Purgatory Strider

by Shiden Kanzaki

  Rentaro’s instinct told him not to approach, so he unholstered his gun, aimed, and fired a barrage of shots. The recoil from the nine-millimeter rocked his arm.

  He realized the mistake he had made when he saw Yuga twist and turn his body to dodge them. Of course. He was fighting a foe with eye enhancements just like his. If he kept relying only on what he could see with his eyes, the predictive AI was going to read his bullets’ trajectory every time.

  The sheer speed at which Yuga then rushed toward him, body kept low to the ground, was clear from the mist he kicked up around him. Rentaro aimed his Beretta again.

  But Yuga interrupted him with the throw of a knife. It stuck into the Beretta, confusing his eyeball’s measurements and making him accidentally pull the trigger. The muzzle flash erupted toward nothing in particular.

  The remaining knife was at Yuga’s hip, shining dully in the mist as it rocketed toward Rentaro. Realizing it was too late to dodge it, he lowered his body, preparing to deflect the blade with his Super-Varanium right arm.

  His entire body seemed to creak at the moment of impact, his soles sliding against the steel floor. The heat generated by the friction left the smell of something burning in the air, and the sound of metal screeching against metal greeted his ears. The blade danced by in the air, mere centimeters from his nose.

  By a hair’s breadth, he had stopped his opponent’s bull charge. Yuga’s hate-twisted face was directly in front of his. He could feel his breathing.

  But once again, Rentaro misjudged Yuga Mitsugi’s threat. Yuga only had a knife in his right hand. In his left he held a small, round object that he brought toward Rentaro, as if offering it to him.

  Rentaro groaned, like an icy hand had a grip on his heart. He recognized that object.

  An HG-86 mini-grenade.

  The detonation pin and lever were already off. At this range, both were squarely in the kill zone.

  A suicide strike?!

  Rentaro’s body reacted to the fear seizing his body. With a free elbow, he knocked the grenade away. It flew off the catwalk and fell down below, then exploded with a body-wrenching shock wave.

  Yuga’s left hand was now free. It struck hard against Rentaro’s stomach, left wide open by his uplifted elbow. Belatedly, Rentaro realized what Yuga was doing.

  Oh damn. His palm strike can—

  One look at Yuga’s upturned lips was enough to freeze his spine.

  “Vairo-orchestration! Prepare to be shattered!”

  The next instant, a withering pain beyond all imagination tore through his body.

  “Gyaaaaahhhh!”

  His vision was jarred. The pain made it feel like his body was being blown apart.

  Without even realizing what he was doing, he flailed his feet and managed to wrest himself free. His vision was still lurching back and forth, and the pain made him fall to his knees. Rentaro looked at his wound. His guts felt loose in his body, and the amount of bleeding damage was unlike anything he had seen before. He felt a blob of something distasteful well up in his esophagus, and then blood bubbled out of his mouth, along with bits of lung that had been vibrated off. It was jet-black in color, and now it stained the floor an even more ominous shade.

  His eye blurred, his body screaming out in pain. It urged him not to move—but, gritting his teeth in desperation, he looked up at Yuga. He, too, was gravely wounded. It was a wonder he could still stand. And why wouldn’t it be? He had taken the full brunt of not one, but two cartridge strikes. That he was alive at all was a miracle.

  “We were created ten years ago to defend the world during the Gastrea War! Don’t you see how pointless fighting each other is?!” Rentaro shrieked.

  Yuga swept an arm horizontally in front of him. “I believe in Professor Grünewald! That’s the path I’ve chosen!”

  “I never got used to this machine body. I had to get my limbs replaced every time I grew a bit more. It was a constant barrage of pain.”

  “Me too.”

  “I thought it was gonna kill me, once or twice.”

  “Me too.”

  “It’s not too late, all right?! I don’t want to kill you!”

  “You’re making no sense!” came Yuga’s reply. “Why aren’t you trying to join the ruling side? We’re the chosen ones! If there’s any problem with us, it’s only that we can’t transcend entropy—we can’t make a machine that doesn’t break down! Sumire Muroto made you into just as devastating a killing machine as I am! We were built to create destruction and chaos. We’re practically brothers! You…and I!”

