15

As part of what the city of Imihama called development aid, a few members of the Vigilante Corps were selected each year to go and complete a three-to-five-year deployment at Shimobuki Garrison. Of course, Shimobuki had no say in the matter, and as for the vigilantes, being exiled to the land of perpetual frost was one of the worst punishments imaginable.

There wasn’t much to it. Two shoddily built, concrete barracks that could fit about twenty men each, an armory, a food storehouse, and in the center of it all, a slightly taller building that served as the main office, flanked by a pair of barely functional antiaircraft guns.

In one room of the office building, lit by the orange glow of a bonecoal furnace, two men were sitting at a table scattered with cards of some kind.

“All right. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll attack your life points directly with Hellfire Hammer. Heh. Well? How will you block?”

“I’m afraid I lose.”

“Hey now, that can’t be right! Let me see those… Look, you have a Brass Shield in your hand! You can block with that, then on your next turn, use Verdant Tree Sprout…”

“I’m afraid I lose.”

“Forget it; you’re not listening to me.”

Kurokawa threw his cards down on the table before kicking his opponent to the ground. There was something very strange about the bodyguard’s appearance. Countless long, thin mushrooms grew out of his eyes, ears, and the top of his head. In other words, the man was quite dead, and any words out of his mouth were merely put there by the Governor.

“I can’t stand this guy anymore. What’s the world coming to if you can’t find time to have a little fun? …Hey, is there anyone else who wants to play a game with me? Anything but Jenga. I’m terrible at that.”

Then, as the furnace’s flames flickered, Kurokawa’s eyes were drawn to a silhouette standing in the doorway, and his face lit up.

“There you are; I’ve been waiting for you! Do you know how to play Calamity Jade? Don’t worry, I’ve got two decks, so you can use one of—”

“Where are you hiding Pawoo?!”

Sky-blue hair and a black mark on the left side of his face. Milo’s beautiful blue eyes burned with vengeful flames, and he pointed his fully drawn bow unwaveringly at Kurokawa’s head.

…Hmm.

Kurokawa examined Milo’s face, trying to work out if he really was the same boy doctor he once knew. Then his lips twisted into a grin.

“That hooligan’s taken quite a liking to you, Nekoyanagi. And you certainly look the part.”

“You’ll regret underestimating me…!”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on. Don’t do anything hasty. I appreciate that you’re concerned, but this is hardly fair. Show me what I asked you to bring first, then I’ll release your sister. That’s how these things usually go, isn’t it?”

Milo glared back without lowering his bow, before replying.

“…If you want me to show you the secret of the Rust-Eater, you’ll have to bring me some.”

“Of course, my dear doctor. At once. You, there. Bring the goods.”

At his word, a man in a suit brought over a handful of Rust-Eater mushrooms. Their surfaces were dull, their true power hidden. Keeping one eye on the bodyguards surrounding him, Milo approached the mushrooms and pulled from his pocket a test tube filled with white spores, to which he added a few drops of red liquid.

“…By itself,” he said, “the Rust-Eater is in a dormant state. It needs to be mixed with another substance to unlock its true potential.”

“I see. Brilliant work, Doctor. And the liquid in that vial is…?”

Milo didn’t answer. A few seconds passed, then suddenly from the test tube in Milo’s hands came a strong smell of burning flesh.

“…?! He’s using a mushroom technique! Kill him!”

A white smoke poured out of the test tube and filled the room. Milo leaped up just as the bodyguards dived in to grab him and downed them all with a few shots from his bow.

“Just when did you learn the ways of the Mushroom Keepers, good doctor?”

“I told you not to underestimate me, Kurokawa…! You’re going to die here!”

Milo’s technique had filled the air with numbshroom spores, which had then sprouted. Milo himself had created something of an antidote and taken it ahead of time. It was his ultimate technique as both a doctor and a Mushroom Keeper.

Not long after the men in black inhaled the smoke, white mushrooms started growing out of their ears and nostrils, and they fell to the ground, convulsing. The few who managed to resist the poison didn’t last much longer, as Milo swung his bow and knocked them all to the floor, where they lay, unmoving.

“After all I’ve done for you,” roared Kurokawa. “This is how you repay me?!”

“Oh, I’m repaying you, all right. For Pawoo, for Plum, and for Bisco, too!”

