6 Koumoto Kouji - Whispering
6
Koumoto Kouji - Whispering
“You will be our savior.”
“The future of the world is in your hands, Kouji-san.”
I, Koumoto Kouji, was raised listening to words like these, words that hardly seem real. My parents were priests in a cult. They expected me to succeed them. I grew up seeing what lay behind the scenes of these ‘miracles’ and ‘oracles.’ It happened too often to count. I knew my parents were just using their ‘believers.’
I thought that was normal. That was how the world worked. Salvation and destiny were frauds, with no substance to back either one up. It was all a lie even a child my age could see through, made for people who clung desperately to them anyway.
But everything changed when I was ten, and discovered my own power.
Fortunately, I discovered it somewhere totally unconnected to my parents.
We were on a school trip, and I was lost in the mountains with a girl from my class, Tsuji Nozomi. That’s when my power first activated. Nozomi told me afterward that I suddenly started speaking in our teacher’s voice, saying, “If they had gone west, instead, they might have fallen off that cliff…”
I didn’t quite believe her, but using the sun as a guide, we headed east…and were rescued.
No matter how I looked at it, it was a miracle. But I never once considered telling my parents. I asked Nozomi not to tell anyone, either. She laughed like I was an idiot, and in her usual ultra-calm voice, said, “You’re not the only one, Kouji. I can do the same thing.”
And so we became a secret pair. A few years later, in junior high, I began saying things my parents and their cult viewed as blasphemy, and got myself excommunicated and exiled.
Deliberately.
Ever since, a group of people who had their families stolen away by the same cult have been supporting me financially, helping me find places to live and part-time work. Some of them took their anger at my parents’ actions out on me, but I just apologize like I mean it (I do mean it) and they don’t push it further.
And now I’m one of a gang of six. I often wonder…
The miracles we produce are real, unlike those my parents claimed. But what of it?
In fact, the real reason I insist we don’t talk about ourselves is because I don’t want them knowing about me. If I were still in that cult, my power could be used to control the believers even more effectively.
And what if one of the six was into that sort of thing?
I knew that wasn’t likely. I do trust them now, but I had to be cautious early on.
I despise my parents and what they do, and that drives every decision I make. But…is that just because I see myself in them?
Like them, do I want to control and use people through lies or other means?
So I keep my background a secret from my friends. Not because I’m worried about them, but because I’m worried about myself.
I’ve told all this to Nozomi, who already knows all about me. But every time I talk about this with her, she just laughs. Always the rational one.
“You realize you’re just being paranoid, right, Kouji?” she says.
It’s always such a relief when she says that.
And I wonder… why is it that we’ve been given these miraculous powers?
Maybe…
And now, in a weekly apartment studio, with the morning sun shining in the window, I’m thinking about that again.
Maybe this girl is the key to it all.
A whole day had passed. We were on our second day watching over this girl as she slept.
I must have been muttering under my breath, because Mitsuo looked up. “Mm? Did you say something?” he asked.
“No, nothing,” I shook my head. “I was just wondering where this girl came from.”
“Oh, yeah… Good question. She could pass for Japanese, so she’s probably some type of Asian.”
“Wonder if she’ll understand us.”
“When she wakes up, we’ll give her some food. That’ll show we aren’t out to get her.”
He sounded so certain I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Like a cat? I dunno if it’ll be that easy.”
The sound of our voices woke the others, and they started grumbling and stretching.
“My back is killing me,” Nanane said, waving her long limbs around.
“Any change?” Kasumi asked.
I nodded. “She’s better. Her fever broke at last.”
“That’s good,” Nozomi said, leaning in close. She might seem standoffish, but underneath she cared. I bet she was more worried about the girl than any us.
“Argh, I’m starving. Anyone else hungry?” Nanane began rummaging through plastic bags, digging out the food we’d stocked up on last night. She started handing sandwiches and sausage rolls to everyone.
“Here, Tenjiki-kun. Canned tuna onigiri okay?”
Tenjiki ignored the offering, staring blankly at nothing. He was sitting in exactly the same position as when we’d all been sleeping.
“Tenjiki-kun?”
“You should give that to her,” he said, softly.
“Huh?”
“She’s awake.”
We all looked at him, surprised, then looked at the girl on the bed.
Her eyes were still closed.
“She’s asleep!” Mitsuo said.
“No, she’s awake,” Tenjiki said. “Right? You can stop pretending.”
We all just looked at him, so he stood up, took the onigiri from Nanane, quickly took the wrapper off and held it under the girl’s nose.
Her eyes snapped open.
She stared up at Tenjiki.
“You wanted to know if we were enemies?” he asked. His tone was downright frosty.
She said nothing.
We all gaped, unable to grasp what was happening.
The girl didn’t move for a long moment, but at last she slowly sat up, took the onigiri from Tenjiki’s hand, and took a bite.
