by Shouji Gatou
“Let’s go,” he decided. Sousuke committed the van’s plates to memory, then crouched his way down the communal corridor with Kaname and Tessa in tow. He led them down the emergency staircase, vaulted the railing from the first floor corridor, then hid behind the shrubbery there.
Tessa let out a little shriek as she caught her foot on her way over the railing, and ended up hitting the ground back-first. As Sousuke and Kaname helped her up, she said, “I... I’m fine,” in a pained voice. Her eyes were filled with tears, but the injuries didn’t seem severe.
“So, where to now?” Kaname whispered as she peeked out from behind the hydrangea bushes.
“I’m thinking,” Sousuke answered. “We need to go somewhere we won’t draw undue attention.”
“Yeah, right...” Kaname said, casting a glance at Tessa, who for some reason looked despondent.
There was a Mithril vehicle in the parking lot nearby, but Sousuke wanted to remain on foot if possible. The police would likely be on high alert after the incident that morning, and Takuma’s face would be everywhere by now.
“Ideally it would be somewhere close by, whose layout we’re familiar with, but with no danger of getting other people hurt,” Sousuke said, laying out the most important tactical conditions.
Kaname seemed to find immediate inspiration, and raised an index finger skyward. “Hey, I know just the place.”
“Where?”
“School.”
“Not school,” Sousuke disagreed. “They’ll find us there.” They would probably search his and Kaname’s apartments and immediately learn their connection to Jindai High.
“Not that one,” Kaname explained. “There’s a high school even closer to here.”
26 June, 2107 Hours (Japan Standard Time)
Akami Pier, Koto Ward, Tokyo
After Andrey Kalinin regained consciousness, he ran a full self-inspection of his body. His nervous system seemed to be working fine; at the very least, he could feel the pain he was in. No issues with his skeletal system, beyond a few fractured ribs—this might have caused lung damage, but not enough to be fatal. Six deep gashes on his arms and back. Those had been caused by glass shards, which had since been removed. The bleeding had staunched, but not without significant blood loss. Conclusion: He was depleted, but stable.
His next realization was that he was on a ship moored in the harbor. He could hear the lapping of waves and footsteps echoing faintly through the steel frame. There were no problems with his hearing, then... After judging that there was no one around, Kalinin opened his eyes and moved his head slightly. Pain shot down his right side, but he ignored it.
He was in a small, amber-colored cabin. He could see a bare-bones bed, naked fluorescent bulbs overhead, rust on the iron walls... There was a metal door across from him too, and his gut told him that it was locked from the outside.
His right leg was handcuffed to the bed frame. He tilted his head to look down at himself, and saw that his wounds had received basic treatment. He was wearing pants, but his top half was bare. His lean, muscular frame was bandaged excessively.
Sloppy, Kalinin thought. Whoever brought him here must not have a dedicated doctor in their ranks.
After about five minutes, he heard a sound outside the metal door. It was unlocked and opened, and a woman stepped into the cabin. It was the woman he had seen before he lost consciousness in the lab; he recalled that she’d been addressed as Seina, then.
“I see you’re awake.” Her voice was cold and delicate, reminiscent of fresh snow. She was still in her orange operator’s uniform. She had delicate features and chestnut hair, worn in a mushroom cut.
“Can I help you?” Kalinin asked, without attempting to sit up.
“I wanted to talk to you,” she said.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t waste my time,” Kalinin offered. “I’d simply kill me and dump me in the ocean.”
“Always time for that later.” Seina gave a cold smile and leaned against the door. “You have an excellent subordinate. He took out three of our pursuers and absconded with your secretary girl and Takuma.”
By “secretary girl,” she probably meant Teletha Testarossa, which meant that the colonel and Yang must have gotten the boy out of the laboratory. It was a lot of responsibility for Yang to handle by himself, but at the same time, Kalinin could imagine him giving them the slip.
“He’s one of yours, isn’t he? Sagara Sousuke...”
