“I-it looks like…she’s leaving. I wonder what that memo was…” “A message for one of her associates maybe?” “Yeah, it could be… We should probably try to get a look.” As they spoke, the high school girl reached the glass door and walked into the hallway without looking back. Minoru waited about ten seconds, then stood and walked far enough into the room to see into the hallway just as the entranceway door closed. After another few moments, he looked through the blinds and saw the woman leaving the building and walking north. Walking briskly, the woman turned down a side street and disappeared from sight. “…She wasn’t holding the note anymore…,” Minoru murmured, and Suu nodded. “She may have left it in one of the other rooms.” “Right… We should look for it.” Checking that the USB flash drive was still securely in his pocket, Minoru opened the glass door and walked into the hallway. Immediately, he noticed that the door to the small, empty side room they’d checked before was now open. He knew there should be nobody else in the building, but he was nervous nonetheless as he walked to the door and shone the LED light inside. “Ah…” In the center of the concrete room, there was a white sheet of paper. Without a doubt, it was the memo the Ruby Eye woman had written. Given its conspicuous placement, it must have been meant for the next person who would be arriving at the building. Which meant they couldn’t leave without finding out what it was. As he started to step into the room, Suu suddenly squeezed Minoru’s shoulders. “Wh-what’s the matter?” “…No, it’s… It’s nothing.” “Okay…” With a puzzled tilt of his head, Minoru took one step forward, then two, until he soon arrived in front of the paper. Crouching down, he attempted to read the dark black letters. It was only one short sentence, with Roman letters in neat cursive, but Minoru couldn’t immediately grasp their meaning. He picked it up, staring at it with intense concentration. “What does it say? It’s…it’s not English, right? Um…A, u, r…” He had gotten only about halfway through when Suu cried out sharply, “Oh no…we have to get out…!!” “Huh…?” Automatically, Minoru half rose to his feet, but he still couldn’t take his eyes off the note. Au revoir. It was a phrase he felt sure he had seen or heard somewhere. French maybe. As for the meaning…wasn’t it… Farewell? At that moment, the concrete beneath his feet suddenly lost its solidity. Although he shouldn’t have been able to hear anything, Minoru felt as if he heard a sucking sound. In an instant, his body dropped straight downward, and darkness swallowed his feet, his chest, and finally up to his face, closing out any light overhead. 5 Ultimately, what we call “heat” is really the kinetic energy of molecules. When an object is hot, its internal components are intensely vibrating. Conversely, in a cold object, the molecules are in repose. In other words, cold and stillness are essentially the same thing. As the temperature goes down, the world is wrapped in peace. Most likely, if an enormous amount of liquid helium were poured over the Earth, within moments all man-made noise would cease. It wasn’t liquid helium by any means, but the place where Mikawa was currently lying was certainly very cold—negative thirty degrees Celsius. All around him, the piles of boxes stacked to the ceiling were frozen white. The pipes and ducts that crept around the room were covered in thick layers of frost. In the air, tiny ice crystals sparkled and danced. Mikawa had been lying on the floor for almost eight hours now, after sneaking into one of the cold-storage warehouses that lined the Tokyo harbor. Of course, even with the enhancement of a Third Eye, there was no way he could simply sleep in these conditions wearing only synthetic jeans and a jacket without freezing to death. Instead, Mikawa was continuously changing the phases of the moisture clinging to his clothes, producing the minimum amount of heat necessary to preserve his body temperature. However, deep in his heart, Mikawa knew there was a lurking desire to allow himself to freeze here. It wasn’t that he wanted to die. He just wanted to…freeze. He wanted to know what it felt like. He wanted to feel that sense of peace throughout his entire body. Really, living things were so frail. On the macro level, they needed the phase transitions of water to live—and yet, on the micro level, they couldn’t survive at water’s freezing or boiling points. Without moving from his prone position, Mikawa directed a long sigh up toward the ceiling, which crystallized instantly in the air. He watched it glitter as his mind wandered. The male Jet Eye in the spirit photography that Liquidizer had shown him yesterday…the one who could create an invisible barrier…would that person be able to get closer to peaceful silence than Mikawa was able to? Could he go into some university’s ultralow-temperature lab and experience that stillness for himself? …No. Mikawa quickly rejected that thought. Sealed up inside a barrier, he wouldn’t be able to experience the real power of water’s phase transitions even if he went to the North Pole. The only way to truly understand it was by feeling the low temperatures with your own unprotected flesh. Of course, it would cost you your life, but as the blood froze in your body, as your breath slowed and your brain cells were destroyed…surely you’d be able to feel it. Perfect stillness, perfect silence, in a moment that would last for eternity. My friend must have gotten to that level, way back when… Suddenly, there was a tiny bloom of heat—of movement—in his breast pocket. Mikawa frowned and reached in to locate the source: a small machine that was vibrating continuously. Cupping it with both hands, he pressed the talk button. “Hello? This