“The sun’s setting. All that’s left today is to eat and go to sleep.”
Nonimora called Keena and Korone over and sat them down.
“You’re probably not used to this, so I’m sure it’s painful, but it’s just one more day. Tonight’s the last night you’ll have to do this. Don’t worry,” Nonimora said.
“I’m fine. Worry about Keena, not me. But you know, if you lived here too long you might not get enough electrolytes. We can’t stay here that long. No, I guess in Keena’s case she’s run out of rice,” Akuto said, and he looked at her. But she was eating with an unreadable expression. When they were done, Nonimora lay down.
“It’s not cold, but if you want, you can use a leaf as a blanket. I’d like to do some Hem-Hem, but we need to conserve our energy,” she said, and then began to snore immediately.
“...That’s amazing. Should we get some sleep too?” Akuto asked, and Keena nodded wordlessly.
“Give me a second,” she said softly, before getting up and leaving. He nodded, assuming she needed to go to the bathroom. Nonimora had told them how to recognize the trees for that.
“By the way,” Korone, who had been almost entirely and eerily silent, suddenly put her face right in front of Akuto’s.
“Uwah. What is it?”
“I can say this now that she’s gone. The Empress seems upset by something.”
“That’s right. If you know what it is, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me.”
“I do know what it is. It’s you.”
“Is that right?” Akuto was shocked.
“You’re giving Nonimora too much attention,” Korone said.
“Sure, I’m talking to her more right now, but that doesn’t mean...”
“I know you don’t mean anything by it. But please remember that the throne is a heavy burden for the Empress. Right now you’re acting not as a person, but as the Demon King. Of course, that can’t be helped, since that’s closer to your true nature.”
“That’s... fair. But yeah, maybe I’m thinking too ambitiously. Normal people don’t talk about the fate of nations,” Akuto said. He wasn’t sure about it at first, but he’d made his decision.
“That’s right. But for a while, the Empress will have to think about the wider world for a while too. But that wider world may be wider than just one country.”
“The Faceless Power, huh?”
“The empress feels that the power has something to do with her. Of course, she’s worried. She doesn’t gain confidence from having a great power, like you do.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Akuto felt ashamed of himself. It was true that Nonimora had her own philosophy, and a similar, though twisted version of it, lived in Akuto as well. What was more, there was something in the way she thought that he could sympathize with. Something that made him think a revolution was possible in the Empire.
But he realized that he wanted Keena away from all that, too. The girls around Akuto were extraordinary in every way. Keena was no exception, in some ways she was the worst of them all, but she wanted to live as a normal girl.
“...I need to apologize then.”
“Apologizing won’t change anything,” Korone said.
“Then what do I do?”
“It’s simple. Make love to her. Or ‘hem-hem,’ if you prefer the local vernacular.”
“Listen, jokes like that are...’ He cut off and waited for her to respond. But she didn’t answer.
“You’re not joking?”
“I’m serious. Fairly serious.”
“Fairly serious?”
“Well, 90% serious. The remaining 10% is sexual harassment.”
“Listen...”
“But well, what she wants is to have less to worry about. I’m not telling you to stick it in, or anything. She wouldn’t want that anyway.”
“Stick it in...?”
“That choice of words was 90% sexual harassment,” Korone said. “But I do think you should love her. Just hold her in your arms.”
“Hmm... Well, maybe you’re right.” Akuto was genuinely unsure.
“Now, I’m going into energy-saver mode, or what you call ‘sleep.’ Have fun.”
She knelt in front of the sleeping Nonimora and closed her eyes.. She seemed to have shut off some of her functions.
Then Keena returned.
“The toilet tree was pretty amazing,” she said, clearly entertained. It was like the old Keena had come back.
“I don’t need the details,” he responded like would have before, and then laid down. Keena laid down next to him.
