“Not that! What I’m trying to say is, why are we heading toward the civil officer troop that Rentaro Satomi of all people is leading?”
Rentaro Satomi—when Daigo heard that name, his heart could not remain calm, either.
“We’re elites! Respect us! Damn it!” Daigo’s partner, Tatsumi Ashina, held a cup of shochu in his hand as he yelled and kicked the dashboard with his feet. The latch broke and maps slid out of the opening and fell to their feet.
“Damn it,” he swore again, moping. He ground his teeth in regret, and started to sob. The self-defense force camouflage uniform he wasn’t used to wearing did not suit him at all.
Again, Daigo could not help but look back at his own decline. Just as Tatsumi had said, they had been elites. He had been incredulous when they received the invitation from the talented Takuto Yasuwaki, who was a year his senior at the National Defense Academy and had graduated at the top of his class. He and Tatsumi had talked it over for a whole day, a serious conversation about what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. And in the end, it had been a great decision to follow him.
Somehow, Yasuwaki was selected at a young age to become the commander of the Seitenshi’s personal guard, and thanks to his influence, Daigo and Tatsumi had been able to work at the palace as his subordinates. The guys at the Seitenshi’s palace were all terrible cowards who were easy to domineer over. Their duties were easy and their pay was good.
When they had free time, they would change into plainclothes and go to the Outer Districts where they would shoot at Cursed Children. In order to keep them from running away, they restrained them with many layers of strong wire and then took turns picking them off from afar. It was really fun to shoot at a living doll that could scream, and it wasn’t like the girls paid taxes or were in the family registers; the men almost felt proud—like they were playing a role in beautifying the area.
When he went shooting with Yasuwaki, the man had often talked about his dreams. The Seitenshi still did not have a successor, and her advisors had often told her that she should get married. Yasuwaki wanted to become the idealistic princesses’ knight in shining armor, receive a post in the national government, and pull the strings of Tokyo Area from behind the scenes.
Yasuwaki had said, “Of course, I’ll also bring you guys with me.”
Daigo had believed in him. He had believed in his own shining future and had not suspected anything. However, a trap had opened its jaws in an unexpected place.
The Seitenshi Sniper Incident—apparently that was what the public called it. The skinny civil officer with the black uniform whom the Seitenshi had hired independently had changed everything.
Daigo’s hands gripped the steering wheel, creaking in anger. “I wonder what Commander Yasuwaki is doing right now…”
Tatsumi was brooding next to him, but even though he was drunk, his ears were sharp enough to catch Daigo’s words. “Don’t call that idiot Commander! Rumor has it that he’s in some mental hospital right now. He must’ve been real scared of that kid—I heard his hair turned all white.”
“Get out of my sight, and never come near Tina again. If you refuse, I will shoot you to death here and now for refusing to obey orders from a superior officer.”
Just remembering that voice sent chills down his spine. Of course, Yasuwaki’s subordinates, Daigo and Tatsumi, were with him at the site of his downfall, but they were so overawed that they couldn’t move a muscle.
It wasn’t that Daigo didn’t sympathize with Yasuwaki, but because of what Yasuwaki had dragged them into, Daigo and Tatsumi also had to take some of the blame for the incident. The careers that they had built up turned into nothing, and they were made to join the boring transport squad. They would probably be doing this job for the rest of their lives. Forever, in this job with no opportunity for advancement. But right now, it seemed like it would be faster to be killed by Aldebaran.
“Stop.”
Daigo hit the brake reflexively and pitched forward. “Wh-what’s the matter?”
Tatsumi ignored Daigo’s question and got out of the car. They had reached the bank of a small lake. Thinking something was suspicious, Daigo followed him and went around to the back of the transport vehicle. There, Tatsumi opened the door to the back without permission and took out a battery that filled his arms.
“Hey, what are you doing—” said Daigo.
“This is what I’m doing—!” So saying, Tatsumi threw the battery into the lake. It rolled down the slope slowly before it finally dropped under the water with a loud plop.