She must have been very hungry. She tore through the onigiri with a very childish focus. I was worried she might choke on it.
“Nanane-san,” Tenjiki said. “Something to drink.”
Nanane hurriedly poured some tea into a paper cup and handed it to the girl.
The girl drained it. Tenjiki smoothly handed her a second onigiri, and she ate some of that, then stopped and looked at me.
“Like a cat?” she said.
“Huh?” I blinked.
“Am I like a cat?” she asked. She’d been listening to me and Mitsuo talking? She’d been awake the whole time?
“Er, uh… not in like…a bad way?” I said, not sure how to respond. I tried smiling. “What’s your name? I guess you understand us…”
“Kit. I understand.”
She turned back to the onigiri.
“Kit-chan, huh? Good name. Where’d you come from?”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t blame her. I looked around at everyone, and nodded. Kasumi shrugged back.
“Want some of these?” Nanane asked, unwrapping some baby cheese and fish sausage. Kit accepted and ate both.
When she was finally full, she let out a long breath and asked, “What are you?”
“‘What?’” Mitsuo said, confused. “I dunno, what are we?”
“We ain’t nothing. Just normal teenagers,” Kasumi said.
He was right, sort of.
“What group do you belong to?”
This question baffled all of us.
“Uh… the six of us? We belong to our group?” Nanane said, puzzled.
Our gang had never really had a name.
There was no point in trying to explain our ‘talents’—she wouldn’t understand. Nobody would.
When we said nothing else, Kit suddenly smiled.
“You’re friends!”
Like that word was worth its weight in gold.
“Well, yeah,” I said, nodding. “Where are your friends?” I asked.
A shadow passed over her face. “They’re gone. They all died.”
“—!”
Shit, I thought.
When none of us said anything, Kit continued. “You should…abandon me. Or give me to the Japanese government. If not the government, some other big group.”
“What? Why?”
I had no idea why she’d say something like that, but her answer was even more baffling. Looking deadly serious, this little kid actually said, “I’m a weapon of mass destruction. Keeping me will lead to your doom.”
***
A little earlier.
“God damn that Japanese bitch…!”
Under the starry sky, the one-eyed man was rebinding the tourniquet on his bleeding arm. He had run after Kit as best he could, but lost sight of her.
He hadn’t bothered going back to check what had happened to his assailant. That fight was a foregone conclusion. No mere mortal could go up against multiple drug-enhanced units unarmed. She’d have been torn to pieces. That thought was the only thing comforting the one-eyed man now.
“The problem is the little girl…”
She had nowhere to run to. She knew full well that if the Japanese government or some other group got a hold of her, they’d experiment on her, cut her open, and call it research.
“She must be hiding somewhere… but where? She doesn’t know her way around… it has to be somewhere obvious.”
Muttering to himself, the one-eyed man stumbled through the deserted nighttime streets.
In a bag under his arm, he had the money they’d scrounged up, some drugs he could barter with, and a pile of data discs. Even those could prove valuable to the right buyer. But nothing compared to the ‘ultimate weapon,’ Kit. The one-eyed man was not ready to give up on her. Not ever.
“Where is she? Where…?”
The snow died down in the small hours of the morning. It had melted away and there was nothing left on the streets.
The few moments he’d let blood into his arm had warmed it up, but with the tourniquet back in place, it was going numb.
“Damn it! Where’d that little shit go?”
Angrily, he kicked a nearby garbage can.
There was a rustle behind him.
“Mm?”
He spun around. Nothing there.
But—it had sounded like surprise, a reaction to his sudden action. He’d sensed it.
He walked carefully toward the sound. When he reached the corner, he peeped around it.
The sound had come from a nearby alley filled only with rows of garbage cans. No one was in sight.
The one-eyed man picked up a pebble and flung it at a garbage can. There was a racket and a startled stray cat ran away.
“Christ, scared the crap out of me…” the one-eyed man spat. He turned to leave just as a metal bat came swinging right at him.
THUD.
It hit the back of his head with a dull sound. He was unconscious before he even registered what had happened to him.
“Thought so, he’s one of them foreign bastards.”
The bat belonged to a boy of around fourteen or fifteen. He kicked the fallen one-eyed man like you would a soccer ball.
“What’s he got on him?”
The boy’s friends—no, it was highly doubtful these were friends, but they were cut from the same cloth—filed out of the shadows.
All of them had been the one-eyed man’s ‘clients’—people his group sold drugs to.
What were they doing out this late at night? That was the wrong question. They were only ever out at this time of night. There were other groups that laid claim to daylight hours, to evenings, even to early mornings. If anyone else wandered out in ‘their time’ they’d attack like wild animals. So these boys had no choice but to be active during the wee hours of the night. It was a form of ‘habitat isolation,’ a behavior seen among animals in nature.
And the one-eyed man had entered ‘their time.’ He was the perfect target—a lone, suspicious foreign man in no shape to fight back.
