5 Heart of the World

5
Heart of the World

 

A little while after sunset, white stuff started drifting down from the sky.

“I suspected it was cold enough. And here it is.”

Kentaro took his hands out of his pockets and warmed them with the white puff of his breath. The wind was coming from the sea, and the chill of moisture made it feel even colder.

He was in an open area of the harbor development zone; basic construction had been completed long ago, but no work had been done since. It was more or less abandoned. Once construction wrapped up in other areas, people would likely come back, but for now it was deserted. Beneath them was a labyrinth of underground paths and pipes for cable lines crisscrossing the area, but those were sealed off for the time being.

In one corner of the area stood a nondescript prefab building. It would one day be used as an office for the construction foreman, or a break room for the workers.

It should have been empty—yet all the curtains were pulled tight.

Only a little light seeped around them.

“See? There, Nagi.”

Kentaro spoke to the woman next to him, pointing at the building.

She was wearing a leather jumpsuit and steel-toed boots that could withstand several tons being dropped on them. These were appropriate for a construction site, but not for someone who was, at a glance, a classic serene beauty.

This woman was still young. Kentaro was seventeen, and she was roughly the same age, so perhaps ‘girl’ would be more apt. But there was a glint in her eye that made one hesitate to call her that.

Her name was Kirima Nagi.

At school, they called her The Fire Witch.

“Foreigners living in there are handing drugs over to junior high school kids, making bank. New shit I’ve never heard of, so it’s not even illegal yet. Law can’t do a thing.”

“Right,” she said.

“They don’t wanna cross the yakuza, so they’re only working with kids… Wasn’t easy tracking them down. Kids these days really won’t talk to anyone older.”

“Well done. Thanks, Kentaro. You can go now,” she said.

“Huh?” Kentaro blinked at her.

“I’ll handle it from here,” she said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Yo, Nagi! You can’t say that now! Haven’t I been helpful?”

“I appreciate the thought.”

“Don’t be like that! I owe you big time, Nagi. I’m yours to use,” Kentaro said, a note of desperation in his voice. “If you hadn’t saved me, I’d be in juvie or a mental hospital by now.”

“You’ve paid me back. No need to put yourself in danger.”

“Argh…” His shoulders slumped. “I get it. You don’t think I’m worth keeping around.”

“No… I think you’re a friend.”

“Then…!”

“And I won’t put my friends in danger. Never again.”

Nagi grit her teeth.

“Naoko was the last one,” she whispered. So softly Kentaro didn’t hear her.

The snow was starting to stick.

 

Kit sat in a darkened corner, eating the food she’d been given—an onigiri stuffed with canned tuna—keeping an eye on the group of men sitting in angry silence around the table.

Before they’d brought her here, Kit had never eaten this weird ball of rice wrapped in dry seaweed, but she’d gotten used to it. Now she actually quite liked it. But she didn’t tell them that.

When she was finished eating, she carefully removed all scraps of seaweed from her hands and began brushing her long black hair.

She couldn’t move around the room. There were cuffs on her feet, connected to the exposed iron girders on the walls of the prefab room.

The men, like her, were eating junk food from the convenience store. Unlike her, they weren’t exactly staying calm. Their mounting frustration was making a mess of the meal.

“God damn it, what’s going on?” one shouted, unable to bear it any longer. “It’s been a month since Cavs and them left! What the hell is taking them so long?”

“Shut up!”

“You know I’m right! They said they had Japanese industry ties that could score us a windfall! We even forked over the top secret chips!”

“’Course they did,” the eldest of them said. He had only one eye. “Those chips aren’t even finished, barely anything set on ‘em. Only the Japanese would buy those. And we can’t leave here without money, or something we can turn into money. And we can’t sell her here.”

“Damn it. What’s with this lousy country anyway? How come they’re willing to buy high tech shit but not a weapon?”

He hit the table so hard the vibrations reached Kit in the corner.

She did not react. She just kept combing her hair, as if being called a weapon did not bother her.

“But you’re right. They should be back by now.”

“The buyers being cautious?”

“Let’s hope that’s all it is.”

“What’s your point?”

“We’re all thinking it! The Towa Organization already got to them!”

“Calm down,” the one-eyed man said.

“But…!”

“If they had, they’d be here already.”