For a while they said nothing. The sun had already completely set, and the light of the glowing tree was illuminating her face. The leaves of the trees blocked out the sky, and the lights of the distant glowing trees seemed like lampposts in the darkness.
“A lot’s happened,” Akuto began.
“Huh?” Keena seemed confused.
“I wanted to apologize, I guess,” he said, but the answer wasn’t what he expected.
“You haven’t done anything to apologize for, have you?”
“But...” His tone had turned serious without him realizing it.
“...It feels like I haven’t been giving you much attention lately.”
“Heheh...” She smiled and pressed herself up against him. “If you finally understand, that’s all that matters.”
“It’s hard, isn’t it? To me, it’s just normal now, though,” Akuto whispered, and Keena’s answered was whispered back.
“It’s not hard... It’s scary.”
“Scary?”
“There’s a me who’s me but isn’t me.”
“Yeah. I guess I know who you’re talking about.”
“And I think that me can do more amazing things than I can. It can really do the things that I can’t really do.”
“I know that, too.” Akuto felt like he knew what it was that was scaring her.
“So it feels like since you’re doing all this amazing stuff, you’re gonna need her, not me...” Her voice grew quieter.
“It seemed like you were getting along with the you who wasn’t you, though.”
“That’s why it’s scary. I don’t know how much of me is me anymore. But there really is a normal me, who can only do normal things...” She was speaking quickly, as if to hide the quavering in her voice. When Akuto realized this and glanced over at her, she turned away. But he could see a small trace of tears in her eyes.
“Keena,” he said, but she didn’t turn around.
“That’s why I thought, Ackie, that you liked me for the things that the me who wasn’t me could do, so I started thinking what the me that wasn’t me could do for you that the me who wasn’t me couldn’t, and I thought that maybe the answer was hem-hem...”
Keena was clearly starting to lose it.
“The me who isn’t me is kind of like me but sometimes I realize that the me who isn’t me is doing things that I wouldn’t do and sometimes the me who isn’t me talks like she’s me so it’s starting to feel like maybe I’m the me who’s not me...”
As she babbled, she started to sob, until Akuto grabbed her tight.
“Hyah!” She let out a short scream.
“Um... I’m not sure how to say this, but...”
He buried his face in her hair and put his lips up to her ear.
“Um... okay...”
Keena had completely frozen.
“You’re very dear to me. I don’t need you because you’re useful to me. What’s important to me is that you eat a lot of rice, or fall asleep next to me. Things like that. So even if there is no reason, I need you by my side. To me, not having a reason is my reason,” he whispered as he held her tighter.
Keena let out a short breath and shivered.
“I’m sorry... Did that hurt?”
“No... No that’s not it. It just made me happy.” Keena fidgeted nervously and turned around to face Akuto.
“Hey... You’re making me blush.”
&
nbsp; Akuto’s cheeks turned red as he stared into her eyes. Keena’s did too.
“But I’d rather face this way,” Keena said, and buried her face in his chest.
“Okay.” Akuto nodded, and lifted the hand he’d had wrapped around her body to run his fingers through her hair. He held her head to his chest and gently stroked her.
“That tickles...” Keena leaned forward and then looked up, her eyes pointing upward. Her eyes met Akuto’s. Both of them couldn’t look away from the other. The only sound was their breathing and heartbeats, which were pounding out a complicated rhythm. There was a tension between them that threatened to shatter with even a single word from either one of them.
“...Are we going to do it?” Keena asked.
Akuto didn’t know what to say. Time passed as they just stared at one another. The finger he’d put in her hair suddenly moved, running down the back of her head and to her neck. Keena gasped a little. And then...
“Don’t do hem-hem in secret!”
The two of them jumped apart. But when they turned around to look at Nonimora, she was completely asleep, with drool coming out of her mouth.
“She’s talking in her sleep...”
“That’s a weird thing to say in your sleep...”
The two of them whispered to each other covertly. And then both of them started to laugh.