Daigo almost screamed as he grabbed Tatsumi’s shoulder. “What are you doing, you idiot?! We’ll be severely reprimanded if anyone finds out.”
Tatsumi’s bleary eyes reflected an intellectual light that did not seem dead drunk. “No one will find out, Daigo. Think about it carefully.”
“What?”
Tatsumi dug in his pocket and pulled out two plane tickets. “These are for the last flight to Osaka Area. They rose up to a ridiculous price, so I had to use your money, too, and now we’re penniless, but with this, we can survive. Where there’s life, there’s hope. Either way, this is the end for Tokyo Area.”
Ignoring orders and deserting. It was true that they would be severely punished if they were caught—but of course, that was only if Tokyo Area continued to exist.
Tatsumi’s hands grabbed Daigo’s shoulders tightly. His eyes shone, and his mouth was twisted into an evil smile. “Not only have we used up all our money, but we’re also clearly criminals. Now that we’ve done all this, it’s terribly unfortunate, but we’ll just have to have Tokyo Area fall, or we’ll be in trouble. Right?”
We’ll just have to have Tokyo Area fall, or we’ll be in trouble… That was true. But even so, it pricked the small conscience that Daigo had left. Was there really a need to do all this? It was one thing to have nothing to do with the civil officer troop as they fought the Gastrea, but to purposefully do something that would be advantageous to the Gastrea…
Just then, he noticed that Tatsumi’s two jet-black eyes were peering at him, and he got chills up his spine. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna let me do all this and then pretend that you’re a good boy by yourself when it’s over,” Tatsumi said.
“O-of course not. That’s not funny. It’s not enough to kill Rentaro Satomi normally,” said Daigo.
“Then, you know what you have to do, right? Those guys destroyed us. Now, it’s their turn to atone for their sins.”
Daigo could not refuse.
After that, they threw all the batteries into the lake, and Tatsumi upturned a can of gasoline that he “accidentally brought” and emptied it of its contents. When he threw in a lighter, tongues of flame reached out from the lake.
Tatsumi started to dance with the flames and shout with joy. “Whoooooo! Take that! Now it’s over for them!”
Watching his partner laughing maniacally out of the corner of his eye, Daigo wiped the sweat that had beaded on the palm of his hand on his pants. It was as if Tatsumi had been possessed by Commander Yasuwaki, but Daigo desperately forced himself to avoid speaking the thought aloud.
BLACK BULLET 4
CHAPTER 05
THE PRICE OF BEING A HERO
1
Rentaro vented his frustration by kicking an eighteen-liter drum barrel. The cylinder clunked and blew away, falling from the top of the building, getting swept sideways by the wind and disappearing from his sight. He rubbed his head vigorously and banged a fist over and over on the wall of the pump house. “Why?! Why aren’t the batteries here yet?!”
“Rentaro,” Enju said with an uneasy voice.
Rentaro put both hands on the wall and tried to calm his ragged breath. Eddies of wind gusted around the building like a flute shrilling in his ears and violently fluttered their clothes.
Rentaro checked the time and ground his teeth in despair. It was 10:50 p.m. There were only ten minutes left before Aldebaran was predicted to arrive.
Wandering to the edge of the building’s roof, he gazed out into the distant darkness. Because there was no electricity in the Outer Districts, there were no streetlamps. The thick cloud of ash from the Monolith’s collapse that covered the sky blocked the moon, so they could not count on light from that, either.
Because his eyes were used to the darkness, it wasn’t like he couldn’t even see an inch in front of him, but it was not incorrect to say that he could see pretty much nothing. The only people who could move freely in this darkness were those few Initiators who had night vision, like Tina.
And he could hear from the darkness the countless feet crushing bedrock as the voices of the Gastrea surged forward. Even though he couldn’t see them, they were there.
His nails dug into his fist. According to his and Miori’s plan, they would use the searchlights set on the roofs of the seven buildings surrounding the Flame of Return to quickly find Aldebaran’s location and then attack all at once. However, given the current situation, the searchlights were obviously useless. In which case, their plan would fall apart at its first step, with them unable to determine Aldebaran’s position.
