Black Bullet, Vol. 1: Those Who Would Be Gods

by Shiden Kanzaki

  Rentaro could not believe his eyes. That pair had intercepted many skillful attackers and had eliminated all of them, yet neither had a single scratch. Rentaro was tormented by an intense regret and took a step back.

  Why didn’t he wait until he could call for the support of other civil officers? He had faced the pair a number of times and had been plainly shown their superhuman strength each time. Even if he hadn’t, the outcome of the battle was clear when Shogen Ikuma was killed without being able to do a thing. At that time, Rentaro could have still turned around and run away.

  After wasting both chances he had, he was now in the worst possible situation. It was too late to run now. “Kagetane…,” he said. “Where is the case…?!”

  “I knew you would come.” A lukewarm wind blew on Rentaro’s skin. With the moon behind him, Kagetane Hiruko turned around with a gun in both hands, opening his arms wide with benevolence. “The final curtain is near. Let’s settle this, Satomi.”

  BLACK BULLET

  CHAPTER 04

  THOSE WHO WOULD BE GODS

  1 4:10 A.M.

  A silent electronic eye watched the confrontation between Rentaro Satomi and Kagetane Hiruko from an altitude of eight hundred meters.

  At the operation headquarters in the First District of Tokyo Area, the Japan National Security Council, or JNSC, used the various data transmission technologies that unmanned surveillance drones were equipped with in order to display the events on the monitors in the meeting room practically in real time.

  A dead silence had descended on the operation headquarters. Sitting at the long table, the Chief Cabinet Secretary and the Minister of Defense kept looking at each other’s faces furtively. Just moments earlier, they watched the footage of fourteen pairs and one person—twenty-nine civil officers in all—who jointly challenged Kagetane Hiruko and had the tables turned on them.

  Currently, they had footage from above as two pairs of four people faced each other silently, waiting for the battle to start.

  Sitting at the head of the long table, the chair of the JNSC, the Seitenshi, sighed as she looked at the Minister of Defense. “Currently, what other civil officers are in their vicinity?”

  “Er, even the closest pair would take over an hour to reach them.” The bulldog-faced Minister of Defense seemed at his wits’ end as he started dabbing his face with a handkerchief.

  The Seitenshi looked at the vice-chair, Kikunojo Tendo. With his boulderlike countenance, Kikunojo returned her look with a nod. “Your decision, Lady Seitenshi?”

  After a moment’s contemplation, the Seitenshi stood up from her chair. “Very well—”

  Suddenly, the sound of the raised voices of the security police who were standing guard outside the meeting room could be heard. The door to the situation room was suddenly thrown open, and a number of people surged into the room. The Seitenshi saw the girl at the front of the pack, and her response was delayed for a moment.

  “What is going on?” the Seitenshi demanded.

  The black-haired girl at the front of the pack and president of the Tendo Civil Security Agency, Kisara Tendo, swaggered into the middle of the room, cutting through the middle to thrust a piece of paper in the faces of everyone sitting there. The paper in Kisara’s hands was covered with circles, and outside the circles, like a collection of autographs, were handwritten signatures and stamps of signature seals.

  The Seitenshi peeked at the paper and gulped involuntarily. It was a compact under joint signatures. If she remembered correctly, long ago, during the Peasants’ Revolt, they used this in order to form a strong contractual bond among the group and hide the ringleader at the same time.

  The gazes of everyone around very naturally turned to the person whose name was one of the many on the list—the Minister of Defense. The other high-ranking government officials drew away from him.

  “Good afternoon, Minister Kutsuwada,” said Kisara.

  “Wh-what kind of joke is this?” said the Minister of Defense.

  “Your subordinate had this very interesting piece of paper, you know. It’s just as it says on the joint compact. You are one in a group secretly maneuvering behind Kagetane Hiruko. In addition, you are also the one who stole the Inheritance of the Seven Stars and tried to leak that information to the media.”

  “Th-that’s not true…”

  Kisara put her hand to her chin and put on a show of tilting her head. “Handwriting a compact under joint signatures is a very old-fashioned thing to do. Thanks to that, I can round up everyone responsible at once, which saves me the extra trouble.”

