It really hurts… Getting punched by someone…, he thought. Not only did Minoru’s cheek burn with throbbing pain, the pain was mixed with feelings of shame and helplessness that in turn would become a black liquid and flow into the swamp of his memories. “Utsugi. Do you know why I sent you flying?” Olivier asked Minoru, slumped down on the floor. “…It’s because I made a mistake, right?” Minoru replied after a moment of silence. “Nope. “I told you, right? Everyone makes mistakes. I’m not criticizing you for that. The problem is that you’re completely ignoring the fact that because of your mistake, someone died who didn’t have to.” “…!” Minoru took a sudden sharp breath. Olivier then walked past Minoru, his slippers clacking on the floor. “Inside your head you think of it like it’s someone else’s problem, and that’s because you lack resolve. You’re not fit to be a member of the SFD, Utsugi. You should hurry up and get your Third Eye removed, your memory wiped, and go home,” Olivier said, waving his left hand as he headed toward the elevator. “You’re wrong, Olivier,” said Yumiko without getting up from her chair, in a quiet but firm voice, before Olivier could leave. “Utsugi could have activated his shell before you punched him. If he had done that, right now your right hand would be broken in several places. At the very least, he had the resolve to take your punch.” Olivier paused and stood for a moment, but then disappeared into the elevator without answering. A few minutes later. DD and Yumiko had left and gone to the lower floors of the building, and in the experiment area at the west edge of the empty fifth-floor room, Minoru was being treated by Professor Riri Isa. Minoru had protested, saying that he had only gotten a cut near the edge of his mouth and she didn’t have to do anything, but Riri had forced Minoru into a chair, disinfected and bandaged his cut. After she finished and was uncharacteristically silent for a while, Riri finally spoke up. “Uh…umm… Well, you see. About what Oli-V just said a minute ago…” Minoru gave a wry smile and shook his head. “It’s fine. I don’t plan on quitting the SFD,” he said. “I see.” Riri smiled, looking relieved, and patted Minoru’s arm. “I was having trouble thinking about how I would persuade you against doing so if you had told me you wanted to have your Third Eye extracted and memories erased… Geez, communicating with other people really is tough. There’s never a clear-cut, single answer.” Riri the Speculator, who had the power to quickly find the answer to a problem if it existed, showed Minoru a bit of a childish smile, and she started to put up her first-aid kit. With Riri’s lab coat–wearing back turned toward Minoru, he said in a whisper, “…If I quit the SFD now and had Chief Himi erase my memories, including of what just happened, I didn’t think that I could forget the feeling of that fist…” “Well, then… Hmm… Yes, I suppose you’re right,” said Riri who turned around to look at Minoru and tilted her head in thought. “When I was in second grade, I got into a stupid fight with a friend I had since kindergarten. I still clearly remember the pain of the slap she gave me.” “Wait…what?” Minoru cried out, unable to contain his surprise. “Professor, you got into a fight? You?” “Now look here,” said Riri, a cynical smile on her young face. “Up until three months ago, I was as much of a kid as I looked. Every day I did tons of stupid things, got angry and got others upset, cried and made others cry. That much is normal, right?” “I…suppose so…,” replied Minoru. When Riri put it that way, Minoru thought she made sense. Even before the incident eight years ago, Minoru had gotten into fights with his friends and his parents…and even with his older sister sometimes, and he had cried as well. After Riri finished putting away the first-aid kit in its cabinet, she sat back down in front of Minoru on a stool. “But really, even nowadays I think it’s an experience that everyone needs to have,” she said. “You mean having a physical fight?” Minoru asked. “Exactly. Ever since…I was infected by my Third Eye and obtained the power of speculation, I solved some questions that I really shouldn’t have solved. Including, for instance, ‘What is the meaning of life?’” “Th-the meaning of life…?” asked Minoru, shocked, and stared at his strategic commander with braided hair. “Is there really an answer to that question…?” “Of course there is. If there wasn’t, what would be the point of philosophy or religion?” Riri replied. “Wh-what is the answer…?” Minoru asked. “It’s a secret,” said Riri, winking before putting a serious face back on. “However, due to finding that answer, while I can still ‘think,’ I have lost the human right to ‘worry’ or ‘hesitate.’” “The human right…?” “Exactly. Mikkun, haven’t you thought about it at least once before? Asked yourself why your worries will never end? During elementary school you might have been worried about a test, or a marathon event, about vaccine shots, or going to the dentist. When you grow up a little more, you worry about friendship and love, then later about going to college or finding work, about marriage and loans, about fighting disease… In life, there is never a point where all of your worries disappear, and that is because those worries are necessary.” “Is…worrying and hesitating really necessary?” asked Minoru. “It is. The mental state of someone who does not worry is defective, just as mine is. So… After meeting you, I have felt a happiness rising from the bottom of my heart,” Riri continued. “Your ‘defensive shell’ power is a huge mystery to me. You know, I am pretty sure that I have completely seen through why the red and black Third Eyes have fallen to Earth. However, after meeting you, I learned that one of the ‘answers’ that I have found was wrong. There is nothing more exciting to me than that. “And that’s because I realized…,” Riri continued. “It might be possible that the answer I’ve found to the meaning of life is wrong as well. I believe…though this is just speculation, that your ‘defensive shell’ power is connected to the reason that Third Eyes exist. And that in turn is connected to the reason for all of human life to exist. Depending on a number of variables, it may be even connected to why the universe with its countless lives exists—” “U-umm…,” interrupted Minoru, as Riri had come so close to Minoru that their noses were almost touching. Professor Riri blinked her eyes a few times, and then with her trademark cynical smile she pulled back. “Oh, I’m sorry about that. I got a little carried away. …Anyway, as you can probably tell, I’m interested in you. So I really don’t want you to leave the SFD.” “Y-yes… I know. I won’t quit, even if it’s for a bit of a negative reason…,” Minoru said, embarrassed that the only reason he could find for staying was that if he pulled out now, the memory of the pain of getting punched by Olivier would just continue to grow. However, Professor Riri nodded with an all-encompassing smile on her face. “All right, then. Worry yourself about it, Mikkun. Worry, hesitate, and when you need to, jump up in the air and scream in frustration!” Even with Suka’s willpower, he needed three hours to put the smoldering anger in the pit of his stomach to rest. Looking past the potted plants on his veranda, Suka watched as the winter sky darkened with every minute, repeatedly taking large breaths. According to today’s plan, Suka thought, after burning his prey in Shinjuku, he would easily evade the black hunters who would come after him until he got to a safe location. However, by making three mistakes, he was not only discovered, but also they saw his face, and he had let them get away. Back then, instead of concentrating oxygen in the engine of the motorcycle and causing it to explode, he moved oxygen away from the motorcycle in order to asphyxiate the black riders. However, his oxygen-deprivation attack took time to have its full effect and there was nothing he could do to change that. Taking advantage of that opening, that young girl had used her power of acceleration to escape. He had no idea she would do something as outrageous as making the motorcycle leap up into the sky, vanishing from his sight in an instant. Realizing that his breathing was getting shallower due to his anger and frustration, Suka attempted to breathe in more of the oxygen being produced from his plants and calm himself down. “Fighting at close range is nothing short of barbaric,” he said to himself, as he felt his anger finally cooling down. Launching long-range combustion attacks was indicative of the true nature of his ability, and using that ability in that way was what fate wanted for him. To raze this filthy civilization with cleaning flames. That was why he had been given a new life. Relaxing his arms and letting out a deep breath, Suka slowly looked to the side. On the wall of his unlit living room was a large detailed color map of the Tokyo metropolitan area. On the map, the metal heads of pushpins gleamed red in the lingering light from the window. Suka walked over to the map and pulled out one pin out of extras he had set aside in the margins, and then pressed it in deep to mark the spot where today he had called forth his cleansing flames in West Shinjuku. That one was the ninth. Taking three steps back, Suka looked at the map. The orderly placed nine pins created a beautiful sign in the center of the sinful city that was Tokyo. Soon those idiotic humans will realize, he thought, that this giant symbol would mark the beginning. It would mark the beginning of the divine punishment about to be inflicted on this polluted, overoxidized civilization. “Heh-heh, heh-heh-heh,” Suka chuckled, finally forgetting his anger, smiling with deep wrinkles on both sides of his mouth. The fact that the