Outbreak Company: Volume 10

by Ichiro Sakaki

  Chapter One: This Just In: We’re Under Attack!

  It was dark inside the building.

  The place hadn’t been cleaned in months, or maybe years. The windows were so dirty, it was hard to see outside, nothing but dim light seeping through. Somewhere in the gloom it was possible to make out some old metal drums and piles of wood. The chains and crane hooks hanging from the ceiling were rusty, and there wasn’t so much as an emergency light anywhere to be seen.

  All of this, along with the layer of dust coating everything, suggested how long it had been since this building had been used.

  And in the middle of it all was a woman. A female officer of the Japan Self-Defense Force: Koganuma Minori.

  A woman, yes, but one highly accomplished in the martial arts. Her glasses may have given people a gentle first impression, and she usually acted reserved and calm. But when the moment called for it, she could draw on the fighting skills her father had taught her—or simply draw the pistol she always carried. She was a bracing sight either way.

  The fact that she was involved in a highly confidential special operation spoke to the fact that she was more than just a foot soldier who knew how to beat people up. She was quick-witted and resourceful.

  But now... Now...

  “...Hrgh...”

  At this moment, she couldn’t put any of her copious skills to use. The reason was simple: her wrists were bound by one of those chains hanging from the ceiling. Her toes—her shoes had been stripped off—didn’t quite graze the floor. Psychologically speaking, it was a more disconcerting place to be than hanging high in the air.

  Minori’s hair, usually tied up in a bun, now hung messily at her shoulders. Her glasses still sat on her face, one of the lenses clearly cracked; they hadn’t been taken away, but looked like they might fall off at any moment. The state of her clothes, too, spoke to the violence with which she’d been treated. On top, she’d been stripped down to her underclothes, clearly revealing the cleft of her generous chest. And while she still had her skirt, her stockings were badly torn. There was a certain kind of person who might have been overjoyed to be in her position—but not her.

  “Ugh...” She groaned softly and shifted. She was trying to get out of her bindings somehow. There are stories about people who have learned to dislocate their own joints in order to escape handcuffs and ropes. Minori might even have known some of those techniques. But...

  “Ah, you’re awake.”

  The door opened, and several silhouettes entered. The question was posed to her in Japanese, but when the speaker got close enough to see through the grimy darkness, he was clearly not from her country. He was white, as were all the sharp-featured faces around him.

  Russians, perhaps? The faces looked meticulous, yet imposing, wide cheeks accompanied by strangely cold eyes. It was hard to imagine them smiling. The wrinkles lining their foreheads and creeping in next to their eyes suggested they were not young men.

  Minori-san looked up in shock.

  That face had to be one of the best known in the entire world.

  “Pu**n...!”

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Pu**n. The fourth and current President of Russia.

  But there was something else, something even more shocking.

  “That’s impossible!”

  All of the men standing in front of her were Pu**n.

  He was the strongest president—probably literally, being a former KGB agent, judo champion, and experienced sambo practitioner who had allegedly survived five separate assassination attempts. In other words, he was the one who put the scare in Red Scare.

  This man would be despair-inducing enough by himself, but now Minori-san was faced with a crowd of him.

  “And now it is time for you to talk, young lady of Japan,” Pu**n No. 1 (let’s call him) said, coming closer. Minori-san spared him a single glance... then scowled hatefully and looked away. She wasn’t going to say a word, she seemed to be telling him.

  The corners of Pu**n No. 1’s mouth turned up just a little at this display of defiance. He seemed to expect the reaction. He turned to the Pu**ns (that’s the plural form) behind him and said, “Bring it in.”

  “Yes, sir,” one of the Pu**ns (plural form again) said—then he ushered a large container on a self-propelled platform over toward Minori-san. A second later, one of the sides fell free, revealing what was within.

  Minori-san caught her breath: inside the container was a cage. It had dozens of thick bars; it was obviously intended to hold a huge, powerful animal.

  And there was, in fact, a large creature inside it.

  Fangs bared, drooling, eyes alight with madness—a lion!

  No, not a lion. Not a tiger, either. Or a wolf, or crocodile, or a snake.

  Inside was a polar bear.

  What was it doing there? Was it just... because this was Russia she was dealing with?

  Then Pu**n No. 1 said something unbelievable: “This bear knows the taste of human flesh. You might survive an arm or a leg, but if he gets to your torso, well, you won’t last long. I advise you to speak before he does so.”

  Minori-san was silent. She stared at the white animal in the cage, never looking away.

  After a long moment, Pu**n No. 1 said, “I see how it is.”

  Then Pu**n No. 2 (not that you could really tell them apart, but let’s just say) opened the door of the cage.

  Two massive, white legs came out. The animal must have been at least two meters long—maybe even three. Covered in fur and muscle, made its way patiently toward Minori-san, who was in no position to run away.

  Minori-san, still silent, stared the creature down. Her eyes were practically piercing...

  “Hrm?” Suddenly, in front of the shocked Pu**ns (all of them), the bear made a sharp right, hunched over, and rode away on a bicycle that it seemed to pull out of thin air.

  It was kind of cute, actually.

