8 Mikage Kasumi - Into Eyes

8
Mikage Kasumi - Into Eyes

 

The unearthly scream echoed through the passage, all the way to where Nanane and I were.

“What the—?!” Nanane said, scared. She looked at me.

I stuck my face in the pipe we’d slid down, and yelled up. No one else had come after us.

“Hey! What’s going on?”

I heard an explosion in the distance, then Yuu’s voice.

“Run, Kasumi-kun!”

“What? Come on! What happened to Koumoto and Tsuji?!”

“Forget them. You have to sur—”

His voice cut off, drowned out by a series of explosions and thuds.

“Hey! Talk to me!” I yelled.

Nanane grabbed my arm.

“Stop, Kasumi-kun. Do as he says.”

There were tears in her eyes.

Kit was looking up at us, anxious.

“Damn it!”

I punched the side of the pipe, then picked up Kit and ran. Nanane came after us. She quickly passed me, scouting the path ahead.

But—were Koumoto and Tsuji really dead? I’d seen Mitsuo with my own eyes, but even that still didn’t feel real.

Fuck. What was going on? Why was it me still running, not those three?

Why was I always the one left behind?

“Shit shit shit shit shit…!”

Before I knew it, I was swearing with each breath I took.

“Sorry,” Kit said, shaking in my arms. “If I… I…”

“Shut up!” I said. “If you start talking like that, how would they feel? You don’t have to think about a damn thing but staying alive, okay?”

My voice was really loud.

Kit flinched. She felt so small.

“Kasumi-kun, this way…!”

Nanane had found a split in the road and was pointing in one direction.

There was a noise behind us; something landing at the base of the pipe.

They’d made it through Yuu’s defensive line and were right on our heels again.

“Nanane! Take her!” I said, handing Kit over. Nanane staggered; Kit was too heavy. Kit wriggled out of her arms onto the ground.

“Wh-what are you…?”

“The rest is in your hands,” I said, and pulled out the gun I’d been hiding in my uniform.

It was fully loaded.

I’d already figured out where the safety was. I took it off.

“K-Kasumi-kun! No, we can’t fight them!”

“Course not! That’s why I’m holding them off! You get Kit the hell out of here!”

“I don’t want that!” Nanane shrieked. “I’m not leaving without you!”

I ignored her, and looked at Kit.

“Can you run?” I said.

Kit didn’t answer.

“Tell me you can get away from them.”

“I don’t know. But I’ll try.”

She was shaking like a leaf.

Okay. I nodded.

“Kasumi-kun! If you’re staying then I… I’ve got no reason to live…” Nanane was sobbing.

“There’s your reason,” I said, looking at her tears. The idea coming to me as I spoke.

“Huh…?”

“You’re able to cry. At the café, you cried for my dead friend. I’ve never cried for him, not once. So…” I laughed, softly. “That’s why. Your life has more meaning than mine ever will.”

Nanane blinked at me.

Yeah. None of us ever really cared about the future. Making predictions, using our abilities to the fullest… all that crap was just an excuse.

The truth was that we all just really liked each other. We all valued the others more than we did ourselves, and that’s why the six of us were always together. That’s why finding out what Yuu really was didn’t matter, that’s why it didn’t matter that Tsuji didn’t have any powers—I’d noticed, at least. Our powers and talents never mattered in the first place.

I could hear their footsteps getting closer.

Nanane wasn’t moving, so I took her hand and Kit’s, and started running. They came with me. I let go of their hands and ran with them a bit.

And when I had to, I turned around.

They were right on our heels. Moving much faster than us. If I’d just kept running, they’d have caught us.

I fired the gun.

They just ran straight at me, so I hit the first one straight in the chest, and he flipped over. I guess their ‘instincts’ didn’t tell them anything about guns.

“Kasumi-kun!”

“Protect Kit! Go!” I yelled.

Nanane was moving too fast to stop. Just as I’d hoped, she kept running.

I went to fire a second time at the next fiend.

And I realized…

My hands were shaking.

I’d been fine the first time I fired, but when I went to fire again my hands were all over the place.

Belatedly, I was realizing just what it meant to shoot someone.

It was scary, like a storm raging through my heart.

“Argh…!”

But the enemies were getting closer.

