The Roses of Tartarus

by Gakuto Mikumo

  “Okay…”

  Nagisa could only vaguely nod. That must have been enough for December, because she explained no further, content to bring more delicious ice cream to her mouth.

  “Um… Miss December, what are you doing here…?”

  “You don’t need to use miss. Miss December, that’s like adding a date to it, yes? Like December the third or something.”

  “A date… Ah, okay…”

  December’s weird hang-up confused Nagisa, but it wasn’t as if she didn’t understand what the girl was trying to say.

  “I came…to observe.”

  “Observe…you say?”

  “That’s right. Because when I told him, ‘I’ll watch over you,’ he said, ‘I don’t need you.’ So I decided I’d eat some ice cream and watch from a nice perch. Should be just about time…”

  “Time?”

  For what? Nagisa was uncertain. If it was waiting for the buildings to illuminate at night, that was long in coming, and she didn’t think there were any events conducted during daylight on a normal day in the middle of a nowhere place like that.

  “Are you watching Keystone Gate?”

  “Mmm, not exactly.”

  December tossed her empty ice cream cup into a nearby garbage bin as she smiled. Somehow, it seemed like a lonely, resigned smile.

  “I came to watch the beginning. The beginning of this Demon Sanctuary’s downfall—”

  “Huh…?”

  Before December finished, a flash of light bounced into the corner of Nagisa’s vision.

  A second later, a roar slammed into her eardrums. Itogami Island’s artificial ground shook, and as a side effect, the gigafloat upon which Nagisa and December stood shuddered as well.

  The exteriors of buildings crumbled, with debris thereof dancing in the sky. There had been an explosion—an explosion under Keystone Gate. A giant explosion sufficient to rock the very ground.

  “Keystone Gate…!”

  Shocked, Nagisa looked at December. How did she know that there was going to be an explosion? What did she mean by the Demon Sanctuary’s downfall—? Countless questions swirled inside her mind.

  But before she could voice her concerns, Nagisa’s entire body lost its strength.

  Her mind was going blank. She was falling into an irresistible sleep.

  The last thing Nagisa saw was December’s eyes.

  Her eyes glowed blue, like a flame.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DECEMBER

  1

  The girl was immersed in a transparent-crimson liquid.

  She was a poor sight.

  Her skin was deathly pale like that of a corpse, no sign of blood coursing through her veins. Her entire body had deep wounds carved into it, openings seemingly made by sewing needles. It was a horrid sight, as if her flesh, after being rent apart, had been haphazardly forced back together.

  And yet, the girl was still beautiful.

  With her eyes closed, the girl’s face was refined. Her slender physique possessed splendid symmetry, and her black hair gave off a luster as it floated in the fluid that resembled fresh blood.

  It was an underground lab chamber filled to the brim with cutting-edge medical devices—

  As the girl floated in the glass container, a baby-faced woman wearing a shabby white coat looked up at her.

  “Mm-hmmmm.”

  With the wooden spoon from a delicious, locally popular brand of ice cream in her mouth, the woman in the white coat hummed.

  This was Mimori Akatsuki, chief researcher at the Itogami Island lab belonging to MAR—Magna Ataraxia Research Inc. She turned to the lapel microphone attached to the collar of her white coat and innocently called out to the girl.

  “Good morning, Princess. Can you hear me…?”

  “A…ga…”

  After a brief delay, the girl covered in wounds opened her eyes. Her hollow gaze jumped about before settling into a glare directed at Mimori as the woman stood before the vat. The girl’s throat quivered, as if she was trying to plead something, but nothing came out save for an agonized groan devoid of meaning.

  “There’s no need to be hasty… You have only just returned to life, after all.”

  Speaking in an airy tone of voice, Mimori smiled softly. The graphs on the measuring devices placed around the vat changed, as if conveying the emotions of the wounded girl in her stead. Mimori checked them as she operated the vat’s panel.

  “…Gaa……?!”

  Metal plugs impaled the girl from two connectors embedded in her neck. The girl’s entire body twitched as she writhed in agony.

  Mimori calmly gazed at the sight, smiling and letting out an amused giggle.

