BLACK BULLET
CHAPTER 02

THE CURSED CHILDREN

1

As the morning light filtered through the clouds in beltlike shapes, the sparrows chirped and frolicked on the branches. In the vacant lot behind the apartment building where Rentaro and Enju lived, eight boys and girls were gathered, looking up at Rentaro with bright eyes. Rentaro thought they looked familiar, and it turned out that they were all Enju’s classmates.

Stifling a yawn, Rentaro stood stock-still in the vacant lot with his bed hair. Uncomfortably, he fidgeted and moved his body, sending his gaze to the heavens. “What, so basically you want to be my disciples?”

“That’s right!” said the kids.

Looking askance at the kids who responded with voices loud enough to overpower him, Rentaro, at a loss, started at Enju, looking pleased with herself next to him. “Hey, Enju… I want to politely send these kids home, so what should I do?”

“Aw, don’t be like that,” she said. “You can train them a little.”

The disheartened Rentaro sighed. Apparently, this had all started when Enju had spread word around her school that Rentaro was a martial arts master. Thanks to that, Rentaro had been shaken awake early in the morning, and he had to give up the morning of a rare day off. Normally, this was the time when he could stay in bed and try to go back to sleep.

“Master! Is it true that you can shock a grizzly to death with just your eyes?” said one child. The truth had been embellished with surprising momentum.

“Master! Is it true that you annihilated a whole marine battalion with your bare hands?” said another child. Apparently, he also killed marines.

“Master! Is it true that you stopped a nuclear warhead and threw it back?” said yet another. Rentaro shot a reproachful look at Enju. Just how hard are you trying to make this?

When their eyes met, Enju gave him a thumbs-up and an earnest look with complete faith in him that said, “Rentaro can do anything!”

Rentaro wanted to sigh again. The problem with Enju was that part of her seriously believed that he could do anything. Rentaro scratched his head. Everyone went through a phase where they projected themselves onto their favorite superheroes. It wasn’t like he didn’t feel the need to protect the dreams of innocent boys and girls. He nodded decisively and prepared himself. First impressions were important in times like these. Anyway, kids were no problem. Easy. “All right you guys, thanks for coming. I am the great Rentaro Satomi!”

Silence.

Rentaro couldn’t take it anymore, and he blinked his eyelids rapidly, sending a call for help to Enju.

Enju grinned and waved at him. It was almost refreshing how the message didn’t reach her at all.

“Um, well, you guys, the concept of Tendo Martial Arts was created by the originator, Sukekiyo Tendo. To put it simply, the basics of Tendo Martial Arts are the First Style punches, the Second Style kicks, and the Third Style that covers everything else. Sorry to dash your expectations, but I’m only a beginner and can’t do that much. There are many hidden secrets that I can’t teach you yet—”

“Master! We don’t care about that. Just teach us your special move!”

“Dang it, I guess I have no choice.” Disconcerted by the children’s short attention spans, Rentaro went to stand in front of the single maple tree in the vacant lot. He lowered his hips, shifted into the basic Infinite Stance, and inhaled deeply. “Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 3”—he exhaled sharply and dispatched a punch with a twisting circular motion—“Rokuro Kabuto!” His fist hit the tree with a heavy thud, and the maple shook as leaves fluttered down. Rentaro exhaled and returned to his stance. Then, he turned around abruptly. “H-how was that?”

“What? It was too fast. I couldn’t see what was going on!”

“It was just a punch.”

“Seemed kinda lame.”

“Right?”

“Make the tree fall down!”

“I want my money back!”

“Asshole, asshole!”

Rentaro was at his wits’ end. What should I do? I just wanna punch these kids. “W-well, you know. This was just a warm-up. I have a technique I’ve been saving. One of the Tendo Martial Arts hidden secrets, Second Style, Number 11: Inzen Kokutei.”

“Ooh!”

“That one sounds a little cooler.”

“It’s just the name, idiot.”

“We won’t be able to tell until we see it, right?”

Thinking, I’ll show them this time, Rentaro turned back to the tall tree, jumping with enough spirit to kick down the tree. “Tendo Martial Arts Second Style, Number 11—”

Abruptly, Rentaro’s consciousness was drawn back to the incident in the meeting room the day before. Going around and around in his head was one of the phrases Kagetane had let slip. New Humanity Creation Project. Questions filled his mind.

The Seitenshi had said, “As I am sure you all know, currently, Tokyo Area is protected by the barrier of the Monoliths. I will omit the details for now, but if the Inheritance of the Seven Stars is misused, it could create a large hole in a corner of a Monolith. If that happens, Tokyo Area will be overrun by a storm of death. Time is of the essence. You must retrieve the Inheritance of the Seven Stars.”

Rentaro narrowed the corners of his eyes. No matter what, he could not lose to that man—to Kagetane Hiruko.

Tightening his lower abs, he fixed his glare on the trunk. “Here I go. Hidden secret—” At that moment, out of the corner of his eye, he could see a boy who had gotten bored and was playing with a soccer ball kick the ball right for Rentaro. “Argh!”

The start of his move was easily shut down, and Rentaro fell out of position and into a ditch headfirst. The sound of laughter filled the air. He couldn’t meet Enju’s eyes as he held his temple and shook his head.

“Lame! Super-lame! He couldn’t kill a beetle with that weak kick.”

A beetle…?

“I’ve had enough. Let’s go home and play Playstation.”

“Yeah!” the other kids chorused.

“H-hey, wait, you guys—” Rentaro’s pose was in vain, and Enju’s classmates left one by one, leaving Rentaro and Enju by themselves.

Enju started stamping her feet too late. “Drat it, come back! Rentaro really is amazing! He’s amazing at night, too!”

“G-give me a break…” Checking the time, Rentaro saw that it was still morning. But after all that, he didn’t think he could go back to sleep.

“Enju, is there anywhere you want to go?”

Enju’s face brightened in an instant, and she jumped up and down with joy. “Shopping!”

“Okay, okay. We’ll go, we’ll go!”

Getting off the crowded train that smelled of sour sweat, Enju pulled Rentaro’s hand and he stumbled forward as she dragged him to the toy store. And it wasn’t just any toy store—it was a large-scale toy store that rented out a whole floor of a large electronics store. Because it was a weekend, it was crowded, and there were many people who brought their families.

Looking at a child who screamed coquettishly sandwiched between her parents, who were holding her hands, Rentaro wondered how he and Enju looked to other people.

Rentaro played around with a toy block puzzle sample, and as if his hands remembered the sensation, he was gradually filled with a sense of nostalgia. “It was a long time ago, but I used to play with stuff like this with Kisara. It’s kind of unexpected that you’d like this sort of thing, too.”

“My business is with these things over here.” As she said this, she pointed her finger at the cartoon merchandise section where an extra-large IMOD display stood.

Rentaro could read the words Tenchu Girls written in a decorative font. Now that he thought about it, wasn’t Enju talking to her classmate about this show yesterday?

“What’s this show about?” he asked.

He then regretted asking about the show even though he wasn’t actually interested because Enju turned to him and said, “Wanna know?” with glittering eyes.

Summarizing what Enju told him triumphantly, the story was about Oishi Kuranosuke Yoshiko (magical girl), whose foster father, Asano, was killed. Swearing revenge, Yoshiko gathered forty-seven warriors (magical girls) from around the country to raid the Kira estate. Apparently, it was an epic, long-running cartoon.

He had heard something about how “Ako samurai magical girl shows” had become popular recently. “Even though it’s a magical girl show, it’s a story about revenge?” he said.

“Aha, but that is what’s good about it,” said Enju.

“I-I see…” He looked toward the sword in the special section. It was a sharp, silver Japanese sword where only the handle had been made to look like a magical stick. Apparently, it was called the Stick Blade. Watching the trailer, he saw the atrocious face of the heroine, Tenchu Red, as she screamed, “Dieeeee!” and swung her large war sword.

Rentaro couldn’t tell what they were going for. Besides, they didn’t use magic at all. Looking at the price tags of the Stick Blade and magical girl costumes in the most prominent part of the display, he involuntarily let out a groan. “Why are they so expensive…?”

“Expensive? They seem normal to me. I will buy it with my own money, so you do not have to worry about your wallet.” Enju said just that over her shoulder and then started looking through the large piles of merchandise.

“What do you think of this?” What Enju eventually brought to show Rentaro was a bracelet. It had chrome silver-plating over an engraved design. It was probably made of aluminum or something, since it felt very light when he held it.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s the bracelet that the Tenchu Girls wear. It’s proof that the forty-seven warriors are friends, and it cracks when a friend tricks another friend or lies to them, so they can tell when a friend is lying.”

“Oh? Sounds like the folktale of the broken mirror.”

“What’s that?”

Rentaro explained. “It’s a story I heard from Doc a long time ago. It’s a folktale about a couple who lived apart, so they broke a mirror in half and each took a piece as proof that they would meet again. However, the wife broke her vows and cheated on her husband. And so, the mirror broke and turned into a bird that flew to where her husband was, and in the end, they divorced. Now, Aihara, what is the moral of this folktale?”

“It’s to not get caught cheating, sir!”

“Huh?”

Enju put her chin in her hand. “But they are kind of similar. That broken mirror thing must have stolen the idea from Tenchu Girls.”

“It doesn’t matter who stole the idea from whom. By the way, how much is that?”

“6,980 yen. It’s so cheap!”

“That’s expensive! That’s two months’ worth of food for me.” Rentaro didn’t even have a chance to stop her before she went to the register and bought it.

“Here, Rentaro. Put this on your arm, too.”

“What, me, too?”

“It’s a pair of bracelets. Who will wear it with me if not you, Rentaro?”

Seeing that Enju put it on her right wrist, Rentaro also started putting it on his right wrist, but then changed his mind and put it on his left.

Enju smirked as she looked at him.

“Wh-what?” he said.

“We match now, like a couple. Now you cannot deceive me or lie to me. Cheating with another woman is forbidden. If you become charmed by Kisara’s breasts, the bracelet will crack, as well.”

“What? I, Rentaro Satomi, love Enju Aihara…,” he said sarcastically. “It didn’t crack.”

“That’s because it’s the truth.”