black hunters had seen his face was certainly something to worry about, but there was no way that they would be able to track him to his apartment. After all, Ayato Suka was completely and utterly dead. “I’m sorry, Norie. We just can’t seem to finish this group research project, and it’s due tomorrow…” “Hmm… Well, if that’s the case, I suppose there’s nothing else you can do. Make sure you thank the parents of the kid whose house you’re staying at, okay? Also, even though it’s to do homework, make sure you don’t stay up too late.” “O-okay, I know… Tomorrow, I’ll go straight to school from here.” “All right, roger that. Go and do your best okay?” While feeling guilt for telling his adoptive sister such a bald-faced lie, Minoru took his smartphone away from his ear. To be honest, Minoru had planned on returning to Saitama as soon as the meeting was over. However, after being punched by Olivier and talking to Professor Riri, he gave up on going home that day. It wasn’t that Minoru had suddenly become obstinate or stubborn, but at the very least he felt that he couldn’t go home until he atoned in some way for his mistake. However, there was only one thing that he could do right now and that was dig up the memories he had buried deep within his mind. Sitting with his back to the wall and hugging his knees in the fifth-floor room of SFD Headquarters, Minoru closed his eyes to think. He thought of Igniter’s face, which he saw through the faceplate of his motorcycle helmet and the glass window of the taxi. Before it twisted with a raging intent to kill, it was a somewhat expressionless, teacherish face of a man who had begun to show his age. It couldn’t have possibly been that Minoru had just passed him by somewhere on the street. After all, Minoru never looked at the faces of people walking by. He was also sure that Igniter wasn’t, for instance, a teacher who worked at his old elementary school or something like that, because if he remembered someone from back then, he would have recalled more than just the front of his expressionless face. This was the only time that Minoru regretted his policy of acquiring as few memories as possible. Putting his chin on his knees, he pressed his fist against his forehead. Just where did I…? he thought. “…I don’t think that there’s any reason for you to feel this guilty about what happened.” Suddenly, Minoru heard a voice from above and immediately raised his head. It was Yumiko, who had changed into slim jeans and a sweater, holding canned soft drinks in both of her hands. Without looking straight at Minoru, Yumiko continued, stumbling along in her speech. “Well, I mean…it’s awful that the taxi driver died, but…not even Olivier is saying that you’re to blame for that. Igniter is the one who killed him and the Third Eye that’s infected him. Plus, the number of civilian casualties due to the actions of Ruby Eyes is easily more than a hundred, and that’s only counting the data we’ve confirmed. If you plan to stay on as a member of the SFD… Though I really hate to say this…if you worry too much about each and every person sacrificed…it’ll break you.” “…O-okay…,” Minoru replied, nodding without looking up. The only reason Minoru had his head in his hands was that he was trying to recall his memories, but he couldn’t say that now and just took the canned soft drink that Yumiko offered to him. After a quick thank-you, he pulled the tab on the can and drank the cool soft drink, his thoughts still wandering absentmindedly. Because of Minoru’s mistake, that taxi driver, who otherwise wouldn’t have been killed, became Igniter’s newest victim. That was an undeniable fact. However, even though Minoru had been punched by Olivier and consoled by Yumiko, he didn’t really feel any guilt at all. Minoru thought back to what Professor Riri said before, “The mental state of someone who does not worry is defective.” Does that mean I’m abnormal? Minoru thought. If so, is it because of my Third Eye? Or was I that way before? But Minoru didn’t get much further than that, as Yumiko sat down right beside him. Skillfully opening the tab of the can with one hand and taking a gulp, Yumiko hesitantly turned to Minoru. “Umm… About before… I’m sorry.” “Huh? Before? Do you mean during the meeting?” Minoru asked. “No! I meant…on the roof…,” Yumiko continued. “The roof…,” Minoru repeated before finally remembering what happened during his close call with death. After being subjected to Igniter’s oxygen-deprivation attack, Minoru was unable to breathe on his own, so Yumiko used her own lungs to provide the air to save Minoru. In other words, mouth-to-mouth… Minoru leaned back and hit himself against the concrete wall, and Yumiko continued her hasty speech. “I didn’t have any other choice. If I had a manual resuscitator or something, I would have used that but had only prepared the motorcycle with light equipment… I’ll make sure to have one next time.” “D-don’t worry about it, I mean… If you didn’t do that, I would have died,” Minoru said. “Well, then.” Yumiko lightly nodded. “Let us both forget that that incident ever happened, okay? Especially the part where…” “The part where you cried?” asked Minoru, remembering when Yumiko had hunched over with her shoulders shaking. Yumiko glared at Minoru. “Yes, that. Now forget it. Right now.” “O-okay…,” replied Minoru, nodding several times. But just then, Minoru felt that stimulation of his memories again. He was surprised because this should have nothing to do with Igniter’s face, but somewhere in his mind he was connecting that face with the act of artificial respiration. “Artificial…respiration…,” Minoru muttered, and Yumiko suddenly went red in the face. “Didn’t I just tell you to forget what happened?!” she yelled. “Huh? Oh no, that’s not what I meant. But I mean…isn’t artificial respiration usually done on someone who was drowning? Instead, we did it on top of a tall building and…,” said Minoru, trying to both make a proper excuse and gather his thoughts. Artificial respiration was usually done when there was an accident in the water and someone was drowning… For example, if someone jumped into water on purpose, in order to… “Th-that’s it!!” Minoru yelled, jumping up, as Yumiko looked at him, startled. But before Minoru could even notice Yumiko, in the back of his mind he saw Igniter’s face, in black-and-white halftones. He hadn’t seen him directly, he had seen a picture of him. A picture in a newspaper article. “Are you sure this is him?” Riri asked. Minoru stared at the low-resolution black-and-white photograph displayed on the eighty-inch monitor in front of him and nodded deeply. “Yes, this is his face. This is Igniter.” As it was an enlarged photo from the digital version of a newspaper article, it wasn’t very clear, but the looks of that intelligent-looking man and the signs of his age perfectly matched the person in Minoru’s memories from just a few hours before. “I see. Good work, Mikkun!” Riri said, vigorously turning around before looking down at her tablet and summarizing the content of the newspaper article for Minoru and Yumiko. “This man’s name is Yousuke Nakakubo, and he is fifty-nine years old. His residence is located in Kaki-no-ki-zaka in the Meguro district of Tokyo, but…he probably doesn’t live there anymore. Three months ago his landscaping company was faced with insolvency, and he attempted a murder-suicide with his wife. He drove his car off Ooi Pier and into the sea. However, when his car was pulled out of the water, only his wife and child’s bodies were found. I guess this means he was alive.” “Three months ago…,” Yumiko whispered, and Professor Riri nodded. “Yes…it’s quite the coincidence. However, it seems unlikely that he attempted suicide after he was infected by a Third Eye, as he would have to overthrow the Third Eye’s will to do so. Which means…that he was probably infected after he escaped from the sinking car. That would explain his power as well.” “Huh…? What do you mean?” Minoru asked. Riri lifted a finger and began to explain. “Third Eyes take their hosts’ psychological state, their trauma or obsessions, their desires or attachments, and use them as a mold to create their supernatural powers. For example, in the case of gourmet Hikaru Takaesu, code name “Biter,” he had been abused by his mother and lost more than half of his real teeth. Therefore, his Third Eye gave him a strong jaw and teeth that could bite through metal.” Riri then turned back around, looking up at the monitor, before continuing. “The reason Igniter gained the frightening power to manipulate oxygen is not unrelated to the fact that he almost drowned. The fear and attachment to life and other psychological energy he must have felt in coming so close to death must have been enormous. Of all the Ruby Eyes that we have fought against and disposed of, not one had such an acute fear of death at the source of their power and that probably goes the same for us Jet Eyes.” Pausing for a moment, Riri turned back around. The young strategic commander looked at both Minoru and Yumiko with her large eyes for an instant, but then looked down. Her cute voice was filled with a melancholy unfitting of her years. “…In other words, if you just compare the strength of our powers, none of the forward-acting members of the SFD can match Igniter. This…may require us to bring Chief Himi along with us…” When Minoru heard Himi’s name mentioned, he blinked a few times. Chief Himi’s power to seal other people’s memories was certainly astounding, but what use would it have in battle? Minoru wondered. However, Yumiko, who was next to Minoru, shook her head with a stern look on her face. “No, that won’t be necessary. I can deal with him alone,” she said. “But…,” Riri started, her voice full of concern, but Yumiko, “Accelerator,” cut her off. “I’ll be fine. Next time I’ll take care of him for sure.