Then Rentaro realized the van had flipped over, and he was staring at the ceiling. Why was that? It was too dark to figure out how the car had fared, but all of the guards in the car were completely silent. The thought that they were possibly dead made him anxious.
I gotta get outside, first of all.
But— Oh, wait, I’m still cuffed. Groaning in frustration, he started kicking at the side door. It took about three good kicks before the door blew open. He crawled his way out, experiencing the crisp, warm night air of summer.
Just as he’d thought, the minivan had flipped on its roof, an impressive layer of burned tire rubber on the road behind them. He had no idea what led to this.
Then he noticed a black liquid seeping out of the car. It jogged his memory. The smell that caught his attention in the vehicle was gasoline. The engine was still sparking. The whole thing could blow soon.
Even with his hands cuffed, Rentaro managed to pull the two guards in the rear out to safety. It was just when he was trying to pull out the unconscious driver that a spark finally lit up the fuel. A wave of heat and flame pushed upon him, making him shut his eyes. He just barely got him out in time.
Rentaro sized up his body. Miraculously, apart from a few scratches and bruises, he was not seriously hurt. He turned back toward the minivan, now engulfed in flames.
Really, though, why—?
“Are you Rentaro Satomi?”
A startled Rentaro turned toward the voice, only to find a girl dancing on the other side of the undulating curtain of flame. She was short, child-size, and while he couldn’t discern her face, the legs jutting out from her hot pants indicated she was definitely female. Did she just stand by idly while he was trying to rescue the guards?
“Why did you help them?” she asked.
“Who’re you?”
“That doesn’t matter to you.”
“Did you make this van flip over?” he demanded.
“You’re the one who killed Kihachi, right?”
“Kihachi? You mean Suibara? No. It wasn’t me.”
The moment he denied it, he felt a wave of rage emanate from the figure. She took a step forward, trampling the earth with her foot.
“So why were you arrested for it?”
“I…”
For a moment, Rentaro flashed back to an image of himself at the crime scene, XD gun in his hand.
The girl picked up on his lack of an immediate response. She pointed her arms forward toward Rentaro. There was a small-size revolver in her hands.
“Don’t think bad of me for this. I’m never going to be at peace with myself if I don’t.”
Her trigger finger moved without hesitation, setting off the percussion hammer and slowly spinning the magazine around with a metallic sound. Rentaro’s body froze at the expected blast to come.
But, for whatever reason, the shot didn’t arrive. The contradiction taking place before the girl—this guy who killed Suibara rescuing three guards from a burning vehicle—perplexed her. And just before she could pull the trigger that little bit more, the sound of a wailing police siren plunged between the two of them. There was no doubting it.
The girl groaned to herself and quickly executed a flip that propelled her into the woods. The leap sent her form flying all the way up to the top of the tree canopy. Her jumping skill was clearly something beyond any ordinary human’s ability.
Oh, great, she’s an Initiator, Rentaro thought to himself as he watched her bound away. The voice didn’t sound familiar to him, and he couldn’t make out her face. But if this was an Initiator on a first-name basis with “Kihachi,” who was also out for revenge, that narrowed it down pretty quickly.
Rentaro scoped out his surroundings. There were three unconscious guards and one burning minivan. It wouldn’t be easy to explain this, but his only choice, he supposed, was to be honest.
Suddenly, he noticed a small key that fell out from one of the guards’ pockets.
It was for a pair of handcuffs.
His heart thudded loudly in his ears. As if on cue, the police siren began to grow louder as it approached.
Right now, right at this minute, he could get away. But if he fled now, in the worst case, he might wind up copping the blame for this accident. As of right now, he was merely indicted for murder, not condemned. It’d take time to plead his case in court. If he wasn’t going to scream his innocence to the high hills to the end, why did he go through all this up to now?
But, he asked himself, is that really the case? A trial was all about sizing up the available evidence and using it to decide between guilty or not guilty. Had they discovered any sort of evidence so far that’d clear his name? Judging by the highly loaded questioning he had been subjected to so far, it seemed beyond a reasonable doubt that the “presumed innocent” clause would be worth about as much as the paper it was printed on.
Many times now, Rentaro had been forced to put on that belly chain and shuffle between jail and courtroom. They’d be much quicker with Tina. She’d be found guilty before she walked in the room, and—with her role in the attempt on the Seitenshi’s life brought into consideration—she would be immediately condemned to death.
Thanks to the astonishing regenerative powers of an Initiator, the government was aware that the usual method of hanging would only serve to make execution a needlessly painful process. An injected cocktail of barbiturates and muscle relaxants wouldn’t work, either—the Gastrea Virus would immediately take action to neutralize the poison.
So, by process of elimination, Tina would be sentenced to death by firing squad. Her legs would shake as she was dragged to the execution stand, a sack placed over her head as she was tied to a pole. There was no way the fragile psyche of a ten-year-old could withstand the sheer terror of this situation, so she would sob, crying about how she didn’t want to die. But no one would be willing to listen.