“Damn it, is that how you’re gonna take it?”

After they left the department store, they walked hand in hand talking about nothing in particular. It was mostly Enju nattering on about something, and Rentaro nodding and agreeing with her, but he felt the gloom from the day before lift just from talking to her.

Rentaro stopped suddenly, seeing the Seitenshi on one of the TVs in the street. It looked like recorded footage from a news show, and her stern expression was completely different from the day before. She was talking about how she was planning to propose another bill to respect the basic human rights of the Cursed Children, the much-talked-about New Gastrea Law.

Rentaro wondered if the bill would pass. He fervently hoped that it would. Rentaro squeezed Enju’s hand, which was still in his.

Just a short while ago, it was normal for Cursed Children to be delivered in secret alongside a river, then killed before they could even open their eyes, and because of their incomplete regeneration abilities, they often became the target of their parents’ extreme abuse. It was also said that parents with Gastrea shock—an aftereffect of the war where a person would go into shock if they saw red eyes—could not even look their own children in the eyes. Also, because the shape of their DNA was contaminated by the Gastrea virus, even if a paternity test were conducted, it could not be proven that they were related by blood. Because of this, there were those who even went so far as to wonder whether or not they were human.

Since pretty much all of the generation that experienced the Great War, the Stolen Generation, had the potential to practice prejudice against the Cursed Children, there were extremely few who could be called these girls’ allies.

Honestly, Rentaro thought the problem was more than he himself could bear. If the top official of Tokyo Area was a person who understood their circumstances, he wanted to welcome her with open arms. In fact, he would rather just leave everything to the Seitenshi.

“Oww, Rentaro. Let go of me,” said Enju.

He suddenly came back to the present and let go of the hand he had been holding. When he looked, the news had already moved on to the next topic, and Enju was looking up at him with a confused expression on her face. “Sorry, I was out of it. Let’s go.”

As he turned, he noticed a crowd had formed on the other side of the street. As he tilted his head, wondering what was going on, he heard an angry roar from the other side of the street that made the ground shake, and the thirst for blood emitted by the gathered onlookers drifted over to where he and Enju were. He didn’t know why, but he had a bad feeling about this and stood, unable to move.

The only reason Rentaro, who was completely average in athletic and shooting ability, had been able to survive this long as a civil officer was that his hunches were never wrong. That hunch told Rentaro to get away from this place as quickly as possible. “Enju, it’ll take a little longer, but let’s go home from the other side—”

“Catch her!” At almost the same time a rough voice screamed these words, the crowd broke apart and a single girl ran out. The girl was carrying a supermarket basket full of food. The logo on the basket was from a large chain that Rentaro had also been to before.

When the girl looked at Enju and Rentaro standing in her way, she stopped suddenly. Rentaro couldn’t move, feeling as if he had been bound hand and foot. She was wearing a denim skirt with a leather belt and a tasteful white tunic. However, her face was sooty, and her clothes bore similarly sooty stains that made it unclear when the clothes had last been washed, and there were signs of repairs in many places. Like the food she was currently hugging close to her, they had probably also been stolen.

He could tell at a glance that she was a child who lived in the Outer District. In addition, the girl’s eyes that reflected Rentaro and Enju were wine-red. Like Enju, she was one of the Cursed Children.

The countless hands that reached out from behind ended their long face-off. When the grown men and women used their hands to violently push down her back, even Rentaro could hear the sad creak of her bones clearly. The fruits and vegetables fell out of the basket around Rentaro’s feet.

“Let go!” The girl’s handsome face, which had been forced to lick the asphalt, twisted, and she bared teeth like a tiger’s as she thrashed and raged. Not a single onlooker had pity for her.

“You thief! You’re the trash of Tokyo Area.”

“All right, good job! Take that, you stupid Gastrea.”

“Shut up! Stop screaming, you murderer.”

“If only you Red-Eyes didn’t kill all my relatives…”

“Go to hell, you Red Devil!”

Rentaro tapped the shoulder of someone near him. “Hey, why is she…?”

“What do you mean, why? That brat stole food and then half-killed the security guard who tried to stop her!”

Looking at Enju’s face, it was pale, as he expected, and she was shaking. At that moment, the girl whose name they didn’t even know looked at Enju.

As long as one of the Cursed Children hid her red eyes, she looked just like a normal girl on the outside. That was why there was no way she could have known that Enju was one of the Cursed Children by looking at her. But for some reason, the girl looked at Enju and reached out her freed hand, asking for help.

Rentaro quickly brushed that hand away and glared at her. Stop it. Don’t get Enju involved.

The girl drew a sharp breath and looked at Rentaro’s expression, her fear clearly showing.

“What in the world are you all doing?” At the moment, police officers cut through the crowd to settle the situation. The pair consisted of a skinny man with glasses and a well-built man with a crew cut. Rentaro calmed his heart, thinking inside that this lynch-mob-like situation would finally end. However, the police officer with glasses let out a cold “Oh” as he saw the now-silent crowd holding the girl down and lording it over her. Forcing the girl to her feet, strangely without even really asking the people around what had happened, he put handcuffs on her wrists.

Giving the dumbstruck Rentaro a sideways glance, the man with the glasses saluted a representative of the crowd with thanks, pushed the girl into the police car, and drove off. Did that police officer really know what crime the girl had committed?

After the girl disappeared, the onlookers dispersed in twos and threes after grumbling to themselves. It all happened in a flash. Afterward, only Rentaro and Enju remained. There was no helping it. There was nothing he could have done about it. Feeling uncomfortable, he pulled Enju’s hand to go home. As he did, he looked to his side, surprised. Enju had her hands in fists and was glaring at Rentaro.

“Why didn’t you help that girl, Rentaro?!” she shouted at him.

Rentaro was overpowered. Her eyes had turned a pale red. The people who were scattering looked back their way with suspicious expressions on their faces. Rentaro felt shaken but forced it down inside. “It’s nothing,” he said, willing them to believe him.

Rentaro took Enju’s arm and pulled her into an alleyway between two buildings. From the exhaust pipe came a smell that bothered him. “It couldn’t be helped, Enju. Under those conditions, if they found out your identity, they would have lynched you, too.”

“But you hit away the hand of someone asking for help!” she said.

“There are things that I can and cannot do! Besides, what she did was definitely a crime! Even if the environment of the Outer District is bad, it’s still illegal to commit a crime.” Without thinking, he replied with logic even though he knew it would only put fuel into the fire of Enju’s anger.

Enju shook her head fiercely. “That’s just an excuse. If you wanted to save her, you would have been able to. You are a champion of justice. There is nothing you cannot do!”

“Don’t force your childish illusions on me. I can’t do anything… I can’t do a single thing.” With that, Rentaro suddenly returned to himself. Enju was holding back her sobs as she cried. As he reached out his hand to her shoulder, she stepped away from him.

“Hey, Enju… Could it be… Did you know her?” he said, unsure.

But Enju nodded as she cried. “When I lived in the Outer District, I saw her around. I never talked to her, but she remembered me, too.”

“I can’t believe it. But… But when I hit her hand away, I was desperate. I wasn’t thinking that deeply into it…” Rentaro couldn’t talk anymore after looking at Enju’s eyes. He asked the conscience in his own heart. He didn’t need much time to make a decision. “Enju, can you go home by yourself?”

“Huh?” she said.

Before he knew it, his legs were moving on their own. He dashed out of the alley, and looking quickly left and right, his eyes rested on a boy riding a scooter waiting at a traffic light. Tapping him on the shoulder and making him turn around, Rentaro immediately flashed his civil officer license. “I’m a civsec officer. A Gastrea has appeared in the area, and I need to borrow your scooter.”

“H-hey, wait. What’re you talking about?” said the boy.

“Looking at your build, you’re still in middle school, aren’t you? Think we can settle this peacefully?” Getting agreement from the flinching boy, Rentaro took the scooter from him violently. With a roar of the engine, he made a U-turn and turned it to face the direction the police car had gone earlier.

He didn’t put on a helmet, and he ignored the traffic laws. If he were stopped, he could thrust his civsec license in their faces and make them understand the situation, but he would lose a lot of time.

Weaving dangerously through traffic, Rentaro’s heart was beating hard with nervousness about a danger worse than a collision. Why did the police take the girl away without asking the girl or the victim a single question? What was behind the excessively simplified procedure? Also, it looked like where Rentaro was heading now was not an important police station or even a local police station. If he kept going this way, he would get closer and closer to the Outer District.

Rentaro prayed to the god he didn’t even believe in. Please let me be worrying needlessly. Even as he thought this, the Monolith barrier that had looked so far away grew larger and larger, and there were traces here and there of buildings that had been destroyed and abandoned. The dark side of the flourishing Tokyo Area, the Outer District.

Just as he started thinking maybe he had passed them somewhere, he twisted around and discovered a police car parked next to a radio tower that had been bent in half. Rentaro put the brakes on about thirty meters before he reached it in order to keep from making too much noise. Then, he hid the scooter in what appeared to be the ruins of a gas station and approached carefully.

He wondered why he was sneaking around like this, but for now, he trusted his hunch. He approached the police car, going around through the dilapidated buildings in front of him and cutting in. The first floor of one of the buildings he passed through was only exposed steel beams, and the concrete walls inside were scraped away, with wallpaper and wiring drooping like a horror movie. When he touched it with his hand, something plasterlike peeled off and crumbled away. It was hard to believe that it had only been abandoned for ten years. It was dead silent around him, and there was no sign or shadow of people anywhere.

Crouching as he approached the police car, he peeked inside, but as he suspected, neither the girl nor the police officers were inside. Disgusted with himself for being inwardly relieved, he turned his attention to the radio tower facility, and began moving toward it. Going under the broken iron fence, he heard unexpected voices and hurriedly leaned his back against a nearby wall.

Slowly peeking around the corner, he saw the backs of the skinny spectacled officer and the crew cut officer. A little distance away, made to stand in front of the iron fence, was the girl from earlier, unmoving. She must have had some idea of what was going to happen to her, and turned pale and shook with uneasiness.

