“Lady Seitenshi, do you know about the self-sacrifice of ants? There is a type of ant in South America that plugs up holes in the nest once it gets dark. When they do that, there are always some worker ants left outside who work to plug the hole from the outside. By the next morning, all of those ants are dead. In other words, in order to protect the network of their nest, they carry out their duties as sacrificial pawns.”
“You think the Model Ants that attacked the self-defense force facilities were acting as such?”
“That’s the only explanation for it. Even if I allow that the Stage Four could possibly hang on to the Monolith, ultimately, there’s no way that the Stage One would be able to invade.”
Just by being carriers of the Gastrea virus, the Cursed Children started to feel sick and faint if they approached the Monoliths. Even if the self-defense force had not annihilated the Model Ants, they would have probably died from weakness from the effects of the magnetic field.
Rentaro continued. “In other words, they charged the Monolith in order to buy time for Aldebaran to grab onto the Monolith and inject Varanium corrosion fluid into it. They knew that they would die.”
“That’s a very…systematic way of acting. They’re being led in a way that hasn’t been seen before.” The Seitenshi groaned as she thought aloud. After a while, she lifted her face. “Satomi, your theory is extremely useful. You truly are amazing. Even though many Gastrea experts have been putting their heads together to figure out why Model Ants would be piercing the Monoliths, you’ve figured it out in a second.”
“That’s because Satomi is kind of obsessed,” noted Kisara.
“Ugh, don’t say that…,” Rentaro rebutted.
The Seitenshi looked at the slouching young man with a curious expression on her face. “Satomi, do you know a lot about insects?”
“Not just insects, but about animals in general. I mean, I liked Fabre’s Souvenirs Entomologiques, and it kind of continued from there…”
“I see… You didn’t have any friends, so the insects were your friends, right?”
“Why do people automatically assume I have no friends if I know about bugs?!” Rentaro saw the edge of the Seitenshi’s lips twitch for a second, and he realized something: The mood was so dark she was distracting them with jokes.
“Lady Seitenshi, what do you want me to do?” Rentaro sighed.
She quietly lifted her tea to her mouth. The wind chime tinkled, and in that pause, the sound of the air conditioner echoed through the room. “I want you to form an adjuvant, Satomi.”
“An adjuvant?” He saw Kisara’s body stiffen next to him. Apparently, Kisara knew what that meant. “Kisara, what’s that?” he asked her.
She looked at him with an expression of shock. “Wait, Satomi, you don’t know what the adjuvant system is? Didn’t you get a lecture on it when you were getting your civil officer license?”
“I don’t know. I slept through most of the lectures.”
“I can’t believe you!” Kisara hid her face in her palm. “During emergency operations, the government can make use of civil officers by grouping them—like the self-defense force. An ‘adjuvant’ refers to a team system, with squads composed of civil officers.”
“Team system? You mean you want me to form a fighting team?”
“That’s right,” the Seitenshi nodded. “An adjuvant fights under a commander, who is in charge of the team leaders. In other words, it is a completely different system from the one used during the Kagetane Hiruko terrorist incident. Currently, in order to organize large-scale squads of civil officers, we are reaching out to leading civil security agencies. I would like you to become a team leader, too, by gathering members to fight in the decisive battle against the Gastrea.
“Satomi, no matter how much we hurry, the production and transportation of the replacement Monolith will take nine days. I would like you and your squad to intercept all the Gastrea that will invade in the three days between when the Monolith is destroyed and when the replacement is put in place.”
The Seitenshi folded her hands in her lap.
“I understand that you must be confused by the suddenness of it all. But please, Satomi, for the sake of the country, will you lend me your strength just this once?”
3
Things had gotten bad.
Rentaro hurried home, his hands in his pockets and eyes downcast. The moon shone in the sky, and the dazzling streetlights cast his shadows dancing across the paving stones, while cheerful jazz music leaked out of a store somewhere in the distance. Hearing it, Rentaro paused and turned his head.
