Chapter 27

Sect. 003 THE TRANCER 1 Rain is wonderful. When you stop to think about it, rain is actually pretty miraculous. Water that previously existed only as humidity in the air turns into liquid when the atmospheric pressure drops below a certain point, gathering together into droplets, and is finally pulled down to earth by gravity. Depending on the atmospheric temperature, it can even cool on the way down, freezing into beads of ice before hitting the ground. No other substance found in the course of everyday human life alters its phases so drastically. Water is nearly imperceptible in vapor form, drenches the world in liquid form, and in solid form, bares its fangs at humanity. And so, humans everywhere should devote more of their thoughts to rainy days. About the mystique of water. About the deep question of why, at that specific temperature of one hundred degrees Celsius, it enters such a chaotic state. And yet, those people… Ryuu Mikawa shook his head slightly as he looked at the group of four high school–aged boys, who were making a racket three tables away from him. Since it was winter vacation now, there wasn’t much to be done about the fact that high school students were flooding into family restaurants in the middle of the afternoon, but he wouldn’t allow them to ruin this precious, solemn, quiet, rainy New Year’s Eve. Crowded into their booth, the young men were screeching like monkeys as they took huge gulps from different glasses of foul-looking liquid. It seemed that they were making a game of mixing different drinks from the soda machine and tasting the results. It was bad enough to take perfectly colorless water and add gobs of sugary, artificially colored syrup, but to mix those already disgusting beverages together and not even finish drinking them afterward was simply unforgivable. Swallowing a sigh, Mikawa closed the paperback he’d been reading with a snap. Should he call the waiter and complain so that they would be given a warning, or should he use his powers to teach them a lesson himself? Mikawa thought for only a moment before choosing the latter. As a member of the organization known as the Syndicate, he had to be careful about unnecessary bloodshed, but he had gotten permission to use his powers when he went into town today. And more importantly: It was a rainy day. He lowered his head so he wouldn’t be seen by the young men about nine meters away and glared at them, focusing not on any of their faces but on the glass that one of them was holding. The other three were pounding on the table and chanting, “CHUG! CHUG!” as he held up the murky brown liquid with a grin, then brought it to his lips. The boy tilted the glass; the liquid that could hardly be called a drink anymore poured over the brim and into his mouth. At that moment, Mikawa pursed his lips and blew a tiny puff of air in that direction. Kshh. Though he should have been too far away for the sound to reach him, Mikawa was sure he heard a small, sharp cracking sound from the young man’s mouth. The high school boy’s Adam’s apple swelled up suddenly, and his eyes widened, his pupils rolling back. The glass slipped from his hand and smashed into pieces on the table. “Hey, man, what are you doing?!” one of his friends yelled, the other two bursting into laughter. But all three of them quickly fell silent. The boy who was now standing moved to clutch his throat and suddenly coughed up a frightening amount of blood. Then he keeled forward onto the table, knocking over a myriad of glasses as he let out a strange, strangled scream. Blood spilled over the table and into the drinks that remained, adding a tinge of red to the mixtures. Still listening to his victim’s screams, Mikawa stood up quietly. He tucked his paperback into his coat pocket, picked up his umbrella and receipt, and began to walk away. Behind him, the restaurant was in an uproar. The screams had reached the ears of the other customers, and a waiter was rushing over with blood draining from his face, but none of them seemed to know what to do. It was certainly a showy amount of blood, but the young man wouldn’t die. The instant the liquid had entered his mouth, Mikawa had simply frozen it into sharp spikes, which cut up the mucous membrane on the inside of the victim’s mouth and throat as he swallowed. At most, he would be unable to eat for a while and could possibly lose his voice. Of course, there was nobody at the cash register, so Mikawa put his silver tray, receipt, and a thousand-yen bill on the counter and left the restaurant. Opening up the umbrella he was carrying today—one of his favorites from his collection—Mikawa spun it in his hands as he walked down the wet sidewalk. The rain made a pleasant noise as it pattered against the water-resistant material, drowning out the clamor from the restaurant behind him. The rain was so wonderful. A blessing from the skies soaking, enveloping, covering everything. Unfortunately, one of the few people who might have fully understood this sentiment had been hunted down by them a few days ago. If only he had accepted the Syndicate’s invitation, things might not have ended with his powers and memories being snatched away, then forced to live in disgrace as an ordinary human once more. Today would be his memorial. Though he might still exist as a living creature, the person who had shared the same will, Igniter, was dead. Once again, Mikawa lamented the stupidity of humans. Their powers, based on oxygen and water respectively, were not the same by any means, but they carried the same will: to wash this polluted world clean. And so, diminishing the numbers of the car-and motorcycle-driving humans whom Igniter had so detested was the least Mikawa could do in his fallen comrade’s memory. Lifting his umbrella, he looked up at the dull gray sky. The low-hanging winter storm clouds were beautiful, still dark and heavy with the promise of more rain. “Good work today, Utsugi.” Minoru gave a slight bow to Yumiko, who had accompanied him down to the first floor of the SFD building to see him off. “Thanks, Yumiko. You, too.” “Make sure you go straight home today without any loitering around, got it?” Minoru couldn’t resist a wry smile at Yumiko’s usual bossiness. “I don’t have the energy for loitering right now anyway, considering that we just got back from a nuclear power plant.” “True enough… All I did was stand outside and wait, and I’m still absurdly tired.” The Accelerator leaned back against the concrete wall by the elevator as she spoke. Judging by her casual jersey and the damp sheen of her hair, she had probably just showered in her room on the fourth floor. Brushing a wet strand away from her cheek, she looked up at the skies, which had been rainy all afternoon. “Honestly…between meeting those weird escorts and getting mixed up with that weird robot, it’s been a very strange day.” Minoru guessed that the “weird escorts” referred to the pair from the Self-Defense Forces and the “weird robot” was Muser. Again, he smiled wryly. “The STS…I mean, Kakinari anyway…was definitely pretty dodgy, but you’re the one who came at Muser with all those weird accusations,” he remarked, opening his folding umbrella. “I didn’t ‘come at’ it with anything! It’s just an AI, anyway,” Yumiko said with a huff, though her expression said differently as she straightened up and stepped away from the wall. “…At any rate, it certainly is coming down hard…” “Yeah…” Minoru nodded, holding out his opened umbrella past the overhang they stood beneath. The sound of water dripping on top of the umbrella mixed in with the incessant sound of the falling rain. “…Well, I’d better head home. As long as nothing major comes up, I think the next time I come here will be in the new year.” Yumiko nodded briskly. “All right. I’ll stock up on ingredients.” “Huh? Uh, I didn’t mean I’d be coming to cook…” “Come on, you don’t mind, right? I happen to like your cooking. It’s certainly homier than the stuff DD makes.” Yumiko gave Minoru such an uncharacteristically bright smile as she spoke that he blushed and had to look away. “Th…that reminds me, I didn’t see DD or Oli-V today…” “Ah, those two… Oh, actually, on rainy days, they’re usually out on patrol. DD probably went along to act as his ‘radar.’” “Huh? Why on rainy days?” Minoru tilted his head, puzzled. Yumiko’s smile faded. “They have a Ruby Eye they can’t ignore, just like me with Igniter.” “Can’t ignore…?” Minoru repeated, but Yumiko didn’t seem to want to elaborate any further. “I’m sure they’ll tell you about it eventually…,” she said as she reached out to press the worn elevator button. “See you later.” “…Have a good evening.” With a wave and another light nod, Minoru walked away into the woods that surrounded SFD Headquarters. Rain continued to fall from the twilit sky, dyeing the toes of his sneakers a dark gray. With a thunderous roar, a large trailer truck sped past the sidewalk, splashing up a sheet of water that soaked into Mikawa’s jeans. However, he didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow, strolling in silence as he gazed over the main road. Four twenty p.m. With the winter solstice having passed not long ago, not to mention the overcast weather, night was already fast approaching by this time. Most of the cars driving along Route 246 through Aoyama had their headlights on, countless white streaks illuminating the rain-slicked surface of the road. The rain showed no signs of letting up. In fact, the online weather radar he’d pulled up on his smartphone showed a bright red storm cloud approaching from the west, bringing even more torrential rains. With the global warming of recent years, it wasn’t unusual for cumulonimbus clouds to appear even in the winter. Mikawa had been waiting for this. The people coming and going on the sidewalk were all shrinking under their umbrellas, their faces contorted as if they were enduring some misery. Mikawa, too, had once despised the cold midwinter rain that soaked into his shoes and froze his toes. But now, this cold was nothing to him. No matter its form, coming into contact with ice gave him a sense of calm. Truthfully, he would have been happy to go without the umbrella, but since standing in the pouring rain, getting soaked to the skin, would inevitably draw attention, he had reluctantly brought it along. All at once, the pattering sound of the rain lightly bouncing off the top of his umbrella intensified. The cluster of cumulonimbus clouds had arrived overhead. Soon, the sound reached an