The officers with their backs facing him turned quiet, and Rentaro gulped in the uneasy atmosphere. As he frowned, wondering what in the world would happen next, the silence was suddenly broken by a gunshot.

Blood gushed from the girl’s head, and she fell to her knees. She slowly touched her head and looked at the blood that dripped from it, trying desperately to understand what had just happened. Then, like raindrops came a rush of bullets, and her stomach, chest, arms, and legs were riddled with holes. Her body twitched as if she had been shocked, and she was thrown into the iron fence behind her.

“Shit, she’s still alive?!” As the skinny spectacled officer approached her, he shot three more bullets into her head. The girl fell forward onto the ground, and as a torrent of blood flowed out from where she landed, she stopped moving.

Rentaro covered his mouth with both hands, swallowing the scream that wanted to spill out of him.

The police officers looked as if they had been cursed by something and looked left and right, quickly running away from the scene.

With shaking legs, Rentaro walked over to the girl, got on his knees, and put his hands together. Damn it, Rentaro cursed inwardly. Holding her upright, he hugged her, not caring about getting his clothes dirty. He could feel her body growing cold from blood loss, and Rentaro shook with the rage that welled up within him.

Wasn’t it the job of the civsec officers to bring justice to the innocent citizens? To protect the innocent citizens? And be a champion of justice? Damn it, why the hell did I just watch? I did nothing while a child was being murdered in front of my own eyes! What is right? What is wrong? Who is the enemy I should defeat, anyway?

Rentaro succumbed to his unbearable thoughts and shook his head vehemently. At that moment, the girl in his arms choked and coughed up blood. Rentaro opened his mouth slightly. She was alive. She could still be saved. Before he knew it he was running, the girl in his arms.

IT WAS AROUND 2:00 A.M.

In the spring night’s lingering chill, so unlike the daytime weather, Rentaro staggered home. He didn’t know if it was from exhaustion or not, but he had an almost unbearable thirst and a pounding headache. A lot happened that day, so it could have been the aftershocks of everything.

Now that he thought about it, holding a thirty-something kilogram girl in one arm and driving a scooter took extraordinary strength, but in his desperation, he hadn’t felt her weight. It was probably the same as how some people drew out great strength during a house fire.

As soon as the girl reached the hospital, the ER doctors took her, and she disappeared into the operating room. As the operation took place, Rentaro sat on a chair in the hall being asked questions by another doctor. The doctor made an unpleasant expression when he heard that the girl was from the Outer District and had no relatives. Occasionally, if they operated on an orphan from the Outer District with no family registry, let alone insurance, they would not be able to get the operation fee from anyone, and the hospital would have to bear the cost. If Rentaro had not said he would cover the cost at that time, at the last moment, he probably would have been fed the transparent lie that there were no surgeons available.

At the end of the eight-hour-long operation, the girl narrowly escaped death. The fact that the bullets were small in caliber, that they were not Varanium but regular lead shots, that as one of the Cursed Children, she had miraculous powers of regeneration, and that she had a tough skull—if any one of those factors were lacking, she would not have been saved, the surgeon who operated on her explained. Thankfully, the graying doctor was someone who understood the circumstances. He said, “You should tell the police who it was who shot her as soon as possible,” but Rentaro only said good-bye with a bitter smile.

He was honestly glad that she had been saved, but he couldn’t completely rejoice when he thought of the operation fee and the cost of the hospital stay that he would have to pay later. On the highway in the middle of the night, Rentaro conscientiously stopped at the traffic light, but looking around, there were no signs of pedestrians or even cars anywhere.

After a while, he finally saw his eight-tatami-mat apartment. The lights were off. Of course, Enju would not be awake so late into the night, but he had hoped that maybe she would be, so he felt a tinge of loneliness.

“You seem tired, Satomi.”

He drew his gun reflexively and pointed it at the voice. Looking slowly behind him, there was a gun pointed at the tip of his nose, as well.

Before it had been customized, it had probably been a Beretta, and in the gas port at the top, there was a muzzle spike attached for close quarters combat. On the large stabilizer to reduce the kickback at the mouth of the gun, there was a bayonet housing attachment. There was also a long extension magazine with extra bullets. On the left side of the slide, there was a party seal that said, “Give the life with dignity.” On the right, it said, “Otherwise, give the death as a martyr.” Embedded in the grip was a medallion modeled after the evil god, Cthulhu. Sharp spikes covered the angles of the weapon. And the one holding the gun was—

“That’s an evil-looking gun you have, Kagetane Hiruko,” said Rentaro.

Kagetane laughed. “Good evening, Satomi.” The mysterious masked man in the tailcoat suddenly lowered his gun. Surprisingly, he had another custom Beretta in a different color. “This black one here is the machine pistol, Spanking Sodomy, and the silver one is called Psychedelic Gospel. My beloved handguns.”

“What do you want?”

“Actually, I came to talk to you. Won’t you lower your gun, too?”

“No.”

“Oh, dear.” Kagetane snapped his fingers with a click. “Kohina, cut off that troublesome right arm.”

“Yes, Papa.”

As Rentaro reflexively jumped backward, the sound of wind accompanied a lighting-speed slash that came at the place where Rentaro had been. Before he knew it, a girl wearing a black dress appeared next to Kagetane. Kohina made a troubled face and looked like she was about to cry. “Come on, don’t move, or I’ll cut off your head by accident,” she said.

Chills ran along his back, and he broke into a cold sweat. Crap, I couldn’t see her sword at all. The next time she attacks—

Again, Kohina kicked up a cloud of dust and disappeared from sight. Even straining his eyes, he couldn’t follow her movements. Rentaro thought he was done for and squeezed his eyes shut.

With a clang, two bodies collided in midair and were blown apart with the sounds of scraping. Surprised comments came from both sides.

“I couldn’t kick her?” said one voice.

“What? I couldn’t slash her?” said another.

“Enju!” Rentaro yelled. Next to Rentaro was Enju, with scorching red eyes.

“Rentaro! Who are they?” Enju asked.

“The enemy.”

Kohina stood with her two swords out as if protecting Kagetane. Her personality seemed to change 180 degrees from her earlier timidity, and she stood firmly on the ground with her Varanium blades crossed in her unique stance. “Be careful, Papa. That one over there… She’s strong. She is probably a kicking specialist Initiator.”

“Oh?” said Kagetane. “You must have a pretty good Initiator for Kohina to think so highly of her.”

Kohina screamed, “You little squirt over there. Tell me your name!”

Enju hopped up and down until her face turned red. “You are little, as well. How rude! I am Enju. Enju Aihara, a Model Rabbit Initiator!”

Kohina kept her face down and grumbled softly to herself. “Enju, Enju, Enju… All right, I’ll remember. I am Model Mantis, Kohina Hiruko. In close combat, I am invincible.” Kohina changed completely and pulled on Kagetane’s sleeve with a sad expression. “Um, can I kill the rabbit? I’ll just leave her head, so can I kill her?”

“How many times do I have to tell you, silly girl,” said Kagetane. “You may not.”

“Aw, I hate you, Papa!”

Kagetane said, “Oh, dear,” and fixed the placement of his silk hat, then turned back to Rentaro. “It looks like things have gotten complicated. Do you want to fight?”

Rentaro kept an eye on Kagetane without letting his guard down and looked around. They were in a residential neighborhood, so if they fought here, there would be more meaningless victims. After biting his bottom lip hard, Rentaro lowered his gun. “Hurry up and say what you have to say, moron. I’m sleepy and still have to study for a quiz next week.”

Kagetane snickered behind his mask and put his gun back in its holster, holding his arms wide open magnanimously with the moon as a backdrop. “Let me get straight to the point. Satomi, will you join me?”

“What did you say?!”

“For some reason, I’ve liked you ever since I first saw you. I thought it’d be a waste to kill you. If you join me, then I won’t.”

“I’m still a civsec officer, you know.”

“What of it? I am a former civsec officer myself. Unfortunately, there will soon be a wild storm that will bring Great Extinction to Tokyo Area. At the moment, I have some strong backup. If you become my ally, you can have money, women, power… I will give you anything you want.”

Rentaro did not say a word.

“Satomi, have you ever thought you wanted to change this unreasonable world? That the way Tokyo Area works is wrong? Have you ever thought that, even once?”

Before he knew it, the image of the girl whose name he didn’t even know resurfaced from the back of his mind. Her head flew back in slow motion, and blood spurted from her forehead. The blood dripped slowly, getting absorbed by the ground. There was the girl, with her eyes refusing to accept what happened, the police officers whose mouths twisted in evil pleasure, and Rentaro, too cowardly to run out to save her because he was afraid he would be killed to keep his mouth shut.

Seeing Rentaro’s hesitation, Kagetane pulled out a white cloth from his pocket and covered the ground, counting to three. When he pulled the cloth off, an attaché case appeared beneath it. “From what I hear, apparently, you are not doing very well economically.” Kagetane used his foot to slide the attaché case over to Rentaro. When the case stopped in front of Rentaro, the lid popped open. Inside, it was stuffed with stacks of bills. “This is just a small gift to express my feelings.”

Rentaro stared at the stacks of bills without moving an inch.

“I hear you make that Enju over there pretend to be human and have her go to school? Why would you do that? Those girls are the shape of the next generation of humans that have gone beyond the current Homo sapiens. The only ones left after the Great Extinction will be us, the strong. Join me, Rentaro Satomi.”

Rentaro kicked the attaché case back with all his strength and shot it three times with his gun. The case jumped, and the bills were riddled with holes. Some of them floated out of the case like petals.

Kagetane looked at the attaché case riddled with holes for a while. “You have made a grave mistake, Satomi.”

“Mistake? If I made a mistake, it was that I didn’t kill you when I first met you, Kagetane Hiruko!”

“Fool! Will you insist on completing your jobs till the end? No matter how hard you work for them, they will only keep betraying you.”

Rentaro glared at Kagetane. Kagetane glared back at Rentaro. Rentaro wasn’t sure how long this went on, but after a while, they could hear the siren of the police car coming to investigate the gunshots.

Kagetane sighed. “We will pick this up again later, Satomi. I don’t like doing things this way very much…but see what happens when you go to school tomorrow. You need to start looking at reality.” Throwing that last line at Rentaro, he took a big leap backward and melted into the darkness.