“Shit, look at all this cash!”
“And drugs! That’s what I’m talking about!”
They had his bag and were ransacking it.
“The heck is this? Computer shit?”
“I dunno, just smash it up!”
The discs filled with priceless data were thrown to the ground and stamped into pieces.
“Hehe, quite a score. Never even seen these drugs before. Bet they’ll be mind-blowing!”
They laughed, and kicked the one-eyed man.
He wasn’t moving. One of the boys grabbed his head and yanked it up, peering into his one good eye. It was clouded over, blood seeping out between the eye and the lid.
“Yo, this dude’s croaked it.”
“For real? Shiiit.”
“Whatever, he’s just some gangster. Leave his ass here and the pigs’ll just assume he bit it in some turf war. Nobody gives a shit about foreigners anyway.”
Everyone laughed.
They dragged the one-eyed man roughly across the alley and threw him in the pile of trash. They tossed more trash on top of him until his body was hidden from view. No one would come to collect the garbage for another two days, so the body would go undiscovered until then. It was winter, so it would take longer to start stinking.
“Mm?”
One of the boys pulled a photo out of the bag.
“What the heck is this?”
It was a picture of Kit, intended to be shown to potential buyers.
“What?”
The boys gathered around, staring at the picture.
“Why’s he got a pic of some kid?”
“Obvious, ain’t it?” another one laughed. “Dude’s a pedo! Or else he’s selling kids to ‘em, showing off his merchandise.”
“Heh, nasty!”
Having mistaken the picture for something sexualized, each of them took a good long look at Kit.
Then they scattered, each to their own hiding spots, and began shooting up on the drugs they’d looted.
Kit’s face would be the last thing they saw while they were sane—and the image of her stayed burned into their brains.
She was an enemy to be eliminated.
***
The girl who called herself Kit didn’t seem like anything but a cute, ordinary kid. But what she told us was beyond imagining.
“My parents sold me. We were poor; they had no choice. But I wasn’t sold to a factory, or to a pimp…or whatever. Nothing like that. I was taken deep into the mountains, given a lot of shots, and had a lot of things done to my body.
“I don’t know what they did. I was asleep for most of it. I think they put me under. I would wake up and find bandages all over me. That was always really scary. It doesn’t seem so scary now. What’s really scary is that somewhere along the way, I stopped being human.
“One day they took me to a big room with no windows. The people who kept me there were wearing weird silver clothes that covered their entire bodies. They gave me some weird medicine. I drank it, and everyone quickly ran out of the room. Then they let a bunch of rats into the room. Hundreds of them. I was surprised, and tried to run away, but there was nowhere to run to, so I hid in a corner, terrified.
“But the mice all started foaming at the mouth. They all died. I didn’t know why, but…
“Eventually I figured out that I was poisoning them. Nearly all the rats were dead, and there were only a few left… I felt sorry for them, so I reached out…and when I touched them, they died. That’s how I knew.
“They’d changed me into something designed only to kill. I think if I drink that medicine, then everything living around me will die.”
She spoke without emotion.
We just gaped at her.
Our minds couldn’t begin to grasp the suffering and pain she’d endured. How must she have felt when she stretched out her hand, only to have it bring death? How could we understand?
She kept talking.
“The people who did things to me called me the ‘ultimate weapon.’ There was no defense against me, they said. The world would belong to whoever used me the right way. They don’t even need the medicine—all they have to do is kill me.
“So if you want the world, then you can have it if you kill me. It’s easy.
“But then—something happened. They took me away from the mountains and brought me here. They said they were going to use me to make a deal. But a woman from this country came and saved me, and told me to run. But she’s…”
For the first time, her voice shook. Like she was about to cry.
“Enough!” I said, not able to bear it any longer. “We get it.”
I couldn’t force her to tell us any more.
Kit had a bandana held tightly in her hand, and her shoulders were shaking.
“What do you think?” I whispered, looking at the others.
“I dunno,” Nanane said, uncertain. “I don’t know if I understand it, let alone believe it.”
“But do you think she’s lying?”
“No…”
“Can’t see anyone feeding a kid a lie that convoluted, either,” Kasumi said. He looked furious. As blunt as he could be, inside he was always fighting for what was right. He was clearly ready to bring hell down upon everyone who’d done this to Kit.
“That’s…true enough,” Nozomi agreed, choosing her words carefully.
“Hmm…” Mitsuo said, fidgeting.
“Forget whether we believe her or not. We need to decide what to do with her,” I said, trying to move things along.
“I know,” Nanane said, her head still reeling. “But she’s so little… how could they do that to her?”
“Doesn’t matter if she’s little. Or that she’s a child,” Tenjiki said, out of nowhere. “You know that better than anyone, Nanane Kyoko-san.”
Nanane let out a little gasp. Tenjiki could really hit where it hurt sometimes. He clearly knew she’d run away from home.