Kurokawa unsteadily raised his pistol, but the numbshroom-soaked blade of Milo’s dagger knocked it clean out of his hands. The return swing sliced right through Kurokawa’s suit, causing him to howl in pain and splattering the pale skin of Milo’s face with fresh blood. As two suits ran up from behind to protect Kurokawa, Milo spun around and cut them down. Then, seeing that that was the last of them, he talked over his shoulder with ragged breaths.

“The numbshroom poison will soon reach your heart. I’m the only one who can save you. If you don’t let Pawoo and Jabi go—”

Suddenly, Milo felt a sharp pain in his chest and looked down to see something hard piercing his back and sticking out of his right lung.

…?

Something warm rose into his throat, filling his mouth. Milo dropped to his knees, and a gush of crimson burst through his lips and splattered onto the floor.

An…arrow…?

Milo’s thoughts were ravaged by pain as he stared at the arrowhead protruding from his chest. Every time he coughed, more blood spilled from his mouth, staining the ground red.

“You’re not the first person to think of mixing numbshrooms with boomshrooms like that, but no one’s ever actually done it before. Because not even a gas mask can protect you from the adverse effects.”

“Kah… Hah…”

“So you made yourself a vaccine? Very impressive, Nekoyanagi. Thank goodness I did the same thing…all those years ago. Otherwise, I shudder to think what would have happened. I might have been killed not by Akaboshi, but you…”

Kurokawa wheeled around in front of Milo, keeping his distance. Milo took out a syringe filled with a purple liquid and jabbed it into his own neck, causing him to writhe on the ground as his wounds began closing.

“…Why…do you…know how…to use mushrooms…?!”

Milo summoned all his strength to spit out the words. Looking up, he saw that in Kurokawa’s hands was a jet-black bow. The governor fished through his quiver for another arrow and nocked it on the string before aiming at Milo.

“Why? Isn’t it obvious?”

Kurokawa narrowed his pitch-black eyes as he grinned.

“Because I was once a Mushroom Keeper, too.”

As he loosed his arrow, Milo deflected it with his knife, then leaped up into the air. Spinning around like a whirlwind, his knife shot toward Kurokawa…

…and stopped, as if frozen, a hair’s breadth from his throat. As sweat and blood dripped down Milo’s chin, he tried with all his might to move his hand the final bit of the way, but it was no use.

…Some sort…of poison…!

“There’s a mushroom called the puppetshroom,” said Kurokawa matter-of-factly, his stone-cold eyes meeting Milo’s rage-filled glare. “I’m sure you can guess how it earned its name. The fungus takes root in your muscles, and when the microchip in my brain transmits a signal, it responds accordingly, moving your arms and legs…just like a toy.”

Kurokawa calmly produced some sort of device and started playing with it. As he did, Milo slowly lowered his hand, before turning the point of the blade toward his own throat. As the tip pressed into his skin, a small line of blood dribbled down.

“Urgh… Argh…!”

“Pretty impressive, wouldn’t you say? Nobody else seems to think so… This is what I used to control all those men of mine lying at your feet, but the Mushroom Keepers never acknowledged it. They called it heresy.”

Kurokawa waved the device in Milo’s direction and started pacing around the room like he was thinking about something. For a while, the only sounds in the room were the bonecoal furnace and Milo’s short, ragged breaths.

“…Nekoyanagi.” Suddenly, Kurokawa took Milo by the chin and stared into his eyes. “I respect you; I really do. So I’m going to be frank. To be completely honest with you, I couldn’t care less about the Rust-Eater’s power. I just want to make sure I have it all to myself… Do you know what the central government is counting on to balance its books?”

“…Grr.”

“Exactly. The Rust medicine. As long as that exists, then people have a reason to go on. The world keeps turning, and the money keeps flowing. Now, imagine if you were to bring those wretched people their salvation… Then my cushy lifestyle would be in jeopardy, you see?”

“You…monster…!”

“Ah, good to see you’ve still got some life in you. Otherwise, things would get very boring.” Kurokawa chuckled as he watched Milo fight back the pain and focus his anger. “Once I have the true Rust-Eater, I won’t just be another useful pawn to them. It’ll give Imihama the bargaining chip I need to negotiate on even terms with the government… Oh, listen to me going on and on about work. I can’t imagine you’re the slightest bit interested, are you? Tell you what. I’ll forget about Akaboshi for the time being. Just tell me how to awaken the Rust-Eater.”