Staring in the direction Kagetane disappeared, Rentaro asked Enju, “What do you think of his Initiator?”

“She’s strong,” she said. “Frighteningly so.”

“Can you beat her?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see…”

The burden of Kagetane’s last words to him as they parted weighed down on Rentaro, and he couldn’t erase them from his memory.

2

“Is that true?” Rentaro stood as he squeezed his cell phone tightly. A number of his classmates who were idly chatting stopped in surprise and looked in his direction. Rentaro quickly lowered his voice. “I-I’ll be there immediately.” After folding his cell phone shut, he dashed out onto the school grounds and ran two buildings over to Magata Elementary School.

Hastily taking off his shoes and putting on the visitor slippers at the entrance, he went to the staff room and grabbed Enju’s homeroom teacher, who was just about to head to the classroom. His face was pale and thin, and there were large circles under his eyes. He was shorter than Rentaro, but even though it wasn’t that hot, he kept dabbing his handkerchief on his forehead, and his eyeballs protruded like he was nervous. “Oh, you’re the guardian…”

“What is going on? Is Enju really—?” Rentaro drew closer to him with a threatening look. Even though he knew that it was useless taking things out on her homeroom teacher, he couldn’t control his feelings.

The man answered incoherently as he took quick glances at Rentaro. “Yes, the rumor that Aihara is one of the Cursed Children appeared from somewhere. At lunch, the…harassment…directed at her began.”

“I can’t believe it… But…did Enju…deny it…?”

The teacher looked down as he began to dab his forehead repeatedly with his handkerchief. That was better than any answer. “Satomi, you had Aihara attend this school without telling any of us that she was one of the Cursed Children.”

“If I had told you beforehand, wouldn’t you all have just found a reason to refuse to admit her?”

The teacher looked away from Rentaro and started wiping his mouth with his handkerchief again. “I had Aihara leave school early because of the shock. I have no right to ask this, but will you go be with her, Satomi?”

Rentaro didn’t remember what path he took to go home. Unlocking the door, he entered the apartment panting, and a silent chill touched his skin. Enju was not there. She wasn’t anywhere.

His whole body shook with chills, and even taking off his shoes seemed to take too long. He checked the bath and restroom and opened all the closets. She wasn’t there. He started to turn pale at the thought that maybe she hadn’t even made it home, but opening her clothes dresser, he saw traces that she had at least been there once.

As Rentaro fell into a panic, he let out a deep breath and bent his knees, fumbling around in his pocket to call Enju’s cell phone. She seemed to have turned off her phone, so he sent her a few texts. He did not receive any response.

Rentaro took deep breath after deep breath and told himself, It’s all right. This is Enju’s only home. Rentaro kept waiting.

But in the end, Enju did not return home that day.

3

Rentaro opened his eyes slightly at the sound of a soft tapping in the distance. The first thing that came into the field of his blurry and hazy vision was the brown ceiling. The grain of the ceiling changed shape with a twist and turned into a person being chased by a boar. The person was fleeing desperately, but it looked like the boar would catch them soon.

He woke up with a start, and turned his neck to look around the room. He was alone. Enju hadn’t changed her mind and come home. His stomach was heavy with disappointment, and a headache that seemed like it was lying in wait attacked, making him crouch where he stood.

Looking out the window, the rain on the glass distorted the view. That was the source of the tapping earlier. His eyelids felt heavy and cramped, and he felt worse than when he went to sleep. He was nauseated now, too. Pulling the clock toward him to look at the time, he saw that it was seven a.m. It had only been about fifty minutes since he’d fallen asleep.

Because he hadn’t eaten anything since the incident happened yesterday, his stomach was so empty that it hurt, but he didn’t feel like cooking for himself. With his hazy vision and his head feeling like it was full of mud, Rentaro crawled to the fridge and, finding a half-full milk container, drank it dry. It tasted like bitter, half-solidified saliva. He cracked open a raw egg on the side of the fridge and dumped what was inside into his mouth, then chewed some mustard greens and lettuce in desperation. His own actions shocked him, given that he was usually proud of the fact that he liked cooking.

After he got to the point where he could move around, Rentaro started putting away Enju’s clothes, which were scattered around the living room. The previous day, Rentaro had taken all of the clothes Enju left behind out of the closet and slept with them around him. Unlike Rentaro, who was poor, Enju had a lot of clothes in the latest fashions. That was how he felt after spending the whole night with them. Which reminded him, whenever Enju bought new clothes, she would pose suggestively in front of Rentaro, asking him over and over, “Am I cute? Am I cute?” How had he answered her then?

Rentaro picked up the syringe that had fallen in the crack by the dresser. Inside it was cobalt blue medicine in liquid form. Realizing that she hadn’t taken her medicine, he became very sad. Nothing would happen if she skipped it for a day or two, but if she didn’t take it for a while, the corrosion rate of her body would gradually rise.

“Damn.” Rentaro threw the syringe on the floor and held his head in his hands.

Pretty much every day, he took her to and from school, and when they came back to the apartment, Enju would be pestering him for food. She was critical of everything he made, which had motivated him to cook well.

That life had been broken to pieces. Rentaro stood up and looked around the too-empty eight-tatami-mat room. What was he supposed to do now?

He slapped his cheeks hard with both hands. It was obvious. He needed to do something. Taking off the uniform he wore every day, he took a shower, letting the hot rain strike his body and loosen his stiff muscles. After he got out of the shower, he felt a little more like himself. Putting on a fresh uniform and looking in the mirror, he saw that his cheeks were slightly hollow and that only his eyes were glittering, but he decided that it was good enough.

Checking to make sure he still had a close-up picture of Enju’s face on his phone, Rentaro took his wallet and went outside. Suddenly wondering how much money he had left, he opened his wallet and laughed involuntarily. He would probably have to walk home, but he didn’t care. Rentaro jumped onto the train and got off at the last stop. Since it was early morning on a weekend, the entrance and exits were both empty. Raising his umbrella and looking into the distance to check where the Monoliths were, he walked unwaveringly toward the Outer District.

It had already been ten years since the Monoliths had formed the boundary that separated humans from Gastrea. The Tokyo metropolis was the only place that had remained whole after the Great War. The neighboring Kanagawa, Chiba, and Saitama prefectures all had pieces cut off by the Monoliths. It had been nine years since the Tokyo metropolis absorbed the neighboring prefectures and became Tokyo Area, with its forty-three districts.

The numbering system started from the middle of old Tokyo (the Seitenshi’s palace was in the First District), with the numbers increasing as one got closer to the border. The Outer District that Rentaro was heading toward was District 39 on the map. The Outer District referred to the border district connected to the Monolith, a no-man’s-land where no one wanted to live at the time.

Slowly, there started being fewer and fewer people, and he started seeing strange things here and there. There were gigantic footprints that didn’t look human and chairs that had blood stuck to them that wouldn’t come off. Inside a four-wheel-drive vehicle with broken windows that had turned red as though rust bloomed on them grew a mysterious reddish-purple grass out of the space between the cushions, luxurious in its thickness.

A message board created in response to the emergency was still covered with many layers of colorful papers after ten years.

“Sho, this is Atsuko. If you’re safe, please contact me here.”

“To Daiki Kato—I’m at your grandfather’s house.”

“This is my number: xxxxx. Koji Aso.”

“I’m looking for this boy.” There was a picture of a boy about five years old attached.

“To Yoko. Dad and Fuyumi are fine…” The rest was scratched off and couldn’t be read.

Rentaro had involuntarily started sweating uncomfortably. He felt like his necktie was tightening around his neck and loosened his collar.

This was a message board created by people who had been separated during the war in order to reunite with loved ones. With transmission base stations destroyed, cell phones were nothing but pieces of trash. This was probably a region that had been caught up in the war. The traces of the Gastrea War that were left behind still seemed fresh.

If he really wanted to remember the conditions from ten years ago, there were plenty of videos uploaded online, but there was no one who could watch them and feel happy about it. Once, a long time ago, Rentaro had watched a video called “Memento Mori,” and he remembered running to the sink afterward.

The farther he went, the more he could see, because with the collapsed buildings and dilapidated homes, there were fewer things to obstruct his vision. In the midst of that were conspicuously large factories that looked like they had been newly built. They were facilities for geothermal, steam, water, wind, solar, and nuclear energy. Japan had always been surrounded on all sides by the ocean, so it had strong ocean winds. Besides that, it had about ten percent of the world’s volcanoes, so it could make use of their geothermal energy, and because of its complex terrain, there were many extreme rises and falls, so it had strong waterpower, as well.

Now, in the year 2031, solar battery panels had made great advancements in conversion efficiency, and in forty-one districts, they were piloting a new Tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. It could be said that most of the energy for the center was produced in the Outer District. However—

Rentaro looked at the pristine asphalt road compared to the ruined buildings and a bitter expression crossed his face. There were examples from other disasters, too, but when a disaster of this magnitude occurred, the first thing to do was restore roads to transport goods. The next thing was to start securing the all-important lifeline of water, and then to aim for enhancing food, clothing, and shelter.

Why had restoration not moved forward if the roads had been paved so nicely? It was probably because the government had no intention of restoring the Outer District.

There were currently three uses for the Outer District. First, it was a place to manage dangerous nuclear reactions, and second, it was a landfill for the trash created by those in the center of Tokyo Area. Finally, it was where they planted the genetically improved “miracle seed” that was expected to produce large harvests in a small amount of land. Fortunately, powdered concrete worked to lower the acidity of the soil. In other words, it was an abandoned area that was now a field for these three things. None of those three uses showed any consideration for the few residents who lived here.

The Monoliths started to look very big. Surveying the area, it did not look like there were any people there, but Rentaro felt eyes looking at him from somewhere. It was probably not just his imagination. Rentaro gripped the handle of his umbrella hard. Other than the umbrella he was using, he had also brought a child’s umbrella with a Tenchu Girls character printed on it.

The circumstances this time were more serious than Rentaro had thought. There was no way that it would be resolved easily, with Enju at Kisara’s or Sumire’s or a classmate’s house. If anything, it would make more sense for her to return to her hometown, the Outer District.