Kalinin managed not to show surprise at Seina’s words. Not Yang, but Sousuke? Then something had happened to Yang, yet Tessa had made her way to Sousuke’s apartment herself. “Assuming he is,” Kalinin asked, “do you expect me to give you information about him?”
“Not especially,” Seina admitted. “Your injuries are so severe, you’d probably die before I tortured it out of you...”
“Then why did you save me?”
“Because I wanted to talk to you, as I said. Besides, it doesn’t matter to me who you people are.”
“How can you be so sure?” Kalinin asked.
“Because you don’t appear affiliated with the police, or the JSDF. Your actions are sporadic and weightless; you may be a skilled group of individuals, but you pose no real threat to us.” She was commenting on their inability, compared to government organizations, to bring material resources to bear; that was indeed one of the Mithril’s weaknesses.
“You seem an excellent leader as well,” Kalinin noted.
“Do you think so? I know someone much better than me.” Seina didn’t hesitate to admit she was their leader. Then after falling silent for a few minutes, she asked, “Have you ever heard the name Takechi Seiji?” Her hopes didn’t seem particularly high.
“No.”
“He was a Japanese mercenary. He had his start in the Vietnam War, then traveled everywhere... the Congo, Yemen, Nicaragua, Lebanon... ‘Storied veteran,’ I believe is the term. He specialized in reconnaissance and survival.” There was a bit of affection in her voice, now. “After serving with the Republic of Kurdistan during the Fifth Arab-Israeli Conflict, he returned to Japan and launched a certain project. Can you guess what it was?”
“Not a private security company, I imagine,” Kalinin guessed dryly.
“A welfare project. As part of an organization with the strange name of A21,” she said with a trace of self-mockery, for some reason. “His goal was the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents. Truly notorious ones guilty of the worst crimes imaginable... Armed robbers, manslaughterers, murderers, rapists, arsonists... et cetera, et cetera...”
Kalinin listened silently.
“Takechi Seiji bought an abandoned island and released these ‘irredeemables’ onto it. He trained them rigorously and thoroughly, teaching them his own survival and combat techniques. Even those who rebelled at first quickly came to follow him, because the island lacked not only electricity and plumbing, but also food—following his teachings was the only way they could survive.”
“It sounds very effective,” Kalinin mused.
“Yes, it was effective. He didn’t preach love to his students. He showed them how to survive in a hostile environment, taught them more efficient methods of killing... and as a result, gave them a resource known as ‘self-confidence.’ They lost the need to dirty their hands with crime.”
“Heartwarming,” Kalinin said. “But I assume there’s more to the story?”
“There is,” Seina affirmed. “A TV station caught wind of his training. They came to the island without permission, entered a warehouse on its outskirts, and poked around in his equipment. It caused an accident; seven people died.” She lowered her eyes, pensively. “He was ruined after that. The media began a feeding frenzy, ignoring the real cause of the accident. They treated him as if he was running a training school for terrorists. Some said he abused them, some said he was grooming them for terrorism. They were like hyenas on a kill. The police came around, and in the end, his training facility was dissolved... and the pasts of his students were publicized.” Her
voice burned with cold anger. “Even mine. The story of what a monstrous father did to his own daughter.”
She likely wasn’t just referring to physical abuse, but to far uglier acts. Kalinin could imagine that the father in question was long dead, and he could guess who it was who had taken him out. A21... They weren’t mere terrorists, then, nor an extremist militia.
Seina briskly walked up to him and leaned over, close enough that he could feel her breath from where he lay. “Do you know why I’m telling you all this?”
Kalinin kept his face impassive. “I don’t know,” was what he said, though he had an idea.
“Because you remind me of him,” she answered. “Of Takechi Seiji.”
Kalinin was half-Russian and half-Estonian; he couldn’t possibly look much like the Japanese man in the story. But perhaps he had a similar air. “But that doesn’t mean you’ll release me, I suppose.”