“You’re going to make sure there’s none left…!”

“Just answer the question, Nekoyanagi, or I’ll feed you to the pigs!”

Milo gritted his teeth, suppressed his trembling, and focused all his hate on Kurokawa. Though his face was turning pale, he still looked resolute, like he was ready to throw his life away at any moment.

That pushed Kurokawa over the edge.

“That’s the same face your sister made…!” Kurokawa’s expression twisted into a bitter scowl. He took his bow and aimed it squarely at Milo’s head. “Maybe I’ll just have you become another puppet. Perhaps you’ll still be able to talk after the fungus reaches your brain.”

Milo stared at the arrow, his lips pursed. There was nothing he regretted about his life so far, save one thing. He wished he could have seen his friend off in a better way than he did.

Bisco…

Milo closed his eyes, remembering the form of his friend.

Then, crash! The wall of the room was ripped open. Kurokawa’s arrow snapped in two, and a heavy arrow embedded itself in the bonecoal furnace. Through the hole torn into the concrete wall, a cold wind began to enter from outside. Both Milo and Kurokawa knew this could be the work of only one man.

“Before you fire one more arrow…” A scarlet-haired individual stepped over the rubble, his cloak billowing in the wind. “…I’ll turn you into a human pincushion. Hand Milo over to me, and maybe having all your teeth knocked out is the worst you’ll get.”

“Bisco… Ngh!”

“Why, if it isn’t our old friend Tuxedo Mask!”

Kurokawa stood interposed between Milo and Bisco, with a look of utter delight, excitement, and fear in equal measure, the likes of which Milo had never seen.

“You’re looking rather pale today, Akaboshi. The poison must be getting bad. I can tell from here.”

“So what? You think a wounded shark can’t swallow a sardine in one bite?”

Wholly unconcerned, Bisco cracked his neck. It was true that his face was a little pale, but the unfading jade-green glint in his eyes made it very hard to believe he had so much poison eating away at his body.

But…! Kurokawa’s eyes turned up in excitement. “As you are now, I may be able to defeat you, the Mushroom Keepers’ brightest star, face-to-face…!”

“What’s up with those bags under your eyes? You losin’ sleep over me, old man?” Bisco gave an indomitable smile. “Doesn’t bother me, I guess. Hate me all you like. But I’ll have forgotten about you by tomorrow.”

“Grr…!” growled Kurokawa. Bisco didn’t crack, even seeing his partner held hostage. Kurokawa thought he could gain the upper hand, but now that his gambit had failed, he was starting to feel the fear get to him.

As sweat dripped down his face, he unleashed the words he had been holding on to in anticipation of this very moment. “What if I told you,” he said, “that I’m the reason the Mushroom Keepers have been so reviled for the last ten years? I’m the reason all of Japan thinks mushrooms cause the Rust. I sold out the Mushroom Keepers to the government. I’m the one trampling all over you just so I can have something nice to eat! Would you be more interested in getting to know me then, Akaboshi?!”

Milo could do nothing but watch the exchange. He felt an icy grip on his heart. He turned to Bisco. His face was completely unchanged. After a short pause, he sniffed as the cold wind blew through the open wall, then replied in a somewhat nasally voice:

“Huh. Thanks for telling me that.” He inclined his head and shot Kurokawa a smirk, baring his gleaming canines. “Guess my revenge just kinda fell into my lap.”

“…I’ll mount your head on my wall, Akaboshiii!”

Before Bisco even finished talking, Kurokawa aimed his bow at him, but Bisco’s bow was faster. His arrow tore a vacuum through the air like a drill, ripping Kurokawa’s left arm clean off and breaking through the far wall.

“Grh… Ahhh! Graaagh!”

“Does that make you feel better, Kurokawa? Still think you can beat me, huh?! Well?!”

“Bisco, get out of the way!”

A sharp pain suddenly shot through Bisco’s leg. He had leaped back at Milo’s warning, but it was as if the arrow predicted his movement.

“Ah… Wah… Waaaaaaahhh!”

Milo screamed as if all the world’s horrors had descended upon him. For it was none other than his own arrow that was embedded in Bisco’s thigh.

The puppetshroom…!

Bisco wasn’t ordinarily one to quail at a single arrow, and he hurried to correct his posture, but a strange feeling in his right leg caused it to buckle, and he fell to one knee. That was when a second arrow landed with a thud in Bisco’s other thigh.