The civil officer troops were already in position, hiding within the bottom floor of the building. It was too late to order a retreat. It made Rentaro regret not replenishing their supply of flares.
Should they charge in desperately like this and try to lessen the enemy numbers even a little bit? But it was a fight they had no chance of winning. Once it became a Pandemic inside Tokyo Area, they would not be able to remove the lesion.
Rentaro closed his eyes tightly. Even if he knew that they would definitely lose, he still had to carry out his duty as the leader of the civil officer troops.
There was no other way.
Rentaro took the radio in his hand and took a deep breath. “All troops, char—”
Just then, Enju pulled his sleeve. “Rentaro, look at that.”
“What now, at a time like this?” Rentaro asked rhetorically, irritated, but Enju couldn’t answer him. She just pointed dumbfounded at a single spot in the sky.
Suddenly, Rentaro felt a soft, unusual light behind him, so he turned around to follow Enju’s gaze. His eyes, which had gotten used to the darkness, were suddenly hit with a scalding beam of light. Rentaro shielded them with his hands and squinted.
He was astounded. The sky over all of Tokyo Area was filled with a dazzling light. He soon realized that the source of the light was a large number of soccer ball–size hot-air balloons. At the bottom of the ball-shaped balloons was oiled paper soaked in fuel and burning brightly, the hot air making the balloons rise gently as they floated left and right.
What was amazing was their number. The thousands upon thousands of balloons that filled the sky danced in the air like down feathers as they bumped into each other on their ascent. As they did so, even more were added to their number, and the light grew two or three times brighter.
Rentaro’s heart was stolen by the otherworldly light, and his mouth gaped open. “It’s the Genan Festival. It was today, huh…?”
Involuntarily, he recalled the conversation he once had with his students.
“The balloons are supposed to be filled with thanks to the people who died fighting in the Gastrea War, and the festival started after the Second Kanto Battle.”
“Mr. Rentaro… Are we going to die? Will we be able to live…to see the next Genan Festival…?”
But the Genan Festival that took place every year was supposed to be a modest affair that was held near the Flame of Return monument. There had never been such a large-scale festival held in the past ten years. And for it to become this bright, there had to have been an enormous number of people and balloons… Who in the world did something this big?
Just then, Rentaro’s cell phone vibrated.
“Satomi, it’s me.”
Rentaro gave a start and readjusted his hold on his phone. “Lady Seitenshi…I see, it was you…!”
The Seitenshi seemed to straighten herself on the other end of the phone as she said, “Satomi, each and every one of those balloons carries the hopes, prayers, and will to survive of the citizens of Tokyo Area. Can you see them? If you win this battle, the Gastrea will fall. If you lose, we will fall. I entrust Tokyo Area’s future to you. Now go, with the courage to continue fighting no matter what.”
Rentaro closed his eyes and then opened them slowly. “Don’t worry, Lady Seitenshi. I will definitely win.” Hanging up, Rentaro took Enju’s hand quietly, and they watched the world of light together from the best seats in the house.
The warm light made the balloons translucent, like paper lanterns, and the mass of orange nestled close and touched, sometimes crashing together as the enormous number of them slowly floated up.
Rentaro felt a hard squeeze through their connected hands. Looking next to him, he saw the tears readily flowing down Enju’s face as she looked up at the sky.
“Enju, it’s true that people from the Stolen Generation killed your classmates. But it was also somehow the Stolen Generation that created this light. People probably have two faces—light and darkness. This is the face of light. If even you can see the prayers and hope in each and every one of those balloons, then—let’s fight.”
Enju quickly wiped her tears with her sleeve and regarded him solemnly. She gave a firm nod. “Of course! We have to save everyone.”
He felt like his and Enju’s feelings were one. It was an indescribable sensation of unity.