…I will go and investigate Igniter’s residence. There may be clues there to his current hideout.” Yumiko then turned and walked quickly toward the elevator, her hair trailing behind her. “Um… I’ll go with her,” Minoru said, quickly running after Yumiko as Riri told them to be careful. When Yumiko and Minoru got off the elevator on the basement floor, they walked into the dim parking garage. Minoru saw the black minivan that he’d seen during the fight with Biter, as well as a small truck and Yumiko’s motorcycle. Taking a leather jacket off a hook on the concrete wall, Yumiko glanced back at Minoru. He thought that Yumiko would say something like, “I’m not bringing you along. You’re just going to slow me down,” but instead of saying anything, she just tossed him a helmet. After Minoru put the helmet on, Yumiko also threw over a riding jacket with protective inserts, so Minoru took off his Chesterfield coat to put it on. This time, Minoru made sure he was equipped with his compressed air cylinder in his pocket, and after he finished doing so, Professor Riri’s voice came in over the intercom. “I’ll send you Igniter’s old address. I’m also currently checking for any information on his real name with the department of public safety, the police, and the fire department, but I don’t expect to find much.” Immediately afterward, a full-color map was displayed on the right side of the helmet’s faceplate, surprising Minoru. Apparently it was equipped with a clear display. “…Thank you for letting me do this, Professor,” said Yumiko in a small voice. “Don’t do anything rash. If I run across any new information I’ll contact you immediately,” replied Riri before ending the transmission. Even though it was only just past five o’clock in the afternoon, Shinjuku had already taken on its night landscape. Under bright neon lights, the motorcycle Yumiko and Minoru were riding raced at just under the legal speed limit. The map on the right side of Minoru’s helmet faceplate displayed the route to Kaki-no-ki-zaka in Meguro. Yumiko, who had taken Meiji Street south all the way to Ebisu, turned right onto Komazawa Street and flitted back and forth through traffic. Given her skill at riding, Minoru thought that Yumiko had been riding motorcycles since before she got her Third Eye, but Minoru thought that in order to get a motorcycle license, you had to be at least sixteen years old. Since Yumiko said that she was a first-year high school student, just like Minoru, she might have at most just turned sixteen a few months ago. But even considering that… “…Umm,” said Minoru over the intercom. “What is it?” Yumiko asked. “What was the engine size of this motorcycle again?” “It’s 798cc,” Yumiko replied. “Which means it counts as a large-model motorcycle, right?” “That’s correct.” “What was the earliest age that you could get a large-model motorcycle license again?” “Eighteen, of course,” said Yumiko tersely, before pulling hard on the accelerator. Minoru, who was about to yell out, “What?!” had his outcry shoved back down his throat as he was subjected to the g-force of the acceleration. About ten minutes later, after entering a residential area and returning to modest speeds, they stopped in front of a single house. After confirming that they had reached their destination on the map, Minoru let out a sigh. “That’s a really big house.” “You would think that the land alone would go for more than a hundred million yen,” replied Yumiko, with a little bit of shock in her voice as well. The residence, which was surrounded by a tall rock-wall fence, had to be at least three hundred square meters, but there were lots of fallen leaves scattered in the yard and there was a large sign in the front that marked the house for sale. After pulling the motorcycle around the back and shutting off the engine, Yumiko got off the motorcycle and looked up at the tall rock-wall fence. “We’re going to jump. Don’t take off your helmet. It’ll be a lot of trouble if our faces got caught on a security camera.” “What do you mean by…jump?” Minoru asked. “Exactly how it’s written in the dictionary,” she said, wrapping her arm around Minoru’s waist. After a short dip down, she kicked off the ground. Acceleration. With one jump they landed on top of the fence, and with another jump they leaped onto the roof. After Yumiko released Minoru, she added unaffectedly, “With my own jump power, that’s about all I can do. It’s a lot more fun to use the motorcycle.” “I…think I’ve had more than my share of enjoyment of that,” Minoru replied, shaking his head. What are we, ninjas in a B action movie? he thought, but didn’t say anything more. From the roof they descended to a second-floor veranda, and Yumiko cut a hole in the glass from a strange tool she took out of her pocket and unlocked the door. From there, they entered the house. The first room they entered appeared to be a ten tatami mat–size bedroom, but the panels of the double bed were sticking out and the walk-in closet was also empty. Yumiko clicked her tongue and opened the faceplate of her helmet, whispering in a thick voice. “It looks like they’ve already completely cleaned this place out… Hey, what are you doing?” Minoru, who had been earnestly sniffing the air as soon as they entered the house, raised the faceplate on his helmet as well to answer. “What if Igniter’s lying in wait somewhere for us here? I wanted to check to see if I could smell the scent of a Ruby Eye…” “Look here, this house is already up for sale. There are interested buyers who are going to come to see the inside of the house, so there’s no way he’d be hiding out here.” “Well, I suppose that may be true, but…” Minoru nodded before taking another deep breath of air, making sure he could not smell that primordial beast–like smell of the Ruby Eyes. “Once you’re satisfied, meet me down on the first floor. If there’s a study that Igniter…that Nakakubo used, we might be able to find a clue there,” said Yumiko. “Umm… I don’t smell any Ruby Eyes, but…don’t you smell something else? Even though it looks like it’s been cleaned, there’s still this smell.” “Really?” asked Yumiko, making sniffing motions with her well-formed nose before grimacing. “…You’re right. I wonder what it is…” “It reminds me of…a wet rag,” Minoru said. “Do you think that one of the cleaning staff just left a mop out?” They continued their conversation as they opened the door and headed down to the first floor. The hallway was only lit by a small amount of light from the outside and was almost completely submerged in darkness. The damp smell grew stronger, and Minoru started to feel uneasy. “U-umm… Yumiko?” When they reached the end of the hall and Yumiko started to walk down the stairs, Minoru grabbed the sleeve of Yumiko’s leather jacket. “What is it?” “…Aren’t you scared?” Minoru asked. “Of what?” “Of… I don’t know…ghosts or monsters?” As soon as Yumiko heard those words, she looked at Minoru as if he were stupid and started to walk away when he grabbed her sleeve again. “Now look here!” “B-but…the family who lived here was killed in a murder-suicide, right? And now we’re breaking in, in the middle of the night. Doesn’t this completely follow the sort of pattern where they appear?” Minoru said. It wasn’t as if Minoru truly believed in ghosts, but despite the fact that he was uncontrollably nervous, Yumiko seemed just fine, so he couldn’t help but say something. But Yumiko didn’t flinch. “Of course they’re not going to appear. Ghosts and stuff don’t exist.” “Well…Third Eyes exist, right? And they’re these mysterious objects from outer space. Plus, they’re parasitic and infect humans. I mean, when things like that exist, can you show any proof that ghosts don’t?” “…I don’t know what you’re getting at,” she said, lifting her beautiful eyebrows high. “But what? Are you trying to scare me? I hate to break it to you, but if a ghost pops out, I’ll just accelerate my way out of here, so I have nothing to be afraid of.” “…That’s so unfair.” “You have your defensive shell, don’t you? Not that I know if it can block out ghosts,” added Yumiko, before walking off again, not wanting to deal with Minoru anymore, who had no choice but to chase after her. Since all of the windows on the first floor were shuttered with antitheft panels, it was completely dark. Yumiko took a small LED flashlight out of her pocket and the white light lit the hall. “I wonder if this was his study. It would be nice if a computer or some documents were left…,” Yumiko muttered and opened the door. Inside was a writing desk, cabinets, and shelves, but unfortunately, everything was empty. Yumiko let out a disappointed sigh as she walked into the room, but immediately held her hand to her nose as soon as she did. “…This smell…” Minoru, who walked into the room after her, almost choked on the thick stench that permeated the room. The smell of wet rags that they sensed on the second floor was much stronger in this room. However, there was no abandoned mop in the room as Yumiko predicted. As they searched the room for the source of the smell, they found a large air purifier in the corner of the room. It appeared brand-new and must have been set up recently. “I wonder if the reason this house hasn’t sold in three months is due to this smell. The real-estate management must have put in the air purifier. It doesn’t look like it’s doing any good, though,” Yumiko muttered, her hand over her nose as she started to search the cabinets of the desk. Minoru also went and opened up the glass cabinets, for lack of anything better to do, but it was clear that they were empty. A few minutes later, they were still continuing their fruitless search. “…Umm,” said Minoru. “Did you find anything?” asked Yumiko, turning around, but Minoru just shook his