Before he knew it, he had reached almost the innermost area. Rentaro relied on his memory to go to a single manhole, and knocked two, three times on the cover.

Shortly after, the cover was lifted open with a heavy sound, and a lisping voice said, “What?” as a young girl showed her face. She was probably around seven years old, and she peered at Rentaro with a puzzled look on her face. Her eyes glowed red.

“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “Can you help me?”

“Are you the police? We have no intention of leaving, leaving, leaving.”

“No, I’m not the police.”

“Then, then, are you a sex offender?”

“Huh? A sex offender? No…that’s wrong, too…”

“Then, please leave.” The manhole cover shut with a clang, and Rentaro froze with his mouth still open. Returning to himself, he knocked again.

“I hate persistent sex offenders,” said the girl.

“Wait, wait, wait! Why are police and sex offenders the only two options you have prepared?!” said Rentaro hurriedly. “And why did you decide that I was a sex offender just now?!”

“It was what I thought after seeing your face.”

“You little…”

“By the way, did you need something?”

Keeping his irritation inside, Rentaro put down his umbrella and took out his civil officer license with his right hand and pulled up the picture of Enju saved on his phone with his left hand. “I’m a civil officer. I’m looking for this girl. Have you seen her?”

The girl looked back and forth at the license and the picture and said, “Nope.”

“I’d like to ask other people, too. Is there an adult around?”

“That would be the Elder. I’ll go get him, so please wait inside.”

“Uh, all right…” Pressured by the girl’s lilting speech, he went down the ramp and stood in the sewer. It was unexpectedly spacious inside and cleaner than he expected. However, the strong stink of many years of human wastewater had become ingrained in the walls and made his head hurt.

But the girl seemed used to it and said, “Please wait here,” and bounced off into its depths. Rentaro looked at her departing back with complicated emotions. Manhole Children. Children who had become orphans after losing their parents and siblings during the war.

As he started looking around after his eyes became used to the darkness, he could hear a clanging sound reverberating from inside a pipe, and a man appeared. He was short, and his hair was white, but his spine was straight. He wore glasses and gave the impression of being intellectual. He used a wooden cane with a rubber end, but he still looked too young to be an Elder.

“I’m Rentaro Satomi,” said Rentaro.

When he gave the man his civil officer business card, the man looked at it carefully and then said, “Aha,” nodding.

“Are you the guy that strange girl from earlier called ‘Elder’?”

“Ah, Elder is a nickname,” the man laughed. “I’m Matsuzaki. But I’m surprised, too. Maria said, ‘A guy who’s a police with his right hand and a sex offender with his left hand is here.’ I thought it was some kind of riddle.”

The girl from earlier appeared to be called Maria. It would probably be hard to make her understand the difference between a police officer and a civil officer.

“Excuse me, but what do you…?” Rentaro ventured.

“Oh, I look after the children here.”

Rentaro was silently moved. The man wasn’t homeless but probably lived here of his own accord. He couldn’t help looking a little shabby, but when he smiled, his gentleness shone through. Rentaro thought he must have once worked as some kind of educator.

The man pushed up his glasses with his middle finger and looked into Rentaro’s eyes. “It’s warm in here compared to outside, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, now that you mention it.” Rentaro had actually noticed when he entered. He thought the sewer would just block the wind and rain, but with this warmth, it would not be hard to live through the winter.

“It’s because most of the drainage from the power plants is hot.”

“Oh, that makes sense. But it’s easy to get sick with this sanitation environment…right?” After he said it, he thought it was probably rude and added the last part.

But the man laughed loudly. “That’s not true. The girls are actually more resistant to this environment than us normal people, thanks to the Gastrea virus. Even in the past, when this area was flooded with Gastrea, the Gastrea didn’t come all the way to the sewers, so this is a pretty comfortable place to live.”

Rentaro looked into the water pipe where the girl named Maria had disappeared. “So, is she one of the Cursed Children, too? She lifted that sixty-kilogram manhole cover like it was nothing.”

“Did you notice? She still cannot control her emotions well. I hope that she will be able to leave here someday and live among normal people, but it’s problematic if her red eyes give her away, so she needs to at least learn to control her emotions.” The man looked like he was having fun twirling his cane as he explained.

Rentaro thought about the girl called Maria. All of the Cursed Children were female. To begin with, all new lives in the womb are female for the first seven weeks. Then, the embryo’s sex is determined, and some become male. The Gastrea virus mutated the gene that determined the sex, so none of the Cursed Children became male.

“Mr. Matsuzaki… Aren’t you one of the Stolen Generation?” Rentaro asked.

“That doesn’t matter,” said the man. “When Gastrea invaded, unfortunately, the virus also infected children in the womb. The girls, the Innocent Generation, are victims.”

“If only everyone thought like you…,” Rentaro sighed. “I completely agree with you.”

“It can’t be helped. It’s not a grudge that will go away in ten years. Everyone has become overly sensitive to the word Gastrea, so it’s only natural that they would hate having children walking around town who carried the virus in their bodies.”

Feeling comfortable with this unexpected sympathizer, Rentaro could have kept talking about this same subject, but then he remembered what he had come for. “Sorry, I’m in a hurry. Did this girl come here? Her name is Enju, Enju Aihara.”

He showed the picture to Matsuzaki, who appeared to think a little before shaking his head. “Sorry, I don’t know.”

Well, Rentaro hadn’t expected to find her this quickly. Of course, he wasn’t going to get discouraged over something like this. As Rentaro bowed to leave, for some reason, the cane stretched out to stop him.

“Where will you go now?” Matsuzaki asked.

“I’ll search all of District 39,” said Rentaro. “It’s her hometown. I’ll look for her until I find her.”

“From the looks of it, you are a Promoter whose partner ran out on you.”

Rentaro suddenly couldn’t speak, and his face looked frantic. That appeared to be enough to confirm Matsuzaki’s suspicions.

“Does it have to be this girl?” Matsuzaki asked.

“What…?” said Rentaro, unsure of what he meant.

“When you take care of those girls, you naturally get to know them, but it’s not rare for civsec officer pairs to have personality conflicts. If a pair breaks up or if one person dies, you could contact the IISO to form a contract with a new Initiator. Your IP Rank will plummet, but at your age and with your record, it wouldn’t be hard for you to bring it back up again.”

Rentaro inhaled and exhaled silently and closed his eyes. “I came looking for Enju, but not because I’m a Promoter or because she’s my Initiator. You’re a good guy, and I thank you for that. But let me say this—don’t act all high and mighty without knowing anything!”

Matsuzaki widened his eyes in surprise and dropped his cane.

Rentaro clicked his tongue, thinking that he’d done it now. He had trouble controlling his emotions when it came to these topics. “Sorry… I didn’t mean to yell. I’ll leave now. Bye.”

Matsuzaki looked affectionately at Rentaro’s departing back and then turned around slowly, raising his voice into the darkness behind him. “You heard him. He’s a nice young man. Are you sure you want to let him leave like this, little lady?”

4     THE NEXT DAY.

Rentaro was speechless as he hung up the phone. His arm fell limply and he did not recover from his shock for a while. Looking at his surroundings, he saw thin clouds like the previous day’s and cherry tree leaves that looked like they were about to be scattered in the strong wind. The sky looked like it might start crying any minute. Outside the school, Rentaro gave a start as he heard the warning bell, but his legs felt heavy and he didn’t feel like going to his classroom at all.

During the break between first and second periods, he realized that he had to explain that Enju would be absent to her homeroom teacher, and went behind the school to call from his cell phone.

The response he got was completely unexpected.

Rentaro looked back at the school and went back and forth wondering if he should hurry back to his classroom or not, but in the end, he turned around and headed toward Magata Elementary School once more.

He went to the staff room and met up with Enju’s homeroom teacher. The teacher’s face looked like he also did not understand what had happened. “Yes, Aihara is at school.”

Rentaro searched his memory and only just realized regretfully that her schoolbag and a set of books had been taken out of their apartment. After he left the manhole the previous day, he’d searched District 39 until sunset, but he didn’t get any valuable information, and his feet dragged as he went back to the apartment.

The teacher brought Rentaro to Class 4-3’s room. They peeked at the situation inside through the window of the sliding door in the back.

There she was. Even though it was break time, she sat alone, looking down resolutely, her eyes staring at the desk, proof of her iron will. There was extra space between her desk and the others, and her classmates treated Enju as if she weren’t there.

Rentaro’s heart broke at the pitiful sight. He wanted to yell at her to stop. But this was probably Enju’s way of fighting. He had no right to stop it.

“Do you want to see her?” the teacher asked.

He wanted to see her. He had a mountain of things he wanted to ask her when he did. As Rentaro squeezed his chest, he pulled out a syringe with the cap on from his breast pocket and handed it to the teacher. Inside was cobalt blue liquid medicine.

“What’s this?” said the teacher.

“It’s a special medicine…” Rentaro shook his head. “No, I’m not going to lie anymore. This is Gastrea corrosion-inhibiting medication. Please give it to her.”

Saying just that, he turned his back on the teacher, who looked at him questioningly, and cast his body into the violent winds. Would Enju continue to attend school like this? Even knowing that she would only get hurt?

Losing his will to return to his own classroom, Rentaro headed for the university hospital where Sumire was. He had been going to school every day for a while, but he realized with a bitter smile that he was starting to skip classes again.

As he passed the demon-engraved ward-objects and entered the basement, Dr. Sumire was just coming out of the operating room. Taking off her green operating scrubs and mask and throwing them in the trash, she lifted the corners of her mouth and said, “Hey.” The queen of this basement room would always be here to welcome Rentaro with her strange smile no matter what, come hell or high water.

“Doc, what were you doing?” Rentaro asked her.

“I had some free time and couldn’t take it anymore, so I went to break up with Charlie. Unfortunately, he has been turned into small parts. Oh, while it was extremely stimulating, I feel a little sad because now I have to find a new lover tomorrow.”

Rentaro looked at the double doors the fed-up doctor had come out of. The aromatics that were all over the room were only there to mask the intense odors coming out of the dissection room she called her “kitchen.”

“It’s not much, but make yourself at home,” said Sumire.