“I’m going to sleep, too,” Keena said, and this time she innocently jumped into Akuto’s arms.
“Yeah, let’s get some rest,” he said as he put his arm around her neck. Keena used it as a pillow as she lay down next to him.
“But I’m sure, from now on, something will...”
“Huh?” Akuto asked.
But there was no answer. Keena was already asleep.
○
“Young mistress, that’s going to be difficult,” One of the young Hattori ninjas said.
“But all the machines are ready, right?”
Yuko was in the comms room of a military command center, less than an hour away by train from the imperial capital. Four operators were sitting in front of a wall of equipment, and Yuko was talking to their leader, telling him to broadcast the video they were recording to the whole country. Now that she’d sent Hiroshi off, she wanted to do what she could to help in her own way.
“That’s not the issue. The cabinet’s in charge of this stuff. C-MID8 probably put them up to it. Technically, we can do what you’re asking, but nobody will take responsibility for it.”
The ninja was wearing a soldier’s outfit, and so was Yuko. He was trying his best to argue with her.
“Dad’ll take responsibility. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t be crazy. Listen, do you understand what’s going on here? The Hattori specialize in spycraft. Of course, we don’t want C-MID8 to have the upper hand here. But it’s not just an issue of authority. They’re watching the whole network.”
“Really?” Yuko asked, surprised.
“That’s right. Anybody can do guerilla uploads of videos to the network now. But, and I have no idea how they did this, the Cabinet government has forbidden uploading video to the network at all. It’s not even that the cabinet’s censoring the news. They’re the only source of it. And what they’re saying is different than the information we’re getting.”
The ninja was trying his best to persuade her, but Yuko wasn’t about to back down.
“Brave is on his way. If we show them that they’ll all realize the truth.”
“Maybe you’re right. How can we give the people proof that C-MID8 wants war with the Republic? Until we can do that, we’re stuck.”
“And we can get that proof by showing them the scene of the crime!”
“We can’t sacrifice the Hattori clan for something so uncertain. Young mistress, please understand. Even if there is a war, we’ll win. The rest is only minor obstacles.”
“That’s not acceptable. Nobody knows what the Republic is, which is why they think it’s not a problem to start a war with them.”
Yuko sighed and turned around. Yoshie and Keisu were there. She’d gotten Junko to ask them for help.
“Unfortunately, your operator friend is right,” Yoshie said, her arms crossed in thought. When she’d gone to save Hiroshi from Rubbers, she’d heard most of what was going on, as well as the fact that it was probably a plot by The One.
“Nobody will believe us without proof. If it weren’t for our relationship with C-MID8, even we’d laugh at the idea of a talking dog named ‘The One.’”
“Then what are we supposed to do? Brave is already on his way.”
Yuko pointed to one of the mana screens that Yoshie had called up and projected near her side. It showed the video coming in from Hiroshi. Right now, it showed nothing but endless blue seas. This video was only shared between Hiroshi and Yoshie, and wasn’t being uploaded to the network.
“If what the operator said is true, and it’s impossible to upload this to the network, then some expert in cyberwarfare is behind it. Some kind of superman, too. I’m sure his codename is probably the Electronic Fairy or something.” Yoshie nodded to herself.
“No one cares.”
“Really? Anyway, there’s two ways to do this. One is to defeat the Electronic Fairy. That’d a little tough. I hate to say it, because I’ve got my own pride as a hacker, but right now we just don’t have enough information.”
“And our other option?” Yuko sounded hopeful, but Yoshie chuckled.
“This one’s simple, but difficult. We convince the prime minister.”
“Huh?”
“The head of the cabinet is the prime minister, and the prime minister runs the whole army, too. Right now they’re just doing what C-MID8, that is, what USD, tells them to.”
“Oh, right. But we can’t do that!” Yuko pouted. But then Yoshie grinned.