“That’s up to you,” she said. “Could I ask you one question?”
“Certainly.”
“If you were labeled a fraud and killed, and your subordinates went after those responsible... What would you think? Would you be happy?”
“I wouldn’t think anything,” Kalinin answered. “I’d be worm food. The dead can’t think.”
“How dull. Maybe I’ll kill you after all,” she said indifferently, pulling a gun from her belt.
“I told you the conversation was pointless.”
“Yes, I was a fool to think otherwise. We have other things to focus on.”
“Revenge, you mean?” Kalinin asked.
Seina thought for a moment. “I never thought about it that way. We just want to add a bit of our own color to a city saturated with peace... if you call that revenge, then I suppose that’s what it is. To spread all-consuming destruction, to tear the town apart with flames of fear... That’s what I desire.” Her motivation was an all-abiding emptiness. The others were likely the same way. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing; it was the product of a cold fury, built up over years. A fundamental rebellion against the world itself... that was her sole driving force. Kalinin had seen many like her in his time.
Seina pointed her gun at him.
“I’m going to find your subordinate, Sagara Sousuke. I will kill him and anyone else with him. Then I’ll bring Takuma back.”
“To use the lambda driver?” Invoking that word was a calculated risk for Kalinin, an expert in escaping such dangerous situations. Given what was about to happen, his had to make him and his associates as interesting to her as possible. Inclining them to keep Tessa for interrogation could mean the difference between life and death for her.
Indeed, Seina’s thin eyebrow moved just a tad, registering surprise. “You know about that, too? I’m surprised.”
“You must be curious about me now.”
She returned the gun to its holster and looked down at him with an air of detachment. “I am. Far more than before.” She turned around and headed for the cabin’s exit.
“By the way...” Kalinin asked her as she left. “What’s Takechi Seiji doing now?”
Seina stopped. “He’s dead. Hanged himself in jail... It was a tragedy.”
3: He Who Chases Two Hares...
26 June, 2140 Hours (Japan Standard Time)
Fushimidai Academy High School, Chofu
“I came here a lot for student council in my first year,” Kaname explained. “It’s a hoity-toity escalator school, but the uniforms are uggo... Also, the teachers are the worst. Every time we came by they were all, ‘You aren’t from this school! What are you doing here?!’”
“Hmm...” The school looked more or less like Jindai from the outside: an unadorned facade of reinforced concrete.
Sousuke easily got them through the school’s basic security system. They avoided the custodian’s office and made their way to the student council room on the north building’s second floor. Kaname had insisted that she knew it very well, and that it was the most comfortable room for them to hole up in for now.
At last, they were able to sit down and breathe easy. Takuma, conscious again already, had been sat down next to Sousuke.
“Want some tea?” Kaname asked, rummaging around in a corner of the dim room.
“No... thank you,” Tessa responded. It seemed that wherever she went today, there was always a hot drink of some kind on offer.
“Oh, yeah?” Kaname replied huffily. “So anyway, we just need to kill time here, right?”
“Yes. We have reinforcements on the way as we speak,” Sousuke confirmed. He’d already contacted them again through his satellite communicator. A transport helicopter carrying Mao, Kurz, and the M9 had left the Tuatha de Danaan over the Pacific and was expected to land on the school lawn within two hours.
“My allies will be here first. Changing your hiding place won’t save you,” Takuma said.
“We fixed that problem, actually,” Kaname said.
Takuma looked at her questioningly.
“My microwave took out your little transmitter,” Kaname boasted.
For the first time, Takuma’s expression became serious; he must have known about the transmitter. There was no need to tell him it was broken, Sousuke thought... but he also couldn’t see how it had done any harm, so he refrained from comment. The enemy currently had no way of finding them; it would be one thing if they had gone to Jindai High, but there was no paper trail tying them to this school. They could probably rest easy, for now.
“Anyway...” Kaname pulled her PHS from the back pocket of her denim miniskirt.
Sousuke scowled as he realized what she was doing. “Who are you going to call?” he asked.