overwhelming volume. The weight of the umbrella in his right hand nearly doubled, and the throng of headlights was swallowed up in a torrent of water. It really was miraculous. Every one of these countless drops of water had been floating as clouds in the sky just seconds ago. If water couldn’t go through such remarkable phase transitions, there would be no rain, no rivers, nothing but deserts on this planet. I’m sure you would’ve understood how I feel… Wrapped up in his intoxicated reverie, Mikawa silently called out to his fallen comrade. Igniter, the Ruby Eye whose near death by drowning triggered the awakening of his oxygen-manipulating abilities. Through a strict training regimen, he had perfected his powers to the point where he could separate water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. By that same token, he had undoubtedly learned how to do the opposite, taking the hydrogen and oxygen in the air to create water. If he had joined the Syndicate and formed a team with Mikawa, the two of them would have surely been unstoppable. So today, if nothing else, at least I can incinerate these humans with fire from their internal combustion engines and appease your spirit with their screams. Muttering this in his thoughts, Mikawa took a deep breath as a lump formed in his throat. As the midwinter downpour reached its peak, the cars on Route 246, heading down the ramp toward Akasaka, looked as though they were coasting on a waterslide. Mikawa focused his attention on the water that was rushing down the asphalt like a river. He pursed his lips and blew. Fwhooo… It was a long, thin, gentle exhale. KSHHHHH! The sound seemed to resound through the city—the same noise he’d heard from the high school boy’s throat at the family restaurant but magnified by a thousand. The slick black surface of the asphalt had transformed into a pure white. Immediately, the brake lights of all the cars on the ramp, already going several miles over the speed limit, turned red. Their disc brake calipers pressed into action, trying to slow the rotation of the tires by transforming the kinetic energy into thermal energy. However, the friction that should have existed between the tires and the surface of the road was all but gone. Because Mikawa had frozen the entire road into ice, from the beginning of the ramp to the bottom of the hill. Dozens of cars moving over eighty kilometers per hour avalanched down the road, which was now as white and sparkling as a skating rink. At the bottom was the Akasaka crossing, where the traffic signal had just changed, and a tanker truck had just appeared on the intersecting Sotobori Street. The first car to reach the bottom, a black minivan, spun wildly into the front wheel of the tanker, its front end denting with a crunch. The tanker’s driver panicked and hit the brakes, blocking the entire intersection in the process. Then the next group of cars came crashing down. There was the screeching sound of metal and a low rumble. Mikawa cast aside the umbrella in his right hand, half closed his eyes, and flexed his fingers as if settling them onto an invisible keyboard. For each car that crashed, he fiercely played a minor chord. In the intersection below, the body of the tanker, unable to take the repeated impact of the cars, finally gave way and cracked open in the middle, gasoline spilling in a golden waterfall onto the street. Then the last vehicle to come down the slide, a truck that looked to have about a ten-ton capacity, plunged into the middle, ripe with kinetic energy. Mikawa raised both hands high into the air. As he slammed his fingers down on the invisible keys, a flash of light swelled up from the intersection, and the entire area was swallowed into a blazing pillar of flame that billowed up to the dark clouds above. On the panel above the door of the outbound train on the JR Saikyou line, a news flash began to spell out in white letters. As he hung onto one of the overhead straps and read the headline uneasily, it took Minoru a few moments to process the news before he let out a small gasp. On Route 246 in Harbour Ward, a multicar collision had occurred that included a gasoline tanker. The area was still in flames. A high number of casualties. Could a Ruby Eye have done this? Minoru considered the thought for only a moment before rejecting it as impossible. The scale of the accident was just too large. Maybe Igniter, the villain they’d fought two weeks ago, would have been able to cause such destruction, but even then he would have needed a large amount of water in the area in order to do so. Besides, it would take him over an hour to get from his current location, not far from Yonohonmachi Station (the stop near his home), to Harbour Ward. The culprit, if there was one, would be long gone by then, and even the lingering “red” scent of his powers would have vanished. If I was at SFD Headquarters in the middle of the city, I’d probably make it… Minoru shook his head again to clear away the thought. He knew that moving to their headquarters would make his job with them easier, but he still couldn’t make that decision so easily. What would he tell Norie? I suppose Chief Himi or Professor Riri could come up with a convincing story, but… As Minoru was lost in these thoughts, the train arrived at Yonohonmachi Station, and the doors in front of him slid open. Pushing against the cold breeze as he walked toward the ticket gate and home, Minoru pulled up his scarf and quickened his pace. Do not get drunk on murder. This was the first doctrine of the Syndicate. The deep crimson Ruby Eye parasites instill their hosts with an overwhelming urge to kill. It’s impossible to resist it. When experiments were conducted that prevented Ruby Eyes from killing for an extended period of time, the hosts slowly lost their minds and were soon completely taken over by the crazed parasite. Thus, members of the Syndicate could periodically request permission to use their abilities and murder people. When allowed to kill, the parasite responds by flooding the host’s mind with an intoxicating feeling of power. According to a member of the Syndicate who had been a regular drug user as an ordinary human, the sensation felt after killing far surpassed the high he’d experienced from heroin. In other words, it was just like training a monkey to do tricks. If the Ruby Eye killed according to the alien’s wishes, the parasite would reward its host with a trip. However, the Syndicate taught its members that they must not let that intoxication overwhelm them. Just like any powerful drug, if a Ruby Eye user were to kill haphazardly in order to chase that high, they would gradually start to lose their sanity. Down that path lay only the humiliation of being hunted by the “black.” The only way to avoid losing one’s powers or life was to resist the intoxicating trip that came with committing murder and withdraw immediately. Once, Mikawa asked a question about this to the woman who taught them—their leader, who was known as Liquidizer. “If we’re going to resist the Ruby Eyes’ will that much, why not just surrender to the Jet Eyes and ask them to take out our Third Eyes and turn us back into regular humans?” Liquidizer had replied with a smile. “The Ruby Eyes who are strong enough to be accepted into the Syndicate invariably have emotional trauma of an equal strength, you know. In other words, they hate the Syndicate and the human world alike. The murderous urges inside me may be induced by the parasite, but my desire to see this world destroyed has been with me for much longer. You are the same way, are you not?” “Yes” was the only response he could muster. Still, a bit peeved, he pushed a little further. “But still, that being the case, don’t you think the Syndicate is aiming a bit low? Our entire purpose seems to be just to help one another run away from the ‘black’ who keep hunting us.” At this, Liquidizer simply chuckled and flicked Mikawa’s forehead lightly. “Now, when have I ever said that? The Syndicate is not some benefit society that aims to survive by sneaking around. Our ultimate goal is one simple thing. “The extermination of humanity.” “……Heh.” Walking along the back alleys from Akasaka toward Aoyama Cemetery, Mikawa laughed to himself a little as he remembered. That comment had really captured his attention. The extermination of humanity? If all the Ruby Eyes in the Syndicate were to combine their powers and attack Shinjuku Station during rush hour, they could probably take out a thousand people at best. She was full of hot air. Besides, if they attempted such a major act of terrorism, the Japanese government would surely abandon their current concern for discretion, make an official announcement about the existence of Ruby Eyes, and finally devote the entire police and defense force to hunting them down. He doubted the Syndicate had anywhere near enough power to stand a chance against that. Mikawa was just one lowly member of the Syndicate, so he had no idea what the organization’s leadership—which apparently included several people above Liquidizer—might be thinking. But he didn’t really care if it was just to kill people off slowly over the course of several decades. As long as he could go out into town once a month on a rainy day and reduce the population by however many people, he would be content. At least for now. In that regard, he may have gone a bit overboard today. When he got back to the hideout, it was possible he’d receive a scolding from Liquidizer. However, he imagined she’d give him a pass if he explained that it had been a memorial for their dearly departed Igniter. Mikawa suppressed another smile. The rain had abated slightly but nonetheless continued to fall as he crossed Gaien Higashidori, the main strip in the Roppongi district, and entered Aoyama Cemetery. The expansive cemetery appeared to be empty of people. Rainwater splashed around him as Mikawa made his way west through the lines of tombstones. Once he crossed through here and got onto the subway at Omotesandou Station, there should be no chance of any “black” pursuers capturing him. As he was thinking this to himself, he drew near the part of the graveyard set aside for graves of foreigners, in the middle of the cemetery. At that moment, the hair on the nape of his neck suddenly stood on end. “……Tch!” Just as he tossed his umbrella away and leaped aside, a puddle on a nearby stretch of road suddenly burst upward with a snap. Was this an attack from the black ones? No, surely