“Well, if you’re happy, I’m happy,” I said.
“Akihabara is a far more mysterious town than we expected, though.”
“How so?”
“We never imagined walls such as those would be constructed to protect your otaku goods from the Titans...”
“Come again?”
“Isn’t that what that spicy food is for? To fire up the morale of soldiers about to do battle against the giants? We felt the fire in our belly after we ate!”
Apparently Petralka was still under the misconception that the buildings formed some sort of protective barrier. In my mind, I toyed with an image of otaku armed with box cutters, eating curry and “wire-actioning” their way around, defending their anime and games and manga from titanic monsters, all of whom had the faces of the previous governors of Tokyo for some reason.
Hmmm.
Petralka was chatting away happily, but I didn’t even know where to start setting her straight—she had gone past three-sixty; she had done a triple axel and was facing completely the opposite direction.
“Look, the point is, you’re way off base,” I said hesitantly.
She hardly seemed to hear me. “What did you think, Myusel?” Petralka asked instead, her eyes shining.
“Wha?”
“About Akiba! Did you enjoy it as well?”
“Yes,” Myusel said, smiling. “It was so much fun. It was so moving to seek not just the holy land, Akiba, but my master’s home country. When I think that he was born and raised here, it just means so much to me...”
“R-Really...?” I thought of what my parents had said as we left and found myself feeling a little shy.
“I was also very happy to meet your honored parents, Master, and your honored younger sister. I’m merely a servant, yet they treated me like an important guest and were so kind to me.”
“Well, as far as that goes—that’s just Japan.”
I thought back to when I had first arrived in Eldant, when I had scolded Petralka for yelling at Myusel, telling her that in my own country, there were no differences of class or status. Obviously, my parents understood that Petralka was some kind of important figure, and I think they went out of their way to be nice to her—but they definitely didn’t look down on Myusel or Elvia, who were there as servants.
I didn’t think it was just because my parents were that way, either. In Japanese society, we definitely recognized people of higher status, but we didn’t really have people of lower status to speak of. There was the Imperial family, and then there was everyone else. Sure, some people were richer than others, or better at certain things, or even just prettier, but that was all fluid and ambiguous. Differences in social status as such didn’t mean much in Japan.
I didn’t think that was a bad thing. It made me grateful that I had been born in Japan (although getting to be an otaku didn’t hurt, either). I won’t say it couldn’t have happened anywhere else, but the good-hearted, peaceful environment of my archipelago helped make me who I was.
Anyway...
“And I was able to meet some of your Japanese maids.”
“...Huh?”
“The ones in Akiba.”
“No, listen, those were—”
“They were maids just like me, but in the style of my master’s nation... It helped me understand what maids are like here. I can use that knowledge to serve you better after we get back to Eldant.”
“I’m telling you, they weren’t real.” Myusel was harboring some sort of delusion, too. I had tried to tell her that the cosplay maids weren’t for real, but Myusel seemed to have taken me to mean that they were apprentices of some kind. I knew she always put the best possible spin on what other people were doing, but still... “It’s just a part-time gig for them. You don’t have to act like them.”
“Partime gyg?”
“If anything, I think the maids in Akiba could learn something from you, Myusel.”
“O-Oh...”
For a real maid to try to pick up tips from the cosplayers at a café... There was backwards, and then there was backwards.
“Elvia, what about you?”
“I loved it!” the beast girl exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear. “I got to see all kinds of interesting things, and the food was great! I definitely wanna come back!”
“Er... Yeah, sure.” I privately wondered when or if there would be a chance to come back, but I decided to spare Elvia my concerns for the time being. “Next time I’d love to take you other places, not just Akiba.”
Despite all the kidnapping, being attacked by foreign spies, and on and on, it seemed like everyone had enjoyed Japan. Granted, maybe they had ended up seeing a pretty twisted side of it... But still, as a Japanese person, I couldn’t help feeling happy—maybe even a little flattered, to hear Elvia say she wanted to come back.
“We wish to go to—you know! Your I-ke-bu-ku-ro’s otome road!”
“Geez, of all the places. I think Minori-san could tell you more about Otome Road than I could.”
“You can count on me, Your Majesty.” Minori-san pushed her glasses up with her middle finger, a bit of a grin on her face. A beam of sunlight just happened to come through the window, flashing off her glasses and hiding her eyes.
“Oh, I wanna go to Nip-pori.”
Nip-pori? Did she mean Nippori Station?
“Why?” I asked. Otome Road I could understand. Or if she had said she wanted to see the big Gun**m at Odaiba, or go to Comiket, or Nakano Broadway, any of those would have made sense. But what was there at Nippori?
“Nippori has ‘fairies,’ doesn’t it? I want to see them.”
“Fairies...?”
I had no idea what she was talking about. There was a certain “rat kingdom” in Urayasu City in Chiba, the Ghi*li Museum in Mitaka, and the trendy Kichijouji District.
“There’s a forest of fairies!”
I thought about that for a few seconds.