Varanium bullets would be the ammunition of choice, naturally. The firing squad would line up in a row, waiting for their captain to give the signal to fire at once. As per tradition, one of the squad’s rifles was equipped with blanks, but none of the team knew which one. This gave the squad members plausible deniability for their actions, believing in the possibility that they hadn’t killed her as they went home and enjoyed a hearty meal with their families. But Tina would still be dead.
With her employee list now empty, Kisara would have little choice but to shut down the Tendo Civil Security Agency. She would marry Hitsuma, live her life, and—despite the handicaps her diabetes presented—successfully give birth to a child.
Over time, her memories would fade. Of Tina, whom she treated as her own sister; of Enju, whose boundless energy put her at her wit’s end on so many occasions; even of Rentaro—she would forget about them all, and never take another look back.
With the loss of her partner, Enju would be picked up by the IISO, which would then assign her another Promoter to work with. Her new partner would be far from ideal. He would refuse to give Enju so much as a decent meal, and he would regularly abuse her. The girls’ healing abilities were the result of a metabolism that worked several times as quickly as regular people’s, so being left to starve meant her wounds would stop healing correctly.
Without her corrosion-suppression drugs being administered, Enju’s internal corruption rate would surpass 50 percent, making her experience pain like her guts were being turned inside out, and eventually she’d transform into a Gastrea. The total cost of an Initiator with the overwhelming strength of Enju going Gastrea would be nightmarish, both monetarily and in terms of human lives.
And how ironic would it be, that the group charged with hunting her down would be other civsec officers—the only group that Enju took pride in ever belonging to…
Rentaro, his breathing shallow, returned to reality. Was the sick prediction of the future he just envisioned really nothing more than paranoia in action? What made him think the future would turn out any other way, once he was found guilty? He looked d
own upon his palms. His wrists, black and blue from the handcuffs, stung at him. He shook his fists.
I didn’t kill Suibara. Why do I have to put up with all this absurd insanity? Whoever framed me is probably cackling to himself right now, thinking everything’s gone to plan. He never got taken to court.
Rentaro’s vision grew hazy as the insides of his eyes became warm. It was frustrating, so frustrating that he couldn’t stand it. He wanted to get it back. Everything from his normal life. Everything that was taken from him. The same Tendo Civil Security Agency he once knew, with Tina and Kisara and Enju.
More than anything, he wanted to hunt down the real murderer and burn him with the brimstone of rage. His pride and his reputation, so cruelly ripped from him and trampled upon, demanded nothing less.
The siren grew stronger, bashing against his earlobes. It clearly wouldn’t be long before police officers would be swarming down the road. The time that remained forced Rentaro to make a decision.
After a moment, Rentaro’s body stopped shaking. He turned his face up and gave a cold stare to the dazzling neon city beyond the woods.
Several minutes later, once police arrived on the scene, they found a flipped and burning Elgrand, three unconscious but breathing guards, and an empty and abandoned pair of handcuffs.
Rentaro Satomi was nowhere to be found.
11
“What…?!”
The Seitenshi couldn’t help but say it out loud.
“Satomi…escaped…?”
“Yes, my lady,” the saluting palace official replied. “We believe he staged a deliberate attack on his transport back from the palace in order to escape. The three guards on the van haven’t regained consciousness, so we don’t know the details yet, but…”
She could hardly believe her ears as she palpably felt the blood drain from her face. How could this be? Did taking his license in order to keep him safe wind up driving him to desperation?
What was I supposed to do, then?
The Seitenshi, as the political leader of Tokyo Area, loved all her subjects equally. She was not allowed to see anyone as more special than anyone else.
She noticed a heavy hand on her shoulder.
“Lady Seitenshi, please get ahold of yourself.”
It was Kikunojo.
“With all due respect, my lady, he fled his fate because he is spiritually weak. It is your task to do what must be done.”
The Seitenshi closed her eyes, refocusing her attention on her situation. Her pulse slowed. “Are the police in pursuit of him?” she said, somehow managing to remain calm.
The palace official stood bolt upright. “Yes, my lady,” he bellowed. “We believe they will arrest him before long.”
“Then—”
“—Would you mind leaving that business to me?”
“And you are…?”
The Seitenshi looked up at the interrupting voice. The tapping of thick boots rapped across the chamber as a man walked in from the darkness on the other side of the corridor.
He was perhaps just a little under sixty, his medium-length crew cut partially interrupted by a diagonal scar that ran across his scalp. His eyes were deeply sunken into his head, the excessive white between the iris and the eyelids giving the impression of someone prone to anger.
It was a familiar face.
“Ah, Commissioner Hitsuma,” said Kikunojo, standing to the side of his leader.
Commissioner Tadashi Hitsuma walked up to the Seitenshi, giving her a respectful salute.
“I apologize; I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation. Forgive my lack of communication, Lady Seitenshi.”
“It is good to see you, Commissioner. But what brings you here?”
“I called for him,” Kikunojo responded, giving a glance at the Seitenshi before continuing. “Since your former bodyguard conspired against you, I have been your sole protector, a situation that cannot go unaddressed for much longer. I asked the authorities if they would be willing to assign a security-police unit to you.”
“And judging by what I hear, the escape was entirely a failure on the part of the police,” Hitsuma continued. “But do not worry, Lady Seitenshi. We will capture this cowardly fugitive as soon as humanly possible…and I know the ideal person for the job.”