is Trancer.” “It’s me, boy.” “…Like I said, please stop calling me that.” Mikawa breathed a small sigh, watching it turn white in the air. “What’s this about? It’s been a while since you’ve called me like this, Liquidizer.” “That should tell you just how important this is, then. I need you to come to the safe house in Gotanda at once.” At this, Mikawa’s frown deepened. “Gotanda? Not South Aoyama like usual?” “Don’t go anywhere near that location. It may have been infiltrated by the black hunters.” “What?!” Mikawa sat upright in surprise, the frozen gears of his mind beginning to move again. “…What do you mean, ‘may have been’?” “I went there earlier to change clothes, but my instincts told me…something was off. And they do have someone with the ability to turn invisible on their side, don’t they? So I laid a trap in an empty room and left. But there’s no way of knowing whether it was activated or not without going back to take a look.” “Your instincts, huh…? Was this ‘trap’ the pitfall you mentioned before?” “Yes, that’s why I filled up the entire first floor with concrete. This seemed like the perfect time to use it… At any rate, the worst-case scenario is that they may have escaped with vital information. In that case, we would have to shut down all the locations connected to that one. However…if they gained information but were then caught in our trap, that would be an excellent opportunity for us.” “…An ‘opportunity’? How so?” “There’s not a Third Eye alive who could escape my pitfall. Whether black or red, all Third Eye users need to be able to breathe deeply in order to use their abilities. And sealed in three meters of concrete, they won’t have enough air for a single breath. They’d die within moments… But unlike us, those Jet Eyes will invariably come to rescue their comrades even if they know it’s futile.” “…You have a point.” Finally realizing what Liquidizer was trying to say, Mikawa smiled. “If that’s the case, I bet he’ll show up, too…” “Aren’t you tired of playing with that samurai, boy? Just kill him already… Incidentally, have you seen the sky lately? The weather report said there was an eighty percent chance of snow today.” “Oh, is that so?” Forgetting that he’d been interrupted while meditating, Mikawa’s smile broadened. “But there’s no guarantee he’ll come alone, is there?” “If there are any extras, I’ll be happy to play with them. There’s a perfect spot right near the Aoyama safe house, an abandoned factory. I’ll send you a map, so make sure you take a look.” “Understood. I’ll head out now.” Ending the call, Mikawa stood up lightly. A thin shell of ice fluttered down from his body, collapsing quietly on the floor. Looking over his shoulder into the dim light much farther down the passageway, he whispered to the other part of him that slept there. “…I’ll come back soon. Until then, sleep well…” As he sank down into the murky liquid and darkness obscured his vision, Minoru instinctively tried to spread his arms and swim to the surface. But it was impossible. Once Minoru and Suu had been swallowed up into it, the liquid remained a liquid for only a matter of seconds. As he tried to stretch out his arms, they suddenly came up against an overwhelmingly hard surface that stopped them from moving any farther. In fact, his head, feet, and entire body were completely fixed in place, unable to budge in the slightest. The only thing that stopped Minoru from flying into a complete panic was the body heat on his back. Focusing on breathing for a moment, he was able to calm down enough to speak up hoarsely. “…S-Suu, are you all right?” Her response was immediate. “Yes, about as much as you are.” “…Y-yeah, I guess that’s true…” Since she was inside his protective shell, Suu would be fine as long as Minoru was. His stiff limbs somehow felt tired as he spoke again. “So this…is our enemy’s ability, huh?” “Without a doubt. The concrete in the floor liquefied, submerging us inside. Which can only mean that that woman was Liquidizer herself…an executive from the Syndicate. If I had realized that before, we could have attacked her preemptively…” Despite their trapped situation, Minoru couldn’t help but smile drily at Suu’s bitter words. “If I’d known that…I probably wouldn’t have been able to move a centimeter. But if this is her ability, that means she was able to activate it from so far away that she couldn’t even see the target…” “I’d imagine she either set up a delayed activation of her ability or some sort of trigger that activated it.” “…Her abilities are that advanced?” Minoru found himself feeling a bit glad that they hadn’t had to fight her directly, until he remembered that their current situation wasn’t exactly anything to be happy about. Minoru very carefully grasped the small LED light, which was fortunately strapped to his left pinkie finger. If he was to drop it, there was no way he would be able to pick it up again when he could move only his fingers and mouth. Pushing the switch with his fingertip, he shone the pure white light above them, keeping the darkness at bay. Separated by just the three centimeters of the barrier was what could only be described as a concrete gray wall. But though concrete was theoretically a combination of gravel and cement, the surface was so smooth that Minoru couldn’t see a single grain of sand. “…Despite supposedly being concrete, this smoothness is more like plaster…,” Minoru murmured a bit absently. “I think rather than turning dried concrete back into its raw state, she may have broken apart the bonds on a molecular level. That’s the only explanation I can think of for why we sank in so quickly.” “Then…does that mean she has the same ability as Oli-V?” “Theoretically, yes. But…” Suu trailed off, uncharacteristically