I clenched my jaw, trying to stop my teeth from chattering, and fired a second time. I wasn’t exactly aiming properly, but the enemy was too close to miss, and I hit him in the hip. He went down.

“Arghhhhh…!”

I couldn’t stop it.

They continued to come straight at me.

I fired.

They went down.

Another came. I fired again.

I had six bullets, and I took six of them down. More were coming, but I’d spent a lot of time practicing reloading and it was a reflex by now.

Teeth chattering, I kept on shooting. I had a mountain of corpses in front of me.

I could hear someone breathing heavily in the distance. I listened closer, and realized it was my own breath.

“Rraghhh…!”

A groan escaped my lips. I don’t know why.

I turned, staggering, and ran after Nanane and Kit.

In time, I saw her ahead of me. I tried to catch up to them. Then a thought struck me.

I didn’t feel like I deserved to be with them anymore. I’d killed people.

I was a murderer.

“Ergh…!”

I staggered, and stopped.

The two girls ran off into the distance.

And I just stood there…

 

All of a sudden, the wall between me and the girls was smashed in. The passage was a pipe and someone had kicked the side of it in.

“—!”

I snapped out of it and pointed my gun at the hole in the wall.

I didn’t know if I could bring myself to fire it again. If that happened, I’d definitely be…

The girls turned to look.

I tried to tell them to keep running. But before I could, a shadow came through the hole, turning towards them.

Like I’d feared, my arms were shaking so hard I couldn’t aim. The bullet went wild.

No use…

I knew I didn’t have time to try again.

But something unexpected happened.

“Wait! Don’t shoot!” the shadow said. A girl’s voice.

The monsters running after us hadn’t said a word.

“I’m on your side! I’m human! Don’t shoot!”

She held both hands up, standing where I could see her. She was wearing a leather jumpsuit, but she was definitely female. But she was…

Behind her, Kit called out happily. She ran toward her.

“You’re alive! Thank goodness!” she said, and threw her arms around the woman.

The woman hugged her back.

“You were worried about me? Thanks,” she said.

“How’d you get away?”

“A friend came to save me. Threw me a weapon. If he hadn’t, it would have been bad.”

She patted Kit on the head.

I… I knew her.

“K… Kirima Nagi?”

That was her name. Kirima looked at me.

“Fancy meeting you here, Mikage. Haven’t seen you since elementary school.”

Even then, she’d talked like a boy.

“How are you here…?”

“We hacked the control system for the GPS on the car you stole. And the gunshots. Only humans fire guns.”

I gaped at her. Nanane came running up after Kit.

“Wh-what’s going on? Who are you? Kit-chan, you know her?”

Kit nodded.

Kirima bowed her head once.

 

***

 

Silence settled over the darkness again.

Remnants of the fight drifted in the air, the dust of the dead caught by a few stray rays of light. Nothing in the darkness moved. Tenjiki Yuu—the synthetic human Eugene—sat perfectly still. His right shoulder was twisted badly and his arm hung limp. His left leg, too, was badly broken at the thigh. Half his right side was torn off, and smoke rose where he’d cauterized the wound.

Eugene was staring aimlessly.

There were corpses all around him--the remains of those he’d blown away covered the ground, like scattered leaflets. There was a smile on Eugene’s lips.

The enemies that got by him had been shot down by his friends. He could tell by the gunshots and footsteps. He’d done what he had to do.

“Man, that was rough,” he whispered. He wasn’t confident his body would be able to repair this much damage. There was a strong chance he’d blown past his regenerative limits. If he had, then he’d fade out here.

“Right, everyone? This one was real hard.”

He spoke like his friends were right there with him.

He looked down.

There was one question still on Eugene’s mind.

What are we doing?

He felt like the price had been far too great. They’d thrown themselves into something they had no business being involved in, children goofing around until they’d crossed a line. Maybe that was true.

But the responsibility they’d been given was too great. They’d had to face a threat to the world itself—and that was just too much.

Or was it the other way around? Instead of this all coming our way…

As he thought, Eugene could feel his consciousness fading. His body was preparing to go into hibernation, conserving resources as much as possible. Once asleep, there was no telling if he’d ever wake up again.

Was it always going to turn out like this?