head. “No, I haven’t found anything, but…don’t you hear something?” asked Minoru. Though she had a suspicious look on her face, Yumiko paused to listen. Given that it was such a luxurious residence, the sound seemed to be fairly insulated from room to room, and they could hardly hear any sounds from outside the room. But in the middle of that deafening silence… …Drip. …was the quiet sound of a water droplet. Minoru and Yumiko looked at each other, their faces both stiffening at the same time. Drop. Yumiko suddenly jumped as if she had used her power. She ran behind Minoru and clutched his shoulders. “Wh-what are you doing?” Minoru asked in a raspy voice, but Yumiko quickly answered back. “What’s the problem?! You’ve got your shell, right? But who cares about that, what is that sound?! Where is it coming from?!” “…It sounds like water dripping, but… I wonder if there’s a leaky faucet somewhere,” Minoru said. “That can’t be it, this house is for sale! They should have shut off the gas and the water,” Yumiko replied. “…Oh…that makes sense,” said Minoru, listening for the sound once more. Drip. Drop. The sound that Minoru thought couldn’t possibly be any other sound than droplets falling into a pool of water sounded at regular intervals, but Minoru still couldn’t figure out where they were coming from. The sounds themselves were something that someone without the enhanced senses of a Third Eye host would miss, so they were very, very quiet. Forgetting the rotten smell, Minoru focused all of his senses on the sound of the water. He wasn’t listening with his ears, but rather feeling the sound’s vibrations in the air with his entire body. Drip. “…It’s coming from underneath us,” Minoru whispered, and with Yumiko still clinging to his back, he walked in front of the giant mahogany desk in the room. If there was a route from this room leading underground, then this desk would be the only way to hide it. Minoru grabbed the top edge of the reddish-brown desk and put a little bit of his strength into it. It was heavy. The desk seemed to be made of solid wood, instead of wood paneling over cheaper materials. However, it wasn’t so heavy that a Third Eye host’s strength couldn’t move it. Bending down and using his legs, Minoru lifted the edge of the desk a few centimeters off the ground and rotated it ninety degrees, using the leg on the far edge as a pivot. “There…,” Yumiko said from behind Minoru. A small hatch had appeared in a spot that was hidden directly under the desk. The floorboards were cut out in a rectangular shape and there was a metal handle to pull the hatch open. As Minoru put his face closer to the hatch, both the terrible smell and the sound of the water became clearer. “…Good job finding something terribly unpleasant,” whined Yumiko. “…Should we pretend we didn’t see anything?” asked Minoru, but after a few seconds, Yumiko let out a sigh. “Well, we can’t really do that…can we? All right, let’s open it. Be on your guard.” “Got it.” Minoru nodded, and after making sure there were no security cameras, he took off his helmet and gave it to Yumiko. Minoru grabbed the handle and pulled the hatch open. From the darkness under the hatch, an unbearable stench rose and Minoru held his breath. It was the smell of mold and foul water. This was undoubtedly the source of the smell drifting throughout the house. Yumiko also took off her helmet, and holding her nose with her left hand, she pointed her LED light down the hatch A steep set of stairs led almost straight down the hatch, and at a certain point, the white light reflected back. Water. The hidden basement was completely flooded. “What…is this?” muttered Yumiko, moving the light around. However, the muddy water just reflected the light back, and it was impossible to tell what it was like under the surface. At least it was certain that this was not a place that someone could be hiding. There was only about one meter between the opening of the hatch and the surface of the water. The wooden steps were covered in black mold and had partially rotted. The sound of the water came from moisture that had condensed on the basement ceiling that was now falling back down in droplets. “…Hey, Utsugi?” Yumiko whispered to Minoru before the next droplet fell. “…What is it?” “It…was my first time.” “…What was?” “That kiss.” Minoru, sensing Yumiko’s intent behind that incredibly straight statement, rushed to object. “That doesn’t count; it was an emergency, a life-or-death situation…and didn’t you say not too long ago for me to forget everything?” “A maiden’s heart is not that clear-cut,” Yumiko said. Here, Minoru had to hold himself in and somehow was able to keep from arguing back, “What kind of ‘maiden’ rides around on an 800cc motorcycle and hides a stun baton in her skirt?!” Instead, he drooped his head. “…All right, I’ll go.” When he did, Yumiko, at least on the surface, showed an innocent smile and whispered, “I knew you would say that, I believed in you! I knew I could trust the one I gave my first kiss t—” “That’s enough! Now give me that light,” Minoru said, cutting her off and snatching her LED light before letting out a sigh. “…When I activate my shell, we won’t be able to communicate. If something happens to me down there, I’ll signal you by flashing this light.” “Understood. If that happens I’ll call someone to help you,” Yumiko said. “…” Minoru paused, unsure how serious Yumiko was, looking at her smile out of the corner of his eye. …It was my first time, too, you know? he muttered to himself inside his head. After taking a deep breath away from that hatch to minimize breathing in the stench, Minoru held his breath and activated his shell. The silence that fell around Minoru was enough of a difference that it made him realize that even that quiet mansion had been filled with various sounds. However, immediately after, he heard a low-pitched dunn, dunn sound. It was always there when he activated his shell, but Minoru still had no idea where it was coming from. Minoru pointed the LED light down, which he had held firmly in his hand so it wouldn’t be ejected, and after finding his determination, he headed down the steep stairs. In the blue-tinted light Minoru saw from inside his shell, the steps looked very slippery. However, Minoru was able to firmly plant his feet on the steps through his shell. On the fourth step, he sunk his left foot into the water. Confirming that his shell repelled the murky water, Minoru carefully continued walking into the basement. The water level reached his waist, then his chest, and then up to his neck. Even when he was completely submerged, Minoru strangely didn’t feel any buoyancy. Rather than sinking into the water, Minoru felt that he was passing in between the water particles and continued down into the water. The steps went farther down than Minoru had expected. When Minoru finally reached the bottom, he thought that he had come five meters under the floor. The murkiness of the water had only worsened and blocked the light of the high-brightness LED light. Minoru carefully advanced with his arm outstretched in front of him. After a few steps forward, a wooden shelf-like object appeared in front of him. However, the spacing between the compartments looked too small to hold books. Each compartment was square, about ten centimeters for each side, and there were several of them. After finding some old-looking glass bottles in some of the compartments, Minoru finally realized what this basement was used for. It was a wine cellar. Since wine was weak to changes in temperature and to light, Minoru had read somewhere that it was sometimes stored underground like this. However, there wasn’t much wine left on the shelf. A lot of the wine must have been sold to help pay down debt. Minoru understood that, but why…? Why was it flooded? Did some underground water seep through the walls? But if this was a wine cellar, they must have taken several measures to waterproof the cellar and prevent that from happening. To look at it another way, that was probably a reason why the water hadn’t drained out. Looking for clues, Minoru shined the LED light in all directions. The answer was close by, sunk on the floor. There was a bright blue curving line. It was a sprinkling hose, coiled up like a snake. Someone must have connected one end to a nearby sink on the first floor to intentionally flood the cellar. He had no idea how many thousands of liters it would take to submerge this cellar, but someone intentionally pumped in enough water for it to reach the roof. However, Minoru still couldn’t figure out a reason. Why would the owner of this cellar, why would Igniter, do something like that? In order to flood the basement, it was necessary to use the water line, so he had to have done it at least three months ago before the water was shut off. Then, was it before Igniter became a Ruby Eye? When he was Yousuke Nakakubo, president of a landscaping company? As Minoru stood lost in thought in the water, he felt someone from behind tap him on his right shoulder. “I’m sorry, could you give me a minute?” Minoru said and continued to think. After Nakakubo flooded his wine cellar, he had hidden the hatch with his desk and attempted to commit murder-suicide with his family. Still, Minoru couldn’t think of any logical reason someone about to commit suicide would do something like that. Then did he do it after he became Igniter? If it was immediately after his disppearance, the water may still have been running. Again, Minoru was tapped on his shoulder. “Like I said before, I’m in the middle of…,” Minoru started to say and then paused. …Wait, what? Minoru froze. It couldn’t possibly be Yumiko. Minoru was currently four meters underwater. “…” Gulping, with his eyes open wide, Minoru slowly turned around. What he saw, shining in his LED light, was the stark-white, bloated face of a corpse. Ashen eyes buried within the bloated skin of a face stared at Minoru, right in front of him. “Gyahh!!” went the sound of Minoru’s scream as it echoed within his shell. 