Milo’s strangled scream filled the room. Behind him, Kurokawa unsteadily rose to his feet, using Milo as a human shield.

“How utterly, ridiculously strong you are, Akaboshi,” he said, gasping for breath, gripping his armless stump. “I got lucky this time… If that hadn’t been a prosthetic arm, I’d be dead right now.”

“What did you hit me with, asshole…?!”

“Come now, Akaboshi. You must be familiar with it by now,” said Kurokawa, positioning himself carefully behind Milo’s body. “It’s a Rust arrow. An arrow made using concentrated essence from the Rust Wind. They’re about as expensive as bullets but worth every penny. Besides, I have a feeling my puppetshrooms aren’t going to be quite as effective on you.”

The Rust was already spreading across Bisco’s thighs and knees, turning clothes and skin alike into cold, unfeeling metal. Bisco could no longer even stand, and with Milo in the way, he couldn’t fire at Kurokawa, either.

“Oooh… Look at your eyes, so scary. Who knows what you’ll try next? Perhaps we should finish him off now, Milo. Hmm… Let’s aim for his stomach next.”

“Waaaah! Stop! Stop; don’t make me do it! Nooo! I’m begging you! Don’t make me shoot him…!”

Kurokawa fiddled with his device, and Milo drew his bow, displaying the beautiful form that Bisco had taught him. The tip of his arrow was coated in pitch-black rust that wriggled and gave off a foul stench.

“Now, now, Nekoyanagi. Don’t throw a tantrum. Is that how you ask for a favor? What do we say?”

“P-please don’t make me shoot him, Mr. Kurokawa…!”

“Say ‘Pwetty pwease, Master, don’t make me do it!’”

“Hrgh…! Hkh…! P…pwet—”

“Time’s up.”

Pchew! Milo’s bowstring snapped, and the arrow lodged itself in Bisco’s belly, where the Rust was already the most serious. Bisco choked on his blood, splattering it even as far as Milo’s face, where it mixed with his tears.

“W…weeh…! Weeeh…!”

“Something the matter? Trying to bite off your own tongue? I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. How could you think about killing yourself now, Nekoyanagi? Look at Akaboshi; he’s fighting so hard to stay alive.”

“Please… Don’t kill him. You can do whatever you want to me. Mash me up and feed me to the pigs; I don’t care. Just don’t kill Bisco…please…!”

“If that’s what you want, then you know what you have to do, Nekoyanagi. Tell me the secret of the Rust-Eater.”

“Milo…! Don’t tell him!”

“Tell me, Nekoyanagi! Or it’ll be his head next!”

Milo’s arms pulled his bowstring taut. Fresh tears dribbled down his stained cheeks.

“…The blood…of a Mushroom Keeper.”

“Milo!”

“Mix the blood of a genuine Mushroom Keeper…with the Rust-Eater…using the Garcube method… Then…the Rust-Eater will awaken to its true potential… The power to disintegrate the Rust entirely…”

“Well done.”

When Milo saw Bisco hang his head and bite his lip, he cried once more. This time, they were tears of shame. Milo had shed more tears in these last few minutes than his kind, gentle heart could bear over a lifetime.

“Now then, Nekoyanagi…”

Kurokawa stepped to Milo’s side, examining his expression, and spoke with a slightly embarrassed tone.

“You know what happens now, don’t you? I mean, I can’t just let you two live, can I? I’d have to be mad to let loose such dangerous individuals.”

“Hrh… Hkh…!”

“I’m glad you understand. As my gift to you, Nekoyanagi, I’ll let you put Akaboshi out of his misery. Have him killed by his partner’s very hand. What a beautiful, tragic scene, like something out of a movie. Now, draw your bow…”

Milo looked at Bisco with cloudy eyes. Then, his bow creaked as he drew back the black arrow.

His eyes. His eyes were unwavering even as his body was ravaged by the Rust. They still had that same emerald glimmer. Even as Milo’s heart was engulfed by despair, those eyes shone with life, warming him.

Milo, they said. Shoot me.

And then a thought flashed into Milo’s mind like an electric shock. At the moment when he was all but overcome with despair, the slightest spark of life appeared within him and gave Kurokawa pause.