  “You seem to be in a good mood, Chief Akatsuki.”

  A young man wearing glasses on a delicate face smiled as he walked over. He wore black Chinese-style clothing and gave off an air somehow reminiscent of a mystic from ancient times.

  “Oh my, oh my… What is an escaped prisoner doing in a place like this, I wonder?” Mimori smiled ironically as she looked back at the young man—Meiga Itogami.

  “Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. Thanks to you, my life as a fugitive has been quite a comfortable one.”

  The only hard part has been dealing with this witch…, he thought, straining a smile as he politely bowed his head.

  Hmmm, murmured Mimori, unmoved. Behind her back, she hid the cooler box hanging from her shoulder.

  “Even so, no ice cream for you.”

  “That is unfortunate.”

  “It seems pretty busy up top. Is this your doing, too?”

  Mimori shifted her gaze toward the ceiling of the subterranean chamber. She was looking in the direction of Keystone Gate. The earthquake-like vibration had only come from that way a few short minutes prior.

  “Hmm, I wonder. It seems that the old man has something up his sleeves, but…”

  “The old man? Ah… So that’s what it is…”

  Gazing as Meiga shook his head in a suggestive manner, Mimori raised her eyebrows slightly.

  Meiga stared at the crimson vat behind Mimori. Even then, the girl in the vat, wounded all over, was writhing.

  “So this is the trump card the Cleansers were hiding—the other Priestess of Cain, yes?” Meiga inquired, his expression thick with an aura of reverence.

  “Nah, nah.” Mimori smiled, delighted, as she shook her head. “Unfortunately, you are slightly mistaken. This girl is an Oracle. There is another.”

  “Another…? You couldn’t mean…… So that’s it…”

  Surprise registered on Meiga’s face. The young man’s reaction lacked his normal air of composure.

  As if losing interest, Mimori turned her back to him and pulled off the white glove from her right hand.

  There was cable connected to a metal plug on the neck of the wounded girl that extended outside the vat. Mimori maintained her pleasant smile as she touched the cable with her bare hand.

  It was as if she was making direct contact, searching inside the girl’s head…

  “Now, show me what you experienced. Show me your memories of the Cleansing—”

  2

  A few minutes after the explosion at Keystone Gate, images of the incident were broadcast worldwide over the Internet. A giant plume of gray smoke was marring the cloudless blue sky. Kojou gazed at the shocking image on the screen of his smartphone in astonishment.

  “…What do you mean, missing?!”

  Classes were over. In a corner of the classroom, Motoki Yaze was shouting into his cell phone. The other party was doubtlessly his brother who worked at the Gigafloat Management Corporation. He’d finally gotten through after repeated redials.

  “That man? Caught up in a terror bombing? That ain’t like him…!”

  Yaze ranted in a tone of inconcealable panic.

  There was a reason why his normal aloofness had been set astir. One of the casualties of the underground parking lot explosion was the honorary chairman of the Gigafloat Mana
gement Corporation, Akishige Yaze—his father.

  Apparently, even at that moment, falling rubble and flooding was making search and rescue a very touch-and-go endeavor.

  “Bro, why?! Let me help look! With my ability… Bro…!”

  Yaze gritted his teeth, staring at his smartphone screen as the call was cut from the other end.

  Apparently, when Yaze had offered to help with the search, his brother had refused, telling him he’d just be in the way.

  “Your dad…?”

  Kojou approached as Yaze slumped against the wall and lowered his head. Kojou didn’t know what look to have on his face at times like these.

  But Yaze forced a smile, lifting his face up as he said, “Seems like he was sent flying along with the parking lot and buried under rubble.”

  He said it in a joking tone. Kojou was aware that Yaze’s domestic environment was a difficult one, and his relationship with his father was particularly tense. Thus, the sight of Yaze bluffing like this was especially painful.

  “Blown away… You mean…?”

  “It’s all right. Don’t worry. Even my family isn’t rotten enough to have anyone happy to see him bite it, me included. It’d just get us involved in a succession war that’d be nothing but trouble.”