The men all turned and looked at Kit.

But none of them spoke to her, or asked her opinion. It was as if she was just an object that happened to be there.

“If we could use her, we could get rid of them easily.”

“And this entire country along with them. And our lives.”

“Jesus. She’s worthless if we can’t sell her.”

“You need facilities on a Towa Organization scale to stabilize something like that.”

“God damn ‘Out of Standardized.’”

“Experiment response was F-, for Christ’s sake.”

They began talking about Kit, spitting jargon incomprehensible to anyone not in their line of work.

Kit did not respond, and kept working on her hair.

She understood their words. She could read and write their language, the language of this country, and every major language in the world.

She simply chose not to respond.

While brushing her hair, she stroked the gold headband holding it in place. The smooth surface of it comforted her.

“That looks nice, Kit. Makes you look like a princess wearing a crown!”

It was a cheap piece of plastic with paint on it, not even gold-plated, but a friend who no longer existed had told her that. That alone had been enough to make it her one and only treasure. To avoid the suspicion of any customs inspectors, the men had given her rich little girl clothes, but it was the crappy hairband she valued.

She worked hard on her hair. To keep her hair as nice as the headband, she worked diligently, not putting too much force into it, but a lot of love.

Before she knew it, tears were rolling down her cheeks. She tried to forget the other children—her friends, the ones who died in the experiments—but they were on her mind again, and the memories brought forth tears.

But her tears didn’t bother the men at all. They went back to their meal.

They were silently munching on the red bean buns they’d bought for dessert when something hit the thin walls of the prefab hut.

“——!”

The men tensed and stood up, grabbing the guns they kept close at hand.

All eyes fixed on the source of the noise, but not another sound came.

“Did the wind blow a rock at us?”

“Go check it out.”

One man moved slowly over to the window and moved the curtain aside, making sure he wasn’t visible from the outside.

He carefully side-eyed the world outside. For the first time, he noticed it was snowing. There was an empty sports drink can lying near the wall.

He opened the window carefully with the tips of his fingers, keeping himself hidden.

No response.

At last, the man poked his face out the window. He looked around, but there was no sign of anyone, or any living thing. There was enough snow on the ground that he could tell there were no footprints.

“Nothing?” another man said, coming over.

“Yeah, looks like the wind just blew this can over.”

“Then shut the window, that draft is freezing.”

“Yeah…”

The man reached to close the window…and another hand reached down and grabbed his arm.

It yanked him out the window.

“————?!”

A stun gun was pressed against the man, giving him a shock that shook his entire body. When he fell back to the snow-covered ground below, he was unconscious.

“What the—?!”

Other men moved to point their guns out the window.

As they did, something the size of a human head was flung in through it. The men pumped it full of lead.

It exploded, flinging the contents everywhere.

“Wh-what is this?!”

It was liquid.

It covered the men’s bodies and a chunk of the floor. Colorless, but salty—the object thrown in the window was a balloon filled with seawater.

The person on the roof threw something else into the room. The same electric rod that had knocked out the man outside.

Seven million volts coursed through the salt water, assaulting anything it had come in contact with.

“Unh!”

The men fell over.

At last, the hidden figure—Kirima Nagi—slipped into the room, passing through the window like a gymnast and landing upright on the floor.

She quickly gathered up the men’s guns and threw them out the window.

Naturally, she’d approached the building from the side opposite to the one she’d thrown the can at. That’s why there were no footprints. She’d known she had a better chance at pulling this off if they let their guard down once.

“Unh… wh-who are you?” said the one-eyed man, the only one still conscious.

He did not speak Japanese, but Nagi responded in his language. “Where’re the drugs you were slinging around?”

“What…? N-not the Towa Organization?”

“You fight whoever you want. But I’m not letting you bring innocents down with you.”

“Unh…” the man grimaced.

Nagi took stock of the room.

And her face froze.

She’d only just noticed Kit sitting manacled to the corner.

The girl was far enough away that she’d escaped the electricity entirely.

She was sitting quietly, staring up at Nagi.

“Wh-why is there a kid here…?” Nagi yelled, rattled. She saw the cuffs on the girl’s feet, and went red with anger. “H-how could you…? She’s a child!”

Nagi ran over to Kit, pulled out a wire and quickly picked the lock.

