d first met—ever since Mitsugi had shot him out of the skies above the hotel—he could never forget that name. Nor could he forget the fact that both were doomed to fight each other again someday.

“We finally meet,” came the joyful reply as Yuga put his arms out wide in a gesture of welcome. “Not quite when I was expecting it, though. I didn’t think Swordtail would do that bad of a number on you.”

“This doesn’t hurt at all.”

Rentaro was wobbly, his vision bleary at best. But at least the blood coming out of his mouth was close enough to the color of his uniform that it didn’t stand out too much.

Yuga’s lips loosened into a piteous smile. “Well, if you’ve gotten to see Swordtail in battle for yourself, I guess you realize who you’re dealing with in New World now, don’t you?”

“The New World Creation Project is a second-generation team of mechanized soldiers, in the style of the New Humanity Creation Project program,” Rentaro stated. “The eyes you use to fight with were copied from plans developed by Dr. Sumire Muroto, one of the Four Sages. Hummingbird’s thought-activation interface was borrowed from research conducted by Ain Rand. Swordtail’s skills were copied from Arthur Zanuck. Dr. Muroto told me that developing artificial eyes or limbs required knowledge across so many different fields that most researchers can’t even understand the basic concepts that drive them. And if you think about it, it must take one hell of a genius to not only copy that stuff, but to upgrade it, too. In fact, I can think of only one person.”

Yuga arched his eyebrows in curiosity.

“Let’s hear it.”

Rentaro looked down at Yuga, jaw still jutted forward.

“The person beating the war drum for your dirty project is the last of the Four Sages—Albrecht Grünewald.”

Yuga, in apparent agreement, lifted his hands high into the air. “Well done! And the name of our group is the Five Wings Syndicate! Happy to make your acquaintance!”

“The Five Wings…?”

“Take a look at this.”

Yuga rolled up the right sleeve of his school uniform, showing off his triceps. What Rentaro saw tattooed there made him gasp.

“The pentagram…and the wings…”

He had seen it several times by then, but Yuga’s star mark had four ornately designed wings drawn around it. Two wings, however, appeared to have been erased in some fashion. Apparently doing so wasn’t easy, since they had been crudely scratched out, like a kindergartener’s scribble-scrabble with a crayon over a coloring-book page.

Yuga smiled as Rentaro looked on. “Yeah, I kinda had two wings plucked off me. Now I can’t fly anymore. I fell back to earth.”

“…I’ve seen that in a few places now. All on things associated with the Five Wings Syndicate, I guess. Is the number of wings some kind of ranking system?”

“Well, if you know that much, I can cut right to the chase, I guess. You’re right. Five wings indicate one of the group’s core leaders. It goes down to four, three, and two wings after that. One wing marks you as either a follower or a slave—or maybe house pet, I guess. If you feel like frisking Swordtail’s body over there, there’s probably a two-wing mark on him somewhere.”

Rentaro could feel the fog lift from his mind little by little. He decided to prod their discussion just a bit further along.

“When I visited Dr. Ayame Surumi’s apartment, I got a call from someone disguising his voice and warning me about Hummingbird. That was you, right?”

A gust of wind flew around them, lifting Rentaro’s, Yuga’s, and a watching Hotaru’s hair up. There was a rustle as the surrounding trees swayed gently.

“That wasn’t me, no.”

“The hell it wasn’t. Why? Why did you take action to help me?”

Yuga responded with silence for a few moments before sighing, apparently opting to give up the charade.

“Satomi, has the beauty of the world around you ever made you want to cry?”

“What?”

“I was born blind in both eyes.”

Rentaro was thrown by this. He was starting to lose track of the subject.

“My mother fell ill while she was pregnant with me, and that’s kind of what happened. One hundred percent blind. It never particularly bothered me at the time. You can’t miss what you never had in the first place, and stuff. But you know how cruel other kids can be. By the time I made it to elementary school, they picked on me all the time. It really made me angry. But it was Professor Grünewald who saved me, along with his second-generation mechanized-soldier plan. That was already under development in secret by the time I showed up. And as you’ve probably noticed, my ‘21-Form’ allows me to see even when I don’t have it activated, unlike your eye.”

Yuga shook his head a little, then turned directly toward Rentaro. The color of his eyes was gone, replaced with a dangerous-looking glare that felt sharp enough to cut with.