not. Someone was sniping at him with a gun, probably from the rooftop of the building on the west side of the cemetery. They must have been using a suppressor, since he hadn’t noticed the shot being fired. Even as his mind raced, Mikawa kept on the move, jumping aside once again to narrowly dodge a second bullet that broke through the raindrops where he’d been just moments ago and left a deep hole in a gravestone to the east. Live ammunition. And these were no warning shots, either. Usually, the black group’s objective was to neutralize a Ruby Eye, remove their Third Eye, and erase their memories, turning them back into an ordinary human. But this time, they were aiming to kill. Still, Mikawa guessed that the gunshots were meant to keep him in place while a nearby Third Eye user prepared to attack with their abilities. Mikawa ducked behind a large gravestone into what he hoped was a blind spot for the sniper on the west side of the graveyard and gathered his thoughts. How these people had tracked him down was of secondary importance right now. Right now, he had to figure out whether to get away or fight back. But this decision took him less than a second. It’s raining today, Jet Eyes. With a thin smirk on his lips, Mikawa stood up. If he could hold this position, the sniper wouldn’t be much of a threat for a while. During that time, he would deal with the attacker he suspected was nearby. Leaning his back against the gravestone and looking around, Mikawa dodged the attack by sheer luck. Just less than a meter to his left, a long metal blade cut deep into the gravestone, then slashed through, aiming at Mikawa. Had he rolled forward even half a second later, it would probably have been more than the hem of his jacket that got cut clean through. Mikawa rolled once on the wet flagstones and landed in a kneeling position, watching the blade silently sink into the center of the gravestone. In the next moment, a tall figure came into view from behind the stone. Mikawa recognized his face at once. “…Oh, it’s just you?” he drawled, flashing a smile. “Of course, who else?” the black user answered lightly, but there was no trace of a smile on his face. He was wearing a glossy gray bodysuit and a stern expression, and he was holding in his right hand a Western-style long sword, which he whipped briskly through the air a few times, his left hand behind his back. The raindrops his blade made contact with were all sliced neatly into two halves. Mikawa stood up unhurriedly, the strong chemical scent of the black ability reaching his nose. “You don’t know when to give up, do you, Divider? I thought I showed you last time that your power is no match for mine.” “Sorry, but I’m not in the mood for a pissing contest today, Trancer,” the Jet Eye responded, whipping out his left hand to reveal an automatic pistol, its jet-black muzzle leveled directly at Mikawa’s forehead. The handgun: the pinnacle of humankind’s development of deadly, portable weapons. Even to a Third Eye user—for all their enhanced speed, stamina, and unusual abilities—it posed more than enough of a threat. In fact, to be honest, a single pistol packed more punch than almost any Third Eye user’s abilities. Well aware of this, the black forces often used Tasers or knives to bring in “victims” of the “red” parasites so they could be treated. However, this compassion did not extend to Ruby Eyes who were found out as members of the Syndicate. Last time Mikawa had fought against Divider, some sneaky black agent had crept up on him from behind and zapped him with a Taser, nearly capturing him. He’d made a narrow escape thanks to the help of Liquidizer, but as a result, the “blacks” now knew he was a Syndicate member. So this time, Divider had come to kill him, no questions asked. Mikawa reflected on all this in the short moments before Divider unhesitatingly squeezed the trigger. But of course, he had nowhere to run. The muzzle of the gun was only six meters away. Even if he used his Third Eye–induced speed, the bullet would be in his chest almost as soon as he saw it fired. But it’s raining today, you know. Mikawa stood fast and took in a lungful of the cold, wet air. Divider’s finger pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession. Aiming at the gun’s muzzle, Mikawa pursed his lips and blew. In the darkness of the rain, three yellow flashes blinked in succession. With a dry bursting sound, three nine-millimeter bullets were fired, and the first round made contact with a raindrop. Kshhh. Instead of being scattered into smaller droplets by the rotating bullet, the raindrop froze around it. Kshh! Kshh! Kshh! Kshh! As they flew through the six meters of air between the gun’s muzzle and Mikawa, each of the bullets made contact with dozens of raindrops, which all froze onto the bullets, dragging them down with the added weight. The first and second bullets flew off course and passed by Mikawa harmlessly; the third hit him in the left shoulder, but by then the snowball-sized lump of ice around it had created enough air resistance to slow it down to a speed that wasn’t nearly high enough to pierce the tough skin of a Third Eye user. Still, its impact was akin to taking a hit from a blunt weapon, but even as Mikawa’s body was shaken by it, he continued to let out sharp breaths of air. Kshh! Kshh! Now the sound of freezing ice came from the pistol in Divider’s hands. The water that had permeated the gun’s mechanisms turned solid, stopping the firing hammer before it could strike a fourth time. Quickly, Divider tossed away the gun before the ice could freeze it to his left hand. By the time it hit the flagstones, there was nothing but a hunk of ice. “…Phew, that was close. Even bad cops in Hollywood movies don’t just start shooting without warning, you know,” Mikawa remarked with another smile. “See, this is why I hate firearms.” His gun rendered useless, Divider licked his lips and spat off to one side, but his expression was as determined as ever. He grasped his heavy-looking sword with both hands, holding it out at the ready. The last time they had fought, he’d been using a Japanese sword that may or may not have been the real thing, but this time his weapon was so absurd that it looked like it had been pulled straight out of a fantasy movie. “So hey, where do you buy a sword like that, anyway? Or did you make it yourself?” Mikawa asked, genuinely rather curious. But Divider just shook his head flatly, his curly hair bobbing. “No way, I’m not tellin’ you that so you can go off and attack their shop or somethin’. I mean, not that you’re making it out of here alive today anyway, but y’know.” “Aw, c’mon, I wouldn’t attack them. I just wanted to buy one for myself.” He shrugged and sighed deeply. Then, focusing on Divider’s feet, he exhaled lightly. Kshhh! Kshhh! The sharp noise resounded through the graveyard as pure white ice formed quickly around both of the black agent’s legs. However, instead of freezing him in place, as it should have, the ice cracked and fell away as soon as Divider took a step forward. “Hah!” With a strident battle cry, Divider leaped toward him at a dizzying speed, attacking with sword aloft. Glittering in the light of the distant streetlamps, the blade came straight down toward Mikawa’s neck. Continuing to blow out cold air, Mikawa was only narrowly able to dodge by freezing over the flagstones underneath Divider’s feet. His boots, connected to his bodysuit, slipped slightly on the fresh ice, altering the trajectory of his blade so that it only just cut through the right side of Mikawa’s jacket. Mikawa quickly put some distance between them as the sword continued straight down, cutting nearly a meter into the flagstones of the cemetery path like a knife through butter. The sharpness of his cuts was as absurd as ever. Underneath his jacket, Mikawa was wearing a Syndicate-distributed knife-proof aramid fiber undershirt, but against Divider’s sword, it would do about as much good as a thin sheet of paper. But more importantly… “…So that fancy new suit of yours isn’t just cosplay, huh?” “Yeah, we came up with it after you froze up all my clothes last time. This suit’s totally waterproof, so you can huff and puff at it all you like.” “I see… You’re actually getting smarter.” Mikawa had to admit, the black group was a step ahead of the Syndicate when it came to developing this kind of equipment. They did have the government on their side, after all. Narrowing his eyes, he glanced up at the sky. The rain clouds were still dark and heavy; it didn’t seem like he’d have to worry about the worst-case scenario of the rain letting up anytime soon. However, he still couldn’t let this battle go on for too long. The sniper was probably well on his way to a better vantage point by now and had quite possibly called for backup, too. That invisible black agent was much more concerning to him right now than even the sword-wielding maniac in front of him. Like most attack-based Third Eye abilities, Mikawa’s powers required the target to be within his sight line, so cheap tricks like invisibility rendered his talents practically useless. If that black agent had used a knife or a gun instead of a Taser last time, Mikawa would probably be dead. As much as he wanted to keep playing with the swordsman, it was probably time to wrap things up. With that decided, Mikawa’s smile left his face. Perhaps sensing his resolve to kill, Divider narrowed his eyes as well. Mikawa breathed in deeply through his nose and mouth. Divider charged at a terrifying speed, white sparks flying as his sword glided along the wet pavement. In the instant when the blade hung in the air, glinting in the twilight as it shifted downward toward him, Mikawa aimed at its edge and blew with all his might. Imbued with Divider’s power, the blade sliced through the torrential rain as it drew nearer. In turn, imbued with Mikawa’s freezing power, the raindrops froze into ice instantaneously as they hit the sword’s edge. The blade sliced these in two and flung about half the frozen droplets away, but the rest stuck to the sides of the metal. These pieces of ice piled up quickly as the blade cut through the air, and in moments, the blade was coated with ice on either side, making it not so much an edged sword as an icy pole. Divider’s power could work only with a weapon that had an edge. The sword had lost its cutting ability before it reached Mikawa, but Divider carried on, swinging it toward him anyway. However, the strength of his Third Eye–enhanced body