  Now the Pu**ns (plural) looked at each other.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have borrowed him from the Bol**oi Circus?”

  “What were we supposed to do? We didn’t have the budget to train our own.”

  Apparently even the Pu**ns (none of them) had been expecting Minori-san to be able to win a staring contest with a polar bear. They might not have been so surprised if they knew she had gone toe-to-claw with a dragon once. A domesticated circus animal was really no threat. Apparently the thing about human flesh had been a bluff.

  “She leaves us no choice,” Pu**n No. 1 said. “Call them in.”

  “Yes, sir,” another of the Pu**ns—Pu**n No. 3—said. He nodded and left the room.

  A short time later, though, he came back and nodded to Pu**n No. 1.

  “Behold, young lady,” Pu**n No. 1 said, indicating something with a jerk of his chin.

  Minori-san, despite her desire not to look in his direction, couldn’t ignore his portentous tone. She spared the slightest of glances—

  —and her breath caught in her throat.

  There were two more silhouettes at the entrance now. Both men, she guessed. The light behind them obscured their features, but their outlines were suggestive enough.

  “Hrk...!” Minori-san, who hadn’t been intimidated even by a live polar bear, made a small, strained noise.

  “You are free to pretend indifference, but I doubt your little act will last long with these two. I will be watching to see for myself exactly how long.”

  The Pu**ns (all of them), all wearing the exact same half-smile, backed away from Minori-san. The newcomers stepped forward in their place.

  They were not Pu**ns.

  One was a young man with golden hair. The other was a middle-aged man with black hair. Both were wearing plain overalls, but the c
omplete lack of any sort of stain, mark, or discoloration revealed that these weren’t their everyday work outfits.

  “We already know your weakness,” Pu**n No. 1 said from over by the wall. “Just look. Are they not identical?”

  Minori-san didn’t say a word.

  “Do it. Hold nothing back.”

  The golden-haired young man and the dark-haired middle-aged man began to unzip their overalls, from their collars down toward their crotches. Underneath, they appeared to be completely naked. Nothing but unblemished skin and toned muscle appeared from under those clothes...

  Still Minori-san said nothing. The two men were expressionless except for a slight flush of excitement on their faces. What could the two of them be planning to do with the bound, half-naked young woman hanging before them? The mind went to many places, none of them good.

  Minori-san resolutely tried to look away, but Pu**n No. 3 (probably—it was hard to tell) came around behind her, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at the men.

  “Ohh...” Minori-san trembled. She couldn’t suppress an instinctive response to what was obviously about to happen.

  And then...

  Then the golden-haired young man reached out and grabbed...

  ...the dark-haired older man, slowly drawing him closer.

  “No...!” Minori-san groaned. “Don’t do that... Handling him as gently as a broken dream...!”

  Her breath got hotter. She wanted to look away, but Pu**n No. 3 made sure she couldn’t. Surely she should just close her eyes—but behind the glasses, her eyes were so wide that it was obvious she didn’t even want to blink.

  The two men pressed against each other, but then they stopped. They simply stood there, looking at each other.

  “Those passionate gazes...” Minori-san breathed. “What could they be wishing for, with such melancholy in their eyes...!”

  “I suggest you start talking,” Pu**n No. 1 said, “or things are going to escalate.”

  “This... This is unconscionable,” Minori-san said, writhing where she hung from the chain. But of course, she found no sympathy from the Pu**ns (any of them).

  Instead, one of them said, “We are aware that you’ve been buying Cat & Bunny doujinshi. The especially yaoi ones.”

  They suddenly produced a small book—specifically, a doujinshi aimed at ladies eighteen and up. Minori-san couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  “You seem to particularly enjoy seeing the main characters in each other’s arms. We have, of course, properly investigated which is the top and which is the bottom. And we are all too cognizant of the fact that you cannot abide role reversals. So tell us everything you know, or things are only going to get steamier from here.”

  “This is a... a crime against humanity!” Minori-san all but howled.

  What an astonishing twist! The Russian agents had discovered just how rotten Koganuma Minori was, and now they were exploiting her weakness to the full. It was real-life BL, right there in front of her eyes—but it was the opposite of what she wanted to see, with the top and bottom reversed, staring into each other’s eyes. Could there be a worse fate for a fujoshi?

  She had never imagined such tortures could exist in this world.

  Wait—was it torture? Or was it heaven?

  Role reversal had been known to destroy fujoshi groups before, though...

  “They’re practically nose-to-nose... Erg! No! You can’t touch him there... Ah, ahhh, nooooeeees!” Her voice cracked sweetly, her eyes brimming and her face drawn. The sound of her voice alone could have warranted an X rating.

  “Now,” Pu**n No. 3 said. His tone was soft, almost sweet, like Mephistopheles negotiating with Faust. “Tell us, Minori Koganuma...”

  “Ahhh...” Her pitiful cry echoed through the building.

  And then...

  ...............

  ...............

  “Master...?”

  Myusel’s voice suddenly brought me back to the real world.

  “Huh...?” I looked up to see Myusel, Petralka, and Elvia sitting around the table, and all looking very worried.

  “Are you okay?” the flaxen-haired Myusel asked, touching me.