“Once I joined their ranks, the beauty of a springtime day honestly made me cry. So did the summer sun, beating down on my eyes. The colors of autumn did it to me all over again, and so did the whiteness of winter. I felt like I couldn’t possibly ask for anything else, and that I needed to give the Professor everything that I possibly could in return. That’s why I built myself up. I mean, I was absorbed heart and soul in the training they gave me. That’s what earned me four wings in the end. I was the Professor’s prodigal son. He gave me VIP treatment. And then…”

All the tension Yuga had built up fell off a self-chiding cliff with the and then.

“I messed it up just once, and that cost me two wings. The Professor branded me a failure, and now I’m up to my neck in this dirty assassin business. You wanted to know why I’d do anything to help you, yeah? Don’t make me laugh. I didn’t do that for your sake or anything. I just couldn’t stand the concept of some tin soldier like Hummingbird or Swordtail doing you in. That’s all.”

He steeled his resentful eyes at Rentaro, denying him the chance to offer any semblance of compassion.

“The Professor promised me that if I beat you, he’d give me my wings back. Once I do, I can go back to serving him again.”

Rentaro had never met Grünewald. But if he was the type of academic to personally brand Yuga a failure, and then dangle the chance of rehabilitation in front of him if he killed Rentaro…then he hadn’t seen much to respect about the man yet. Ain Rand, Tina’s mentor, was the same way. Something told him the three other Sages didn’t care much about virtue or common decency, unlike Sumire.

“And you think Grünewald’s justified in this? In forcing you to commit first-degree murder?”

“It’s not a matter of whether the Professor’s justified or not. All that matters is whether I believe in him or not.”

Yuga turned his back then, only to shoot him a sidelong glance.

“I will await you at the site of the final battle. We can conclude it there.”

With that, without taking another look back, Yuga left the scene. Soon, he was gone from Shiba Heavy Weapons property. Rentaro stared intently at him the whole time, convinced he’d turn around at any moment. But after a while, when he’d disappeared and hadn’t returned, Rentaro let out a deep sigh.

In the process, he realized his vision was lurching sideways a little. Hotaru stopped him before it went fully vertical, but the damage was done. Yuga must have realized, Rentaro thought ruefully, the state of total exhaustion I’m in.

“We better head back to the hideout, Rentaro.”

From some indistinct corner of the city, the familiar sound of sirens blared. It sounded like it was headed straight for them.

Hotaru scowled. “That’s a lot of ’em, judging by the sound.”

“Ah, the Knights of the Round Table. Just a little too late, once again.”

Hotaru flashed him a look. “If you got enough energy to spout stupid crap like that, you’ll be okay if I’m a little rough getting us out, right?”

“A little rough?”

Hotaru turned her head almost straight up. Rentaro followed her eyes. They were pointed at the roof of the main building.

“They’ll track us down if we keep running. I wanna jump away from there.”

The door opened with a crisp electronic beep. Rentaro braced a shaky arm against the elevator wall as he exited, Hotaru propping him up. They were greeted by a howl and a gust of surging wind. Turning his head, he could see the red, yellow, and blue neon flash down below, just past the helipad. The lights from the swarm of police cars at the bottom. Another familiar sight.

The hand around Rentaro’s shoulder was warm. Worth his trust. Far more than usual, at least.

“Let’s go. Grab on to me.”

He tried to thank her. He couldn’t quite manage it, his pallid, zombielike lips and semifrozen skin no longer listening to his instructions.

But—

“Freeze! Do anything funny, and I’ll shoot!”

Rentaro and Hotaru stopped at the sound of a handgun’s cylinder rotating behind them.

“Lemme see your hands. Walk slowly back toward my voice. Slowly!”

Rentaro raised his hands, not wanting to rile the gunman, and turned around. There he saw a police detective, a stern look on his face as he readied his pistol in both hands.

“Inspector Tadashima…”

Hotaru lowered her stance, readying for battle. Rentaro raised a hand to stop her, then took a step forward.

The humid night wind blew fiercely across the space between Rentaro and Shigetoku Tadashima, making their clothes flap violently in the air.

“Are you people half-bird or something? Every damn time I see you, you’re on the roof of some high-rise. You gotta be nuts.”