“We definitely can’t take her to the cops. Kit doesn’t have a passport or anything. They’ll never believe her story. She’ll be treated like a criminal.” Even as I spoke, I felt like I was saying there was nothing we could do.
Everyone else thought the same thing. There was a long silence.
“But…” Kasumi said. He turned to Kit. “She told you to run?”
Kit nodded.
“Then there’s someone after you?”
We all gulped.
“I don’t know,” Kit said, shaking her head.
But Kasumi definitely had a point.
“Seems likely enough. What now?”
“We can’t let them have her,” Kasumi said.
“True,” Tenjiki nodded.
“Hmm,” Mitsuo said, still fidgeting. Wasn’t like him to think this hard about anything. Guess if there was ever a time for it, it was now.
“Then… then they really did all those awful things to her?” Nanane said, as if she still couldn’t believe it. Then she suddenly got really angry. “That’s not right!”
“Nobody said it was. Right?” Kasumi glared at the rest of us.
I nodded.
Then Kit spoke up, softly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Huh?”
“It doesn’t matter what happens to me.”
She sounded utterly exhausted. All of us felt a hand clench our hearts. I suppose I can’t speak for the other five, but I’m sure they felt the same. No child should ever sound like an old woman on her deathbed.
“Don’t worry. We’ll save you,” Nozomi said, speaking for all of us.
Kit stared at the ground, not responding.
“Any ideas, Kit-chan?” Nanane asked.
She shook her head.
“Then what? We keep her hidden for now, and then…?”
I couldn’t make up my mind.
I did know a place. Somewhere that could keep her hidden. Kit didn’t seem like a part of our world, but I knew a place that was every bit as isolated: The ‘cult’ my parents ran. If she was there, she could hide from the rest of the world.
However, I really didn’t want to suggest that. I never wanted to have anything to do with them again. But if there was no other way…
“Um…” I started.
“I don’t think we’re ready to think about that yet,” Kasumi said. “We need to buy some time, see what happens… figure out if there actually is anyone after her or not. Then we move. Right, Koumoto?”
He looked at me. I blinked, and nodded.
“Can we use our ‘talents’ to check?” Nanane said, folding her arms. “Anyone got anything? Mitsuo-kun, even your vague ones.”
Mitsuo-kun didn’t answer. He still seemed really out of it.
Then there was a loud noise outside the room.
“—!”
We all tensed and stared at the door.
Silence. There was no further sound.
Kasumi moved quickly, and grabbed the intercom.
“Who are you calling?”
“The manager’s office… If there’s anything going on below, we’ll know.”
Kasumi put the phone to his ear and waited. Didn’t seem like anyone was answering.
“Shit, nothing…”
“Give me that!” I said, and reached out… and there was a click as someone picked up.
“H-help…! We’re being att—”
There was a scream, and then it cut out.
“Hello? Hello!” I called, but there was no answer.
“Wh-what’s going on?” Nozomi whispered, white as a sheet.
“Her pursuers are here. And they aren’t concerned about collateral damage,” Tenjiki said.
“But how did they find us?”
“Worry about that later. First, we have to get outta here.”
Wham. Thud. More loud noises. Something going on a floor below us.
Were they attacking everyone in the building? Who the hell were these people?!
“B-but if they’ve got the lower floors occupied…how can we get away?!” I said.
Tenjiki didn’t bat an eye. “There should be an emergency escape chute. We’ll go down through that.”
It felt like he’d done this before. Like he was an expert in this sort of thing.
There was another loud noise from the hall. Were they that close…?!
“Everyone down!” Tenjiki said, and went to the door alone.
We did as he said, crouching in the corner.
Nanane grabbed Kit and pulled her in close. Kit clung to her.
We could hear a crashing sound getting slowly closer.
“They’re here…!”
Tenjiki was opening and closing his hands. What was he doing?
We all held our breath, trying to ready ourselves for anything. That is, everybody except for Mitsuo. His gaze was wandering, his attention elsewhere.
“It’s like…” he said, totally relaxed. “You know, like…”
“What the hell are you going on about?” Kasumi snarled.
Mitsuo ignored him. “The ‘hot then cold’ thing… But I shouldn’t know that. When blood comes out, the blood itself is hot but the body loses heat and gets cold, right? But how would I know that after it happens?”
Total gibberish.
“Get a grip, man!” I said, and reached out to grab his shoulder.
But Mitsuo suddenly shoved Kasumi, hard.
Not just him; he also shoved Nanane and Kit away.
A moment later, it happened.
The door smashed in, and five or six figures entered. Tenjiki moved to intercept—and more enemies came smashing through the window.
Mitsuo was right in the way of their attack.
Their knives swept forward, striking across his chest and stomach. Even as they did, Mitsuo used his full weight to tackle them, hurling them bodily through the window.
“—?!”