  Myusel Fourant—my personal maid, if you can believe it. Her sweet, beautiful face was presently darkened with concern. She had always been the meek type—and watching her blink as she gazed at me with her big, violet eyes, I could practically feel how generous and kind she was.

  But then, so were the other faces around me.

  “We have been calling you, but you did not answer,” Petralka said with a frown. She, too, had a hand on me.

  Petralka an Eldant III. At first glance she looked cute, almost like a doll, but she was actually the Empress of the Holy Eldant Empire, a country in an entirely separate world.

  And she shouldn’t have been here. Yes, she was the one who had decided to sneak along—but if there was anyone we had to worry about here in Japan, it would be her.

  “Are y’ feeling tired? Or maybe sick?” This question came from the third girl—yes, also touching me—Elvia. Specifically, Elvia Harneiman.

  She was a beast-girl artist from the other world. She had actual ears and an actual tail—in short, an otaku dream girl.

  And she had the same sort of anxious look as the other two. She was always pretty easygoing—you could almost say mellow—so she looked like the calmest of the three, but I could see her tail flicking nervously from side to side.

  “Oh... Sorry, I just...” I must have slipped off to sleep, even though I hadn’t remotely noticed it happening.

  Let’s just say it had been a busy afternoon. I must have been running on adrenaline and not noticed how exhausted I was. Then again, Myusel and the others had been through just as much as I had, and they were all still awake, so maybe it just went to show what a weakling I was. How embarrassing. Apparently I still had all the physical strength of a former shut-in.

  Anyway...

  “I just... got a little drowsy...” I looked around my nice, familiar house.

  That’s right: I was in Japan. Not the other world.

  But Myusel, Elvia, and Petralka were all here. Everything that had happened since we’d arrived in Japan flashed through my mind: the reunion with my family. The yakiniku we’d all shared. Going back to Akihabara.

  And then there was being cornered by a Chinese (?) spy, kidnapped by the US Army, and losing Minori-san to Russian (?) agents.

  Minori-san...

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Myusel said when she saw me frown silently. “We shouldn’t have woken you up when you were resting...”

  “No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head. She must have thought I was angry. “I shouldn’t have been asleep anyway. And besides, I appreciate you woke me up when you did. I was having a nightmare.”

  “Like a bad dream?” Elvia asked. “What kind?”

  “Well, uh...”

  I could still hear Minori-san’s erotic groan in my imagination. I unconsciously squeezed my knees together.

  The others looked at me, puzzled.

  “Anyway, uh, like I said, this is no time to be sleeping. Sorry about that.” And it wasn’t the time to be having weird dreams, either. “Let’s get back to what we’re going to do next.”

  My name is Kanou Shinichi.

  I’m pretty much your average otaku—I love anime, manga, light novels, whatever.

  If there’s anything that’s unusual about me, it’s not me personally so much as my environment.

  I don’t live in Japan.

  In fact, I don’t live on Earth.

  The place I live is technically contiguous with Japan, but it’s a completely different world—you have to pass through a hyperspace tunnel called “the hole” to get there.

  It’s a long story, but suffice it to say I’m the General Manager of Amutech, the first general entertainment company in the Holy Eldant Empire, a nation in that other world. My job is to spread otaku culture in a place that’s basically a full-throt
tle fantasy world, with magic and dragons and all kinds of things.

  I was lost at first—very lost—but over time I’ve ended up surrounded by people who help me have a fulfilling life. My maid and caretaker, Myusel; the empress of the whole place, Petralka; my bodyguard and WAC Minori-san; a self-proclaimed wandering artist, Elvia; and so many others.

  But then one day, I heard that my dad, a light-novel author, was in the hospital. I can’t say I had ever been very homesick, and I found my life in Eldant plenty rewarding, but there was no way I could ignore a family crisis like that. So I asked the Japanese government to let me go home for a while, and they agreed.

  In my case, though, there was no way it could be that simple. My intentions for the spread of otaku culture hadn’t always lined up with the government’s, and they had even sent a special-forces squad to assassinate me once. A change in the Japanese government and the protection of the local leadership had saved me from being killed outright, but I was definitely on Japan’s list of people who didn’t toe the line.

  You could say I didn’t entirely trust them.

  So when I came back to Japan, it wasn’t just Minori-san who came with me. Myusel and Elvia went along as my bodyguards, too.

  Actually getting back didn’t prove to be any problem, anyway. Yes, it turned out Petralka had stowed away... but still, no serious issues all the way back to my house.

  My dad, I learned, was actually in pretty good shape—in fact, he was downright energetic, and I probably didn’t need to have worried. But I did finally get a reunion with him, my mom, and my thoroughly disenchanted little sister. I couldn’t tell them the whole truth about everything that happened—state secrets and all—but I was able to bring them up to speed on roughly what was going on. Apparently I had disappeared without so much as a note, and my sister even thought maybe it had been her fault.

  So I took care of my nominal reason for coming home within the first afternoon, leaving me plenty of time to take Myusel and the others to Akihabara. Minori-san and I hadn’t been there in ages, and Myusel and company had never been there at all, so I was really looking forward to it.

  Buuuut...