The area around Happy Building—the building that Tendo Civil Security Agency was a tenant of—turned into a street full of bars at night. The night tribe of drunk men staggering with their neckties around their foreheads, thin dogs nosing about the trash, and people passing out flyers for their establishments became a thick crowd.
Normally, Rentaro wouldn’t even pay attention to them, but tonight, he gazed upon them for quite some time. The scene was completely normal—it didn’t look as if Tokyo Area was going to be annihilated in six days. He wondered if the Seitenshi tricked him; if he was just being made to play along with a bad joke.
But this was just an attempt on his part to embrace plausible deniability. He shook his head and rebuked himself. That straitlaced national leader would not lie about nor fabricate something of this level.
What a pain.
He glared in the direction of the faraway Monolith, but of course, it was too dark to see it. The ever-standing wall that had protected people for ten years…the strongest, most reliable wall, built from the knowledge of mankind: The Monolith. It was going to be destroyed. In six days, it would definitely be destroyed.
Rentaro realized that he was starting to feel on edge and turned onto the road that led home.
The fact that the Seitenshi came to see him directly probably meant that she had high hopes for him. It was a big improvement from the arrogant attitude she had held during the terrorist incident. Even so, he could not give the Seitenshi an immediate answer when she offered him the job. This job was just too dangerous.
Besides, how could civil officers who were all show-offs form a team and fight? If it weren’t under these conditions, he would want to tell her not to be ridiculous. She shouldn’t expect such a prideful group to work cooperatively. Even when her commander gave his order, the best they could probably do was fight separately, on their own.
And looking at the facts of the Monolith attack, the enemy Gastrea corps was undoubtedly a highly organized system. In a team battle, it didn’t matter how specialized each individual was, as evidenced by many recent battles in history.
The tepid night wind blew from his chin to his neck, and the soles of his shoes hit the stone pavement rhythmically.
What should he tell Enju? With the Kagetane Hiruko terrorist attack and the Seitenshi assassination attempt still fresh in their minds, could he tell Enju to risk her life again? She was still a child, only ten years old.
Before he knew it, he was standing in front of their run-down apartment. Scratching his tired face, he climbed up the metal stairs that creaked with rust and turned the knob of the door.
Suddenly, he was accosted by two pointed blades pushed against his chest.
There were two magical girls standing in the doorway.
More precisely, there were two girls dressed in costumes from the Ako samurai magical girl cartoon, Tenchu Girls. Looking closely, Rentaro could see that the weapons were toys called Stick Blades, fake swords that had magic-wand handles.
“Are we really going to do it, Enju?” Tina, who was dressed as Tenchu Pink, said uncertainly.
Enju, dressed as Tenchu Red, puffed her chest. “What are you saying? This will make those things called ‘men’ yours in a second. All right, Tina. Let’s do it just like we rehearsed.”
With a quiet, “Ready, set, go—!” the two girls turned flirtatious and announced in unison, “We’ll giv
e your heart divine Tenchu punishment!”
Everything Rentaro had worried about today seemed foolish all at once. That was right—Tina was sleeping over today.
Rentaro put a floor cushion down next to the low table in the living room and sat down. Looking at the clock, he saw that it was past 7 p.m. He turned on the TV but was too concerned about the goings-on behind him to focus on it. In the kitchen, he saw the two girls excitedly swinging something shaped like a cotton swab.
“We will cook today so that you should quietly be waited on, Rentaro!” It had been some time since Enju had sat him down and said that, earlier in the evening.
It was not just because Rentaro’s usual spot in the kitchen had been taken that he was unable to sit calmly. What is it with their clothes, anyway? At his seated eye level, Rentaro saw two pieces of cloth that were so short they could barely be called skirts fluttering on their hips.
Rentaro wasn’t sure who the target audience for the anime that mixed and matched Ako samurai and magical girls was, but it was probably the generation of innocent girls, with the addition of adults with impure spirits that could not be called innocent by any means. Rentaro got that feeling from the flashes of underwear he glimpsed under the skirts of Tenchu Red and Tenchu Pink.