“Wait—no, there isn’t!” I exclaimed when I finally figured out what Elvia was talking about. “You misheard!”
“So Japan does have sprites in it?” Myusel asked.
“No! No, it doesn’t!”
Yes, “fairy forest” was a current expression in Japanese. But I didn’t think it meant what they thought it meant! Who even came up with that tag for mashups of “Aniki” video clips?! And I’ve heard “fairies” was originally a pejorative term for people who are, you know, that way! If an innocent girl watched those videos without knowing what she was getting into, she’d be traumatized!
“It was Minori-san, wasn’t it? She had to be the one who told you about that! That sort of thing is practically her specialty!”
“How rude. You don’t have to assume it was my doing just because BL was involved.”
“So it wasn’t you?”
“......Well, yes, it was.”
She admitted it!
“But Shinichi-kun, I wish you wouldn’t lump Aniki in with BL.” She arched an eyebrow the slightest bit. “BL is fantasy! Aniki is the ‘fairy forest’! It’s an important distinction!”
“Well, I’m afraid I don’t understand, ‘Sensei’!”
And I don’t want to!
Just as I was registering with terror the true depths of the Way of Fujoshi—or was that just the depths of its depravity?—the microbus came to an abrupt stop.
“Erk!”
“Eek!”
The screeching of tires combined with our shouting. Everyone was thrown forward, seatbelts digging into our bodies. At least they kept us from being flung out of our seats.
“What in the world?” Petralka demanded.
“M-Maybe there was a cat crossing the street or something?” I said, unable to imagine why we might have stopped so suddenly. I leaned forward to have a look. A trailer truck driving in front of our bus had apparently stopped, with no stoplight or anything. “Wonder if there was an accident.”
Minori-san leaned out of her seat and asked the driver, “What’s going on?
”
“Don’t know... He just suddenly...” The driver sounded as surprised as we were.
Come to think of it, what had happened to the sedans that were supposed to be running escort for us? I thought they had been keeping pretty close—had this truck forced its way in between us?
I heard some angry reactions from behind us. I looked back to see the sedan Reito-san was riding in stopped cold, and a line of cars forming behind him. Everyone behind our escort was honking.
In a word, it had all started when that truck stopped. Annoying, sure, but maybe he’d had an accident or something.
How naïve of me.
“...Huh?”
Just as I was considering the possible explanations, the truck’s trailer doors opened from the inside.
From the inside? How could a cargo container do that?
That had to mean...
I gasped.
About ten men piled out of the trailer. I suspected none of them were Japanese. There were several Asian faces mixed into the lot, but mostly they were either black or white. And they were all dressed the same: camouflage suits, simple body armor, and M4A1 carbines.
M4A1... The American military?!
The men moved quickly to surround our bus. I could see people in the opposite lane looking shocked by the bizarre scene as they went driving by. Maybe they thought we were filming a movie or something. As the soldiers fanned out around the bus, they held something up. It was a plastic sign that read in Japanese and English, Step out of the vehicle and follow our orders.
“I can’t believe it,” Minori-san groaned. “They’re doing this here?”
We were outside the city proper, but we were still on a public highway, where there was lots of traffic. That meant lots of witnesses, which meant covering up or explaining away this incident would take a lot of time and work. Apparently America thought capturing us was worth it.
Silently, I looked back. Reito-san and the others had climbed out of their sedans, but they kept their distance from our bus. The soldiers probably gave them no choice. They might be our bodyguards, but it was just a few of them—lightly armed—against almost a dozen guys with military equipment. Our escorts could hardly hope to face down assault rifles with nothing more than some handguns.
But I called out, “Myusel!” At the same moment, I undid my seatbelt and grabbed several of our sprite bottles from a bag. Myusel turned when she heard my voice, and the moment she saw what I had in my hands, she understood what I was doing.
“Yes, sir!” She unlatched her seatbelt, too, turning around in her seat and supporting herself on her knees.
Minori-san opened a window for me—she must have figured it out, too—and I leaned past her, reaching out the window. Elvia opened a window for Myusel, who leaned out the other side from me with a sprite bottle in hand.
When we were both in position, I flung a few sprite bottles outside.
There was a crack of shattering ceramics, and at almost the same instant—
“Tifu Murottsu!”
Myusel and I both intoned our spell. The magic turned into a pair of massive tornadoes; the army guys surrounding the bus were flung into the air. They didn’t get that high, but it did shove them backwards quite a ways, even sending some of them into the oncoming traffic. I heard honking and screeching brakes.
Perfect, and now—
“Again—Tifu Murottsu!”
Our second blast of magic hit the tractor trailer stopped in front of us, smacking it square in the behind. The tires seemed to be puncture-proof, but the force of the spell was so great it bent the axle itself. The tire came clear off the wheel, leaving the truck resting at a crazy angle.
“Now!” I shouted at our driver.