And I noticed… even now, Mitsuo wasn’t here. His gaze was elsewhere, and he said, “Oh…I see. I get it now. That’s how I…”
And he tumbled out the window after them.
“M-Mitsuo-kun!” Nozomi shrieked.
Behind her, the men Tenjiki grappled with began exploding.
I had no idea how, but it was clearly something Tenjiki had done to them.
“Damn it!” Tenjiki spun around and dashed to the window.
We looked down at the ground six floors below, where Mitsuo and the men he’d pushed had fallen.
At their…flattened bodies.
“M-Mitsuo’s…” But I couldn’t say the rest.
“No one else coming this way,” Tenjiki said, looking up. “Hurry! That’s not the last of them.”
“B-b-b-but he’s dead? He’s dead?!” Nanane said, her teeth chattering.
“If Mitsuo-kun hadn’t protected you, we’d all be dead! Now move!” Tenjiki roared.
The first wave of panic left us, and the truth sank in.
Kazumiya Mitsuo was actually dead.
***
They were no longer human.
And they were multiplying.
Those who put that drug into their bodies were programmed to infect anyone like them—the groups of teens who ruled the other blocks of time. It wasn’t that hard to picture what happened. The other teams came out to find the ‘infected’ in their turf, and attacked. They were bitten and the fluid entered their bloodstream.
And then evolution happened, something even the drug’s inventors never anticipated. The infected minds began to resonate, like a hive of bees.
Some members of this hive mind were on the evening team. And a few of them had seen the six take Kit into the weekly apartment.
They’d been turned into wild things. And wild things are much smarter than humans often assume. Instincts honed over the course of thousands of years can be far more aggressive and accurate than the conscious human mind. And all animals, from the tiniest amoeba to the largest whale, share one instinct in particular.
Destroy all enemies.
People who think wild animals do not kill unless necessary are only seeing part of the picture. They don’t kill simply because they can’t kill more; but once seen as an enemy, animals—humans included—think nothing of wiping out an entire species.
And this instinct drove them.
Their instincts used ‘memories’ from when they’d been human. These told them how to use weapons, how to attack in groups, how to attack from behind while drawing attention elsewhere—all pure animal instinct.
But their first attack failed.
The ‘enemy’ sacrificed one of their own to drive off their first wave and run for it.
They already occupied the entire weekly apartment building. They’d killed the managers and all the other residents. There should have been no way for them to escape, but the enemy had used the emergency access chute to get from the roof to the ground in moments. The last one disconnected the chute and simply jumped down, impossibly landing on his own two feet. They’d lost them there.
They stared in silence. They watched their enemy steal a small van parked near the landing site and flee without saying a word.
There was no need. They no longer had need of language.
‘Pursue the enemy, and end them.’
All other things had ceased to matter.
***
The van was restocking the convenience store, or maybe making a pickup. Either way, the driver had left the engine running and stepped away from the vehicle at just the right time for us to make off with it. I was in the driver’s seat. I had a driver’s license thanks to my job; a van this size was no problem for me.
“Hey! C-come back here!”
The driver came running out of the shop after us, but we were already burning rubber.
None of us said a word. None of us met each other’s eyes.
But there was definitely a tension between Tenjiki Yuu and the rest of us.
At last, he addressed it.
“I’m guessing you’ve already worked this out, but I’m not human. I’m man-made. I’m a combat weapon.”
He looked serious.
“Then, Stigma is…”
“That? I was just injuring myself. Making up likely-sounding words.”
We all let out a long breath.
“You were monitoring us?” Kasumi asked.
“You could say that.”
“Then you’ve messed up big time. You’re exposed.”
“The situation left me with no choice.”
“Yeah, but… does that mean we can still see you as a friend? That we can still trust you?”
Kasumi looked Tenjiki dead in the eyes. I watched through the rearview mirror.
“If you can, I’d be very glad if you did,” Tenjiki said, meeting his gaze.
“You told me once,” Nozomi said, softly. “It was all true, Tenjiki-kun…”
“Thanks for not telling the others.”
Before he finished, Nanane was asking the urgent question. “But what are they, Tenjiki-kun? You know what the hell those things attacking us are?”
“Yeah. They’re doped somehow. Former humans altered by chemicals. Nothing but fiends now. Their very brains are altered beyond any cure.”
“Chemicals? The same people that did all that awful stuff to Kit-chan?”
“Likely.”
“These things attacking on their orders?”
Tenjiki shook his head.
“That’s the problem. I assumed as much, but given how ruthless their assault was, it doesn’t fit. They’re clearly out to kill Kit. If someone was giving them orders, they’d never do that. My best guess is that the group that had Kit has been wiped out. Based on the number of doped fiends, however, they’re increasing in number like an epidemic.”
“Huh?”
“Either they were killed by the monsters they made, or there was some accident that left the drugs behind… I’m not sure which, but these doped fiends are clearly out of control. Nobody can stop them now. Their only drive is to find and kill their ‘enemy.’”