and the knife-proof undershirt were enough to defend against a strike from a simple blunt weapon. Blocking it with his right arm, Mikawa aimed the rest of the air in his lungs at Divider’s face. At this short distance, he could easily target his opponent’s eyes. This was just like their previous encounter. Is this loser so confident in his own victory that he couldn’t bother to protect his face with a waterproof mask while he was at it? Mikawa thought. But in that instant, the other side of the long sword he had repelled with his arm came back around, slicing neatly up from Mikawa’s abdomen to his right shoulder. Mikawa didn’t register any pain or even the impact of the attack, but he knew at once that the depth of the cut was fatal. His sword held high in the air, Divider grinned savagely. “Tough luck, pal. Unlike ol’ Masamune, Excalibur here is a double-edged sword.” When Minoru got off the bus at the stop nearest to his house, it was still raining steadily. Minoru looked at his running watch as he opened his umbrella. The digital face read 6:15 p.m. He would be just in time for dinner. He hadn’t heard anything from SFD Headquarters…meaning that the traffic accident in Akasaka probably wasn’t the work of a Ruby Eye after all. So why do I still feel so worried? Maybe I should call and ask them about it…but if I were going to do that, I probably should’ve done it while I was still at the train station. Minoru was still dwelling on these thoughts as he walked quickly down his street toward home. Still, when he saw the gentle light streaming out from his kitchen window, he breathed a sigh of relief. Norie had said this morning that she was making hand-rolled sushi for dinner tonight, he remembered. He had eaten a late lunch when he got back to headquarters earlier, but his energy consumption had vastly increased since he was infected by the Third Eye parasite, and considering that he successfully completed the absurd mission of going into a nuclear containment vessel earlier today, he felt that he had earned the right to overeat a little. His mind now full of thoughts about his favorite tuna and avocado sushi, he almost didn’t notice the car parked across from his house as he walked past it. Then, suddenly, a nearby voice spoke to him. “Welcome home.” Minoru jumped, nearly dropping his umbrella. Grasping it tightly, he quickly looked around, but there was no one else in sight. The passenger-side window of the car, a yellow first-generation Daihatsu Copen, was open, but both the passenger’s and the driver’s seat were clearly empty. And the car was a two-seater. Was he hearing things? “You’re not hearing things,” the voice, a woman’s, said with impeccable timing. Reflexively, Minoru prepared to bring up his protective shell, but before he did so, the thin, slightly husky voice continued. “It’s all right, I’m an SFD member like you. I thought I’d take this chance to say hello.” The empty Copen’s left-hand door opened on its own, and the voice spoke again. “Get in quickly before the seat gets wet.” Minoru was unconvinced. What if this was a Ruby Eye trap, or maybe even an actual ghost? But as his mind churned, he suddenly realized that he had heard this voice somewhere before: two weeks ago, in the raid on Igniter’s workplace, Ariake Heaven’s Shore, over the radio… “Ah…you’re, um, Re…Refrac…?” “Yes. Hurry and get in, please.” “R…right.” Gathering his resolve, Minoru folded his umbrella and ducked under the low roof of the Copen, sliding himself into the passenger’s seat. When he closed the door, the sound of the rain died away. Minoru took a deep breath and stole a sidelong glance at the driver’s seat, but it still appeared to be completely empty. He did notice, however, the faint scent of perfume inside the car. It was different from the kind Yumiko used, but the fragrance was definitely there. Minoru gulped and cleared his throat nervously. Slowly, gingerly, he started to reach out toward the driver’s seat with his right hand. “While I understand your intent, I would prefer not to be randomly touched.” “O-of course.” Minoru hastily put his hand back on his lap. After a moment, the voice from the driver’s seat spoke again in a slightly softer tone. “…My name is Suu Komura. SFD code name: Refractor. Nice to meet you.” “N…nice to meet you. I’m Minoru Utsugi. My code name is Isolator.” “I look forward to working with you.” “Y-yes, you, too.” As they exchanged greetings, Minoru continued to squint at the driver’s seat, straining to see the source of the voice. But he still couldn’t see her. The faint glow of the streetlights and the shadows cast by the raindrops streaming down the front window fell onto the camel-colored leather seat without the slightest distortion. He started to wonder if her power wasn’t so much invisibility as it was cognitive indetectability, the type of ability like Chief Himi’s that alters the minds of others, but that wouldn’t explain how he was able to see the parts of the seat and driver’s side door that should have been hidden by Suu Komura’s bodily presence. Forgetting for a moment that he was inside a cramped car next to someone he had just met, Minoru mumbled to himself absently. “What kind of ability is that? She’s… She’s too invisible!” “Have you heard of something called negative-index metamaterial?” His question answered with another question, Minoru blinked with surprise, turning a little red. “N…no, I’ve never heard that term before.” “I see.” There was silence for a moment, as though Suu were gathering her thoughts, before she continued in a voice that sounded almost entirely devoid of emotion. “All materials in existence have a parameter called a ‘refractive index.’ To put it simply, it’s a number that determines how much the angle of light changes when it comes into contact with that material. For instance, water’s refractive index is 1.3; in comparison, a glasses lens has an index of about 1.7. In other words, when it penetrates a lens, light is bent more than it would be by water.” “R-right.” It was a bit strange getting a science lecture from someone he couldn’t see, but Minoru did his best to keep up. “A negative refractive index—in other words, a material that when penetrated by light would bend it in reverse—was thought to be nonexistent in nature. However, it was recently discovered. Or rather, it was created. A metal with a nanostructure smaller than the wavelength of light…that is what negative-index metamaterial, or NIM, is.” “It bends light…in reverse…?” Minoru tilted his head, unable to picture the phenomenon, but the invisible driver continued indifferently. “If scientists can control the angle of light both positively and negatively, it becomes possible to prevent light from hitting an object entirely. For example, say we have a ball, and we wrap it in NIM. Light, which should normally reflect off the surface of the ball from all directions, would instead be circumvented to the ball’s surroundings. Now, would you be able to see this ball?” “Erm…” In order for the ball to be visible, some amount of light would have to either reflect off or be absorbed by its surface. If a lot of light reflected off it, the ball would appear white, or if the light were absorbed, it would appear black. But if all the light simply slid onto its surroundings without touching the ball… “Ah…,” Minoru murmured, finally understanding. “That’s right,” his invisible companion affirmed quietly. “Think of my power, refraction, as the ultimate form of this kind of metamaterial. Light completely avoids my body and any objects attached that indicate my body’s presence. Thus, nobody can see me.” “Light…avoids you…” Certainly, when a person sees something, they’re actually seeing the light that reflects off or is absorbed by that something. If that light were to instead avoid the object, it would essentially be rendered transparent. He had somehow grasped the explanation, but for some reason, Minoru thought he detected a note of deep loneliness somewhere in her words. After a moment, the reason dawned on him. “If… If light completely avoids you…doesn’t that mean that you can’t see the outside world, either…?” There was a brief delay before his question was answered. “…That’s right. When I use my ability to its fullest, not only am I invisible to the world, but the world is invisible to me, too… I’m a bit surprised, though.” “Huh? About what?” “You’re the first person to come to that conclusion so quickly after hearing my explanation.” “Oh…um, I-I’m sorry,” Minoru blurted out reflexively, afraid he had said something impolite, but then he heard the invisible girl next to him stifle a laugh. “There’s not really anything to apologize for. I was a bit impressed, that’s all.” When Minoru gave no response but to stiffen nervously, she spoke again. “…Well, now that we’ve been introduced and all, I should probably be going.” At that, Minoru blinked and opened his eyes wide, staring at the driver’s seat. Was she really going to drive with her abilities still activated—in other words, without being able to see anything? Then he spotted something unusual. At about Minoru’s eye level, two tiny black dots were floating in thin air. They didn’t look like anything, really—just like two little spots of darkness, perfectly absorbing all light. What are those? Furrowing his brow, Minoru leaned in to get a closer look. At that moment… “Are you planning to kiss me good-bye?” The voice came from incredibly close to his ears, so close that he realized what he was looking at. The two dots were Refractor’s eyes. More specifically, her pupils—No, even more specifically, the light being absorbed through her pupils into her retinas to be converted into information and transferred to her brain via the optic nerves. In other words, Minoru’s face was currently just five centimeters away from the face of a person he couldn’t see—a person who he was 99 percent sure was female. “Aah!” With an exclamation of surprise, Minoru jumped backward with such force that he slammed the back of his head into the passenger-side window. “I’m so sorry!” he cried, shaking his head partly for emphasis and partly to clear away the pain of the impact. “I didn’t mean to do that! I wasn’t, I, um…” “Don’t worry about it… Well, then.” As she spoke, a key with a cute animal design on it turned right in the ignition, and the starter motor rumbled into action. Though the car was small, Minoru heard a four-cylinder turbo engine start up sharply. His mouth dry, he reached for the door, still apologizing