Kit just stared blankly at her.

“You’re okay. You’re okay, now.” Nagi nodded soothingly and reached out, but Kit flinched and pulled back.

Nagi frowned, angry again. Not at Kit, but at the men who had made her this untrusting.

Kit watched her closely.

Nagi searched her pockets, then took out a bandana and held it out to the girl. Her cheeks were dirty from crying.

“Wipe your eyes… You’re a cute kid, can’t have you looking like that.”

Kit didn’t take the bandana, so Nagi set it down next to her.

Then she stood up and swung around, bristling with fury.

“Explain this!” she said, her footsteps echoing. She grabbed the one-eyed man’s collar and yanked him upright.

“Uhh…hehehe…” he groaned, but managed a chuckle. “I-If you aren’t the Towa Organization, then what’s to worry?”

“What?”

Nagi frowned… and then her eyes went wide.

In the man’s one eye, she’d seen a shadow moving behind her.

“—!”

She tossed the one-eyed man aside and ducked.

Something rocketed past where her head had been. If that had hit—well, she wouldn’t have survived it.

The man behind her had been completely unconscious a second ago.

But…there was something strange about him.

There was no light in his eyes—as if no thoughts drove his actions—like the face of a puppet.

“…..?!”

The doll gave Nagi no chance to be surprised. It came after her.

She countered and landed a kick to the gut.

But he just staggered backward a step, and then grabbed her leg, as if he felt no pain.

Wh-what the….?!

Nagi shuddered, but she couldn’t afford to panic. Using her captured leg as an axis, she spun, kicking the man with her other leg in an attempt to break his neck.

The strength left his fingers, and she fell.

“Oof…!”

She hastily righted herself to find the other men standing up, one after the other. All behaving like puppets.

“I’ve been mixing a certain pharmaceutical into their food. I didn’t tell them, though.”

The one-eyed man grinned at her.

“A ‘pharmaceutical’?” Nagi took a step back. The puppets came after her, quickly closing the gap.

“Yes…a pharmaceutical that activates if they take damage beyond a certain threshold. It erases all conscious thought, but allows them to fight beyond the limits of their bodies. They’ll eliminate all hostiles…but only live another week. I always planned to make off with all the profits, you see.”

The one-eyed man backed away from Nagi.

“It sure came in handy! I’ll leave you to them.”

“—!”

Nagi looked at Kit. The girl was still sitting there, unresponsive.

The one-eyed man lunged and tried to grab Kit’s arm.

Nagi moved like lightning, and threw a knife she had hidden in her steel-toed boots.

Her aim was true, and it stabbed the one-eyed man in the arm.

“Ahhh!”

“Run! Now!” Nagi yelled at Kit.

The girl froze a second, but then stood up. She gripped the bandana Nagi gave her tightly in her hands.

“Go! Get out of here!” Nagi yelled, fending off blows from the puppets—unarmed, as she’d just thrown her only weapon.

Kit ran like she’d been shot from a gun, out the door of the prefab hut and across the snow.

“W-wait!” the one-eyed man yelped and tried to follow, but the knife Nagi had thrown at him was connected to her by a wire. When he moved, it tugged on the knife and he let out a scream of pain.

Kit heard the scream behind her as she ran across the snow, into the night.

***

Tenjiki Yuu had long wondered if the gang’s ‘predictions’ were abilities that showed them the future as it would unfold, or created a possible future that they could bring to pass. But no answer had ever come to him.

Either way, it was dark out when they left the karaoke joint, and snow was falling from the sky.

“Oh, I knew it! Snow!” Mitsuo said, happily.

“Someone’s excited. What’s the big deal?” Nanane grumped. She hated snow.

“Well, you know, I’m a big dumb kid, right? I wanna run around the garden like a puppy.”

He actually did run a few steps forward and spin back to face them. For a moment he looked like Gene Kelly, so Kasumi whistled.

“Pretty good, Mitsuo!”

“From now on, call me the Dance King. Or maybe just Prince?” He said it with such a straight face that the others all broke out laughing.

“Anyone else hungry? Wanna grab some food?” Nanane said, clearly in a better mood.

“Yeah…not a bad idea. Who’s in?” Koumoto asked.

Everyone nodded.

“Sure. Something warm! Somewhere with a grill on the counter.”