“Kit-chan?”
“No, all of us. We’ve all been marked by their instincts.”
“……….”
“The world is in danger,” Tenjiki said. “The fate of the world rests upon our shoulders.”
We all gaped at him.
“That’s the truth.” He turned and glared at the girl. “Kit, if you die now, the world will end.”
“I’ve already examined her body,” Tenjiki explained. “The results were horrifying.
“Kit’s ‘massacre power’ is the result of a bacteria living as a parasite in her body. The bacteria itself is harmless to her, and with a low propagation rate, not a concern as is. Unless she dies, at which point the bacteria will break up, leaving a portion of its DNA behind. While alive, this strand is constantly being broken down by the bacteria, rendering it harmless, but once that process stops, it becomes a deadly virus.
“This is Kit’s power. She has antibodies that keep her safe, but the virus is extremely deadly. The medicine she was given suppressed the bacteria, temporarily activating the virus.
“This much is what her creators planned. She’s a living biological weapon. If they were to take her to an urban center and cause an outbreak, it’d kill everyone in the area. Military invasions or missile launches can be stopped, but no country or city in the world can prevent a single human being from getting in. She was supposed to be the ultimate weapon, against which there was no defense.
“But they had no idea what would happen when Kit kills another human.
“The bacteria within her have mutated. There are changes to the DNA strand. When the virus infects other humans, it’ll begin to evolve… It’ll fuse with human DNA, creating a new lifeform. One adapted to human hosts. By adapting to Kit’s body, it’s becoming a disease perfectly attuned to human beings.
“There’s no telling what’ll happen as it evolves…but most likely, it’ll spread like wildfire, faster than human efforts to contain it. Faster than the plague or smallpox ever did. It could possibly wipe out the entire human race…
“If Kit dies, the bacteria die with her. And the virus alone will remain, spreading across the world.”
None of us could speak.
Kit herself looked terrified, her lips trembling.
Kasumi shook his head, trying to calm himself.
“W-wait, then if Kit ever dies, we’re done for?”
“Not indefinitely,” Tenjiki said.
“You mean…?”
“The danger will continue until Kit matures. If her body changes, the stabilized bacteria will be diminished, and eventually vanish for good. The virus will die along with them.”
“By ‘change’, you mean…? Seriously?” Nozomi asked.
Tenjiki nodded. “Exactly. Puberty. Once she gets her period, the danger is over.”
“You’re sure?”
“My analysis is correct. I’m sure of it. I’m a specialist in this type of biological warfare.”
“B-but that could be years from now…?”
“And yet, that is our only option. As long as the bacteria are within Kit, they’re harmless. She is the most stable container for them. We have no other option but to keep her alive.”
He looked around at each of us.
“The fate of the world depends upon it.”
Everyone fell silent.
“If…” Kit said. “If you burn me, will it burn the poison? If you make me explode, like you did those things?”
Jesus Christ.
“What if the virus resists heat?” Tenjiki said. “There are viruses that can survive inside molten rock, withstanding temperatures in the hundreds of degrees. I don’t want to take a chance on that.”
There was no part of their conversation that didn’t boggle the mind.
Their conversation…
I’d said nothing this whole time. Just listened.
Partly because I was focused on driving, but also because I—Koumoto Kouji—was far more rattled by this than anyone else.
This conversation could decide the future of the world.
That was exactly what my parents had always said, and I had always assumed it was a con.
The key to everything lay in our—no, my hands.
If I were to swerve into incoming traffic and crash, what would happen?
Tenjiki might not die, but we would—and so would Kit.
We would have decided the fate of the world.
Many cults viewed humans as a filthy species that the world would be better off without. According to them, the ‘savior’ was the one with the power to wipe us out.
And I really, actually, had the power to be that savior. With a simple turn of the wheel.
“Heh… hehehe…”
I found myself laughing.
“Heheheheh… bwahahahahaha!”
It started out quiet, but by the end, was downright explosive.
“Bwahahahahahahahaha! Hahaha!”
“K-Kouji!” Nozomi yelped, worried.
I just kept laughing. Thinking about Mitsuo.
He was our real savior. If it hadn’t been for him, the world would already be doomed.
And what had he been trying to say when he died? What had those unfinished last words meant?
C’mon, Mitsuo… you sacrificed yourself to save the world. What were you trying to say?
I was screaming inside.
“Yo, look at that!” Kasumi yelled, pointing. I snapped out it.
I checked my mirrors, and saw what he saw.
The doped fiends—they’d caught up to us. There was a pack of them following.
They had rollerblades on and were zipping along like Olympic speed skaters, chasing after us!
Swinging metal bats around, knocking aside any cars that got in their way, getting closer!
One of them got close enough to hit the van. There was a thud, and I had to fight for control of the vehicle. They were way too strong.
“Wh-what the…? This is all pure instinct?!”