  “Shut up! I’m not like you at all! Dr. Muroto gave me this arm so I could connect with people!”

  “That’s a pack of lies!”

  “You asshole…!” Rentaro shouted as he stood up, shedding droplets of blood. His lungs shuddered in pain with every breath. White mist continued to billow out from the cords and devices around him—but all he could hear now was the beating of his own heart.

  Yuga lowered his stance, preparing for action as he took his unique crossed-arms defensive tactic again. Rentaro joined him, but he chose to take the Tendo Martial Arts Water and Sky Stance instead. There was nothing defensive about it. No escape for his foe.

  The cybernetic parts of each young man were operating faster than they ever had before—perhaps for the last time. Sparks of light entered their vision.

  The staredown made both sides hold their breath. It was a picture of concentration in its ultimate form. Once it was released, it was over. The fists of both opponents were clenched, ready to take the life of their respective foe.

  What wound up breaking the tranquility was the voice of a girl from behind the door: Hotaru.

  “Rentaro!”

  That was the signal. Without even a second of hesitation, Rentaro stomped his foot on the floor and set off three cartridges at the same time. He closed in on Yuga at supersonic speed, faster than a jet engine. Then he burned through one on his arm, the smell of burnt gunpowder penetrating his nostrils.

  His fist unleashed itself. Yuga’s own was approaching his eyes.

  Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 8: Homura Kasen.

  Cartridge thrust clashed with ultravibration—two of the world’s most advanced technologies colliding, immediately clearing all the mist out of the room with the shock waves. Their footholds collapsed under them, the main computer emitting sparks in the background.

  “Haaaaaaaaaaah!”

  “Grrrrrraaaaahhhh!”

  Fist collided with open palm, vying for superiority. Rentaro’s opponent was in such a bad mess that Rentaro had no idea how his ultravibration device still worked. But work it did. Thunder coursed across his artificial arm, cracking his Super-Varanium fist.

  Releasing a guttural, beastlike roar, Rentaro activated all his remaining cartridges at the same time.

  “Unnnnn-liiiiiimited…burrrrrrrsssst!!”

  There was an unprecedented clash of energy, to a level that not even experiments with a particle accelerator could hope to achieve. Then, like nothing ever heard before, there was the sound of machinery cracking to pieces.

  Rentaro felt something tugging at him, as if trying to wrench his head from his neck. He was shot backward by the destructive blast, like two magnets repelling each other. The force sent his body against the floor a few times before he finally crashed into the tree trunk of pipes in the center of the dome. He gritted his teeth hard enough to lose one or two—but Rentaro still leapt back to his feet.

  Yet he couldn’t find the enemy he was pursuing. He picked up his Beretta handgun, plucking the knife out from where it was stuck.

  Risking a peek down into the guts of the catwalk, he realized why there was no answer to his attack. Amidst the fog produced by the evaporating hyper-chilled liquid nitrogen, he saw Yuga plastered against a pipe, his clothes frozen to it. He was motionless. Rentaro wordlessly pointed the Beretta at him. Yuga glared back, the hatred congealing over his eyesight. His eyes rejected all sympathy.

  Conv
incing him with words would never work now.

  So Rentaro instead nudged his handgun to the side and shot a bullet through the tank next to him.

  Immediately, a clear, all-freezing liquid, chilled down to negative 196 degrees Celsius, descended upon Yuga’s body, emitting dense, thick clouds of evaporation.

  “Gaaahhh!”

  Rentaro averted his eyes. If he had any mercy to give, it lay in how the massive clouds of mist kept the decisive moment from being viewed.

  There was the crackling of rapidly freezing matter. Then silence.

  A strong, cool breeze rustled across his hair. The world was a bloom of grayish white once more.

  “Rentaro…”

  Hotaru clearly had something to ask. But instead of letting her continue, Rentaro walked past her.

  “It’s over,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  The moment they climbed the stairs from the second-floor basement to the single aboveground story, they were each forced to put a hand over their own forehead, to protect their eyes from the burning sunlight.