“Perfect!” Nozomi nodded. “Kasumi-kun can be our younger kouhai.”

Everyone but Kasumi laughed. He scowled. But he was the only one wearing a school uniform; anyone could tell he was a high school student.

“We can tell them I’m cosplaying,” he said. Then he let it slip. “Besides, if they ask to see my school ID, I don’t have one. They expelled me months ago.”

They’d agreed to keep their personal lives a secret, but for a moment, he forgot.

Nanane gaped at him. Kasumi caught his mistake, but decided not to care.

“Whatever, it’s the truth,” he said, shrugging.

“O-okay,” Mitsuo said, awkwardly.

“What’d you do?” Nanane asked.

“Nanane!” Koumoto snapped. “Do you really need to know?”

She gasped. “S-sorry,” she said.

“No big deal,” Kasumi said. “C’mon, let’s get going. It’s cold as shit out here.”

“Yes, good idea!” Yuu chimed in. He’d been watching quietly, and picked the right moment to get everyone to agree.

“Yeah, let’s go, let’s go!” Mitsuo cried, and started leading the way.

Everyone else followed.

Nanane Kyoko followed at the rear, looking deflated.

Arghh…why am I always so tactless?

Lost in her thoughts, she failed to notice the shadow running out of an alley until she bumped into it.

“Whoa! S-sorry…”

She turned to look, but there was no one there. Or so she thought, but the person she’d bumped into was so short she was looking right over her head.

There was a little girl sitting on the ground at her feet.

“W-wow, I’m so… Wait, you’re…”

Nanane had seen this girl’s black hair and gold hairband before.

 

***

 

Kit had run with all her might as far as she could. By the time she got to town, she was so exhausted she’d run straight into some woman. She glanced up at Nanane, then scrambled to her feet and tried to run away again.

But someone grabbed her shoulder.

“Hang on there,” he said.

The boy next to Nanane took a close look at Kit’s face, then called after the others.

“Yo, Mikage!”

“Huh? What, Koumoto?”

“Isn’t this the kid? From before?”

He spoke like he knew Kit from somewhere.

Kit jumped, and pulled herself free—Kouji wasn’t exactly holding her tight. She started running again.

“H-hey!” She heard shouting behind her, but ran as fast as she could.

But she was already out of breath, and running wasn’t helping.

I-I have to run…

The nice woman who’d given her the bandana had said to run. So she ran. But how far…?

Gotta run…

She didn’t even notice when she started to sway. She was barely staying on her feet.

Have to…run…

The lights of the city were starting to blur. Her field of vision narrowed. Her head was throbbing and she couldn’t think straight. Her brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen.

Just…run…

Cutting through a back alley, she slipped and fell. She didn’t even realize that she’d tripped; she was too tired to move anymore.

Snow began to pile up on her tiny shoulders.

 

***

“You shouldn’t have been so rough with her, Kouji-kun!” Nanane Kyoko yelled, running.

“It’s not my fault! I just put my hand on her shoulder!” Koumoto Kouji didn’t sound too sure.

“Shit, where’d she go? She just turned this corner!”

“Yo, what’s going on?” Mitsuo said, totally out of it. Koumoto and Nanane ignored him, chasing after the girl.

“No good reason a girl that young is out this late at night—there’s gotta be something going on!”

They rounded the alley corner and saw something lying on the ground, covered in a thin layer of snow.

Nanane screamed, “Ahhh! Wh-what the?!”

“S-shit,” Koumoto ran over, and picked the girl up. He brushed the snow off her, and patted her face. She didn’t respond. Her breathing was so ragged it shook her entire body.

He touched her cheek.

“She’s burning up…”

“Is she okay?”

Nanane leaned in, worried.

“I don’t think so… maybe we should take her to a doctor,” he said.

The girl’s lips moved, as if she were saying something.

They couldn’t quite make it out, but Koumoto and Nanane glanced at each other.

“That wasn’t…”

“Yeah, definitely not Japanese. So she isn’t, either?”

“Th-then if we take her to a doctor, they’ll…”

“She’ll be treated like an illegal immigrant. What now?”

Koumoto took his coat off and wrapped the girl in it.

“At the least, we’ve got to get her somewhere where she can rest. The hospitals aren’t gonna be open at this hour, anyway. Don’t know that the ER would take her…”

Nanane winced, then said, “I know where. There’s a place close by.”