11 Holding in both hands the mug of café au lait that Yumiko had poured for him, Minoru finally had returned to a normal state of mind and let out a deep breath that had been tied up in his chest. After returning to SFD Headquarters, he had used the shower in his room, 403, but the chill he had felt sinking deep into the marrow of his bones just would not go away. Naturally, Minoru had carried, through his shell, the corpse that he had found in the basement up to the first floor; deactivated his shell and taken pictures, fingerprints; and searched the pockets of its shirt and pants. Given the fact that during that entire time, Yumiko had cowered outside of the room, a café au lait was not enough to properly thank him. As Minoru sipped the drink, a little too sweet for his tastes, he had kept his gaze fixed right beside him, but Yumiko continued to ignore him and instead looked at the monitor Professor Riri was working on. “…Bingo!” Riri said, snapping her fingers. Riri had run the corpse’s fingerprints through the police’s AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) fingerprint database, and there was a match. Minoru took his gaze off of Yumiko and looked at the monitor. Displayed on the screen was the face of a relatively good-looking young man. “Wait, that corpse…was this man?” Minoru asked, and Riri nodded. “There’s no mistaking it. The corpse had begun to swell and the face has changed considerably, but not only do their fingerprints match, the shape of their ears is also the same. Due to the fact that the corpse was held in cold water for a long time, it seems that it grayed without rotting.” Holding in the feeling of disconnect Minoru felt from hearing a cute fourth grader’s voice explain the state of a corpse, Minoru asked another question. “But then… Who is it?” “He was a man who worked as an accountant for Nakakubo Green Earth, Igniter’s landscaping company. His name is Ayato Suka, and he was twenty-nine years old,” Riri replied. “Does this mean that Igniter killed his own employee?” “Exactly. Suka was fired from the company eight months ago and at the same time was sued for fraud. He was accused of taking ten million yen from the company, and this is why his fingerprint came up in the AFIS database. However, possibly due to the skills of his lawyer, he had his sentence suspended. If Suka was the reason Nakakubo Green Earth went bankrupt, that should provide an adequate reason for Nakakubo, the president of the company, to hate him.” As Riri continued with her explanation, she made several clicks with her mouse and opened a new window on the screen. Now she seemed to be looking at data from Japan’s Basic Resident Registry Network System. “Suka was single, and his parents were both already deceased. There wasn’t even a missing person’s report filed.…So I suppose this means that after Igniter recovered from nearly dying, he killed Suka in revenge and hid the body in the basement of his residence…” “But then, does that mean that there’s no information connecting these events to where Igniter is now?” asked Yumiko in a dejected voice. Minoru was also disappointed. Even though he had to go through such a frightening experience, it felt unfair that they uncovered zero clues. However, Minoru quickly caught himself, telling himself that it wasn’t completely in vain. No matter what the reason he was killed, this man Suka was still a victim of Igniter. There was meaning simply in the fact that his hidden corpse was found, Minoru thought. There was no way his soul would be able to properly leave this world if he was stuck, sunk in that deep, dark water… “Water…,” Minoru muttered, and Yumiko and Professor Riri both looked at him suspiciously. “Is there something that caught your attention, Mikkun?” Riri asked. “Ah no, it’s nothing particularly important, but I was just wondering why it was water this time and not fire. Other than the taxi driver, all of Igniter’s victims were burned to death, right?” “That is certainly correct…,” said Riri; tilting her head in thought, she immediately had an answer. “I think it’s safe to say that he wanted to hide the corpse. In terms of kerosene, the amount of fuel necessary to completely burn a person away is about eighty liters. It’s very hard to keep a giant flame like that out of sight from witnesses in an urban place like Tokyo. There’s also the issue of smoke… Unlike Biter, Igniter has never seemed to make an effort to hide his actions. But that begs the question. Why did he want to hide Suka’s corpse…?” Riri, in her lab coat, crossed her arms and closed her eyes. After a single second, her eyes popped open with such a force that Minoru almost expected them to make a sound, and Riri declared, “His reason for killing Suka was not simply out of revenge, nor was it a demonstration.” “Huh?” Minoru asked. “What do you mean?” Yumiko responded as well. With her back turned to Minoru and Yumiko, Professor Riri make more clicks with her mouse. What was then displayed on the screen was, astonishingly, an electric company’s customer data. Apparently the SFD was not subject to privacy laws. After making a quick search through the giant list, Riri snapped her fingers again. “Just as I thought. Suka, who should have been killed, is still paying his monthly electric bills and not on any automatic payment program. He’s just paying monthly at convenience stores.” “What?! But Suka died months ago…,” Minoru started to say before he finally realized what Professor Riri was trying to say. “…Do you mean that the one paying the electric bill now is…?” “Exactly. It’s Igniter. Igniter, aka Nakakubo, killed Suka; hid his corpse; and took on his identity,” Riri explained. After a few seconds of silence, Yumiko spoke up. “But…is it really that easy to do something like that?” “No. However, Suka was single, detained by the police, and the company he worked at dissolved. In other words his social environment was reset. If you can fake your age and have a new ID card issued, it’s not impossible to take on someone else’s identity in that case.” After searching again through the Basic Resident Registry Network System, as well as a number of other databases, Riri spoke up again with strong conviction in her voice. “Just as I thought. Three months ago, there are signs that he filed for a new resident card. And… Well, this is surprising… According to this credit card company’s data, he seems to be employed, working at a company called Ariake Heaven’s Shore… Now what could that be?” “Wait, you mean you don’t know?” said Yumiko, surprised. “I bet all of the kids at my school know. It’s a big water park that’s set to open this year. It’s completely indoors, so you can experience an endless summer, even in the winter…,” Yumiko continued. “Well, I’m sorry for not knowing,” Riri retorted in her cute voice, pouting. “Publicly, I’m a problem child who’s quit going to school. Not too long ago I received a ton of letters from the kids in my class telling me to ‘Get better soon and come back to school.’ If you’d like, I could read them out to you. How about it?” “N-no thanks…,” said Yumiko, shaking her head back and forth. Having received letters like that himself, Minoru felt a cold sweat coming on, just imagining what was written in them. “Putting that issue aside, we’ve discovered Igniter’s current address, correct?” Yumiko continued. “Yes. There is an apartment in Toyosu in Tokyo’s Koto district being rented in Suka’s name, but…I think it would be very risky to just rush into his apartment…” “Risky?” Minoru asked, tilting his head. “It’s very common for Ruby Eyes to have something prepared at their hideouts in case they are attacked. But of course, I mean, we do the same thing,” Yumiko replied. “Huh? What sort of…preparations do we have at headquarters?” “You’ll find out soon enough. Anyway, in a worst-case scenario the entire apartment building might go up in flames. At the very least, we’re at a disadvantage because Igniter’s power is effective at range,” continued Yumiko. “Therefore,” said Riri, picking up Yumiko’s explanation, “it’s best to target him when he’s on the move. We can observe him from afar and, if possible, attack him where there are few people around, but that’s no simple task, either… No, wait a minute.” With Riri controlling it, the content of the windows on the screen flitted back and forth. This time it appeared that she had broken into the network of the company that Igniter was working at. “Igniter, under the name of Ayato Suka, was hired at this Ariake Heaven’s something or another theme park to work as a janitor. His work time is from eight a.m. to four p.m. from Wednesday to Sunday, and on Monday it is from ten p.m. to six a.m. the next morning. Today is Monday, so he should be working the night shift tonight. At that time, there should only be a small number of security guards and janitors inside the park.” “Then it’s settled,” Yumiko said, gripping her right hand into a fist, and Riri nodded. “Tonight, we’ll storm Igniter’s workplace. I’ll infiltrate the security camera system and use it to pinpoint Igniter’s location. When he’s alone, we will surround him and quickly disable him. We’ll start our operation at one a.m. Participating members will be Yumiko, DD, Oli-V—” “I-I’ll go, too,” Minoru interrupted, dismissing the fears he had about Igniter’s oxygen-deprivation attack. Both Riri and Yumiko looked at Minoru for a moment, and then both nodded. “All right. If that’s the case, first we should all eat a solid dinner,” Riri said. “But if we get DD to start making dinner now, we won’t have time to rest