  The Seitenshi narrowed her eyes. She could not continue to listen silently. “This meeting room is a place of the law that bears the burden of this country’s defense. It is problematic for you to enter rudely like this.”

  “Th-that’s right. You are no more than a filthy civil officer dog! I don’t know where you got hold of such a thing, but you need to get out of here!” The minister howled, riding on the Seitenshi’s coattails.

  However, Kisara remained composed. “Lady Seitenshi, I agree completely with what you say. However, when I discovered these facts, I could not wait another second to share this with you and hastened to this place. Lady Seitenshi, you must also feel the need to dispose of the spy before continuing with the proceedings, do you not?” She was very eloquent.

  The Seitenshi signaled Kikunojo. Kikunojo looked coolly at the Minister of Defense. “Take him away.”

  “W-wait…Lord Tendo!” The minister had a pleading look on his face. “I’m… I’m…!” The security officers lifted the man by both arms and took him screaming out of the meeting room.

  “Then, I will take my leave here,” said Kisara.

  “President Tendo, I cannot let you do that,” said the Seitenshi.

  Kisara, who looked like she had been about to turn on her heel, stopped her movement and turned back halfway. “Why not?”

  “I’m sorry, but I cannot have you leave this building until this operation is completed successfully. I will have you informally confined to this room for the time being.”

  Kisara pretended for just a moment to put her hand to her chin and think. “If that’s the case, then I suppose I must stay.”

  “Kisara…I cannot believe you would show your face here.” Kikunojo did not do anything to hide his wrath.

  However, Kisara just flashed him a calm smile. “Good afternoon, Lord Tendo. It has been some time.”

  “Have you returned from hell for your vengeance?”

  “I have just come to exterminate a cockroach that was crawling around my bedside. It was only coincidence that I happened to be here at the same time as you. Don’t you think you are being too suspicious?”

  “I cannot believe you can joke around like that…”

  Kisara’s eyes gave off a cold glitter as she narrowed them. “Every Tendo must die, Lord Tendo.”

  “Y-you little…”

  It did not sound anything like a conversation a grandfather would have with his granddaughter. Even just knowing part of the relationship between Kisara and Kikunojo made the Seitenshi frightened.

  “Please leave it at that, you two,” she said. “President Tendo, if you have been watching the monitor, then you must understand what the situation is to a certain extent. Will you tell us your opinion on the matter?”

  4:15 A.M.

  The lukewarm wind blew against Rentaro’s skin.

  The smell of salt was strong in his nostrils. There was the sound of rippling waves breaking against the concrete wharf. The moonlight made the surface of the water shine like silvery scales, but the bottom of the ocean was so dark that it could not be seen. The smell of the water was mixed with the smell of blood. There was a mountain of corpses nearby. And at the tip of the pier stood the two fighting asuras.

  Rentaro looked at the spreading sea of blood and asked in a low growl, “Did you bastards do all this?”

  “We didn’t want the church to get dirty with blood,” said Kagetan
e. “Everything that we could do is over already. I’m sure the Stage Five Gastrea will be here soon. All that’s left is to wait.”

  “Is the case inside the church? And if I go in and wreck all your preparations right now, will the summoning of the Stage Five be stopped?”

  “I don’t think that’s possible, because we are standing in your way.”

  “Then, I’ll destroy you.”

  Kagetane raised his eyebrows and laughed. “I am the one who will destroy the world. No one can stop me.”

  “President Tendo, what do you think the Satomi pair’s chances are of winning?” the Seitenshi asked.

  Kisara’s eyes showed no expression as she put her chin in her hand, thinking. “Perhaps about thirty percent? If I am allowed to take my own expectations into consideration, then I believe he will definitely win.”

  The Chief Cabinet Secretary scoffed and laughed. “President Tendo, it’s not that I do not understand wanting to believe in the strength of one’s own employees. However, twenty-nine civil officers have just been killed. And one of them is a survivor of the New Humanity Creation Project. He doesn’t even have a one-percent chance of winning.”