“Wait… Stop right—”

But Milo released his arrow. Pchew! It flew toward the crown of Bisco’s head. And then, at the last second, Bisco reacted, perfectly in time with his partner’s actions. Gripping the arrowhead between his teeth, he twisted around, preserving its momentum, and hurled it back like a boomerang toward Kurokawa. The black rust-covered arrow struck him in the right eye, and his entire temple was blown out.

“!!?? Graargh! Aaargh! Aaaaaagh!”

Kurokawa pressed his hand to his eye to hold back the torrent of blood, but even now he would not let go of the device in his hand. An indignant roar worked its way out of his throat as he jabbed his thumb into the button, and Milo dropped his bow. He brought his knife toward his own neck, the point pressing into the skin, ready to tear it open.

“Milo!”

At that moment, a streak of blinding light punched clean through the device in Kurokawa’s hand. As he turned to flee, three more flashes of light pinned him to the ground by his suit. Then the pure-white arrows burst into beautiful mushrooms, filling Kurokawa’s vision.

“Those arrows…!”

“Get outta here, Bisco! His goons’re coming to surround this place!”

A figure leaped into the room. When Bisco saw who it was, his cloak flapping in the wind, he let out a shout.

“Jabi!”

Jabi ran up to Milo and stabbed him with a small medicinal arrow he had prepared. Immediately, the nightmare curse of the puppetshrooms was broken, and he fell to the floor as if his strings were cut.

“Prhaah! Haah…! Haah…! Th-thank you so much, Jabi!”

“Kurokawa’s useless without his tricks… That’s why his techniques will never match mine. Hyo-ho-ho!” Jabi laughed with a toothless grin.

“Jabi! What about Pawoo?” asked Milo. “I can’t find her anywhere! Do you have any idea?”

“Of course you can’t, boy. That’s because I’ve already rescued her! Kurokawa’s still just a young lad if he thinks I can’t escape his puppet strings!” As Jabi spoke, he looked down at the marks on Bisco’s legs and frowned. “But the Rust I can’t do anything about. Bisco’s legs are his wings. Take him, boy, and make sure he gets out of here.”

“Okay!”

“You tellin’ us to run away again? Jabi, you old idiot! What’re you gonna do this time?!”

Jabi just turned his beady eyes toward the pair as he nocked his next arrow and grinned.

“Someone’s gotta cover your escape! I’ll be right behind ya. Besides…” The room was suddenly swarming with Kurokawa’s bodyguards as they climbed out of vents and up through the floorboards like zombies, slowly closing in on the three of them. “I gotta give Kurokawa my regards. What kind o’ father turns a blind eye when someone hurts his own son?”

“Jabi!”

“Go!” he shouted, and with the speed of the monkey king, he leaped across the room, letting loose a burst of arrows that hit every one of the suited men square in the chest.

Milo stuffed Bisco under his arm, ignoring his protests, before running out of the room into the blizzard outside. The few guards who escaped Jabi’s onslaught turned and simultaneously fired their crossbows at Milo as he fled. One of their bolts hit Bisco, wounding him in the shoulder and rusting his skin in almost no time at all. Milo adjusted his grip on Bisco and set off even faster. A couple more bolts landed in his back, but he barely even felt the pain. Crying bitter tears, he gritted his teeth and pressed on through the snow.

Then a huge orange carapace burst out of the snow and struck the ground with a swing of his hammer-like claw, tossing Kurokawa’s bodyguards up into the air like pancakes. Through ragged breaths, Milo pushed Bisco up onto Actagawa’s saddle, before using the last of his strength to haul himself up as well. Once feeling that both of his companions were safely aboard, Actagawa dashed off through the snow, breaking free of the suits who had started to climb up onto him.

“…Bisco… Your arm…”

“You goddamn idiot. You’ve got it way worse than me. Try not to talk… I’ll take care of it for you.”

Bisco’s wounds were one thing, but Milo was starting to look like a human pincushion. Luckily, the bodyguards’ crossbows had been rather weak, but they were laced with poison, and already the Rust would be working its way through Milo’s body, replacing his beautiful pale skin with unforgiving metal.

“Here, this is a mintshroom. Chew it; don’t swallow…”

“Bisco…”

“What is it? Does it hurt?”

Bisco brushed snow off Milo’s sky-blue hair. The boy’s frozen lips trembled and managed to say just one thing.

“Please don’t die…”

Bisco smiled. For whatever reason, tears began spilling down his face. The night was dark, and it would still be several hours before sunrise.