Rentaro put his hand in his chin, and before he knew it, he was staring at the cooking team. Tina’s face, covered in flour, was full of energy, unlike the soundly sleeping countenance she had this morning. Thanks to the Owl Factor in her body, she was extremely nocturnal. Who would believe that out of the 240,000 civil officer pairs in the world, she ranked in the top hundred? That she was an assassin who could hit a target over a kilometer away and deliver the finishing blow?
In the midst of their hustling and bustling, a fragrant smell wafted toward him, and soon Enju and Tina returned to him with their hands under a large plate. Looking at the large dish placed on the table, Rentaro let out an involuntary sound of awe.
It was a gigantic pizza that was almost extralarge. The rich smell of bubbling cheese covering a bright red layer of pizza sauce made his stomach growl. The toppings were simple, with just salami and mushroom. There was nothing to criticize about it.
“Come, Rentaro. We made this with everything we have. Please eat it,” said Tina.
Looking sideways at Tina, who was covered with flour from the dough, Rentaro brought a slice to his mouth. The full-bodied flavor of the slightly burnt parts of the cheese, along with the juices from the salami, seemed to mix with the dough to give it a crispy texture as the bite spread through his mouth.
Enju and Tina didn’t blink as they stared sideways at Rentaro, giving a suggestive cough.
“Yup, it’s good,” he said.
“You think so?” Tina’s eyes crinkled as she smiled.
Rentaro laughed teasingly as he gave Enju a sideways glance. “You get especially high points for not adding honey cake or steamed cheese bread into the crust.”
The girl leaped to her feet. “I-I know not to add that now!”
“Enju, you want to feed that kind of food to Rentaro?” Tina sighed.
Rentaro turned to face Tina. “No, it’s just that the girls around me have a knack for catastrophic cooking, so I had been about to give up on you, too, but this was delicious. But why did you make pizza?”
Tina put the palms of her hands together and smiled softly. “Pizza and Pepsi are traditional foods from my country, America.” (Tina’s words would have made an Italian very angry.)
“Hey, Tina, I have a favor to ask. Will you cook for Kisara like that, too? If I leave her alone, all she eats are frozen dinners from the convenience store.”
“Then, next time, I’ll make anchovy pizza.”
“What? No, I mean, you can make other food.”
“Then, I’ll make carbonara pizza.”
“I said, something else.”
“Marinara pizza.”
“Why is it all pizza?”
“I only know how to make pizza, you know.”
“Seriously?”
Tina was a pizza machine. Rentaro sighed.
Tina Sprout. She was the criminal behind the Seitenshi assassination attempt, but she was also under probation thanks to that very same Seitenshi, so she was currently living as a freeloader with Kisara. It had only been about a month since the incident, but Enju had no problem treating her as a friend, and Kisara had no problem treating her like a little sister.
Rentaro could not suppress a wry smile, thinking of the irony of that fate. At one point, both Enju and Kisara had fought against Tina with their lives on the line. When he asked how they could change their minds so easily, they both said unanimously, “There’s no need to bear a grudge after the fight,” which honestly bewildered Rentaro.
Was that really how it was? He didn’t understand it.
“Tina, by the way, those clothes…”
When Tina looked down at the Tenchu Pink clothes covered with frills, she looked awkwardly embarrassed. “Is it…cute…?” she asked.
“You know about Tenchu Girls?”
“Yes, Enju let me watch the whole first season the other day.”
“How was it?”
“It was quintessential Japanimation.”
“You think it’s that good?”
Tina sidled up next to Rentaro and suddenly grabbed his arm, leaning her head against his shoulder. She was a soft weight, with her sleek platinum blond hair giving off the nice, light scent characteristic of girls. “I am grateful to you, Rentaro. I’m living a dreamlike life I definitely would not have been able to experience if I had remained with Professor Rand. I always wanted a big brother like you, you know.” She paused for a moment and looked up at Rentaro through her lashes. “Can I call you ‘Big Brother’?”