profusely. “Um, I…I’m really sorry. I-I’ll just be going now…” Just then, he realized that he still hadn’t heard the answer to the question that he should have been asking from the start. “That’s right…” He paused, looking back at the driver’s seat. “M-Ms. Komura, why were you in front of my house in the first place?” Her answer caught him by surprise. “This isn’t the first time I’ve come here. When you and Accelerator are out on missions, either my brother or I are generally here keeping watch, to make sure that your sister isn’t attacked by Ruby Eyes.” “Ah…” Minoru was at a loss for words. He hadn’t had the slightest idea that this was going on. Of course, the possibility of an attack on Norie was a worry that was always on his mind. Ever since Biter had raided his house, Minoru had carefully avoided activating his protective shell, so the chances of a Ruby Eye detecting him and finding his home should be very low. Still, if he were on a mission fighting against one and it discovered his identity, it wasn’t impossible that the enemy might track down his address… But he hadn’t expected the SFD to go so far as to station a guard at his house. For one thing, its location in the Sakura district of Saitama wasn’t exactly close by the SFD’s headquarters in Shinjuku. Which meant that Minoru’s reluctance to move to headquarters had directly affected Refractor. “I didn’t know that… I’m sorry to have caused you so much trouble.” The quiet apology had scarcely left his lips before he heard her response. “It’s all right. If a Ruby Eye did attack this place, they would definitely be a member of the Syndicate. If we captured them, we could get a lot of information out of them.” Hearing such frightening words spoken in a soft, deadpan voice almost made the corners of Minoru’s lips twitch, but he quickly bowed his head again. “Still, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m grateful for what you’ve been doing. Thank you very much.” Minoru again moved to open the door of the car, but at that moment, he heard a low rumbling noise from the direction of the driver’s seat. The starter motor had already been turned on a while ago, which meant… Could that noise have come from Refractor’s stomach? Turning back toward her timidly, Minoru looked at the seemingly empty driver’s seat, wondering whether he should say anything. Finally, he gathered his courage and spoke. “U-um… You’ve probably been sitting here for most of the day, so…you must be hungry, right…? Would… Would you like to come in and have dinner with us? Norie said she was making hand-rolled sushi for tonight, so it shouldn’t be a problem if we have one more person…” Minoru had only been trying to offer a show of gratitude, but when there was no immediate response, he realized the implications of what he’d said. Naturally, not being a member of the SFD, Norie had no knowledge of Third Eyes and their abilities. In order to sit at the table and eat dinner together, Refractor would have to deactivate her ability and become visible. But like Yumiko had told him before, Third Eyes’ abilities were born of the pain and trauma the host had endured…so Refractor’s strong power of invisibility, which she seemed to keep activated constantly, meant that she probably had some kind of fear associated with being seen by other people. And I just stupidly asked her if she wanted to eat dinner together like it was no big deal… But as he was opening his mouth to apologize, an unexpected question came from the direction of the driver’s seat. “Hand-rolled sushi… Does that mean there’ll be layered omelets?” What? Minoru thought, but he reflexively answered, “Um, y-yes…they’re Norie’s favorite, so…” “And avocado and tuna rolls?” “Y-yes, since those are my favorite…” There was silence for a few seconds, and then… “Then I suppose I’ll accept your offer.” The key turned back to the left, and the engine fell silent, leaving only the faint sound of the rain washing over them like white noise. Then, to Minoru’s amazement, a petite young woman appeared in the driver’s seat out of thin air. As he watched, dumbfounded, he suppressed a single bemused thought: Was that seriously a good enough reason to show yourself? He had no time to guess at just how deep the damage he’d received was. The sword raised before him flipped around with a clink. The edge that he’d frozen over with ice faced away, revealing the still-sharp blade on the other side as it came down toward him. In this situation—especially with the large gash along the right side of his torso—it was impossible for him to dodge the next attack. Hoping to at least neutralize Divider’s ability, Mikawa blew sharply with the air that remained in his lungs. As the third slash came toward him, the water in the air again froze into ice around the blade. However, with his perception of time currently accelerated, the growth rate of the ice seemed terribly slow. He had to ice that blade into a blunt weapon before it reached his body, or— I’m going to lose. Even though it’s raining. Even though I’m surrounded by all this water. Mikawa rarely felt intense emotions about anything, but right now, a strange fire was welling up in his chest. It was a sensation he’d felt only once before, in the distant past. It was a cold, rainy day like this, too. All the adults were moping around in raincoats… None of them made any attempt to look at us. That’s why nobody could blame us for sneaking into that place. We avoided the eyes of the men steering the forklifts, crept across that huge lot, opened that wide metal door, and went inside. In that big, dark place, there were boxes everywhere, stacked up to the ceiling. Every time we breathed, the insides of our noses stung. My friend and I headed deeper into the maze of boxes, undetected by anyone. It was like we’d been teleported into the future, surrounded by incredible new technology. We didn’t know. When water freezes, its volume expands. We didn’t know that such a trivial phenomenon could cause something so terrible. “……!!” The floodgates of his memories had started to open, but Mikawa did his best to freeze them shut. As if in response to his powerful feelings, the sphere embedded over his left lung pulsed intensely. As air flowed from his tightly pursed lips, he saw that it was glittering like diamond dust. It flooded fiercely over the blade that was rushing toward him, freezing it whiter and whiter. Whack! The strike came crashing down on Mikawa’s right shoulder. A shock of pain like a silver spark shot through his brain as the attack smashed into his clavicle. But the sharp cut that he had expected to divide his body in two didn’t seem to have occurred. Fighting against the searing pain, Mikawa struggled to refill his lungs with a bit of air and blow it back toward his opponent’s face. Divider quickly defended himself by throwing up his left hand, which was instantly coated in a thin membrane of ice. Seizing this chance, Mikawa twisted his body to the side and used his left foot to kick at the surface of the flagstones with all his might. At the same time, he blew cold air toward the stones a little ways ahead of him, sliding with his left foot along the newly formed ice like a skater. As the air in his lungs ran out, he whirled back around. Now about fifteen meters away, he saw that Divider was breaking the ice off his hand. Then, grasping his long sword with both hands once more, the Jet Eye charged forward, a glint of killing intent in his decidedly foreign-colored eyes. At this point, the deep gash from Mikawa’s abdomen to his right shoulder finally made itself known with a flood of white-hot pain and a frightening amount of blood that soaked straight through his jacket, dyeing it black. Struggling to bear the pain, Mikawa focused on the wound and blew hard. Kshh… The noise rippled through his body as the streaming blood froze into white ice. The mixture of heat and harsh cold doubled the agony, sending fresh sparks of pain before his eyes. He could still breathe well enough, so it seemed that the wound hadn’t reached his lungs, but it was probably safe to say that at least two or three of his ribs were broken. To continue to fight in this condition would be extremely difficult. Unfortunately, even fleeing would be risky at this point. Watching Divider slice through the ice toward him at a rapid pace, Mikawa made a snap decision. He could no longer afford to hold back his power. The second doctrine of the Syndicate: Do not reveal all your power to the enemy. The power source of Third Eye abilities is the inner pain of the host. In other words, by looking at a Third Eye host’s abilities, one could form a conjecture about that person’s suffering. One of the black ones had a terrifying deduction-based ability on their side, so once they knew about a red power, they could determine the source of that person’s trauma with astounding accuracy. Of course, in addition to being the source of their power, a Third Eye’s inner pain is also their greatest weak point. The black ones had defeated many of Mikawa’s comrades by mercilessly targeting that weakness. Once they learned that his power was separating water into hydrogen and oxygen, Igniter, one of Liquidizer’s favorite recruits into the Syndicate, had been captured by the Jet Eyes without taking a single one of them down with him in the explosion he caused in a theme park pool. So far, the only power Mikawa had shown the black ones was turning water into ice. Thus, they had no way of figuring out the trauma and fear that nested deep in his heart. The pain in Mikawa’s heart wasn’t just directed toward ice. Freezing, melting, evaporating, and solidifying again. Mikawa loved these transitions, and feared them deeply. If he showed them another one of his powers, they would have new material with which to try and dig up his traumatic past. And then, while he wanted to believe this was impossible, they might even use that information to try and track her down, as deeply hidden in the city as she may be. But in this situation, he no longer had the luxury of hiding his powers. The last time things had gotten dangerous, Liquidizer had been there to come to his rescue, but that was only because he’d still been in training. Now that he was independent, if she found out he was captured or even killed, she would scarcely even spare him a sigh. As Mikawa watched the furiously charging swordsman, a thought flashed into his mind. Divider…I wonder what the source of your suffering is…? Why do you need to cut things