Neither the US army guys nor the truck looked like they were going to move anytime soon. Thankfully, the driver seemed to grasp what I was shouting about, and put the pedal to the metal. We made a violent move onto the shoulder of the highway, just squeezing past the semi trailer. The tires squealed as they tried to cling to the road, and Myusel and I, who had had to undo our seatbelts to lean out the windows, found ourselves badly shaken. Minori-san grabbed me by the collar just before I got tossed out into the street, Elvia rescuing Myusel the same way.
“You okay?”
“Y-Yeah, I think so...” I resumed my seat behind Petralka. I glanced over at Myusel, who was bowing her head repeatedly to Elvia. “Where are Reito-san and the others?” I looked back to find that the sedans were keeping right up with our bus. “Ah...”
I saw the car that had been running in front flipped over on the side of the road. It must have been hit by the truck trailer. A direct blow from something so much bigger and heavier could only have one outcome.
“Go! Just forget about the car!” one of the bodyguards in the sedan behind us shouted. He wasn’t shouting to me so much as to the bus driver and Reito-san. But could we really just leave them there?
It happened in that instant of hesitation: there was a roar, and an impact slammed me in the back.
“Wh—What the?!”
I looked back, and the first thing I saw was fire. And in the center of it, burning like the wick of a candle, the blackened trailer rocking back and forth.
It was the trailer. The trailer was what had caught fire. The roar must have been an explosion. But...
“Why?!”
Had I done this?! But I had just fired off some wind magic, nothing that would make the trailer explode... unless maybe we had ruptured the fuel tanks, and the gasoline had spilled out and caught on fire...?
But come on—how could a truck even blow up so easily?!
“Heeek...”
Was this really our fault? Yes, we had been trying to get away, but it would still be awful to have involved innocent people.
“Don’t worry about it.”
The remark came from Minori-san.
“But... But...”
How could I not worry about it? It was in the middle of the street, so I wasn’t afraid of the fire spreading, but what if someone had been hurt or killed in that blast...? It looked as if the flames and the burned-out trailer between them had completely blocked the highway. I didn’t think any cars were going to be following us after this.
“We don’t know why it exploded, but most soldiers are tough customers. They wouldn’t want to be captured. Put it out of your mind.” As she talked, Minori-san drew her handgun. It looked like the 9mm she always used, but it was subtly different. Her weapon had been confiscated by the Russian agents; this was a Sig Sauer P228 Reito-san had loaned her just before we got on the bus. Her usual sidearm was actually a Sig Sauer P220, so the P228, a variation on it, would be easy for her to get used to.
But anyway...
“To think the Americans would show up at the last minute...” Minori-san murmured.
The relaxed, cheerful mood inside the bus was gone. It was replaced with confusion and fear.
The bus ran along under a heavy silence. We didn’t talk.
Myusel was looking at the ground, and Petralka wore a stiff expression. Elvia was equally downcast and silent. Minori-san kept her gun in her hand and stared out the window, probably in case there was another attack.
The mood kept me from talking to anyone. I could only watch the scenery roll by. All I could see was the gray asphalt of the road, and the concrete-reinforced hills to either side. If I looked up, I could spot the green of trees and grass, but I felt despondent, like we were running through a valley of ash.
The only cars on the road were our microbus and the sedan immediately behind us. I didn’t even see anyone in the oncoming lane... Wait.
Wasn’t that strange?
I could understand why there weren’t any cars behind us; the remains of the semi trailer were probably still blocking the road. But why wouldn’t there be a single vehicle going the other direction?!
“Minori-san, don’t you think something’s wrong here?”
“So you noticed it too, Shinichi-kun?
” Minori-san said, her face grave. Apparently she had picked up on the same thing I had. Well, that made sense.
“Is there some thing the matter?” Myusel asked when she saw our faces. At the moment, incidentally, there was no magic inside the bus, in the name of conserving our supply of sprite bottles. Hence Myusel and the others had to communicate in their halting Japanese.
“There are hardly any other cars,” I said, looking back out at the road.
Seriously: other than us, there was no one at all. It was noon on a weekday; it was impossible that we wouldn’t be passing other vehicles.
It was like... It was like everyone but us had been stopped somehow. Just coincidence? Or was this deliberate?
I shifted in my seat, pulling my phone out of my pocket. Maybe a quick check of the news online would show something...
“I’m not seeing anything special...”
No reports of unusual traffic situations. I opened Twitter. The credibility of anything there might be questionable, but events often made it to Twitter before they hit the official news channels. Maybe I would find something useful. I tried a search, and...
“Hm...?”
...found myself on an aggregator blog.
I started scanning the articles. “Find anything?” Minori-san asked.
“...Looks like there have been accidents here and there,” I said.
A lot of car accidents were happening. Other aggregator sites were also popping up bunches of reports of traffic accidents. Pretty soon, I got a news digest email saying something similar. The incident with the US Army truck was being reported as an accidental explosion. Not that the US Army was actually mentioned in the articles.
And all these accidents...
I groaned softly. I pulled up a map just to check, but there was no mistake: they were all happening on the road we were running along right now.
“I... I don’t want to believe it, but...” I said mournfully.
Outbreak Company: Volume 10 Page 8