before the operation… But I’m not sure frozen pizza will do much for our fighting spirits…,” Yumiko said, and both silently stared at Minoru. “…A-all right, I’ll do it, but I make no guarantees about the flavor, okay?” Minoru replied, getting the feeling that his position at the SFD was settling down in an unsatisfactory way. Moving toward the kitchen on the other side of the large room, he felt a clump of anxiety in his chest, like he was missing something important. The way Igniter’s face looked that day, when Minoru clearly saw him in Ikebukuro, that sunken mold-filled basement, and the fact that he was employed at a theme park just didn’t seem to match up. It was as if the edges of the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle were just slightly off. However, when Minoru opened the German-made refrigerator, he had his eyes taken away by the overflowing fresh ingredients and quickly forgot his anxiety. It looked like DD had just refilled the refrigerator, so Minoru set to work matching what ingredients were available with his repertoire of recipes. If I’m looking for a recipe that’s simple to make and can give you energy, it’ll have to be Chinese-style fried rice, thought Minoru. I’ll top it with a ton of vegetables in a sauce and add in egg drop soup on the side. As Minoru took out onions, carrots, and filleted pork, he concentrated on his recipe. The man who was sometimes Ayato Suka, Yousuke Nakakubo, and occasionally Igniter looked satisfied at the shine of the glass he had just polished clean and hopped off his stepladder. After landing firmly on the tile floor, he took his basket of cleaning supplies in his right hand and five-step ladder in his left and moved to the next pane of glass. From the bottom right corner, he sprayed the foamy cleaner and used a microfiber cloth to carefully wipe it away. The building was silent, in stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of the day, and only the squeaking of him polishing the glass could be heard. Many of his collegues hated the special cleaning that went on during the Monday midnight shift, but Nakakubo didn’t dislike it. Nakakubo, who used to manage the exterior design of large mansions and businesses as a first-rate landscaper, now called himself by the lowly name of Ayato Suka, and as he crawled around this theme park cleaning glass, he couldn’t help but feel a little self-scorn. However, ever since he was infected by this sphere in his right hand, he could hardly remember anything about when he’d been a landscaper. Nakakubo had always liked cleanliness and didn’t hate to clean, and as his body was tempered by his Third Eye, no matter how he pushed himself, he didn’t feel any soreness. Additionally, this name and identity he was using was only temporary. In actuality, Nakakubo was not a theme park janitor, but a cleanser of polluted human civilization. If he thought of it that way, it wasn’t exactly unfitting for him to be doing work like this. A wrinkly smile on his thin face, Nakakubo took one step back and looked at the glass he had just polished, regarding himself in the glossy reflection as if it were a mirror. He had lived with the name Nakakubo for fifty-nine years, and when he was reborn, he took on the name Suka and was called Igniter by both the red organization and the black hunters. However, in the near future, when his power reached its next stage, everyone would call him by a more fitting name: “Purifier.” “Heh… Heh-heh,” he chuckled in a deep voice, imagining the new world that was to come. That day was near. In order to further evolve his already advanced power to manipulate oxygen, he had picked this place of work. Here, there were vast amounts of oxygen for him to resonate with, and in a high concentration. One day, he would free all beautiful and proud of the elements of the sixteenth group from humanity’s filthy hands. He would keep the savages from performing any oxidation whatsoever. Heat-powered electric generation? NO. Gasoline engines? NO. Garbage incineration? Gas heaters? Cigarettes? NO, NO, NO. Breathing? “…That, too, of course, NO,” he said, chuckling to himself as he returned to polishing the glass, stepping up his ladder, and wiping away the smudges from the top corner. As he continued his simple work, his exhilaration faded and a faint worry popped up in the corner of his mind. His face had been seen by one of the black hunters. Was that enough to unravel his lifestyle of disguise? After he had attempted murder-suicide, the newspaper had put one picture of his face in the newspaper. If that black hunter had read that article and remembered the picture, it would be possible for him to track down the name Yousuke Nakakubo. If they did that, they might go snooping around his house in Meguro. They might find the entrance to his wine cellar he hid under his desk, and if they investigated under the water, they might even find the real Ayato Suka’s corpse. Was it careless of him to have left the corpse in his own house? However, Nakakubo couldn’t bear to only kill that lowly idiot of a traitor. Even with the level of power he had had then, if he had taken enough time, he could have burned away the body. However, if he had done that in that high-population density of an area, he wouldn’t have been able to hide the flames or the smell, and since he had lost his car after driving it off Ooi Pier, he had no way to transport the corpse, either. Therefore, in order to give that filth a proper cleansing, he sealed the body deep underwater. It would be soon. If he could just break through one thin layer still holding him back, he would reach a new stage of his power. Nakakubo could feel it right now, the wills of the large amount of oxygen wishing to join his cause. It wasn’t a problem. This disguise should hold for just a little while longer, Nakakubo thought. Even if they found the body, they shouldn’t be able to immediately realize that Ayato Suka, who should have died, was still out walking around. All he needed was one more week. One more week and he would have burned the number of humans he had originally planned and drawn his sign of purification in the city. Then, he would evolve. He would awaken to his true power. Nakakubo shook off his anxiety and laughed in a deep voice once again, and that laugh soon changed into a hum as he sang, “Oxygen… Oxygen…” Minoru was only able to get three hours of sleep in after dinner, but by the time his smartphone alarm woke him up, he felt completely rested. While Minoru waited for the other members in SFD Headquarters’ underground parking garage, he ran his fingers along the bandage at the edge of his mouth. His body felt light and his mind was clear, but he could still feel a little bit of pain left, and the memory that went along with that pain unfortunately had not disappeared, either. At dinner, Minoru wasn’t able to look Olivier Saito in the eye. Olivier, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care at all about what happened during the day and had wolfed down the fried rice Minoru had prepared at an incredible pace and also made fun of DD, who seemed as if he had been one-upped somehow. Yumiko, who sat next to Minoru, whispered to him to forget about the whole thing, but Minoru just didn’t have the courage to do so. In the end, Minoru didn’t say a single word to Olivier throughout the whole meal, so was unable to apologize and was still worrying about the incident now, even as they were just about to head off on their mission. Inside your head you think of it like it’s someone else’s problem, and that’s because you lack resolve. It wasn’t just the pain of the punch—Minoru also could remember Olivier’s words very clearly. Minoru knew that he lacked resolve. He didn’t join the SFD because he wanted to protect anyone or any righteous cause like that. He joined because of a very selfish reason, because he wanted Chief Himi to use his power to erase himself from the memories of everyone around him. However, the words You think of it like it’s someone else’s problem cut deep into his heart. Was there even once that Minoru seriously thought to use the power he received as a Jet Eye to save anyone or protect anyone? Minoru asked himself, and the answer to that question was most probably no. Even the time when Minoru had tried to protect Tomomi Minowa when she was attacked by Biter or tried to save Norie when she was kidnapped, he felt that the majority of his motivation was that he just didn’t want to have to go through experiencing that happening from his perspective. It was no different from that time in the convenience store when Minoru put on an act to help an elementary school kid who didn’t have enough money at the register. In the end, Minoru was only doing it for himself, simply because he didn’t want to have to muddy his memories with regret. So Minoru couldn’t save anyone. So long as it wasn’t directly his fault, he didn’t care. That was just the kind of person he was. Even after Minoru was punched by Olivier, somewhere in his heart he kept thinking, Igniter was the one who killed that taxi driver. It’s not my fault. If that’s the case, then is that incident really not your fault as well? Minoru heard a voice asking him. When your mother and father…and your older sister Wakaba were killed, are you really not at fault for doing nothing, and hiding away, shaking under the floor? the voice asked. Leaning back against the cold concrete wall of the parking garage, Minoru desperately argued back. I was only a second grader in elementary school! It was all I could do just to hide! My sister told me that it was going to be okay. So I had to keep counting, even when those frightening footsteps came, I kept counting and counting and counting and… “…Uwaaaahhh!!” Minoru yelled out in a suppressed voice and forcibly