“We’ve got a better shot at this one, though. If we put something provocative onto the network, USD will hear it, right? And if he was betrayed, then he can’t be happy about what The One is up to. If nothing else, we can show him something. The rest is up to C-MID8 themselves.”
“We have to bet on something so uncertain?” Yuko complained, but Yoshie just smiled.
“You were trying to bet your whole family on something that you had no idea would work. I’m a big fan of going all in, but you know, the show’s only just getting started, right?”
“About that show...” The ninja spoke up.
“Whassup?” Yoshie asked.
“It’s begun, for real,” The ninja said, his voice tense.
“It ended up starting for real, huh?”
Yoshie looked at the video C-MID8 was showing online and compared it to what was coming in from Hiroshi. She rewound Hiroshi’s video a bit, until she saw a beam of mana light fall from the sky.
“Oh dear... So it was this “Codename Esper” or whatever who struck first?”
C-MID8’s video cut off a few seconds after that, just when the Republic submarines launched their missiles.
“If only the video from Brave was a little clearer.”
“Brave’s a surprisingly slow flyer, isn’t he?”
“Esper probably saw Brave coming and decided to take the initiative. Which means Brave may not make it in time,” Yoshie whispered.
“Did C-MID8 plan all this?”
“Probably. When we lost contact with the Empress’s ship, that was probably their doing,” Yoshie said. The Ninja nodded.
“The Republic seems to be trying to avoid conflict. They’re ignoring his other attacks and the King is repeatedly trying to make contact on official channels. But the Prime Minister is strongly rebuffing him. Of course, legally the prime minister is the one who should talk to him, but this wouldn’t have happened if he could have contacted the Empress. The King’s been trying, after all.”
Yuko frowned and stormed over to the ninja.
“If you knew all this, why couldn’t you stop the war?”
“Because...” The Ninja frowned and shook
his head. “The higher-ups want a war. We can’t stop them. And even we didn’t expect it to turn out this way. Think about it. The Empire hasn’t been in an external war for over a thousand years. No, there barely is anything outside the empire anymore. So this is the first time we’re realizing that it’s actually possible to start a war if you want one.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Everybody was scared of the Demon King who caused so much damage to our country. We’ve focused for so long on not creating another Demon King. But when you look outside, you realize that it’s possible for our country to be the aggressor. No, I guess we already are.”
Yoshie pointed at the mana screen. Kei was sinking the Republic’s submarines one after another.
○
“I’m not going to make it in time?” Maybe it really was all planned from the start, he wondered to himself. He was flying over endless open ocean. Since there was nothing to block his view, he could see the gunfire in the distance. It was irritating him.
—So after everything I said, I still can’t do anything?
He wasn’t completely sure what was going on between Kei and the submarines, but it looked like Kei was trying to provoke them by attacking them. The only other information he had was coming from the news broadcast that Yuko’s group was sending him. Of course, there was a time lag in the video. It took time to alter the footage. They were making the video follow the story they’d prepared. In other words: negotiations had broken down because of the Republic’s actions, and then the Republic had fired first.
Videos of the sinking submarines were already reaching Hiroshi. He was almost there, but by the time he arrived would there be any left?
He heard a huge explosion, and a pillar of water rose high into the air. By the time he finally got there, the battle was basically over. He’d arrived just in time to see the last sub sink. There was foam everywhere, caused by the bubbles formed from the sinking subs. He could see a film of oil and tiny pieces of metal.
Above it all was an opponent he’d fought before.
From the events that had occurred so far, he must’ve been there for days without resupply, but his beauty hadn’t decreased at all.
Kei was still alluring and elegant, and cruelly charming. And what he was doing was perfectly true to his cruel appearance. Some people Hiroshi didn’t recognize had been lifted out of the water by Kei’s magic. The color of their skin was slightly different than that of an imperial. But the biggest difference was the fins on their arms. They were clearly creatures that lived underwater, but they had the silhouettes of humans.
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 11 Page 8