Rentaro stood in front of the bookshelves that covered the left wall of the room. She was a movie maniac, and she had everything crammed on the shelves. He wasn’t sure if it was because she was just the type of person who threw everything on her bookshelves, but next to The Tenth Dimension vs. the Eleventh Dimension: Settling String Theory!!!!, a book that looked like it was about quantum theory, was Forbidden Training 24 Hours: Karin’s Big Brother’s Pregnant Wife, an adult game. It was terrible.

“You really are something else, Doc,” he said.

“What, you just noticed?” she said.

“Famous universities admit people based solely on their test scores, so they end up as nests of eccentrics.”

Sumire laughed. “Don’t be jealous, silly boy. I’m a genius because my parents were both geniuses. That brings back memories. When I was young, Mother used to read Dante’s Inferno from his Divine Comedies to me as a bedtime story. This was all she read, and she read it over and over. The misery of a person who is sent to hell…” She laughed.

“So your family’s been strange since your parents’ generation, huh?”

“I’ll dissect you alive.”

“No, please, not that!”

“Oh yeah, by the way, the demon to scare people away out front has the face of the fallen angel, Lucifer, or should I say the demon king, Satan? It’s related to the Divine Comedies. It’s an unexpected foreshadowing, don’t you think?”

“If I cared less, I’d be dead.”

“Now, let’s see…what were we talking about again? ‘The word Erromango, that is the name of the island, Erromango, means “I’m human,” but don’t you think there’s some truth to how it sounds like erotic?’ Was that where we left off?”

“Stop lying. We weren’t talking about that!” Rentaro was disgusted. Why didn’t anyone around him listen to what others had to say?

“I was kidding, you stingy, inflexible boy. I can’t help but feel bad for your beloved Kisara.”

“D-don’t say that!”

“Oh, speaking of which, your patron came by earlier.”

The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he looked uneasily from left to right. “She was here?”

“Yeah, and she wasn’t happy. She said that since you never visit her in the student council room, she goes to your classroom to look for you, but you’re never there.”

“It’s ’cause I always run away to avoid seeing her.”

“Why are you doing that again? She’s the school idol, isn’t she?”

“Well, she is kinda c-cute, but that’s just because no one knows what that woman is really like. If she got worked up, she would shoot up the school with a Magnum semiautomatic…” But, he thought as his voice trailed off, she was also the one who provided Rentaro the civsec officer with weapons and ammunition free of charge.

It was the natural order of things for civil officers and weapon companies to work together. For example, the Bastard Sword, Mark IV Gibraltar used by Shogen Ikuma was from Escari, the company that supported him. By backing him and having him use their products and be a tester for their new products, they could say “Used by Shogen Ikuma!” in their marketing campaigns, so it was extremely natural for companies like that to be devoted to finding talented Initiators and Promoters. However—

“In what part of me does she detect any promise?” Rentaro said.

“You have such an unfortunate face that she probably just felt bad for you,” said Sumire.

“That’s ridiculous…” Saying that, he suddenly remembered something and narrowed his shoulders. “Doc, sorry… I actually came today because I wanted some advice.”

Putting on the long, white lab coat that hung over her chair, she pulled out a coffeepot and two heatproof beakers, saying “Hmm…” Filling the beakers to the brim with coffee, she slid Rentaro’s cup over to him, where it stopped in front of him.

As the hot coffee flowed into his stomach, Rentaro could feel the knot in his chest swell. Rentaro told Sumire everything—about the girl who had been shot, Enju running away, and what he went through to find her.

They arrived at a moment of silence. Sumire, with her chin in her hand, had a grave expression on her face that Rentaro had never seen before. Rentaro suddenly felt uneasy and massaged the palm of his hand. “D-doc?”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry, I was thinking about what to make for dinner tonight,” said Sumire.

“Hey, wait a minute!”

“I stopped listening halfway through ’cause your worries are so normal that I was getting bored.”

“Wh-what…?”

Seeing Rentaro staring frozen at his beaker, Sumire pushed in to deal the final blow. “Hey, Rentaro, mankind will become extinct one day, you know. It could be in a few million years, when the whole Earth freezes over, or in the far future, when it is swallowed up by the expanding sun. Or the land with the Monoliths could be destroyed tomorrow, and Gastrea could surge in and kill everyone.

“Wonderful movies, famous novels written by literary masters, beautiful buildings—all of them will fall into ruin and return to nothingness in the far future. Do you understand that? From the universe’s point of view, essentially, there is no reason for humans to be alive.”

Seeing the maniacal smirk on Sumire’s face sent shivers down Rentaro’s spine. She seemed to be overcome by nihilism.

“Hey, Rentaro, why do Gastrea have to be exterminated, anyway?”

He was caught unawares and faltered for a moment.

“You can’t say?”

“No, wait,” said Rentaro, finding his tongue. “It’s because Gastrea are enemies of mankind who prey upon humans and rewrite their DNA, of course.”

“In short, it’s because Gastrea are inconvenient organisms for humans to have around, right? But don’t you think mankind is a little too spoiled? They rest on their laurels, certain that they are the pinnacle of evolution and look down on other organisms, but that’s just because they can’t help but feel superior to other organisms based on the consciousness they’ve acquired.

“But if you think about it carefully, it is our consciousness that is telling us that our consciousness is proof that we are advanced organisms. As long as humans are humans, there is no way to prove that objectively. For example, what about Gastrea? They have the godlike ability to interfere with an organism’s genes and redesign them, right? Couldn’t you say that that is an ability that surpasses our ‘consciousness’? It has died down in Japan, but around the world, there are a number of religions that consider the Gastrea sacred. That they are divine messengers who have appeared to purify this corrupt world.”

“Really?” said Rentaro, surprised. “Why…?”

Sumire continued. “Humans are using up all the resources and are the cause of the rapid destruction of the world. From the perspective of the spaceship Earth, if Gastrea controlled the world, they would probably be able to steer the ship a lot better. There is that saying that all life is fleeting. The idea that the Earth is just a temporary inn for all living creatures to stay. Aren’t we humans leaving the inn too messy? Wouldn’t it make sense for us to make the bed neatly before we pass it on to the next generation of governors?”

Rentaro pretended to drink his coffee, lost in thought. “Isn’t that the same as the excuse of deep ecologists? With too much ecology, humans end up not being needed at all in the end. Even if there are people out there who affirm Gastrea, I can’t agree with them. Anyway, if they’re divine messengers, then what are the Cursed Children supposed to be?”

“They are the most fit to be God’s substitutes as messengers between humans and Gastrea.”

Before he knew it, he couldn’t take it any longer and stood up. “Enju is human. She is a human with her own personality and her own will! Nothing more, nothing less.”

The coffee that spilled with his movement formed a stream that led to a small river that dripped off the edge of the desk and onto the floor. Sumire playfully spread her arms in approval. “That’s exactly right. See? You do understand.”

“Oh.” She had set him up. When he realized that, he suddenly became embarrassed and collapsed into his chair. She purposefully said things that would rub him the wrong way. Everything she had been saying was to force him to honestly confess his feelings about Enju voluntarily. She had him completely by the nose.

“Hey, Rentaro,” said Sumire. “At least you know who you are and where you came from. Enju doesn’t even have that.”

“Huh?” said Rentaro, confused.

“Most of the kids living in the Outer District were abandoned. Because those girls were born after we lost the war, they don’t know their parents’ faces, and all they’ve ever known is the small world of Tokyo Area. They’re being spurned by so many people without even knowing anything, being looked down upon with scorn. The first generation of those girls will soon be entering adolescence, and because of those origins, they will definitely agonize over the loss of their identity. It was my hope that you could be there to help lead Enju through that—you guys are family, right?”

Rentaro’s mouth opened slightly and he felt shivers going down his spine. Just how far did she…? “Doc, I’m gonna go see Enju after all.”

Sumire waved her hand limply and had no further intention of looking at him.

As he left the university hospital, his cell phone buzzed. It was a call from an unknown number. “Hello, is this Satomi.”

He knew who it was from the voice.

“Yes, speaking.”

“This is Aihara’s homeroom teacher. There has been an incident with Aihara… Can you come to the school immediately?”

By the time Rentaro reached the school gates, panting, a small crowded had gathered. There was a donut-shaped wall of people surrounding two people who were having an argument.

Three girls passed by Rentaro.

“What’s going on?”

“Remember that girl from Class 3? Apparently, she was a Gastrea virus carrier.”

“No way! I think I touched her before. What should I do?”

“I never liked her. She always acted like she was better than everyone else.”

Feeling an uneasy sense of déjà vu, Rentaro felt like he was being suffocated and loosened his tie as he drew near to the ring of people. From where he was, he couldn’t hear what they were arguing about, but he could hear the loud voices of two people. However, what was unfolding was decidedly one-sided. When someone who sounded like a boy yelled, the crowd around yelled encouragement, but when the girl yelled, all she got were cold, dead stares and a critical silence.

When Rentaro realized that the person inside the circle was Enju Aihara, he felt like vomiting and covered his hand with his mouth. His worst fears had come true. As he started toward Enju again, he heard murmurs around him that made him sick.

“There really were Red-Eyes around us. Why don’t the civsec officers exterminate them?”

“Ugh. Her eyes glow red. I wish people like that wouldn’t come to school.”

“Don’t come out of the Outer District ghetto.”

Who do you think is protecting the peace of Tokyo Area?! Rentaro was overcome with the urge to run into the middle of the wall of people and send them all flying. But seeing their expressions, he had to put down his fist. Most of the people were onlookers or worthless gossips, but there were some pale faces who were seriously afraid that they would catch the Gastrea virus. If they had been educated properly, they would have known that unless they received a large amount of blood from the girl, they couldn’t get the virus from her.

Rentaro had seen the boy who was arguing with Enju in her class picture before. His face and closely shaved head looked like it belonged to an energetic little leaguer, but right now, his face was flushed purplish-red, and he was pressing Enju for an answer with a shrill voice. “My dad had been drinking every day and hitting my mom ever since his leg was eaten by a Gastrea during the war! Because of all your killing, my family’s…!”

Enju shook her head furiously. “No! That wasn’t me. I’m human!”