  They hadn’t realized it, since they had spent the past several hours belowground, but it was already well into daylight outdoors. Going out the facility’s back door, they found themselves on top of a small hill, in the middle of a basin dug into a conical valley.

  “I guess that’s how they keep the Gastrea from getting in here,” Rentaro said as he shaded his eyes. In front of them was a line of tall, deep-black stone Monoliths. There was hardly any room between them to go through.

  “Portable Monoliths…? Is that how they claimed the land?”

  Each one was about two meters in width and 3.25 meters in height. A set of mini-Monoliths, through and through, as if manufactured for a Tokyo Area–themed mini golf course. Size made all the difference in effectiveness, so these Monoliths would likely repel Stage One creatures and not much else. Against a Stage Two, they’d act as a mild deterrent; anything tougher, and the best you could hope for was a good running start.

  They were familiar enough to Rentaro. Varanium mining operations in the Unexplored Territory always deployed sets of these, usually accompanied by civsec bodyguards. Maybe that was Swordtail’s and Hummingbird’s day job around there.

  “What’d you do with the explosives?”

  “I placed them on the load-bearing columns across the building. We can set all of them off at the same time. I took a bunch of pictures of the facility, too, so we’re good to go evidence-wise.”

  “Okay. Let’s move back a bit and set it off. We’ll have to watch to make sure the whole thing collapses.”

  “Hang on. If we blow it up now, we won’t be able to take the train back.”

  Rentaro gently shook his head. “Their plan was probably to have Yuga ambush and kill me in the lab. We just turned the tables on them. I guess New World can monitor their assassins’ vital signs somehow, so the enemy already knows he’s dead by now. There’s no guarantee they won’t blow the tunnel while we’re running that train down it. We can’t afford to let up for a single moment until we hand over the evidence and bring Five Wings to public light.”

  Hotaru eyed the Monoliths nervously—the real ones, off in the far distance.

  “Can we make it back okay?”

  “The Monoliths’ magnetic field reaches out five kilometers past the border. We’re around sixteen kilos from there now, so once we walk eleven, we’re in the clear. Even if we run into any Gastrea on the way, they’re gonna be Stage One, Two at most. Strength-wise, we’ve got nothing to worry about. The sun’s gonna set on the way, but I think we can manage.”

  He couldn’t tell how much of the bravado in his voice made it across to Hotaru. But she seemed to accept it well enough. She looked up to him, an optimistic smile on her face.

  “All right. But let’s bury those Gastrea alive first.”

  Rentaro nodded lightly.

  They marched past the line of mini-Monoliths, standing proudly as they sucked up the intense daylight sun, and climbed up the valley. Once they reached a position where they had a full view of the lab, Hotaru took out the wireless switch to activate the explosives and removed the plastic cover on the button. Rentaro tensed himself up with anticipation as he looked down at the lab.

  “Rentaro.”

  Hotaru’s voice had an odd sort of wistfulness to it. It seemed rather out of place. Turning to her, Rentaro found her slightly flush around the cheeks, an affable smile on her face.

  “Thanks.”

  “Thanks for what?”

  “For everything up to now.”

  Rentaro’s eyes darted away. He scratched his head, unable to reply to this unfamiliar appreciation on Hotaru’s part.

  “Kind of too early to thank me, isn’t it? It’s gonna be hilarious if those explosives turn out to be a dud.”

  Hotaru brought a hand to her eyes, chuckling as she shook her head a bit. “Rentaro, I…I know maybe you don’t want to hear this from me, but…”

  Maybe it was an Initiator’s sixth sense sounding a warning to her.

  Looking at the lab, Hotaru’s eyes shot wide open. She ran back up to Rentaro. Unable to comprehend this, Rentaro found himself thrown into the air. He couldn’t recover in time, hitting his head against a stone on the ground as stars filled his eyes.

  “…Ow!” Rentaro shouted. “What’re you—?”

  Rentaro managed to make it this far before he ran out of words.

  “I’m glad you’re…okay, Rentaro.”