cut off his train of thought. A switch flipped in the back of his mind and fell into an empty darkness. Minoru only realized that he had unconsciously activated his defensive shell when that strange low-frequency sound met his ears. It didn’t sound like it was mechanical or organic. The air had no scent and the light, no color. It was a world without anyone in it. Minoru huddled in the shadow of a concrete pillar and hugged his knees. But right before he closed his eyes, he saw mid-cut sneakers right in front of him on the floor. When Minoru raised his head, there was Yumiko, who had changed out of her riding jacket and into her blazer uniform, standing with a harsh light in her eyes. Her lips moved, and even though Minoru couldn’t hear her, he could tell what she was saying. “Come out of your shell.” “…I don’t want to,” Minoru said inside of the shell and tried to look back down. But when he did, Yumiko crouched down right in front of him, gripped her slender right hand into a fist, and lifted it in the air, aiming for Minoru’s left cheek. Smack. Minoru felt a strong force run through his right cheek. Yumiko’s arm had swung all the way through the punch and stopped. It was such a forceful punch that he could hear the grinding of her shoulder and elbow. “Wha…,” groaned Minoru before railing at Yumiko. “What were you thinking?! If I had been a second later in deactivating my shell, right now your…” “My right hand would have been broken. But that didn’t happen, did it?” Yumiko smiled and touched Minoru’s cheek with her open hand. She looked into Minoru’s eyes, which had opened wide, and whispered from a close distance, “You know, Utsugi? Before, you asked me if I really knew what it meant to be hated, right?” “Well…yeah.” “Well, the answer is yes. I know. I know what it means to be hated,” Yumiko said. While the expression on her face was normal, the tone of her voice was tense and like steel. In front of Minoru, who couldn’t find any words to say, Yumiko suddenly lifted up her skirt. She lifted it up high enough so that the tops of the knee-high stockings she always wore with her uniform were exposed. In even the dim light of the parking garage, her white thighs shined bright, and Minoru quickly tried to look away, but at that moment… “Look,” Yumiko whispered and pulled the stocking on her right leg down to her ankle. “…!!” Minoru took a breath in shock. Underneath Yumiko’s well-shaped knee was a frightfully long, large scar. Minoru could see the keloid scar tissue and traces of where stitches ran across it. “You see, before I became a Jet Eye, I couldn’t even walk without a crutch,” Yumiko said, still smiling. “The ones who gave me this scar were the upperclassmen of my middle school track team. With wooden swords and metal pipes, they hit me until they shattered my knee. Their reason for doing so was because I was faster than them and had a bad attitude, apparently. They did it for only that reason.” Being disliked was far too gentle to describe what had happened to her. Minoru felt that the incredible intensity of the hatred that Yumiko took on with her body exuded from every stitch mark. Minoru, who had been running on the banks of the Arakawa River for five years, knew. He knew how precious a treasure a runner’s legs were to them. Legs that they had spent years training and refining. Even a small injury is enough to cause anxiety over whether it will properly heal… “…How?” Minoru asked in a raspy voice. “Hmm?” “How can you still believe in other people after this horrible thing has happened to you?” Minoru asked in a raspy voice. “How could you believe that I would deactivate my shell just now? There was no way you could have known for sure.” Yumiko didn’t say anything for a while. She wordlessly pulled her stocking back up to its original position and smoothed out her skirt before sitting down, hugging her knees in front of Minoru. With their eyes on the same level, Yumiko finally said, “Because you’re not ‘just someone else’ to me anymore.” Minoru looked down to avert his eyes from Yumiko’s strong, bright gaze. “…I don’t understand. I can’t understand. I… I left even my parents and sister I loved so much for dead. To me, everyone but me is ‘just someone else.’ I couldn’t care less if they live or die, so…what meaning is there in me making relationships with anyone? I’m sure that in the end I will betray them.” From Yumiko’s presence, her gaze, and her breathing, Minoru could tell that she felt pity for him. It made him only look down farther as he hugged his knees and muttered, “That’s…enough. I could never be as strong as you. In this world, I cannot believe that there would be anyone whom I don’t feel is an outsider.” “You’re probably right,” Yumiko said in the cold air of the parking garage, her voice slightly shaking. “I could never like someone like you, to be honest.” But as Minoru curled up even tighter, Yumiko put her hands on his shoulders and gripped tightly. “Even so, I’ll believe in you. I’ll believe in the you who came running to save me from Biter,” she said. Just as she finished talking, the rumble of the elevator overlapped her voice. Suddenly, a soft feeling and sweet scent wrapped around Minoru. By the time Minoru realized he had been embraced, Yumiko had already started walking toward the black minivan. It was midnight on Tuesday, December 17. The minivan, driven by DD, headed north from SFD Headquarters in East Shinjuku and got onto the expressway at the Gokokuji interchange. They cut southeast across the center of Tokyo and headed down the Fukagawa line at the Hakozaki Junction. At the Tatsumi Junction they entered the Wangan line and got off at Ariake. Ariake Heaven’s Shore was a large water park located to the west of the Yurikamome line’s Ariake Tennis-no-Mori Station. Its selling point apparently was that the entire facility was indoors, and even in the winter people could wear swimsuits and feel like they were at a tropical resort. Minoru, of course, had not seen nor been there himself. After exiting the expressway, they took a right at the first intersection and after driving straight for a little while saw the silhouette of the building. Minoru had memorized the layout of the building during the pre-mission meeting, but after seeing the real thing, he thought that it was huge. The floor plan had an area of two hundred by three hundred meters, which, according to Olivier, was nearly as big as the entire east exhibition building of Tokyo Big Sight. That didn’t really help Minoru much, though. Anyway, they were going to have to locate one man covertly, somewhere within the entirety of this giant water park. Currently, Professor Riri, who had hacked into the security camera network at the park, was trying to track down Igniter based on the footage, but they had not received word from her yet. “Wouldn’t it be faster for us to just use our powers in the middle of the park and lure him out with our scent?” said Olivier from the front passenger’s seat as he held on to a long rodlike case, but DD shook his head. “Igniter isn’t someone who’d fall for a clear trap like that. Plus, he’s got a national certification, so he’s probably one of the more intelligent Ruby Eyes we’ve ever fought.” “Well, I suppose so, being an ex–company president and all,” replied Olivier as he made a “hmph” sound, just as the minivan started to slow down and stopped on the side of the road. According to the car navigation system it was 12:50 a.m. There were still a lot of open lots in the surrounding area, so once the engine was cut, it was so quiet a person wouldn’t think they were in the middle of Tokyo. Behind a fence on the right that extended on and on in either direction, there was a building with an elliptical dome. It looked like the clear tube that came out of the roof might be a waterslide. It was probably really busy during the day, but now it was as quiet as an old ruin. Suddenly, a clear voice rang out over the miniature intercom attached to Minoru’s left ear. “I see you’ve made it there,” Riri said. “I’m sorry, but I still haven’t been able to locate Igniter. However, I do know that he is currently there working. Please wait a little longer in the van on standby.” “Gotcha,” replied DD. “…Hm?” DD suddenly leaned forward. “Wait a minute, I think… It’s really, really faint, but I think I can smell him.” Tension ran high through the minivan. Riri’s voice also grew sharper. “You sensed Igniter? Does that mean that he is using his power at this very moment?” Riri asked. “No… The scent is way too faint for that… I’m sorry, I can’t tell exactly where he is. I do think he is in the southwest area of the building, though…,” DD replied. “All right… I’ll focus my search using the cameras in that area. Wait a minute.” A strained silence went on for more than thirty seconds. “…I found him! There’s no mistaking it. It’s definitely Igniter. But…what on earth is he doing…?” Riri said with suspicion in her voice, but she quickly changed her tone and snapped out orders. “Let’s get him before he has a chance to change position. Do you hear me? His current location is in the center of an area called Coco Island. Since there is no proper entrance nearby, we’ll have Oli-V make a cut in the outer wall. Approach him from all directions and surround him on all sides!” “Gotcha!” “Roger!” “Got it!” DD, Olivier, and Yumiko all answered in sharp tones, but Minoru was just barely able to squeeze out a “G-got it.” Feeling with his left hand, Minoru made sure he had his air canister securely in his school uniform pocket. Minoru still wasn’t sure whether his defensive shell would cut off the effective range of Igniter’s power. However, Minoru probably would never have the chance to test whether or not that was true. As soon as they got a visual confirmation on the enemy, Yumiko would