  “One of them? No, you are mistaken, Chief Cabinet Secretary.”

  “What?”

  “Secretary, I will spare you the details, but ten years ago, right after Satomi was taken in by the Tendo family, a stray Gastrea invaded my house and devoured my mother and father. Because of the stress of that time, my chronic diabetes worsened, and my kidneys pretty much stopped functioning.”

  The secretary looked confused, like he could not tell where she was going with this story. “I-I do believe that is an unfortunate story, but what does that have to do with—?”

  She cut him off. “When Satomi protected me then, his right arm and leg were eaten by the Gastrea, and his left eye was gouged out. Near death, he was taken to Section 22. The doctor who operated on him was Dr. Sumire Muroto, celebrated as a miracle worker of the times.”

  “Sumire Muroto, you said? Then, don’t tell me he is…”

  Thinking that this was a good time, the Seitenshi looked next to her. “Kikunojo, pass out their specs to everyone, please.”

  Rentaro glared fixedly in front of him. In front of him was the enemy. The enemy he needed to defeat. Closing his eyes silently, he rolled up his right sleeve and pant leg and stretched his arm straight out. “I will stop you, Kagetane…for the sake of those you killed mercilessly, and for Kisara’s and Enju’s sakes. Kagetane Hiruko, I will stop you!”

  With a creaking sound, cracks appeared on his right arm and leg, and artificial skin made of plastic elastomer and silicone warped and peeled off, piling at his feet.

  After taking a glance at the materials, the secretary stood up with a shrill cry. “Impossible!” He scratched his head and made his confusion and fear known. “There is no way… What is the meaning of this…? There was one more? Another human weapon born of the Gastrea War?”

  Eventually, a jet-black arm appeared from underneath Rentaro’s artificial skin. His left leg also glistened with black chrome from the crotch down. Air vents that stuck out like barbs autonomously started peristalsis, and when he opened his eyes, his field of vision widened, and the colors became more vivid. His artificial eye was connected directly to his optic nerve, widening his field of vision and allowing it to capture objects in 3-D. Built into his artificial eye was a nano-core processor made using a graphene transistor. It activated and started operating. The inside of the pupil spun, geometrical shapes emerged, his sense of smell became sharper, and a rich taste filled his mouth.

  Kagetane’s body trembled. “Artificial Varanium limbs…? Satomi, don’t tell me you’re one, too?”

  Rentaro raised his head slowly. “I will give you my name, as well, Kagetane. I am Rentaro Satomi, former member of the Ground Self-Defense Force’s Eastern Force, 787th Mechanization Special Unit, of the New Humanity Creation Project.”

  “Satomi’s artificial limbs and eye are made of the alloy Super-Varanium, made from a base of Varanium in a state of weightlessness and mixing in ten different kinds of rare and common metals. It is a next generation alloy that has many times the hardness level and a much higher melting point than Varanium. The section Kagetane Hiruko was with, Section 16, was tactically concerned with absolute defense and created a repulsion force field to stop the attacks of Stage Four Gastrea. Satomi was with Section 22, which was concerned with the exact opposite. Using the propulsion force of ten cartridges in his arm and fifteen cartridges in his leg, he can attack with superhuman strength. It is the personal armament of a New Humanity Creation Project soldier born of the desire to consign Gastrea to oblivion using man himself.”

  Kagetane spread both arms and started laughing wildly. “I see, I see! So that’s how it was! From the moment I met you, I liked what I saw, but I didn’t think we really were the same kind!” The laughing continued.

  Enju gave a heartbreaking scream. “Rentaro, I thought you were never to use that again?!”

  “It’s fine,” said Rentaro. “More importantly, you need to settle this once and for all. It doesn’t agree with you to stay the loser, right?”

  Enju glared sharply in Kohina’s direction and then gave a hard nod. Enju’s and Kohina’s black eyes turned a fiery red at almost the same time as they released their power.

  “I am thankful to Kagetane Hiruko,” Kisara continued with dignity. “This past year, no matter how much I hounded him, Satomi lazily refused to use that. He hates himself. But right now, Satomi is seriously angry. I have only seen this once before myself, so I cannot predict what will happen after this.”