“What? Where?”

“There’s a place nearby that rents by the week.”

“They aren’t gonna rent a room out this time of night, though.”

Nanane pulled a key out of her pocket.

“Good thing I’m already renting one.”

“Uh…”

“That’s where I live… for the next month, anyway. I’m a runaway,” she said, trying to make it sound matter-of-fact. But she was white as a sheet. Her face was painted with stress.

Koumoto took the key, unsure of what to say.

“Not…a new thing. It’s been like this all along.”

“Nanane, I…”

“I lied, okay? Sorry.”

The other four caught up to them.

“Yo, what’s going on…? Oh.” Mitsuo saw the girl.

“Th-that’s…?!” Nozomi said, surprised.

“Talk later,” Koumoto said. “First, we gotta get her somewhere warm.”

When he said where, Kasumi looked surprised.

“Why a place like that?”

Nanane flinched. “Um,” she started.

But Koumoto interrupted.

“I’ve been keeping a room there in case something like this happened,” he said. Then he turned to Nanane. “Remember where it is? Can you make sure everyone gets there?”

“Um… y-yeah, sure,” she nodded.

 

It was a studio that included an eight-mat room, as well as a kitchen and a bath. It was on the sixth floor, with a nice view from the window, but none of them were appreciating that at the moment.

Nozomi laid a damp towel on the girl’s forehead.

The girl’s breathing was starting to look better, at last. She was breathing normally now, sound asleep.

“Thank goodness… if she’d stayed out in the cold any longer, she’d have caught pneumonia.”

“Jesus,” Koumoto said, with a sigh of relief.

The two of them were alone in the room. The other four were out getting supplies.

“This…is the girl, right?”

“Yeah… The one Kasumi predicted.”

“What’s going on?”

“Don’t ask me! But it looks like fate brought us together.”

“Fate…” Nozomi sighed. “Can’t believe you’re saying that. I thought you hated that stuff! You’re not like your parents.”

“Well…” Koumoto tried to argue, but the words didn’t come.

Nozomi changed the subject. “This is Kyoko’s room, right?”

“Yeah.”

Koumoto owned up to it. Nozomi already knew he wasn’t renting any rooms. And he knew she knew.

“So she is a runaway?”

“You knew?”

“I had an idea.”

“Woman are scary…” Koumoto grinned.

“She didn’t want Mikage-kun knowing?”

“Didn’t look like it. Whatever she says, she’s clearly serious about him… She’s gonna have to tell him eventually. If she really loves him, she needs to. I’ll cover for her this time, but…”

“Yeah.”

Nozomi nodded. As composed as ever.

The other four returned.

They’d bought a grapefruit-flavored sports drink, hoping it would help restore the girl. They put the straw into the sleeping child’s mouth and tipped a little in. She swallowed.

“Looks like we won’t need a hospital,” Kasumi nodded.

Mitsuo patted his chest, looking genuinely relieved. “Whew,” he said.

This was enough to break through Nanane’s stress, and she laughed, looking like herself again.

They all spent the night in that room. Only Mitsuo lived with his parents, so only he had to call and argue about it. They took turns watching over her.

 

None of them knew it, but right now, they were the heart of the world.

Their actions would determine the very fate of the planet. If they had been the kind of kids who’d abandon a feeble child to the elements, then everything would have ended there.

 

***

 

Making sure the others were asleep, Tenjiki Yuu stood next to the girl.

Expressionless, he watched her sleep, and not like one would watch a child.

Suddenly he leaned in, and put his lips on hers. Not just his lips—he stuck his tongue in her mouth, moving it around.

The sleeping girl’s body was producing saliva, and Tenjiki Yuu flicked his tongue to catch it, tasting it. The data in that flavor told him its composition.

“—!”

His expression changed.

He went white as a sheet.

He slowly rose to his feet and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“They knew… and still made you?” he whispered. “No, that can’t be true. They had no idea what they were making. They still don’t know how powerful you are.”

His voice was tight, as though he wasn’t thinking out loud so much as describing something unbelievable.

“That’s…one heck of a failure. And one heck of a package.”

His teeth were rattling. He couldn’t make them stop.

He’d never been this scared before.