Rentaro tried moving his jaw. It seemed to work well enough to speak.

“Let us go, Inspector.”

“No! I’m here in the name of the law. And it’s my duty to uphold it. The law is the only beacon of order this world has. We’d be in total darkness without it. What would we call a world without order? It wouldn’t be a civilization. It’d be chaos.”

“So you’re gonna just neglect justice?”

“Oh, you think you’re in the right here? Look, what’s going on behind the scenes with you? What do you know?”

“I told you a hundred times in the interrogation room.”

“Oh, so all the delusional bullshit you gave me in extreme detail in your testimony is true? Don’t give me that crap!”

“The group I’m fighting is spreading chaos. They’re destroying that order you were talking about. And now you’re helping it grow. Saying ‘I didn’t know’ isn’t gonna help you. It’s your fault you’re so clueless. I’m outta here.”

“You think I’m gonna say you can go?”

“Atsuro Hitsuma’s an enemy spy. He’s infiltrated the police department.”

“He is not!” Tadashima shook his head in obvious mental distress and turned away. “That’s…not true…!”

“Okay. Shoot me, then.”

Hotaru shot Rentaro a surprised look. “Rentaro, wait a…!”

“Don’t move, Hotaru. I want to handle things properly with this guy.”

Tadashima turned back, and Rentaro addressed him:

“If you think you’re right, then shoot me. If you arrest me, you know they’ll find me guilty. I might die in prison, for all I know. That’s how far the enemy’s sunk its teeth in you.”

“Don’t be stupid. We’re the police. We’re duty-bound to protect the accused.”

“That won’t help,” Rentaro insisted. “That’s how this enemy works.”

Tadashima’s lips pursed.

“So I’m guessing by your reaction that you know Atsuro Hitsuma, huh? If you’ve been with him before, did you notice anything weird about him?”

The detective froze. The proverbial cat had gotten his tongue. He tried to conceal his expression, but the effort shamed him.

“Right. So you have noticed something, but he’s your boss, so you have to suck up to him instead?”

Tadashima was silent.

Rentaro closed his eyes and shook his head. “So shoot me. You’ll get a certificate of honor out of it, won’t you?”

“I—I…”

Tadashima’s body began to shake, his index finger wrapped around the gun apparently frozen in place. His face was covered in greasy sweat.

“If you ain’t shooting, we’re leaving.”

Rentaro motioned an order at Hotaru, hung on to her shoulder, then fell forward.

“Whoa! Hey!”

Tadashima hurriedly peered down the side of the roof. But the boy in black had already melted into the night, gone without a trace.

“Argh!!”

Driven by anger bubbling over, Tadashima pointed his gun to the sky and fired three times. The three shots echoed through the air, catching rides on the gusting wind. They did nothing to quell the anger aimed at himself. He tossed the gun to the side, then fell to his knees, not caring about the pain as he batted a fist against the roof several times.

“Why?! Why couldn’t I shoot him?!”

He had to shoot him. He had to prove that the law, such as it was, supported him. He had to prove he was Shigetoku Tadashima, and that the brunt of his will could only be expressed by killing the hated criminal that reared its ugly head before him.

But he failed.

Something in him doubted whether Rentaro was a criminal. The odd obsession with secrecy Hitsuma brought into the investigation had made him arch his eyebrows one too many times.

That meant defeat. The law, the concept he worshiped to the point of believing there was never any way to cheat one’s way out of it, had lost. Shigetoku Tadashima’s “law” had been brought to its knees by the immature, childish “justice” that civsec just had to bring into the picture.

“Inspector! What are you doing up here?!”

He turned around to find Yoshikawa, white as a sheet, running up to him. He must have heard the gunshots. Tadashima quickly felt his thoughts start to cool down. Wiping the dust from his pants, he stood up and walked past his underling.

“I’m leaving this investigation for a little bit. I found something that I have to look into. Superintendent Hitsuma’s probably gonna be here in a bit. Take your orders from him.”

“I-Inspector? Inspector, what’s going on? Inspector!”

He could feel the voice pulling at him from behind. But Tadashima ducked his head down low, never turning around, and left the scene.

He had to do it. He had to resolve these doubts in his mind. He had finally realized that he was no longer able to perform the basic duties of a police officer.