I floored the gas, trying to pull away from them. But they just went faster, keeping up with us easily.
The cars around us panicked at the sight of this assault, and were running up on the sidewalk or crashing into each other.
“Definitely… they don’t care who sees this happening. They’re completely out of control,” Tenjiki said.
“And they’re increasing in number?” Kasumi said.
Tenjiki nodded. “Unlike Kit’s virus, there’s no trigger condition. All it takes is a bite, a little spit in a wound. Like vampires.”
“Then they’re as dangerous as she is!”
“But all we need to do is kill all of them. That condition won’t become airborne. The origin is chemical, not biological. And as the dosage gets thinner, the effect will lessen.”
“Then… no, wait. In that case, we…” Kasumi swallowed, hard. “Left on their own, they’d keep increasing in number… except we’re leading them on, gathering them all in the same place.”
We all gasped. He was right.
“Then you mean… this is the best chance to kill them?” I said, my voice shaking. “Tenjiki… can we do it?”
Tenjiki met my eyes in the rearview mirror.
He looked at Kasumi, Nanane, and Nozomi in turn.
The girls nodded.
For a long moment, he was silent. Then he smiled.
“I’m really glad I met all of you.”
Our hearts were as one.
I switched on the GPS. I’d kept it off because the company in charge would be able to locate the stolen vehicle if it was on, but there was no point in worrying about that now. I pressed a few buttons, enlarging the area shown.
“If we’re gonna lead them somewhere… where’s it gonna be? Somewhere with minimal population, cut off from the surrounding zones…”
I started looking, but Nanane said, “Oh!” loudly. “There! You know, where we went tracking the smell of blood!”
This clearly made sense to everyone.
She meant the planned development site of a high-rise commercial district—the first place our predictions led us after we met.
They’d started with the foundations, so there was a maze of pipelines running under them. It had all been ready to be turned into underground shopping spaces and fitted with fiber optic cables.
But the development had gotten bogged down, and the project was currently abandoned.
“That underground beehive is a good place to unleash my power without anyone seeing,” Tenjiki said, nodding.
I pressed a few buttons, searching for the fastest route to the coastal area where we could find the site.
The drugged-up fiends were still hot on our heels.
“Arghh!”
I spun the wheel and swung the van onto a side street.
***
The police were flooded with reports of the chaos. But by the time the patrol cars rolled up, we’d already passed through, and all they found were victims wailing, “Officer, what were those things?!” At this stage, nobody knew that thirteen people had died in a massacre at the weekly apartment building. The police had found the body of the one-eyed foreigner in the garbage that morning, but no one thought to tie it to this incident. They shouted all kinds of things at each other, but they had nothing to go on beyond rumors started by rubberneckers. Nobody knew the truth, but whether they knew it or not, the world was hurtling towards its doom.
***
Smashing through the barricade of plywood and nails, our van entered the underground dungeon of the abandoned construction site.
It wasn’t sealed off completely, so there were pools of faint light inside. Not enough to turn the van’s headlights off, though.
Our pursuers came running straight over the splintered remains of the barricade, without even slowing down. They just jumped right over it. It was hard to believe how light they were on their feet. Was that just pure instinct?
“What now? Farther in?” I asked Tenjiki.
“Find somewhere as narrow as possible… We don’t want to get boxed in. We need a place where they can only attack from one direction.”
“Got it!”
I turned, taking the van into a narrow passage.
This passage was still too wide. I looked for another road.
But then…
The runners behind us shifted into a weird formation. Three running shoulder to shoulder, the two outside lifting up the one in the middle.
“Huh? What are they…”
But we didn’t have time to think. Their next move was blood-curdling.
They took the one they’d lifted up…and threw him at us.
Under us.
Our wheels rolled over him, bouncing us. I could feel the squish through the steering wheel.
But worse—there was no way I could keep the speed up.
“Wh-what the—?!”
They were using each other, like they were just spare parts. There was nothing we could do. The wheels were coated in gore, and we were sliding.
“Everyone hold on!”
The van spun like a top, and went hurtling through an area sealed off with yellow warning rails. There was nothing beyond it; just a sheer drop to a cavern.
We fell.
The bottom of the cavern was about ten meters deep. The suspension sure couldn’t handle it. The whole lower end of the van was smashed in, but it had cushioned the impact for us. We took the hit hard, but remained mobile afterward.
We scrambled out of the crashed van and ran deeper in.
***
Instinctively pursuing their targets, they tried jumping down after them.
But the first to jump was still wearing roller blades, and when he landed his ankles bent, and he fell over. No mere sprain; he’d broken both his ankles.
The others took notice of this, knew the roller blades would harm them here, and stripped them off. They began to jump…onto the one with broken ankles.
His flesh cushioned their fall, making the drop safe for the rest. By the time they’d all landed, he was nothing but a blood bag, but none of them cared.
They continued their chase on foot.
***
“Th-they’re here!” Kasumi roared.