up to be satisfied? Fighting to ignore the pain, Mikawa filled his lungs with air, but instead of pursing his lips and blowing a thin stream of air, he exhaled in a huge huff. Unlike the sparkling blue of his previous breaths, this one was a thick white. The white breath diffused outward into the air. And then—whump! A sound like the impact of a heavy blanket echoed through the graveyard. That was the sound of all the water in front of Mikawa being transformed instantly into water vapor—in other words, steam. Mikawa’s ability to manipulate the phases of water didn’t just go in one direction. With a long, thin breath, he could transform steam into water and water into ice, both resulting in a lower temperature. But with a big, thick huff, he could turn ice into water and water into steam, the latter meaning that the water’s temperature would rise to one hundred degrees Celsius. The high-temperature steam that Mikawa had created spread about eighteen meters in front of him. Of course, the heat was immediately sapped away by the surrounding air, and the water vapor resolidified slightly, turning into a thick fog. But Divider, in the middle of his high-speed dash, would still have been surrounded by one hundred–degree steam for several seconds, most likely breathing it into his lungs as well. No matter how good he was at cutting things up, he couldn’t cut vapor. Mikawa hesitated, wondering whether he should close the gap between them and finish him off instead of waiting. After all, he had been forced to reveal the ability he’d successfully kept a secret from enemies and allies alike until now. At the very least, that should earn him the right to his bitter enemy’s life. But Mikawa’s mind was quickly made up for him when another bullet flew at him from the southern side of the cemetery. It was probably only thanks to the visibility-obscuring fog around them that the shot narrowly missed his left arm and hit the flagstones. Looking at the bullet, Mikawa hunched down and aimed another wide breath behind him, creating more thick fog that covered the entire center of the cemetery. I suppose this is my chance. Shaking off a bit of lingering regret, Mikawa began to run toward the west side of the cemetery. Since he had only frozen up the wound on his abdomen as a styptic, if the ice melted, he would probably start to bleed profusely again. He had to get to the Syndicate safe house as quickly as possible and have the wound treated or even his Third Eye–enhanced stamina wouldn’t be able to save him. “Well, I guess we’ll have to call this a draw for now, Divider,” he grunted, pressing his left hand against his wound as he ran. Trying to ignore the pain, he forced a smile to his lips. From increasingly far away, he heard Divider yell after him, his voice raw, “Hey! You’re just gonna run away, Trancer? Get back here and fight me!” The shout echoed through the graveyard, making the fog quiver. But of course, Mikawa kept running west, creating more fog to cover him as he went. Is he able to yell like that even after cooking his lungs with hot steam because of his stamina as a soldier? Or is it because he just has that much inner rage…? Through his huffing and puffing, Mikawa managed a weak chuckle. “Don’t be so ill-tempered, Divider. We’re taking very good care of your beloved princess…” How on earth did the SFD get her a driver’s license? This was Minoru’s second thought as he looked at Suu Komura, code name Refractor, for the first time with her ability deactivated. After all, now that he saw her, there was no way this woman—no, this girl—was older than him. In fact, she looked no older than a middle schooler. Suu was barely 150 centimeters tall, with fluffy, tawny-brown hair cut just above her shoulders. Her porcelain skin was paler than the average Japanese person, and her face could easily be called otherworldly. Minoru caught himself thinking that someone so lovely couldn’t possibly exist in the real world. Her facial features were small and delicate like a doll’s, the bridge of her nose straight, her lips a captivating cherry blossom pink. Her irises were a mysterious color, a deep violet blue he had never seen before, even in photos or movies. They’re like the sky at dawn… …Minoru thought, gazing dazedly into her amethyst eyes. For just a moment, Suu Komura returned his gaze rather nervously, but she quickly looked away and spoke in the same flat tone as ever. “…I’m very hungry.” After another short moment of absentmindedness, Minoru abruptly came back to his senses. “Ah, I’m sorry…! Okay, um, let’s go, then! M-my house is right over there.” “I know.” Refractor removed the key from the ignition with a practiced motion and got out through the car’s right-hand door. Minoru clambered out on that side, too, smacking his head again in the process. He opened his umbrella, and after locking her car, Suu joined him underneath as if it was the most natural thing in the world. How am I going to explain this to Norie? In fact, shouldn’t I have thought a bit more about the implications of inviting a girl over for dinner? As all this occurred to him far too late, Minoru paced awkwardly over the last thirty or so meters to his home with Suu in tow. “So, ummm… This is my friend Suu. I ran into her on my way home, so I may have sort of invited her over for dinner… I hope that’s all right…?” Upon hearing Minoru’s slightly clumsy explanation, Norie froze in the middle of stirring the sushi rice with a wooden spoon, blinking at him in astonishment. Then her face suddenly broke into a joyous smile the likes of which he had hardly ever seen, like a sunflower in bloom, and it was his turn to stare at her with surprise. I know it’s pretty rare for me to bring a girl home, but still, you don’t need to look that surprised… But as he thought about it, Minoru realized it was more than just rare— It was the first time ever. In the eight years since he’d moved in, Minoru had not brought a single friend home. As it dawned on him, he was surprised to find that he, too, was a little shaken. I, of all people, brought a girl home right after meeting her, without one thought of the consequences? Even though such a singular event is guaranteed to be etched into my brain as an unforgettable memory? Did it not occur to me that later I might regret this, stress out about it, and end up writhing around, agonizing over it for all eternity? What have I done? As Minoru stood frozen in complete shock, Norie, still positively sparkling with glee, gripped the wooden spoon with both hands. “Well!” she said loudly. “Well, now… My little Mii’s brought a friend home!” Oh god, please stop calling me that! Minoru inwardly screamed, but before he could make a sound, Refractor stepped forward. Her hands placed neatly above her knees (on the leggings under her white dress), she bowed deeply. “Good evening, ma’am. My name is Suu Komura.” Her voice was as quiet as ever and even more polite than usual. “I hope my unexpected visit isn’t too much of a bother. Are you quite sure you don’t mind?” Norie shook her head so quickly, her short bobbed hair flew back and forth. “Oh my goodness, of course not! Welcome, Miss Komura, welcome! I’m sorry—I was just a little surprised. My little Mii’s never invited a friend over…never mind a lovely young lady like yourself…!” Hearing Norie blurt out these far-too-honest words, seeing her eyes brim with genuine tears of joy…the frozen Minoru mentally sank through the floor. I felt bad that she was watching the house all day in the rain to protect it from a Ruby Eye attack, so I just invited her in! Without thinking! But he couldn’t say that, of course. To start with, he couldn’t even tell Norie about Ruby Eyes and such. Minoru—rooted in place, messenger bag still slung over his shoulder—heard Suu mumble something to herself. “I’m…the first…” Then, with a somewhat apologetic look on her face, the beautiful young woman bowed to Norie again. “…I’m very sorry, Ms. Norie, but I am not Minoru’s girlfriend or anything.” Minoru was now strongly considering dashing up the stairs, flinging himself into his room, and cowering in the closet with his protective shell around him, possibly never to leave again. But again, there was nothing he could do but grin and bear it. About thirty minutes later, the two large platters of sushi on the dining room table had been utterly wiped out, leaving behind not a single grain of rice. Norie had a habit of making too much food anyway, and tonight’s dinner, complete with rice, seaweed, and other accompaniments, was no exception. The meal could have easily fed four people, and while Minoru had certainly eaten his fair share, Suu had packed away so much food that he had to wonder where it all went given her thin frame. All the while, Norie looked on smilingly as Suu gobbled away. Eating her last sesame and plum sushi, Suu finished her plate at the same time as Minoru, took a large gulp of green tea, and gave a long, satisfied sigh. Then her lilac eyes widened. “Ah…I’m so sorry, I got completely carried away and ate too much…even though I’m not even his girlfriend…” Side-eyeing her as she bowed apologetically, Minoru groaned. “…Enough about that already…” Norie simply giggled. “It’s fine, really! Please come back for dinner again anytime… Oh, the tea! I’ll go make some more.” As she stood up to leave, Minoru and Suu both bobbed their heads, thanking her in unison. Then, once she was out of the room, they cautiously exchanged glances. Minoru was quick to avert his eyes, but then he heard Suu murmur something to him softly. “I’m…the first…?” Don’t tell me she could be… No, she’s definitely making fun of me. Why are all the members of the SFD like this? As Minoru groaned again, Suu stood up, trotting briskly over to the kitchen. After another moment of hanging his head, Minoru heard the Refractor’s voice. “Excuse me, Ms. Norie? Would you mind terribly if we had the tea in Minoru’s room instead?” If there was any small comfort to be had in this uncontrollable situation, it was that Minoru’s kindly older sister was always cleaning his room for him. So at least it would be tidy, the furniture free of dust, and there wouldn’t be anything lying around that he didn’t want Suu to see (at least on the surface). And so, balancing a tray with two small teacups and some tea cakes, Minoru resignedly walked up the thirteen steps to the second floor and his room as if being escorted to the gallows. Suu followed close behind him, her footsteps scarcely making a sound. What on earth is