“Kyoko.”
“Why?”
“I told you before, I gotta ask her to record a drama,” Kaname said impatiently. “It’s starting soon.”
“Don’t tell her where you are,” Sousuke commanded.
But Kaname bristled. “You know, I could watch it on the TV in here. But if I did that, the custodian might find out and get us in trouble. I’m trying to be considerate! You’re the one who got me mixed up in all this, remember?”
Sousuke fell silent.
“You’d better adjust your attitude around me in the future, O great and wise Sergeant Sagara Sousuke. Get it?” Whenever Sousuke treated Kaname as an ordinary civilian and rank amateur, it usually backfired on him like this. Lacking a proper response, he just looked down and began to play idly with his submachine gun.
Tessa just stared in disbelief.
Kaname spun the jog dial on her PHS and pressed the button. She must have had it on silent mode, because it didn’t even beep. “The second there’s a crisis, you immediately promote yourself to coolest guy in the room. It’s a gross habit. You should work on it,” she said nastily, then immediately switched to a cheerful tone. “Oh, is this the Tokiwa residence? Hey, it’s Chidori! Oh, hey! Yeah, I got it. It was so good, yeah! Hahaha... Yeah, could you? Thanks a bunch! By the way, Kyoko... hey, I’ve got a huge favor to ask you...”
“Sagara-san... does she always yell at you like this?” Tessa whispered to him.
“Ah. Not... technically always,” he hedged.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re far more experienced and knowledgeable than she is.”
“Well... that’s not necessarily always the case.”
“Really?”
“Really. She’s very quick-witted at times... um...” Sousuke slumped over a little, fiddling with the rear sight adjustment knob.
Tessa looked at him with a scowl. “I feel like you listen to her more readily than you listen to me, Sagara-san.”
“No, ma’am,” he denied automatically. “That’s not the case at all.”
“I wonder... I’m not convinced.” Tessa turned away.
This is so nerve-wracking, Sousuke thought. He was just trying to do what he had to in order to see his mission through. How had he ended up with Tessa and Kaname butting heads? Just what did I do wrong? He’d never look
ed forward to reinforcements so much in his life. Mao, Kurz, anyone... just get here as soon as you can!
Before long, Kaname finished her call. “Boy... schools sure are creepy at night, huh?” she mused, slipping the PHS back into her pocket. Then she leaned forward. “I dunno about this place, but Jindai High has a lot of ghost stories, you know? You know, typical stuff like Toilet Hanako.”
“What’s frightening about her?” Sousuke wanted to know. “Does she have a bomb strapped to her chest?”
“That sounds like the title of an indecent video...” Tessa frowned.
Kaname was disappointed by their ignorant responses. “Fine, whatever. There’s also the epic tale of the yokai, ebizori-kozo. It’s a terrifying ghost story told only at Jindai High...”
“What is it about?”
“Heh heh. Well, you see...” Responding to Tessa’s interest, Kaname leaned over the desk and began whispering in her ear. Whatever she said caused Tessa’s ears to turn red for just a moment before all the color drained from her face.
“That’s perverted,” she gasped.
“Well? Scary, huh?”
“Oh, my God... I would die if I met someone like that.”
As Tessa shuddered, Sousuke watched, head tilted in confusion.
Just then, they heard footsteps in the hallway. They seemed to be coming from far away, around the stairs. They were headed their way, slowly and leisurely, then they stopped in front of a room. A door opened, then closed again.
“It’s the custodian. He’s going to check in here, too.” Kaname clicked her tongue.
“Hide under the desk. Hurry.” Sousuke pointed the gun at Takuma and got him to hide under the desk. “Keep your voice down.”
“Let’s see. Will I, or won’t I...” Takuma said with his usual faint smile. There were a number of document-filled cardboard boxes stored under the desk, leaving barely enough space for the four of them to cram in together.
They held their collective breaths as they heard the custodian unlock the door and open it.