“The ideal person?”
“Yes. My grandson. He may still be green, yes, but he is a well-put-together lad. I am sure he will hook this would-be escapee in very short order.”
The car door slammed shut as some of the lukewarm night air found its way inside, the smell of raw earth reaching his nostrils.
The scene around the burning minivan was crawling with media, swarming out from God knows where and lighting up the night with their flashbulbs. Even without them, the flashing lights from the police cars and ambulances nearby would have provided more than enough ambient light, further punctuated by the reflective police tape around the scene.
Pushing his way through the reporters, Shigetoku Tadashima ducked under the tape. “Chief,” a familiar voice called out. Turning toward it, he saw Yoshikawa, a younger detective with a look of regret on his face. “Oh, I mean, Inspector…”
“Where’s the scene?” Tadashima asked, ignoring him.
“This way,” Yoshikawa replied, taking him to the burned-out husk of the minivan.
He sized up the upside-down minivan, its ceiling crushed by the impact, and peered at the brake marks left on the road.
“What do we know?”
“This minivan was transporting the suspect back to jail when a girl ran in front of the car. The driver swerved and flipped the vehicle. The two guards in the rear are in the hospital with broken bones. The driver got out of it better, though. He’s awake and alert, and we’re questioning him now.”
“A girl? Did that civsec’s Initiator come to help him?”
“Doesn’t look like it, actually. Rentaro Satomi was being transported from Lady Seitenshi’s palace, where apparently he voluntarily resigned his post. He surrendered his license on the spot. At about the same time, a person from the IISO visited Tendo Civil Security Agency and met with his former Initiator, Aihara…um…”
“—Enju.”
“Right, yeah, Enju Aihara. He apparently seized her, and that reportedly wasn’t so voluntary. Either way, though, she’s got an alibi.”
“Okay. So who was it?”
Tadashima sighed. He remembered how drained and pathetic Rentaro looked when he told him that Enju was captured by the enemy during the whole Seitenshi sniper crisis. The type of Promoter who really cared for his Initiator, in other words. If he gave up his license, then was told he’ll never see his Initiator again, that might just drive him to do something rash.
Fanning himself, Tadashima sat on a nearby fallen tree trunk and looked up at the starry sky. “Pfft,” he said. “I didn’t think we were really gonna indict him.”
“You’re still saying that, Inspector? You think he’s innocent or something?”
“Nah, I mean… He’s the hero of the Third Kanto Battle, you know. I just figured someone up high would’ve stepped in to cover all this up by now.”
“You know Lady Seitenshi hates doing that, though. She likes keeping things clean like that. Bet she’s been crying her eyes out the whole time, though.”
The conversation trailed off. Tadashima tapped a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, taking a smoke out and lighting it.
“You think he’s really the guy, though?” Yoshikawa muttered to the side.
Tadashima took a deep drag and exhaled the smoke into the air. “Who knows?” He stood up from the tree trunk, watching the officers scurry to and fro around the scene. Just as he took in a lungful of air to bellow his orders, he heard someone say, “Are you the man in charge here?”
There, among the flashing lights, the police tape, and the seemingly endless flashbulbs, was a slender young man walking right up to him. His posture was straight, his silver-framed glasses matching with his business suit. He
was unfamiliar to Tadashima.
“Atsuro Hitsuma, sir,” he said as he saluted. “Superintendent at the department. Are you in charge of the scene?”
Realizing he was outranked, Tadashima hurriedly dropped his cigarette, put it out with his heel, and saluted.
“Y-yes, sir. Inspector Shigetoku Tadashima with the Magata department.”
There was something almost cartoonlike about the scene—the wide, barrel-chested Tadashima and Hitsuma, barely a wisp of a man, saluting each other. Tadashima couldn’t help but feel a little cowed.
“Oh, great, a career-track grunt,” Yoshikawa groaned forlornly from behind. Tadashima elbowed him to shut him up.
“I apologize, Inspector, but I’m taking over the investigation.”
“Sir, this crime took place in our jurisdiction. Besides, why would a police superintendent go hands-on with a sorry scene like this? I really think we’re in a better position to handle it.”
He tried his best to remain polite around his superior, but the irritation behind his words remained clear. But the pale, wispy man remained composed, using his middle finger to adjust his glasses.
“Inspector Tadashima, I’m afraid I can’t allow that. This is a much bigger situation than what you’re picturing. We’ve decided to form a special investigation team for this case. They’ll be based in the metropolitan police HQ instead of the Magata department, and it’s being led by the commissioner. Starting now, the Magata department will be taking their orders from us, and us alone.”
“It’s going up to commissioner level?” asked Tadashima, clearly taken aback.
Hitsuma shrugged. “Well, this was caused by ground-level police error. We want to get it squared away as soon as possible.”
“God damn…”
What the hell is going on here? Tadashima wanted to scream. It had to be one hell of a major case if they were forming a team to handle it. It wasn’t something they’d deploy just to catch a single fugitive.
“Inspector, how long has it been since the suspect fled the scene?”
Rentaro Satomi, Fugitive Page 10