  Yaze continued in a tone much like that of a child making excuses. As he did, Asagi tendered a bottle of mineral water in front of him.

  “Motoki, your face is totally pale.”

  “I’m all right, geez.”

  Yaze immediately tried to drink the water; perhaps even he’d noticed the rasp in his voice. But he couldn’t open the PET bottle. There was no strength in his trembling fingers.

  “Oh, lucky thing they canceled the rest of classes for the day, huh?”

  “Hey, Yaze!”

  Listening to the announcement coursing over the school PA system at that very moment, Yaze returned to his own seat, looking ready to make a run for it. As he grabbed his bag, Kojou watched his friend’s back as he nervously called out, but all he got was a one-sided “Later!” from Yaze as he left the classroom.

  Kojou and Asagi watched him go, unable to do anything about it. Even if they chased after Yaze, neither could think of any words to say to him.

  “He’s really pushing himself.” Asagi crossed her arms as she spoke. Kojou grimaced and nodded.

  “I figure even he doesn’t know how to react to this sort of thing. Can’t exactly tell people to stay calm at a time like this.”

  “Even I’m shocked… A terror bombing…”

  Asagi had a gloomy expression as she exhaled. She and Yaze had known each other before primary school. Their fathers were both VIPs of Itogami Island. That alone made it hard to dismiss.

  “Tartarus Lapse, huh…? Can’t act like it’s someone else’s problem after this.”

  “Eh? Tartar sauce… What?”

  Overhearing Kojou’s murmur, Asagi gave him a suspicious look. “Tartarus Lapse,” he corrected. Why would she overhear something in such a banal fashion at a time like that?

  “What? How do you know, Kojou?”

  “I heard about it from Natsuki. There was talk about a Demon Sanctuary wrecking team that might be after Itogami Island.”

  “Demon Sanctuary wrecking team…?” she murmured, taken aback. “The heck.” She still seemed to be trying to digest what she’d heard as she glared at Kojou. “What do you mean, after Itogami Island? Why?”

  “Hell if I know. Someone probably hired ’em.”

  Overwhelmed by Asagi’s onslaught, Kojou gave her that unreliable reply.

  “Then…it’s that Tartar whatever that went after Motoki’s father?”

  “Probably. Apparently, the ship incidents for the last couple of days might be their doing, too.”

  From the way Asagi bit her lip, brooding things over, she might have finally bought Kojou’s explanation.

  “…So Natsuki’s looking for these guys?”

  “Yeah. The guy who put Tartarus Lapse together is this feng shui practitioner named Senga. They’re looking for him right now…and it’s not like there are other leads.”

  “If it’s like that, just say so, sheesh.”

  It felt like Asagi was verbally lashing out as she took an ultrathin notepad PC out of her bag. Apparently, she intended to invade the Island Guard’s information network, which covered the whole of Itogami Island, to search for this Senga.

  “You can find him?”

  “Oh, I’ll find him!”

  Asagi unintentionally snapped as she smoothly operated the keyboard. Behind her outer appearance—that of a flashy high school student—Asagi was a tremendously skilled hacker, known even throughout the corporate world.

  Watching the wavy lines of English letters and numbers flow onto the screen of her PC was like seeing someone cast a high-level spell; Kojou’s eyes couldn’t pick up what she was doing whatsoever. Unable to even blithely get a word in, Kojou felt out of place as he gazed absentmindedly at the side of Asagi’s sober face. Then…

  “—Pardon me.”

  When that clear voice echoed across the classroom, the students still present raised a unified murmur.

  It was a female student wearing a middle school uniform who stood at the entrance to Kojou’s classroom, carrying a black guitar case over her back. She was small, but she had an odd beauty to her that captivated anyone who saw her.

  “Himeragi? What are you doing on the high school campus—?”

  Seeing Yukina suddenly intrude, Kojou let out a bewildered voice.

  Kojou’s reaction seemed to make all his classmates hold their breaths.

  Right after Kojou and Asagi had finished some kind of serious conversation, the rumored transfer student of middle school had appeared. It was easy to understand how they expected that some sort of ghastly conflict might break out at any moment.