“That’s disgusting, how you pretend to be human.”

“I am human!”

“Shut up, you monster!”

“I am human!”

“Are not!”

Rentaro looked down, clenching his teeth. It was too hard to watch. This wasn’t a conversation anymore—she was just being unilaterally rejected.

“No matter how hard you work for those guys, they will just keep betraying you.”

This was exactly what Kagetane had told him would happen. Tears of frustration welled up in his eyes. “Enju…”

When Enju noticed him, her eyes opened wide, and she took a step back. “R-Rentaro…”

Realizing that he was connected to Enju somehow, the wall of people parted, and an unpleasant silence descended. Rentaro tread firmly on the sand in the schoolyard with the bottoms of his shoes and walked slowly toward the center. The boy who was verbally attacking Enju faltered and said, “Wh-what do you want?” trying to act tough.

Rentaro passed right by him and when he got to Enju, he hugged her silently. Rentaro closed his eyes and spoke slowly, punctuating each syllable. “Enju, let’s change schools.”

In his arms, Enju’s body moved slightly. Enju’s cold body trembled as she drenched the shoulder of Rentaro’s uniform with her warm tears. “I…don’t want…to give up… I made so many friends, too…”

“They’re not your friends anymore.”

He heard Enju sniffling. “Is it all over for me? I can’t start over anymore?”

“Yeah, it’s all over. It’ll take some more time before the world is ready to accept you.”

“But we have to keep fighting?”

Rentaro paused. “Yeah.” Rentaro wiped her tears with his fingertips and put a handkerchief over her face, letting her cry for a while. Finally, he let go of her and made her stand, smiling at her. “Now, at least leave with your head held high.”

“But my bag is in the classroom.”

“Does that stuff even matter anymore?”

“N-no! You’re right!” Enju wiped her eyes on her sleeve and acted cheerful.

That’s right, Enju.

At that moment, Rentaro’s phone vibrated. He thought of ignoring it, but after seeing the name on the screen, he pushed the TALK button.

“Satomi, I know where the source Gastrea’s hideout is,” said Kisara’s voice on the other end. “It’s in District 32.”

“Kisara, I mean President…,” said Rentaro. “How did it get all the way to District 32?”

“Listen to this. It looks like that Gastrea can fly.”

He thought he heard wrong and shifted his phone to get a better grip. “The infected became a Model Spider, right? So the source Gastrea should also be a Model Spider. What do you mean a spider can fly?”

“Just hurry and get to the hideout. The other civsec officers are also after the source Gastrea”—she gave a snort of triumph and continued—“but the Tendo Civil Security Agency will get there first. I have your location on the GPS, and I’ve contracted someone amazing, so chase down the Gastrea with them. In order to get them, I had to use my tuition for next semester. Which means if someone else gets the credit, I’ll have to drop out of school! Do you get it? So work hard and do your best.”

“Ah, hey, wait, Kisara…?” Hearing the empty dial tone, Rentaro sighed and flipped his cell phone closed. What in the world did she mean by “I’ve contracted someone amazing”?

At that moment, he could hear commotion mixed with screams in the schoolyard. Rentaro looked in the direction the crowd was pointing. Before long, he could see something that got bigger as it drew near. Finally, it was so close that voices couldn’t be heard over the thunderous roar of the rotors, and shock waves blew away the clouds of dust in the schoolyard.

When Rentaro narrowed his eyes and looked up, the sky above him was dyed blue with the polished body of an aircraft. In the middle of the aircraft was the picture of a snake wrapped around a staff. It was the emblem of the god of medicine, Asclepius. Rentaro winced inwardly. Just like a rich girl. She did everything on a large scale.

Looking dumbly into the sky, one of the teachers murmured, “Medevac helicopter…”

5

Shortly after the helicopter flew away, the streaks of rain suddenly got stronger, and it started raining heavily outside the window. Rentaro cupped his cheek nervously in his hand, squirming and checking the passenger seat over and over. Inside the helicopter, it was eerily silent compared to the wild weather outside.

Enju was riding on the flap door in the back where a patient on a stretcher would normally be. Because of the wall between them, Rentaro, riding in the passenger seat, couldn’t see Enju, who was riding in the back.

I should have ridden in the back with Enju. The more he looked at the Shakujii River rising in the rain, the more he thought so. If he had, then he could have used the time it took for them to get to their destination to talk with her a little more.

Rentaro looked at the glowing GPS dot that Kisara had sent him. Because they couldn’t use the satellites in this rain, this was the position from ten minutes ago. It was highly likely that the Gastrea had already moved from this position.

As they neared the Outer District, Rentaro could see the Monoliths blocking their way like a giant mountain range. It was still hard to believe that they were masses of Varanium. One probably had enough for hundreds of thousands of the Varanium bullets Rentaro used. Maybe more.

“I wonder what that is?” said the pilot.

Rentaro saw a flying object below them where the pilot was pointing. He rubbed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the window. About eighty meters in the air, he could see a flying object shaped like an arrowhead. At first, it looked to him like a kite flying in the sky. It looked like a white isosceles triangle floating above the forest. Beneath the isosceles triangle, he could just make out a shadow with eight long, thin legs.

“A spider’s parachute…,” said Rentaro with realization. “Damn it, so that’s what it was. Please go after it, pilot.”

“You know what that is?” asked the pilot.

“Yeah,” Rentaro answered. “That’s the source Gastrea. Somewhere in South America, there is a small spider that weaves its nest into a parachute and uses it to ride hundreds of kilometers on the wind. Since it rides on the wind, it might be easier to understand if you think of it as a dandelion seed. Spider silk is basically a type of polymer, but that Gastrea was able to weave it into the shape of a kite…”

Putting that much into words, he suddenly had a new thought, and his words trailed off. Why did it make it into an isosceles triangle then? Rentaro felt like he was missing something important.

Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in his head. “I see… It’s not a parachute, it’s a hang glider. If that’s the case, then it all makes sense. The front is tapered so that it can cut through the wind and give it lift. That’s also why there were no sightings of the source Gastrea. If that’s the case, then this is an amazing feat. Because there’s no mature spider in the world that possesses this ability.”

In any case, he now knew why it wasn’t caught by any of the surveillance cameras around town. Outside of the Outer District, the surveillance cameras were meant to watch people from above, so it was normal for them to be pointing down. To capture a Gastrea gliding far above was completely removed from what they were supposed to be used for.

This Gastrea probably dug its claws into the side of a building and climbed to the roof to fly off using the eddies of wind around high buildings. It was smart.

“Wh-what should I do?” said the pilot uncertainly.

“Lower our altitude and match its speed to follow it like this from above,” Rentaro ordered.

Just then, there was the violent sound of an iron plate being punched through, and the aircraft lurched to the side. Rentaro hit his head on the glass a few times. “Oww…,” he said. “What the hell was that?”

“The door in the back was broken open,” said the pilot. “That Initiator you brought did it.”

“Enju? No way, we’re in midflight right now. What in the world is she trying to do…?” At that moment, Rentaro realized what Enju intended, and his blood froze. “Wait, Enju!” he shouted.

By the time he yelled, it was too late. He could see Enju falling headfirst from a high altitude. Seeing Enju get smaller and smaller as she fell on a path following the law of gravity, Rentaro almost screamed.

Aiming for the spider’s hang glider woven from spider silk, Enju crashed into it with the speed of a shooting star. For the Gastrea, it was a violent attack that came from its blind spot directly above it. Enju and the Gastrea fell tangled together into the forest that ran along the banks of the river.

“Lower our altitude,” Rentaro told the pilot. “Hurry!” Rentaro quickly looked around and pulled out a vinyl rope he found tucked away to the side of the helicopter. He had no time to think. He pulled the rope out with all his strength, and doubling it up, he tied it around the side of the seat and pulled it a few times to test its strength.

The instant he kicked open the door, the pouring rain and driving winds that had been absorbed by the thick glass blew into his face. Because both the back and side doors were open and the craft was affected by the winds, the helicopter had not been steady for a while now. Rentaro dangled the vinyl rope, but it was buffeted by the strong winds. In addition, the vinyl rope had a terrible grip compared to a rappelling rope. There was no lifeline or carabiner, either. When he looked down, it was so high that it made him dizzy.

The pilot looked at Rentaro, his eyes wide with surprise. I wonder at my own sanity, Rentaro thought. The hell with it. He prayed, gripped the rope tightly with both hands and feet, and let his body down into midair.

The vinyl rope, wet with rain, was much slipperier than Rentaro had imagined. He tried to brake, but he wouldn’t stop. Just as he was finally able to control his speed by gripping the rope so hard the skin came off his hands, a sudden wind that even Rentaro could hear rocked the rope.

By the time he realized what had happened, it was already too late. With a terrible floating sensation, he was thrown into the air. He spun both arms in panic, but the ground spun as he closed in on it with terrifying speed. Fall headfirst? No, I need to fix my position. I’ll absorb the shock with my legs.

His brain was functioning at amazing speed, and for just a brief moment, time seemed to slow down. In that moment that felt like an eternity, Rentaro somersaulted in midair and successfully pointed his feet downward. Immediately after, the ground rushed up to meet him. He felt the vibration all the way to his organs. His body was swung about, and after being spun around four times like he was being blown away, he found himself lying on his back in muddy water.

Gasping to get back some of the wind that was knocked out of him, he spit out the disgusting bits of gravel that had gotten into his mouth. He couldn’t stand until his head stopped spinning from the damage to his inner ear.

When he felt like his consciousness was focused again, he gave a weak wave at the helicopter that was flying nervously overhead and felt pain in his whole body as he lifted himself up. It had probably been about twenty meters. He had heard that the farthest a human being could fall without dying was about fifteen meters, so he wasn’t sure why he was alive himself.

That was when he first realized that the ground he had landed on was muddy from the torrential rains. Where was Enju? That’s right, Enju.

Favoring his right leg, he stood and walked into the forest along the river. The intense rain pounded down on his face, and his sight was blurred with the water. On top of the uncomfortable sensation of his wet hair plastered against his face, his uniform was heavy from the water it had absorbed. Feeling cold, he rubbed his elbows with both hands.