she trying to do here? Minoru was wondering, too late to do anything, as he awkwardly turned the doorknob with his wrist and stepped into the darkness of his bedroom. Then, nudging the switch on with his shoulder, he waited for the LED ceiling light to illuminate the room before placing the tray down on the low table in the middle of the floor. The only major furnishings in Minoru’s four-by-four-meter room were his computer desk, his bed, and a few bookshelves, so the floor was fairly spacious. “Please have a seat,” he said stiffly, motioning to one of the two round cushions that sat on either side of the table. The Refractor closed the door with both hands, then nodded, sitting down on the cushion with her legs out to the side. Minoru knelt stiffly on the opposite cushion, lifting one of the teacups off the tray to place it in front of Suu. He put the cakes and other teacup on the table, set the tray aside on the floor, then carefully lifted his cup with both hands and took a sip. “…This feels like a marriage interview.” Caught off guard by Suu’s quiet, unprompted remark, Minoru practically choked on the hot tea and swallowed it painfully in silence. He returned his teacup to the table—having nearly dropped it—and took a deep, ragged breath. “So…,” he said weakly, “what exactly is going on here?” “What’s going on…? Well, you’re the one who invited me over for dinner…” “I-I guess so, but…I didn’t think it would end up, you know…like this.” “I should hope not. If you had, it would seem like you’d invited me with the ulterior motive of luring a girl into your bedroom, now wouldn’t it?” “Ah…right, that’s true.” Minoru nodded absentmindedly, then hurriedly switched to shaking his head rapidly as his mind caught up to him. Throughout all this, Suu paid him no mind, calmly and quietly taking a sip of her tea. She gave another little sigh, then abruptly ducked her head. “But really…thank you for inviting me. I can’t remember the last time I had such a delicious meal. You have a wonderful older sister—I can understand why you’re so reluctant to move to SFD Headquarters.” Blinking in surprise for the umpteenth time today at Suu’s serious face, Minoru nodded slowly and responded in a small voice, “Um, you’re welcome…” Speaking with her up close like this, it was even harder not to notice her overwhelming beauty. She definitely had some amount of foreign blood. There was a golden tint to her tawny-brown hair that didn’t look artificial, and her skin was snow-white to the point that the whites of her eyes looked faintly blue by comparison. Among these pale colors, the violet blue of her irises stood out brilliantly. Nearly getting lost in those eyes, with the color of clouds at dawn and the jet-black of her pupils, Minoru quickly came to his senses and looked away. The silence between them was as complete as if he were inside of his protective shell, until it was broken by Suu’s quiet voice. “Minoru. Do you believe in the existence of ‘sight lines’?” “…Huh?” Minoru looked up blankly, not understanding the meaning of the sudden question. Turning the phrase over in his mind a few times, he attempted to formulate a response. “Sight lines… You mean like, um…a line that connects a person’s eyeballs to whatever they’re looking at…?” he asked, drawing a line in the air between his right eye and Suu’s face as he spoke. Suu, however, shook her head lightly, her expression as hard to read as ever. “No, not exactly. More like the sort of thing that makes you turn around because you felt someone looking at you from behind. A sort of signal or energy that emanates from someone’s eyes when they look at something.” “What…?” This time, it was Minoru’s turn to shake his head. “That’s more of a figurative concept, right? After all, human eyes are like camera lenses that take in light…um, electromagnetic waves? So they’re receptors, not transmitters. So there’s no such thing as a physical sight line…at least, I would think so…,” he mumbled awkwardly, again looking into Suu’s violet eyes. Even those beautiful eyes wouldn’t be able to emit some kind of energy or anything, right? And yet…why does it feel like it’s harder to breathe when I meet her eyes, then? It’s like she has enough power to look right through me… Suu nodded slightly, maintaining eye contact with Minoru. “Right. That’s what the doctor who examined me said, too, a long time ago.” “What? A doctor…?” “I can see other people’s sight lines. I’ve been able to for a long time…ever since I was a child.” Hearing this explanation in a small, wavering voice, Minoru took a full five seconds to process her words. “Since you were a child…?” he asked uncertainly. “Komura, you’re in middle school, right?” “Yes. I’m a third-year.” Only a year younger than me… Wait, that’s beside the point. The appearance of the mysterious spheres that infected human hosts had been just three months ago, meaning that this ability Suu was talking about wasn’t one that came from a Third Eye. In other words… “So…it’s a real psychic ability?” Minoru asked hoarsely. “That, or a mental illness.” Suu lowered her long eyelashes, barely moving her lips as she spoke. “The doctor said that scopophobia—the fear of being seen—is fairly common in Japanese people. However, there are aspects that a phobia doesn’t explain. For instance, I can see someone’s sight line even if I don’t know that person is there.” “If you don’t know they’re there…? You mean, you’d see a sight line first, follow it, and then see that there’s a person looking at you?” She nodded. “Yes.” Certainly, if that were true, a simple diagnosis of neurosis wouldn’t explain that phenomenon. At a loss for words, Minoru simply nodded back, and Suu continued with words that were even more startling. “There’s another thing, too. The sight lines that I can see have colors.” “Colors…?” “It’s very pretty. They’re thin, colorful beams of light that sparkle in the air. So when I was young, although I didn’t understand them, I wasn’t afraid or unhappy. It was only when I became older, and realized that the colors had meaning, that I became afraid…” Raising her head, she stared straight at Minoru with her lilac eyes. He looked back reflexively, but of course, he couldn’t see any lines or colors emanating from her eyes. Her lips moved slightly as she continued in a quiet voice. “…When I was small, most people looked at me with a yellow sight line. But around when I started middle school, most women started to look at me with blue lines, and most men’s lines were a shade of red. At first, I thought it was just based on the person’s gender. But there were still people whose lines were other colors—yellow, green, orange—so I tried to think harder about the differences.” Suu paused for a moment, her slender frame trembling ever so slightly. “Then, one day, something happened that made me realize the truth. The colors of the sight lines change based on the individual’s feelings toward me. Yellow means they feel love and affection. Blue is the color of hatred. And red is the color of lust and desire.” “…!” Minoru breathed in sharply. In other words, that meant that most women hated Suu, and most men lusted after her. Well…in a way, it wasn’t entirely surprising. By nature, both Suu’s appearance and her disposition were very out of the ordinary. And human beings were programmed by society to instinctively want to either reject or possess anything unfamiliar. But to be able to visibly detect that kind of negative emotion would certainly be nothing less than terrifying. As if detecting Minoru’s thoughts in that moment, Suu shrugged lightly, trying to bring the mood back to normal. “…At this point, I understand that feelings like that can’t really be helped. But…what I really couldn’t take was watching my mother’s sight line turning from yellow to blue, little by little…and my father’s…slowly but surely turning red.” She glanced at Minoru, who had frozen in place again, and continued with deliberate indifference. “If that black sphere hadn’t come down from the sky three months ago and given me the ability to hide from the gaze of others…I think I might have committed suicide by now.” With that, Suu stood up abruptly, walked over to the wall behind them, and flicked off the light switch. The room was plunged into darkness. For a moment, Minoru could see nothing, but his Third Eye quickly went to work enhancing his vision, so that he saw everything as if through a dark gray curtain. Through the haze of darkness, he saw Refractor walk back over, come around the table, and kneel down to sit close beside him. Minoru couldn’t say a word as he strained to see in the dark. Suu’s voice rang out through the heavy silence. “The reason I wanted to come to your room is so that I could clearly see your sight line again.” Hearing this, Minoru finally recognized how stupid he’d been. Suu had been able to see his sight line this entire time and, with it, the color that revealed his emotions. Realizing this far too late, Minoru squeezed his eyes shut. As soon as he did, he heard Suu whisper into his right ear: “Don’t worry. In the car, your sight line wasn’t red or blue. If it was, I would’ve declined your invitation. Now…open your eyes and look at me.” I can’t, Minoru thought immediately. Minoru had never been able to show his true emotions to anyone, even his beloved older sister Norie—perhaps not even his real parents, when they were alive. Through his entire life, there was only one person who had been able to completely break down the wall around his heart: his older sister Wakaba. Though she had been three years older than him, they had laughed together, cried together, and occasionally even fought together. She was the only person in the world whom he hadn’t even remotely seen as a stranger. Ever since she’d passed away, Minoru had been determined to never again let somebody else into his heart. However… “Look at me.” Suu’s words seemed to be casting a spell on Minoru’s eyelids. Somehow, something about the flat tone of her voice—even though all emotion seemed stripped away, or perhaps because of it—was shaking his resolute refusal. Having squeezed them shut for as long as he could, Minoru finally eased open his now-stiff eyelids. In the dim light, just barely a foot away, Suu stared back with violet eyes under thick eyelashes, her face almost inhumanly expressionless. She was so close that he could count every lash, trace every patterned line in her irises. Minoru could almost feel his sight line being sucked into Suu’s dark pupils as