Had they gathered together to face this threat, and done their duty?

Had destiny—or whatever holds the world itself in balance—controlled them, and therefore…

…when the time came, flipped the switch?

He looked at the bodies around him.

A frown crossed his face.

Anyone he attacked would undergo a chemical explosion, so the remains would be burned. But the body he was looking at had been cut to pieces, a clean cut like a butcher’s knife.

“What the…?”

He looked around, and saw a number of bodies in the same condition.

Only then did Eugene notice.

Slowly—not just because he was weakened, but also out of fear—he raised his head. A figure was standing in the shadows nearby. It did not look human. More like a pipe rising up out of the darkness, half-melted into its surroundings.

Staring silently at him.

“Oh… I see, Mikage-kun. This is where we meet,” Eugene sighed.

The shadow moved closer to him. Eugene didn’t move. He couldn’t move, and didn’t feel like running. “You helped? Or was I the one helping with your job?” he asked. Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now.” He stared blearily up at the shinigami before him. The figure reflected in his eyes.

On its face was a strange, asymmetrical expression: half smile, half playing dumb.

It pulled something out of its cloak and held it out to him.

“You forgot this,” it said, softly.

Eugene managed to raise his left hand and take it.

His eyes went wide.

It was the sketchbook—Tsuji Nozomi must have dropped it as she fled.

He flipped it open.

It was filled with her drawings.

He turned the pages until he found the drawing she’d done of him.

Tenjiki Yuu, half-undressed, far more beautiful and angelic-looking than he ever really was.

“I thought you should have it,” the shinigami said. But Eugene could no longer hear its voice.

He was laughing.

The laugh just bubbled out of him, and he was helpless to stop it. He was so weak the laugh barely made a sound. A silent laugh.

His body shaking, his wounds throbbing, still he laughed.

Along the way, the shadowy figure vanished, but he never noticed. He just stared down at the drawing, laughing.

 

***

 

“No sounds anywhere. I think it’s over.”

Kirima Nagi had a small mic with a sucker on the end, attached to a small machine like a Walkman. She pulled the earphone out and turned back to us, nodding.

“We’re the only things moving in this underground dungeon.”

“Oh,” I said.

It was over.

That’s what she meant.

But my hands could still feel everyone I’d killed.

I was scared to go near Nanane or Kit, as if my corruption would spread to them.

“Mikage,” Kirima said, stepping close. “You did what you had to do. That’s all. Those were not humans. If you think about it, you saved them from doing something no human should ever do. Got it?”

She was blunt, but there was a warmth behind it.

“Yeah, maybe,” I said, nodding. But I knew I’d never forget how this felt.

“What now?” Nanane said, her hands on Kit’s shoulders. “How can we keep Kit-chan safe?”

“My Sensei’s well-traveled. He knows people all over. If we ask him, he should be able to keep her hidden for years, no problem.”

Kirima looked at Kit.

“That okay with you?”

Kit nodded. “Mm.”

“Good… that’s a relief,” Nanane said. Like a weight off her shoulders.

“Let’s get moving,” Kirima said. She hoisted Kit up on her shoulders.

“Wait, first… the others, they’re…”

If they were dead, we had to get their bodies, at least.

“They’re alive,” Kirima said, curtly. Nanane and I both gaped at her. “They’re alive, and escaped safely. Don’t think otherwise. Trust me.” She didn’t wait for an answer, or even glance in our direction.

Neither of us argued. We just started walking, following her. Our feet dragged. We were both exhausted. Far, far too much had happened.

“Hey, Kasumi-kun. You remember?” Nanane said.

“Mm?”

“We’ve been here before,” she said, half-crying. I knew all too well how she felt.

“Yeah,” I said.

“The six of us… we weren’t trying to do anything, weren’t trying to find anything, not really. We never needed anything. We were happy the way we were, and didn’t need anything else at all…”

Her voice came in and out, but the words kept flooding out of her.

“Yeah,” I said, unable to do more than nod.

“We had everything we could ever want. We had so much fun.”

And then, Kirima said, “Pandora.”

I didn’t know what she meant, but when I looked up at her she just shook her head.

“Never mind,” she said.

Nanane kept talking. “It really was true. Back then, back with the smell of blood, we just…”