Beyond the tall curtain of evergreen trees echoed intermittent sounds of battle. When he climbed the small hill that obstructed his vision, supporting himself with his hands on the trees, he saw a battle unfolding before his eyes.

On one side was the Model Spider Gastrea, with venomous fangs bared menacingly, thrusting skillfully with its eight long, thin, and rapier-sharp legs. Just as Rentaro had imagined, in order to fly, its body had been made as light as possible, and other than the yellow-and-black mottled pattern on its body, it looked just like a long-jawed orb weaver.

However, Enju’s red-hot eyes saw through the Gastrea’s every move. Dodging the skillful thrusts, she swiftly hid herself underneath the Gastrea’s abdomen and kicked upward with an iron-hammer-like force that made it seem as if she had Varanium in the soles of her shoes. The kick was only aimed at the Gastrea’s abdomen, but its flesh was torn and its chin was crushed to pieces, fangs and all. It flew about ten meters into the air and spun once before striking the ground with its own weight. The bodily fluids that flew out even reached Rentaro’s uniform.

Not only were three of its thin, wirelike legs broken, but bodily fluids were gushing out of its abdomen. She had won. “Rentaro, I beat it! We were the first ones here!” When Enju saw Rentaro, she waved her arms excitedly at him.

He sighed with relief. “Don’t be so rash. I thought you’d given in to your despair, and I…” As he moved near Enju to put a hand on her shoulder, her face twisted in pain. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

“I-I’m not hurt! I just twisted my left ankle a little. It’ll be fine in an hour.”

He thumped Enju on the head.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?!”

“You dummy…,” Rentaro said. “You’re not fine. Don’t pretend it doesn’t hurt! You’re just a kid.”

Rentaro tilted his head and walked over to the Gastrea’s corpse, looking dissatisfied. Collapsed with its shrunken appendages, the Gastrea was smaller than he’d expected. Like the information they had gotten said, the duralumin case in question was embedded in the Gastrea’s body, stuck to the upper part of the abdomen. When he saw it in the picture, it was hard to tell how big it was, but he could see now that it was about wide enough to fill his arms.

“What is this…?” said Rentaro. There were long handcuffs attached to the handle of the duralumin case. Before the victim had turned into a Gastrea, he probably connected the case to his hand so that he would not let it go. However, the victim’s corrosion rate had passed the limit.

The gloomy sound of the rain reached Rentaro. Rentaro held the Gastrea down with one leg and pulled out the case, handcuffs and all, and then took a few steps back. He shivered with a sudden chill down his spine. He didn’t care what was inside anymore. He just wanted to hand over the case as soon as possible and get this job over with.

Rentaro turned his neck to look around. There was no sign of anyone even though it was about time other civil officers should have arrived. The fabric of his clothes poked him, and his body prickled all over.

He heard a laugh. “Good work, Satomi.”

“Huh?” The second he looked back, there was a white mask at point-blank range. Five long, thin fingers grabbed his face, splashing it with muddy water.

Rentaro choked. He tried to break free, but he was thrown violently into the tree trunk with a terrifying force. He couldn’t do anything about the inertia, and at the same time, something sharp crashed into his spine. The air was squeezed out of his lungs, and his vision grew dark as his consciousness faded.

“Rentaro!” cried Enju.

“Found you, Enju.” As Enju rolled to the side instinctively, the plants behind her split into three before she remembered to yell and was blown backward. Kohina appeared with her Varanium-bladed short swords, taking a stance that looked like she was about to spread her wings.

Rentaro stood with a fit of coughing, glaring at the man holding onto the mask with one hand while laughing evilly. “Kagetane… Hiruko…!”

Kagetane spoke. “Even though your president’s cute, she does some pretty nasty stuff. She was sniffing around my backers without caring about appearances. I’m acting on an order from them. They said to take care of this quickly.”

Rentaro felt chills as he held the duralumin case behind him and retreated. Kagetane snorted. “Are you waiting for other civsec officers to show up? You probably shouldn’t. I killed almost all of the weaklings nearby on my way here.”

Rentaro noticed the splatters of blood coating Kagetane’s wine-red tailcoat and shuddered with horror. He drew his XD and fired.

Kagetane was ready. “It’s no use. Imaginary Gimmick.” As he yelled this, the bullets hit an invisible wall and bounced off in all directions.

The sound of the rain returned to Rentaro’s ears. Kagetane opened his arms magnanimously to show that he was unhurt.

Not yet, thought Rentaro as he threw the duralumin case away. Pressing down, he stepped onto the ground, focusing his strength. “Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 8: Homura Kasen!” It was a straight punch with his whole body behind it. However, before it reached Kagetane, it collided with the stubborn bluish-white barrier and was thrown off course, hitting thin air.

Kagetane drew a custom Beretta from its holster, and unfolding the bayonet, he stabbed Rentaro’s shoulder and fired off three shots point-blank.

Rentaro groaned. Pushing down on the intense pain in his shoulder, he stumbled. Something hit his back. It was a large rock. He couldn’t run away.

Kagetane slowly and deliberately raised his arm and faced Rentaro. “I’ll show you one of my special moves—Maximum Pain!”

Suddenly, the repulsion field around Kagetane expanded and rushed at Rentaro. It was a side attack that suddenly hit his whole body. With terrifying force, Rentaro was thrown onto the rock and blood gushed from his head. His body sank into the rock, his flesh was crushed, and his bones creaked like they were about to be pulverized. It felt as if his whole body had been run through a press.

As Rentaro screamed, he finally understood. The first time he encountered Kagetane, the police officers who had entered ahead of him had been crushed to death against the walls. This was what he had used against them.

Suddenly, the intense pressure disappeared, and Rentaro fell to his knees, coughing up blood.

“Oh? You’re still alive?” said Kagetane.

Rentaro’s vision wavered. His head hurt. He felt like he was going to fall apart. This was how strong Kagetane was. In addition to the huge difference between Rentaro’s and Kagetane’s combat abilities, there was Enju’s injured foot. Rentaro’s brain calmly calculated the most reasonable combat strategy, and he lowered his head weakly. “Enju, run.”

Enju widened her eyes and shook her head. “No!”

Seeing Kohina getting ready to thrust behind Enju, Rentaro fired a shot at Enju’s feet. She reflexively leapt into the air.

Rentaro called at her with his eyes. Bring other civil officers here.

Enju disappeared into the brush with a sad look on her face.

“Papa! Enju ran away! I want to kill her! I want to go after her!” Kohina, whose duel had been cut short, was on the verge of a temper tantrum.

“No, my daughter,” said Kagetane. “If they meet up with other civsec officers, it will become troublesome. Let us finish our job.”

Kohina glared at Rentaro, and the next instant, just as he thought that she had disappeared from his sight, he felt a strong impact to his stomach. Two Varanium black blades appeared in there. It took him a few seconds to realize he had been stabbed from behind.

“But you’re so weak!” Kohina taunted. “So weak! So weak!”

Blood frothing from his mouth, Rentaro swung backward with his fist, then ran away, firing shots from his gun. With each shot he fired, he felt the recoil in his wounds and almost lost consciousness from the pain, but he gritted his teeth and ran, firing without aiming at anything in particular.

But even though he thought he was hurrying, his steps were extremely slow. His vision blurred. Raindrops stole the heat from his body. It was so cold. He felt like he was going to freeze. Pushing down on his stomach and forcing his way through the curtain of trees, he arrived at a clearing.

It was the flooded river. It was flowing at a speed that was impossible to swim across. Turning slowly, he saw Kohina and Kagetane, along with the muzzle of that custom Beretta, looking at him. The white noise of the rain tapped his earlobe. Rentaro closed his eyes. Enju, Kisara, I’m sorry.

“Any last words, my dying friend?” said Kagetane.

“Go…to hell…,” said Rentaro.

“Good night.”

The Beretta fired into Rentaro’s chest, stomach, thighs, not caring where it opened up its small black holes. Letting his gun fall, Rentaro’s upper body slowly crumpled. At the edge of his darkening vision, he saw Kagetane crossing himself, as though he were a man of faith.

When Rentaro’s body hit the water, the river’s flooded current carried him away with amazing force.

It was noisy around him as someone roughly tapped Rentaro’s cheek. Someone was calling his name. He opened his eyes with great difficulty, and long fluorescent lights slid one after another on the ceiling. At the edge of his vision, he could see people wearing white coats who looked like paramedics.

It looked like he was being taken to the ER in a stretcher.

His whole body was so cold it felt frozen, and his breathing was ridiculously rough. Inside his mouth was the unending metallic taste of blood, and he couldn’t breathe. He probably had blood in his lungs, and he felt like he was suffocating to death.

“It’ll be fine.”

“We’ll take care of you.”

The empty words the paramedics chanted as they pushed the stretcher went in one ear and out the other.

With a loud bang, he was thrust into the operating room, and a female doctor wearing green scrubs peered at Rentaro. She looked like skin and bones, overcome with grief, with only her sunken eyes glittering. Rentaro tilted his head, but the instant he saw himself in the mirror in the operating room, he almost screamed.

Rentaro’s right arm and leg were torn off, and his left eye had been gouged out. But the most surprising part was that his body had shrunk. It looked like a child’s.

No, that’s not it, he realized. I see. This is the past.

The female doctor looked coldly down at Rentaro as if he were about to die, and thrust the pieces of paper she had in each hand at him. “Hey, you’re Rentaro Satomi, right? Nice to meet you. And soon, I’ll say good-bye. In my left hand is a death certificate. In another five minutes, I would’ve finished my notes on this, and you would have quickly been erased from your family register. And in my right hand is a contract. This can save your life, but you must offer up everything but your life. Choose. You can just point with your left arm.”

Just lifting his arm caused an unbelievably intense pain. His hand was shaking ridiculously, and the blood overflowing from his mouth stained the stretcher. His body trembled like he had the shakes.

Suddenly, Kikunojo Tendo’s words replayed themselves in the back of his mind.

“If you do not want to die, survive, Rentaro.”

As he pointed with his unbelievably white hand, the doctor said, “Good boy,” and smiled with satisfaction. Then, Rentaro lost consciousness.