  Naturally, the strange sense of tension filling the room brought a look of apprehension over even Yukina. But she immediately hardened her resolve, stepping into the classroom and hurrying to Kojou’s side.

  “I am sorry, senpai. Um, it concerns Nagisa—”

  Yukina’s voice was brimming with nervousness. Kojou’s expression hardened from the unexpected jolt.

  “Nagisa…? Did something happen to her…?”

  “Did she collapse again…?”

  For her part, Asagi stopped tapping her keyboard and looked at Yukina.

  Yukina’s gaze frailly wandered about as she said, “No, it’s… During noon break, she went off somewhere and has not returned to her classroom.”

  “What…?” Kojou knit his brows in bewilderment, his grasp of the situation poor.

  “Her bag and shoes are gone, too, so the students in class thought she might have left early without permission—”

  “Nagisa, skipping classes?” Asagi prompted with surprise on her face.

  Unlike her older brother, Nagisa had a sober, serious, punctual personality. Asagi didn’t think she’d ever slip out of school without a reason. Yukina no doubt thought the same, hence why she had rushed to report as much to Kojou.

  “I tried texting Nagisa, too, but she hasn’t responded.” Yukina’s face stiffened.

  Sweat appeared on Kojou’s fist. “Asagi…!”

  “Yes, yes. I’ll look into this before looking for terrorists.”

  The unexpectedly cooperative sight of Kojou and the others left a dejected air hovering over his classmates, dashing their expectations of an epic clash. However, Kojou had no time to pay them any heed. He felt like a man clinging to hope, watching as Asagi connected to the island’s internal surveillance camera network to search for Nagisa.

  “…Eh?”

  But Asagi let out a small voice. Beep went the brief warning from Asagi’s PC.

  A fresh window popped up, blinking on and off with an error message in red.

  “No way?! How could this…?!”

  The speaker shuddered as unceasing warning sounds rang out. In the blink of an eye, error messages con
sumed the entire screen. Her keyboard stopped responding. Realizing this, Asagi was the first to react. Without hesitation, she stood up, clutching the haywire laptop, and shouted, “Kojou, move!”

  “Huh?”

  As Kojou stood rooted to the spot, Asagi thrust him aside and smashed her notebook PC against the exposed concrete of the classroom’s veranda. The aluminum composite frame bent spectacularly, parts scattering as she completely wrecked it.

  “A-Asagi…?”

  “Aiba…”

  Kojou and Asagi both timidly addressed her. Asagi breathed raggedly as she gazed down at the wreckage of her beloved laptop.

  “Someone got me good… Pisses me off!!”

  Asagi stood with an aura of anger, furiously running her hand through her hair as she spoke.

  “Wh-what do you mean…?”

  “Hacking. The Island Guard’s network has been infected by a virus. A powerful military type!”

  “A virus…?! You mean it’s a biological weapon?!”

  Yukina’s eyes visibly bulged as she posed a question. Kojou wasn’t sure if she was kidding or if she had simply misunderstood, but its effect was limited to soothing Asagi’s frayed nerves.

  “You can, um, set that clichéd airhead bit aside.” Asagi turned to Yukina with a drained look.

  Yukina blinked, looking like a fox who’d just been picked up as she repeated, “Airhead…?”

  “Ah, er, you’re wrong, you see. A virus is a name we give to a type of program… One used with ill intention to destroy data or cause malfunctions in machines.”

  “Ah… Ohhh…”

  Asagi had apparently come up with an explanation that even Yukina, ill-versed in mechanical devices, could digest. Yukina nodded with a vague expression, her cheeks reddening in embarrassment.

  “More importantly,” Kojou began as he turned back Asagi’s way, “if the Island Guard’s been hacked, that’s bad, ain’t it?”

  “Damn right, it is. With the terror bombing, the chain of command’s in chaos as it is,” Asagi earnestly confirmed.

  If merely accessing the surveillance cameras exposed a system to infection, it was no doubt safe to assume the Island Guard HQ’s main server was pretty much completely thrown for a loop. It was close to a certainty that the Island Guard’s personnel were falling into a panic.