dash forward and disable him with either her stun baton or knife. There’s probably nothing that I’ll need to do this time, so there’s no reason for me to be scared, Minoru thought to himself and followed Yumiko out of the van. After climbing over the blue-painted fence, they found themselves in a large parking lot. There were white lines drawn out as far as the eye could see, but of course right now there were hardly any parked cars. DD took in another deep breath of air, pointed in one direction, and started running. DD, who was of small build and wearing his camouflage vest over a black tracksuit, ran silently and with hardly any swaying motion, so much that he looked like he belonged in a ninja movie. Olivier followed in his blazer uniform with that rodlike case over his shoulder, and Yumiko, also in her uniform, ran beside him. At the end of the line, Minoru dashed along as silently as he possibly could, trying to keep up. In less than ten seconds they cut across the parking lot and stood up against the exterior wall of the giant dome building. Checking the map with his smartphone, DD pointed beyond the wall. “Our destination, Coco Island, is about thirty meters behind this wall, let’s enter from here.” Even though DD said “from here,” all Minoru could see in front of him was a thick concrete wall. As Minoru tilted his head in confusion, Olivier replied, “Got it, boss,” with no trace of nervousness in his voice and stepped forward. Olivier unzipped the zipper on his rodlike case and stuck his hand inside. Upon seeing something very different from a fishing pole come out, Minoru opened his eyes wide. It was a sword. To top it off, it wasn’t a wooden sword or a Japanese sword, either. It had a black sheath decorated with silver, as well as a silver-colored hilt. It perfectly fit the description of a western long sword. Beside Minoru, who was dumbfounded, Yumiko looked shocked and whispered, “Where the hell did you buy something like that?” “Last time when we were sent to Kamakura I stopped by a weapons shop, you see,” said Olivier, the half-Japanese, half-French pretty boy grinning as he took the hilt of the sword in his right hand. Shinng! went the vigorous sound of the sword as he unsheathed it, and the blade shined silver like a mirror. It was clear that it was the real thing. “Be more quiet when you take it out!!” DD yelled. “But the sound is one of the best parts!!” Olivier argued. After arguing back and forth a little while, Olivier lifted up the heavy-looking sword with his right hand as if it weighed nothing and then… Fyu-fyu! went the sound of the rushing air as Olivier swung the sword so fast one couldn’t follow it with their eyes. With another ringing sound, he resheathed the sword and turned back around. No matter how closely Minoru looked at the wall, he couldn’t see a single scratch on it. However, when DD took out a suction cup from his waist pouch and attached it to the wall and pulled, an eighteen-centimeter-square section of the wall came out. Minoru gulped when he saw the smoothness of the edge of the cut. The thickness of the wall was more than twenty inches, including the concrete outer wall, insulation, and the inner wall. To top it off, there were also thick steel beams running from bottom to top and left to right, and yet the cut was glossy and smooth as if it were polished. “Ah!” Minoru suddenly remembered that he had felt the same astonishment the previous Friday, when he saw Biter’s tooth in that glass petri dish. As soon as Professor Riri pushed on it with tweezers, it split in two halves, showing edges polished like mirrors. Professor Riri had said that the tooth was cut using the power of one of the SFD members. Manipulating the van der Waals forces between particles, they were able to cut surfaces so that they were extremely smooth. The code name of that member was… “So…Oli-V is ‘Divider’?” Minoru muttered, and with a twinkling in his eye, the bespectacled pretty boy struck a pose. “…Again have I cut down something worthle—” “That’s enough of that,” interrupted Yumiko, hitting Olivier in the side, so that he grimaced and got quiet. DD gently placed the concrete block on the ground and removed the suction cup, placing it back in his side pouch. “All right, then. From here on out, anyone who uses their power is going to have Igniter’s attention drawn to them. We will approach him without using our powers, surround him, and then attack while he’s off his guard. We’ll leave the first strike to Yumiko. As for backup…we’re counting on you, Isolator.” “…What?” Minoru’s heart thumped loudly in his chest. Olivier glanced at Minoru from the corner of his eye and said, “My power doesn’t match well with Igniter’s. After all, I can’t cut oxygen. Your shell’ll be a lot more effective, right?” Olivier, the long-sword user, then stepped over to Minoru and put his left arm around Minoru’s neck and whispered, “If you’re still bothered about me smacking you, then come on and show us some courage, man.” It’s not a matter of me showing or not showing courage or determination. I don’t have any to begin with, Minoru muttered to himself inside his head. Yumiko then grabbed Olivier by his uniform and pulled him away from Minoru. “What are you doing giving him unnecessary pressure? I’ll take care of Igniter in one hit, so I won’t be needing any backup. He’s my prey,” Yumiko said in a low voice, before crouching down and stepping through the square hole in the wall. Following DD and Olivier, Minoru also slipped through the hole and into the water park, taking care not to catch the sharp edge on his clothing. Green emergency lamps shined their light on a cramped walkway that continued left and right in a gentle curve. It seemed to be a passageway for employees, and piping could be seen on the walls and ceiling. DD ran left without saying a word. After Minoru ran a few steps after him, he heard Professor Riri’s voice over the intercom in his left ear. “…I have confirmed your entrance from here. Igniter still hasn’t moved from the Coco Island area. If you continue down the passageway and take the fourth flight of stairs on your left, you will enter the attraction area.…All right, I have a message from the other team. Listen as you go.” Other team? thought Minoru, and a moment later after a short break of noise, he heard a voice he had never heard before in his left ear. “This is Refractor speaking. I have successfully infiltrated Ignite’s, aka Ayato Suka’s, apartment.” The voice was a girl’s voice, with a low and calm tone, but it still contained a bit of youthfulness to it. Minoru hadn’t heard her code name before. She must be a Jet Eye who Minoru hadn’t been introduced to yet, but still… “Are you all right…doing something like infiltrating Igniter’s apartment?” Minoru asked. What if Igniter had cameras set up in his apartment and was checking those cameras remotely? Minoru thought, worried, but Yumiko who was running beside him gave him a short answer. “It’s all right, you can’t see her.” Can’t…see her? Refract… The meaning of that word was, if Minoru remembered correctly…“to bend light.” The girl’s voice continued. “The rooms are filled with ornamental plants, as well as a large aquarium… That too is filled with plants; there are no fish.” “Plants, huh…?” Riri’s voice joined in over the transmission. “I see. Is there anything else you notice?” “There is hardly any furniture… There isn’t a television or computer, either. Ah! On the living room wall there is a large map.” “A map?” “A map of the metropolitan area. There are lots of pushpins pushed in on the map.” Minoru and the other three kept running and listening without saying a word. Doors and flights of stairs rushed past them as they ran. “There are nine pins marking places on the map, and seven pins in the margins.” “Tell me the locations of some of those pins,” said Riri. “West Arai in the Adachi district, the west exit of Ikebukuro Station, West Shinjuku 1-chome.” Minoru could tell over the intercom that Riri took a deep breath. “So all of the locations where he has committed crimes up until now.” “Wait. There are some places that are marked even where there aren’t any pins. If you connect the dots…it forms a large ellipse. A zero…? Or maybe an O?” “An O? If the pins are… Nine plus seven makes sixteen, so sixteen O… That’s oxygen’s elementary number! So this is Igniter’s plan! He plans to leave this signature in the middle of Tokyo!!” Clang! went the sound of a chair getting knocked back as Riri’s rushed voice came over the intercom. “Tell me all of the places where there aren’t pins placed yet!” “All right, most of the pins are to the north, and most of the marks are to the south. Jingu-mae in the Shibuya district… Kaki-no-ki-zaka in the Meguro district… Ariake in the Koto district…” “There is a mark on Kaki-no-ki-zaka in the Meguro district? That’s where Yousuke Nakakubo’s residence is… There’s no pin there?” “Correct. There’s only a marker there.” “What does this mean? We already found a dead body there.” In the back of his mind, Minoru could not help but think back to the scene in the basement of Nakakubo’s home, that flooded wine cellar and its floating corpse. At that moment, Minoru remembered the anxiety he had felt earlier, that there was a disconnect in their understanding of Igniter, and twisted his face in thought. Something is off. Something is wrong, he thought. But before he could find a proper reason for that feeling, DD, who had been running ahead, stopped. DD pointed to the left with his finger. The dark entrance to the fourth flight of stairs opened up out of the concrete wall. Igniter was just ahead. DD motioned with his hands that first he would enter, followed by Olivier, Yumiko, and then finally Minoru. They would surround him from all sides and attack.
Chapter 19
70 min read