It was strange. It wasn’t as if the situation had suddenly turned in their favor. In fact, they were overwhelmingly and hopelessly at a disadvantage. Even so, what was this feeling that was filling his heart? Why was he so at peace right now?
The stiff nervousness dissipated, and he felt renewed. Until just now, he had been worried about whether or not they could win, but now that feeling was gone.
No, he was now certain they could win. There was no way they would lose.
Rentaro turned back with a determined look.
And then, he froze in surprise.
He could see. He could see perfectly. The countless lights that lit up all of Tokyo Area drove away the night sky in place of the searchlights, showing the troops of darkness as clear as day. He spotted Aldebaran easily. In the middle of the enemy toward the back—Hallelujah.
Enju stepped forward firmly, and her usually black eyes burned red.
Rentaro reached his right arm straight out and started his artificial limbs. Geometric patterns emerged on the inside of his eye as the graphene transistor nano-core processor activated. He felt a shock of electricity spread through his mouth as the iris of his artificial eye spun. He had only been able to see out of one eye, but now he could see out of both, and his field of vision expanded. He was able to see in 3-D.
Rentaro put the radio to his mouth and took a deep breath. “We will now begin Operation Rapier Thrust. I repeat, we will now begin Operation Rapier Thrust. Tina, do it now.”
As he spoke, there was the sound of an explosion that made him duck involuntarily. Of the seven buildings that surrounded the monument, the six buildings other than the one Rentaro and Enju were standing on exploded at the same time—or so it seemed.
The 20-mm Vulcan gun, 30-mm chain gun, 127-mm cannon, 155-mm howitzer, and other antiair guns fired at once from the roofs of those buildings. To Rentaro, the detonation and vibration seemed like a volcanic eruption, and it left his ears ringing.
There was no sign of the shooter. They were all unmanned, controlled instead by Tina’s remote control modules and, thereby, the neurochip in her brain. Rentaro knew firsthand just how scary their precision was, after being fired on by six antitank rifles from different places at the same time.
The line of fire rushed into the Gastrea’s flying troops, and the next instant, they exploded. Pushed back by the superheated shock waves, Rentaro couldn’t even open his eyes.
In the blink of an eye, hellfire materialized in the air and filled the sky. Flying Gastrea had t
heir wings torn off, were burned up, and had their brains blown apart as they fell from the sky, one after another. It was an attack as precise as if they were all individually manned fort cannons. With a line of fire of certain destruction more accurate than that of an advanced computer, Tina exploded timed fuses in enemy vital spots to give the most efficient blows to the swarm.
Rentaro gulped. This was the real strength of the former Rank 98, Tina Sprout. As long as she could hack the suitable weapons with her neurochip to integrate and control them, it was possible that she could even by herself create as much firepower as an aircraft carrier.
Tina might even be able to defeat all the flying Gastrea by herself.
Rentaro took another deep breath. “All troops, charge!”
He heard war cries from downstairs. The civil officers burst forth in a desperate attack with their adjuvants.
“All right, Enju. We should go, too.”
He and Enju nodded at each other and ran down the stairs.
Just then, he heard a scream from the radio. “There’s a giant Gastrea rushing straight toward us!”
Stopping his feet running down the stairs, he ran through the floor and rushed up against the window glass. “What is that…?!”
A giant Gastrea was wriggling on the ground. It was long and thin, and bigger than any snake or worm could ever be. The diameter of its torso was about as big as a subway tunnel, and it was about as long as a small building.
Jormungand—The name of the giant snake from Norse mythology, created by the wicked god Loki, ran through Rentaro’s head.
It was probably a Stage Three. The enemy still had that ace up its sleeve? The giant snake writhed on the ground, cutting away large swaths of trees and upturning scrap cars as it rushed straight at the building where they were positioned.
By the time they realized the giant snake was after them, it was too late. It stretched up and twined around the building and, shockingly, it started to constrict the building from its base. The metal frame twisted, and the glass windows passed their critical temperature to shatter with a crack.
Vengeance Is Mine Page 18