  The Seitenshi stood from her chair and looked around as she announced, “I hope you all understand the meaning of this fight. The battle between Rentaro Satomi and Kagetane Hiruko could be called the battle between the ultimate lance and the ultimate shield, the battle of opposites. However, they will be at odds with one another. In this battle, when it is all over, one pair will definitely be annihilated. Please fight, Satomi, and prove that you are the strongest!”

  “Please win, Satomi… Please.” The Seitenshi heard Kisara murmur under her breath as she clasped her hands together.

  The cold night wind blew and teased at Rentaro’s uniform. The air was tense, and it seemed sinful to even breathe. Rentaro stepped firmly on the dirt with the bottom of his boots. Sweating in anticipation of the fight and feeling choked, he tore off his necktie.

  The enemy was serious. Even when a large number of civil officers banded together, they could not even scratch him.

  Kagetane took a stance. He took his two custom Berettas from their holsters, unfolded their bayonet units, and held them out to his sides. Kohina had also drawn her short swords and was holding them crossed in front of her. As the perpendicular swords and guns diffused the moonlight, they formed the shape of a cross of death, ready to engrave God’s majesty on those who would die.

  “Do you understand, Satomi?” said Kagetane. “Do you understand what it means to challenge me, who once held an IP Rank of 134?”

  Rentaro took his stance silently. The Tendo Martial Arts Infinite Stance made him conscious of the eternally limitless existence of the heavens and the earth. “Don’t worry. I know exactly what that means, Kagetane. I’ve lost twice, all my allies have been annihilated, and no backup is coming. This is not the situation I wanted to be in, scumbag! Let’s start the fight. I’m going to exterminate you now, you bastard!”

  That was the signal to start the battle.

  As Rentaro stepped forward, Kagetane came at him first. He swung his arms as if he was going to mow him down. “Maximum Pain! I’ll crush you…!” The bluish-white field expanded in a fan shape and rammed into Rentaro with terrifying momentum.

  “Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 3—” The sound of an explosion rang in the air, and the extractor that ran along Rentaro’s fake ulnar nerve on his artificial arm picked up empty golden shell casings and kicked them out as it ro
tated. “Sokuro Kabuto!” Rentaro finished. His explosively fast fist, which was sped up through cartridge propulsion, warped the incoming wall and punched through it. The point of impact exploded, and both he and Kagetane were sent flying into the air.

  “So you broke through Maximum Pain, huh…?” said Kagetane.

  “That’s not all!” said Rentaro.

  Suddenly, Kagetane’s knees bent, and he coughed up blood. He wiped the part of his mask around his mouth and looked wonderingly at the blood that flowed out.

  “Papa!” Kohina shouted.

  “The field couldn’t block all of the damage?” Kagetane laughed maniacally, standing on his tiptoes and spreading his arms as he spun around once. “What fun! What fun, Satomi! I am in pain! I am alive! What a wonderful life! Hallelujah!”

  Just as Rentaro thought Kohina had disappeared from sight, she appeared in front of him and Enju. She screamed in his ear, “Don’t be mean to Papaaaaa!”

  Kohina spun once as if dancing with short swords still in both hands. She covered the ten meters between them and slashed with great speed, but other than that swing, her swordsmanship was very random. There was the sound of clashing blades. In the end, a look of astonishment appeared on Kohina’s face. The bottom of Enju’s shoe was on her right sword, and Rentaro’s artificial arm had blocked the left sword in defense.

  The perception amplification device in Rentaro’s artificial eye calculated the enemy’s position and predicted the direction they would move in based on how fast they were moving. As they were locked together, Rentaro used his free left hand to draw the XD from its holster.

  However, before he could finish pulling the trigger, Enju’s body rammed into his. It was a strong enough force to make him feel the contents of his stomach come up, but in the blink of an eye, the place where Rentaro had just been exploded into a cloud of dust, and Rentaro understood her actions. From the pier, Kagetane had covered for Kohina with his Beretta.