  Hotaru dimly smiled as she stood there. She waddled forward with unsteady steps, trying her best to stay on her feet. A trail of blood ran from the edge of her lips.

  Looking down, Rentaro saw that her abdominal area—the light pink in her tank top—was now stained a deep red.

  This was the point at which the second sniper bullet probably came along.

  It ripped Hotaru’s chest area open. Warm blood spattered on Rentaro’s face. She immediately lost her balance, falling to her knees, head down, before collapsing on top of Rentaro.

  His eyes remained open in disbelief as he broke the shattered girl’s fall.

  “Hotaru?”

  3

  He had just shot down his target, but there was no particularly deep sense of victory.

  Yuga’s hand pulled back the bolt handle. It ejected the empty cartridge and sent the next round into the chamber. It was a procedure he could conduct as naturally as his own breathing.

  “…Checkmate.”

  The low, hushed voice was bereft of warmth, enough to make any onlooker’s blood run cold. It sounded more like a groan wafting in from the underworld.

  As it should be, for he would be visiting there soon.

  Yuga took his attention away from the window for just a moment, staring at his own legs. Everything below the thighs was gone.

  But, for two reasons, there was only a slight trickle of blood. One, Yuga’s legs were already half-machine, bolstered by carbon nanotubes and enhanced artificial musculature, and there was a litany of fail-safes installed that would constrict blood vessels and shut off the flow of blood for him. Two—and this was the simpler one—by the time Yuga managed to amputate his own legs, everything from the thighs down was already frozen solid.

  The shower of liquid nitrogen over his body felt so hot as it flowed across his nervous system. It nearly drove him insane before killing him. Just before it could, he managed to shut down his pain receptors and perform the amputation in more or less cruise-control mode. He had to hand it to himself. He was one hell of a war machine.

  Now that the worst was behind him, Yuga had crawled out of the Gastrea cultivation room, lifted himself up step-by-step across the ramp, recovered his sniper rifle, and made his way to a first-floor window. It was sheer, unrelenting force of will that drove him, and nothing else.

  Hotaru Kouro was no longer on his mind. She didn’t register with the solidified ball of obsessive hatred within him. No part of his body wanted anything more than to dispatch his enemy. He was a ph
ysical manifestation of murderous intent.

  The gunshots were like the cheering of well-wishers in his ears. The recoil was like a hand rocking his cradle. The smell of spent gunpowder was the sweet scent of a gourmet meal.

  Still half-dead, he’d used his silencer to break the glass of the lab window, rested the barrel on the sill, and shot the enemy on top of the hill with his rifle—all in a single, fluid motion.

  The bullets were filled with concentrated Varanium, modified to stay embedded within the victim’s body.

  His next shot had missed. By then Rentaro had dragged Hotaru’s body behind the hill, but he had dropped the activation switch she was carrying on the slope. If he wanted it back, he would have to run back into range.

  But Yuga had no reason to be optimistic. His frozen bottom half would unfreeze soon enough. The blood oozing from his legs’ capillary tubes would render his mechanical blood flow–restriction abilities moot. He might die from blood loss.

  No. He couldn’t have that happen. Right now, Yuga was a sniper. Even if all the blood spurted out of his body, the moment Rentaro entered his line of vision, he would pull the trigger back like the perfect sniper he was. And once he saw his opponent fall dead, he would probably expire right then.

  A sniper never sleeps until their target is completely dead.

  Both of his cybernetic eyes rotated at high speed, making their preliminary calculations.

  “It’s not over! It’s not over yet. Come on! Get over here, Rentaro Satomi…!”

  What little warmth Hotaru had left in her arms began to ebb. Her perforated, blood-filled lungs breathed in shallow mouthfuls of the final air they’d taste, like a broken pair of bellows. It was something wholly different from the period of cataleptic regeneration she normally fell into.

  Part of him asked himself why. Another grew to accept it.

  There were all the omens. Why did Yuga go and fire the first shot inside the lab’s vineyard at Hotaru? Swordtail must have told him all about Hotaru’s regenerative abilities before he died. He knew that, but he still wasted his time on a seemingly pointless shot.