if they were two black holes. For a moment, her violet-blue irises widened, then quickly returned to their usual aloofness. “…So…” Even though he’d just finished drinking his tea, Minoru felt hoarse as he uttered the question almost unconsciously: “What color is my sight line…?” Suu didn’t answer for a moment, opening and closing her eyes twice, then three times. Finally, her lips parted ever so slightly, and she murmured words that for once had a faint tint of emotion. “…It was difficult to make out your sight line in the light, and now I see why. Minoru, your sight line… It almost doesn’t have a color.” “What…?” “It’s thin, weak, almost transparent… I’ve seen one like this only once before… It’s the color of apathy.” Minoru’s eyes opened wider despite himself. “The color of…apathy?” “Yes. You feel no desire toward me, certainly no hatred, and maybe not even any human interest at all,” she stated bluntly. For some reason, as she spoke, there seemed to be the faintest, softest hint of a smile on her lips. Minoru stared once more at the girl sitting stiffly before him, then slowly shook his head again. “That can’t be… Of course I feel interest toward you! At least, it seems that way to me…” “As a fellow Third Eye host, maybe. But as Suu Komura, I don’t interest you at all.” Her retort caught Minoru off guard, leaving him at a loss for words. As much as he instinctively felt that to be a ridiculous assertion, there was still a part of him that thought it just might be true. Her ability to see others’ sight lines, and the ability to avoid that sight through refraction, certainly fascinated him. But as for the girl in front of him who held that power… Could he really say that he hadn’t questioned whether there was any point in getting to know her? Minoru’s left cheek prickled with pain. It was the spot where the Divider, Olivier Saitou, had slapped him a week earlier. Olivier had accused him of not feeling anything toward the taxi driver who had fallen victim to the Ruby Eye Igniter. And he was right. Of course, Minoru couldn’t forgive the Ruby Eyes for targeting innocent people, and he truly did want to work with the SFD and put a stop to their murders—but he couldn’t say he felt any real pain over the deaths of the victims. After all, they had been strangers, with no connection to him. This applied to the Ruby Eyes and their victims alike. Was there some sort of defect in his heart that made him this way? And his colorless sight line just proof of that warped part of him? Minoru bit his lip and looked down, but Suu’s voice immediately addressed him again from nearby. “Don’t make that face. I’m not accusing you of anything.” “But…” “If anything, I’m happy about it, because I don’t need to be afraid of your sight line. And besides…I probably feel the same way.” “Huh?” Raising his eyes to glance at her, Minoru saw that Suu was smiling faintly again. “I’m sorry. But I’m also more interested in your ability than in you yourself. I have been ever since I heard about you at headquarters. Because…our powers are similar, but they’re also opposites.” Unable to understand her meaning right away, Minoru furrowed his brow. Then, after a moment, he realized what she was trying to say. They were similar in that they both isolated the user from the outside world. And they were opposite in that Suu’s power blocked out visible light, while Minoru’s power blocked out everything but visible light. Shuffling closer to Minoru so that their knees almost touched as they knelt next to each other on the floor, Suu continued, “The sources of our powers seem as though they would be quite similar. And yet, why does your power spare only visible light? To me, the eyes of other people are the most frightening things of all. Is it different for you?” It was a question that Minoru had no reason to be able to answer. After all, it was the Third Eye in Minoru’s chest that had formulated his protective-shell ability, not Minoru himself. And yet Minoru felt compelled to answer. For Suu, who could perceive other people’s emotions through their sight lines whether she wanted to or not, it must have been terrifying to enter this house—no, even to have just deactivated her ability in the car. And yet she had pushed ahead and done so, most likely for the sake of asking him this question. “I…” Minoru gave up on deciding which parts needed to be said and dove right in. “I’m afraid of other people, too. But it’s because they’ll start to have memories of me, and I’ll have memories of them. I think what I’m really afraid of is those memories—inside others and inside my own mind… But lately, I’ve realized that might not be the source of my power. If it was, I probably would’ve gotten a memory-altering ability like Chief Himi, after all…” At this point, Minoru was addressing his own concerns as much as he was addressing Suu’s. “Ever since I got this power, deep down I’ve been thinking…this isn’t the absolute solitude I wanted. If it was based on that desire, I don’t think what happened last week would’ve been possible… Bringing another person into my protective shell, that is.” “The Professor told me about that. You protected Accelerator from an explosion in your fight against Igniter, right?” Suu’s voice startled Minoru out of his brooding, and he nodded. “…Right. But I was able to do it only once. We tried to re-create it in experiments recently, and when I couldn’t make it happen again, Yumiko was furious with me.” “Hmm…” Suu tilted her head thoughtfully, gazing off into space. “…Minoru. Is it okay if you can’t see me?” “Wh-what?” “If you can’t see the other person, would you still be able to bring them into your protective shell?” Minoru was stunned into silence for a few moments, then stammered out a flustered response. “I…I can’t! Even if I couldn’t see the person, I could still, um, f-feel them…and besides…” He continued as if frantically firing off excuses. “When it fails, the other person gets pushed away super quickly! Even in the experiment room, where there’s mats and meter-thick foam padding on the walls, Yumiko’s nose was turning red after a while!” A soft giggle escaped Suu’s lips at that. “I bet she got really mad.” “Yeah…I mean, of course she did. I don’t want to try that experiment again for a while… I mean, the point is, it’s too dangerous to try it no matter who it’s with!” Feeling a cold sweat on his back for some reason, Minoru was breathing heavily as he finished his messy statement. However, Suu responded quite casually. “We have a mat right there.” “H-huh?!” Suu’s slim index finger was pointing straight at the wood-frame bed up against the far wall. After another few seconds of shocked silence, Minoru shook his head rapidly, his back stiff. “Wh…? No! I mean, technically it’s a mat or at least a mattress, but, um…there are other problems with that… I mean, er…” Minoru gulped and looked at Suu. “Wait…are you just messing with me?” “…I just wanted to know more about both our abilities…” The Refractor’s elfin face clouded with disappointment. “A-ah, um, I’m sorry!” Realizing his mistake, Minoru apologized reflexively. Suu had just admitted earlier that she was terrified of men looking at her with lust. It was absurd to think that she would joke about that sort of thing for fun. She really does just want to learn more about her powers and help me figure out mine, he thought, chewing his lip and looking down again as he reproached himself. And I responded so rudely… “Let’s try it, then,” Suu said casually, her face instantly returning to its usual aloof expression. “See if you can bring me into your protective shell.” …But how am I supposed to do that? As if seeing the question in his eyes, Suu answered calmly, “I’ll lie down on the bed, and you can activate your powers above me.” “Uhh…” As Minoru sat dumbfounded, Suu stood up coolly, walked over to the bed, and casually stretched out on top of the blankets. “Uhhh…,” he repeated. Suu flicked her violet-blue eyes toward him. “It’s all right. I’ll activate my ability to its full extent, too, so you won’t be able to see me at all, and I won’t see you, either. That should lessen your fear of us creating memories of each other.” With that, Suu’s Third Eye power went into action, just as promised, and her delicate form vanished into thin air with the same faint sound as before. The light from the streetlamps that streamed in through the window was simply curving around her body, rendering her perfectly invisible. But unlike the firm leather seat, the soft blankets on Minoru’s bed wrinkled underneath her weight, showing a vague outline of her body. “All right, go ahead.” Suu’s voice came from the indented outline on the bed, but Minoru didn’t move right away. I know she’s invisible, but… He stared uncertainly at the seemingly empty bed. Thinking about it, Minoru decided this was at least as stressful as when he’d had to stand behind Yumiko and press up against her. Minoru doubted he had the self-possession to practically lie on top of a girl on his bed, much less to bring her into his protective shell. Minoru opened his mouth to apologize and say that he couldn’t do it after all, that it was bound to fail anyway, but then he paused, Suu’s words from a few minutes ago playing back in his mind. “It’s the color of apathy… I don’t interest you at all.” Those words, coupled with Olivier’s accusations from the previous week, weighed down on his heart painfully. Being afraid of others and being apathetic sounded similar, but they weren’t really the same. The latter, after all, implied that he didn’t care whether other people lived or died. What if the source of his power was not really fear but apathy? Had he gained the ability to create a protective shell because, deep down, he didn’t care about anyone else as long as he himself was safe? …That’s not true! Minoru gritted his teeth, steeled himself, and walked over to the bed with new resolve. If his power had really been born from a selfish desire to protect himself, he wouldn’t have been able to bring anyone else into his protective shell. But he didn’t want what had happened at Ariake Heaven’s Shore to be his only proof that his power had come from somewhere else. Minoru put both his knees down on the bed, avoiding the area that most likely contained Suu’s legs. Cautiously confirming the location of Suu’s upper body with his fingertips, he placed both hands approximately above her shoulders. “…Okay, h-here goes,” Minoru mumbled. Taking a deep breath, he cautiously lowered his body toward the bed.