We were running as fast as we could. But there was no way we could outrun them, not with them ignoring every natural limit of the human body. It was only a matter of time before they caught up.
We came out in a weird place.
To the side of the path was a set of pipes, headed diagonally downwards, like a centipede’s legs.
“A-are those narrow enough?”
“Any of them go far enough?”
We peered at the pipes, trying to see.
Tenjiki moved to intercept our hunters, alone.
“Down here!” Kasumi said.
With Kit in his arms, he began sliding down one of the pipes. Nanane followed after.
“Nozomi!” I yelled.
She was lagging behind. Unsteady on her feet. I ran over to her, and grabbed her hand.
“Come on!”
“I… I can’t…”
There was an explosion behind us. One of them had reached Tenjiki.
We jumped, and looked, just as he shouted, “Shit! One got past!”
He was right in front of us already.
He swung a knife, hurtling towards us.
It was too late. He was going right for Nozomi.
I tackled her, knocking her out of the way, but the three of us got tangled together. We tumbled down the pipes.
***
“K-Koumoto-kun!” Tenjiki Yuu screamed. But Nozomi, Koumoto and the fiend were already out of sight.
Enemy after enemy was piling in. He had a powerful combat ability, but the enemy had strength in numbers, and completely lacked fear.
Several of them got past and jumped down the pipes after the others. They were hell-bent on eliminating their prey.
“Argh!” He had to give up. There was no way for him to save them. “Rrraghhhhh!”
He bit his lip so hard it split and began bleeding.
As they pushed him back, he knew he had to end this fight here. He had to keep as many as possible from the pipes Kasumi, Nanane, and Kit had taken.
A knife came flying at him, and he knocked it out of the air, shouting at the wave of monsters, “Come at me, then!”
***
At the end of the slide was a dark space, with standing water.
The monster that knocked us into the pipe had broken his neck somewhere along the slide. He tumbled down next to us, motionless.
“U-unh…”
Nozomi shook her head, getting to her feet. Whew. She was unharmed.
“K-Kouji—are you okay?!”
She turned to face me. I couldn’t do anything, so I stayed put.
Nozomi let out a high-pitched shriek that sounded like her world was ending.
She’d seen it.
There was a knife buried deep in my chest. The tip had pierced all the way through my back.
“Kouji—oh my god, Kouji!”
She grabbed hold of me. I couldn’t move at all. The knife had pierced my solar plexus. My entire body felt numb. I didn’t even feel much pain.
But my whole body felt like it was being squeezed, like I was a rag and someone was wringing the water out of me. I couldn’t bear it.
“Kouji, Kouji!”
Sobbing, Nozomi shook me.
No use.
Nozomi, you can’t stay here.
You have to run. You can’t save me now. You have to get away…
I tried to tell her. But no words would leave my mouth.
The world was getting blurry. Nozomi’s crying face was fading like a mirage…
……….?
But then I saw a figure standing next to Nozomi. For some reason, I was able to clearly see that figure alone.
Oh…
I nodded. This made sense.
“Yo, Koumoto,” he said.
It was Kazumiya Mitsuo.
Oh, good… Mitsuo, I wanted to see you again.
I spoke to him in my heart. I asked what I’d wanted to ask.
Mitsuo, what was it you were trying to say? The last thing you said?
Mitsuo answered.
“Oh, nothing important. Just… at last, I knew what my job here was.”
He smiled.
Your job?
“What I was put here to do. My destiny, I guess? I mean, like Nanane always said, my power is pretty vague.”
It certainly was.
In my heart, I smiled back.
“And in that moment, I knew why.” Mitsuo nodded. “I was always feeble. Big body, weak will. If I’d predicted that with any degree of clarity…I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did. I’d never have been able to push Kasumi, Nanane, and that Kit kid out of the way and stand in their place. I’d have freaked out, and… so that’s why I was never clear on any of it.”
He sounded clear on this.
“I was a sad, half-baked man, but my ‘talent’? That was the real deal. I’m glad it worked out like it did. There was a reason for me being born.”
That same smile we’d all said made him look so dumb now felt so strong.
I see. Yeah. You were great. You saved the world. But I…
Everything felt indistinct, nothing felt clear, but I could feel vibrations coming toward us from above. They were almost on us.
But Nozomi was still with me, crying and trying to pull my body along.
I…
I was dying.
I didn’t think anything of that. I was already 90% dead and long past being scared about it.
But I didn’t think I could bear it if Nozomi died, too.
My life had been mostly meaningless. I’d grown up being told I’d save the world, but I couldn’t even do that. I’d relied on my friends to the very end. My ‘talent’ had been of no use at all.
I wasn’t breathing anymore. My heart must have stopped. I had only seconds of consciousness left.
But I still had something left to do. Something I had to do. Something I had to tell Nozomi.
I had to tell her to leave me, to run.
I had…
I had to, somehow.