Rentaro’s heart skipped and he looked away, scratching his cheek. With Kisara and Enju, the Tendo Civil Security Agency sure wasn’t lacking in beautiful girls, he muttered to himself.
“You can’t, Tina! You’re not allowed to get a head start!” Enju stood hurriedly and squeezed between Rentaro and Tina, looking at Rentaro like she was about to bite. “You, too, Rentaro! You looked lovestruck and careless just now, even though you never look happy when I press my bosom against you!”
Rentaro scratched the back of his head. “You scrape against me like a washboard, and it hurts.”
Enju stamped her feet in frustration then and there. “What?! I, too, will become one with elite breasts one day! So you should just endure it for now!”
What the heck are “elite breasts”…?
Just then, Tina erased the expression from her face and stood up quickly, looking at Enju. “Enju, I do not want to make a surprise attack, so I will tell you clearly right now: I am serious about Big Brother. I will not let you or President Tendo have him.”
Enju looked like she had been stabbed in the back by a comrade in arms. “T-Tina…? B-but, you said we should work together to defeat the Great-Breasted Queen, Kisara, whom we faced…”
Tina shook her head slightly. “That’s what I believed at first, too. It’s true that President Tendo’s resilient breasts are a threat. In terms of Gundam, she would be Big Zam. However, there is only one Big Brother. Even if we were able to steal him from President Tendo, after that, there would be a bloody battle between you and me. In that case, I would rather not have any allies from the start.”
Enju widened her eyes in shock and earnestly gripped the fabric on her chest. The letters C.B. were written on a pin arranged there. “Then, what about the anti-boob organization we formed, Counter Breasts?”
Tina shook her head again. “Today, we will disband.”
Tina tore off the C.B. pin on her chest and threw it to the ground, stepping on it with her heel.
“Whoaaaaaa! Wh-what are you doing, Tina? After we went through all the trouble to make it!” Enju fell at Tina’s feet in tears and hugged the pin close.
Tina snickered coldly, gazing down at Enju. “Besides, look. I have a bigger chest than y
ou do.”
“T-Tina. You traitor! Homewrecker! Female panther! Female cat!” Enju screamed.
It was hard to believe that this was a conversation between two ten-year-old children. Rentaro sighed as he watched the political violence of the Counter Breasts as their internal rift started. In any case, Tina appeared to be getting along in the Tendo Civil Security Agency just fine.
The warm night air floated through the eight-tatami-mat room. It was filled with the medicinal smell of mosquito repellant, but outside the window, Rentaro could hear the reserved chirping of bell crickets and pine crickets.
It was past 10 p.m., and it had been a while since they turned off the lights. Rentaro’s eyes were already used to the darkness. He was deep in thought as he lay in the middle futon between Enju and Tina, gazing at the complex wood grain in the ceiling.
As they ate, during the height of their feast, Rentaro tried explaining to the two of them about the collapse of the Monolith and the worst-case scenario of the Gastrea invasion after that. As expected, the two of them paled for a second, but then Enju retorted angrily, without a moment’s delay: “We will fight as well! It’ll be fine as long as we do something, right?”
“Enju, are you…okay with that…?” You might die, you know, he started to say. Enju and Tina had experienced battling against the Gastrea many times as civil officers. He did not think that they misread the threat that a faction of two thousand Gastrea would be.
“Big Brother,” Tina said as she stepped forward. She had a stern look on her face. “The Initiator ranked ninety-eighth by the International Initiator Supervision Organization, Tina Sprout, once fought the one thousandth–ranked Rentaro Satomi and lost. She died once. The life I’m living now is without a doubt my second life. Please use it as you wish.”
Rentaro was taken aback both by Tina looking up to him and by Enju’s dignified eyes. Rebelling against death, or resigned to living—where did the core of their strength come from? Even he and Kisara, who were closer to being adults than the two of them, could not come to an immediate decision after hearing the Seitenshi’s request.
The Destruction of the World by Fire Page 3