hesitant. “But…?” Minoru prompted quickly. “…They’re on totally different levels. Divider can use his power only with a blade as an extension and can affect matter in only two dimensions, along the surface of his cuts… But Liquidizer can manipulate intermolecular forces in a three-dimensional space…” “…!” Minoru gasped sharply. Up until now, he had always thought that Olivier Saitou’s ability to cut through anything at will was virtually unbeatable in battle. Of all the Jet Eyes in the SFD, his power probably had the highest attack power. The Accelerator, Yumiko, and the Refractor, Suu, would also be high in these ranks, since their abilities could be applied to weapons like a knife or a Taser. But if Suu was saying that Liquidizer’s powers were above and beyond Olivier’s, then the SFD as it was now wouldn’t stand a chance against that woman. “Minoru,” Suu murmured, her voice increasingly strained. “We have to escape quickly. The Professor is probably going to send other members to rescue us. And Liquidizer will probably be expecting that. If a battle breaks out, she’ll be difficult to beat even three against one.” “…Right,” Minoru responded, his voice a low whisper. “But…it’s going to be pretty difficult to escape this situation… I’m kind of, um, unsure about how long we’re going to survive like this, actually…” The sense of imminent danger still hadn’t really sunk it, but looking at the situation objectively, this seemed to be the only conclusion. “Um…there should be enough oxygen for us in the shell, at least. But it’s not as though we can get food or water… And as far as breaking the concrete, I can’t even move a centimeter…” He trailed off, but Suu remained silent for a while. Hoping she was thinking up some kind of plan, Minoru waited quietly for the younger girl’s response. Finally, she spoke in an odd tone of voice. “…Wow, you’re right.” Mikawa reached out his gloved hands, catching the specks of snow that had begun gently falling from the sky. The hexagon-shaped crystals that landed on the fake black leather quickly melted into microscopic drops of water. As he looked up silently at the sky, countless shadows began to fall from the heavy lead-colored clouds hanging overhead. It looked as though the first snowfall of the year would be as intense as the forecast had predicted. Last winter, there hadn’t been a single heavy snowstorm; buzzwords like CO2 and global warming had been tossed around quite a bit. But apparently, some scientists were saying that the current activity of the sun could bring on another ice age. If that were the case, perhaps people would start using even more CO2 in order to warm the Earth. Mikawa chuckled as he walked quickly along the twilit road. An ice age would be wonderful. If humans were going to try to prevent that, then the Syndicate’s goal of eradicating humanity was a perfect fit for him. Truth be told, he hadn’t really been eager to fight any Jet Eyes when his wound from the other day had only just healed; with this weather, it was another story. Every one of these water molecules was both weapon and shield to Mikawa. And unlike rain, which disappeared into drains shortly after reaching the ground, snow would industriously stick to the ground and serve as his reinforcements. And on top of that, it seemed that Liquidizer was fairly serious about this battle as well. She had already been gone by the time he’d arrived at the Gotanda safe house, where he had just come from, but she’d left behind a present for him. The automatic nine-millimeter pistol, which was now tucked within his jacket’s inside pocket, was undoubtedly a signal that her jocular “Just kill him already” remark had, in fact, been quite serious. Unlike the black hunters, who often brought out handguns or sniper rifles at will, the Syndicate did not arm its lesser members so carelessly. This was the Syndicate executives’ way of showing that they didn’t have unconditional trust in even their most favored Ruby Eyes. In other words, Liquidizer’s orders this time around were essentially a test to determine whether Mikawa was worthy of the upper ranks. Truthfully, Mikawa didn’t have any particular desire to get ahead in the Syndicate. But there were some things he wanted to know. The thickly veiled top executives, who never revealed their faces or names, what were they really thinking? Was there serious intent behind their lofty goal of wiping out humanity, despite the fact that the Syndicate in its current state would hardly stand a chance against the Japan Self-Defense Forces? He didn’t even really need to know what means they intended to use—just whether it was a real possibility. He wanted to know, whatever the answer might be. Lightly checking that the hardness of the steel weapon was still there through his jacket, Mikawa continued to walk lightly toward South Aoyama through the falling snow. “…Come to think of it…” Having recognized the severity of their predicament, Suu paused a few seconds before speaking again in the same emotionless tone as ever. It was both very startling and very typical of her. “…Where are we?” “Where…? Um, we’re inside some concrete, aren’t we?” Minoru responded, looking at the smooth gray wall illuminated by the LED light. “Well, yes. But this concrete is at least nine meters deep. Since we fell through the floor on the second story of the building, I’d imagine we’re now on the first floor.” “Ah…I see, that makes sense…” Minoru shone the light around, but the only thing he could see was the same gray all around them. If they were in some sort of pillar, he imagined they would be able to see reinforcing steel bars, so the fact that there were none could only mean that they were indeed inside a giant block of pure concrete. But a structure like that wouldn’t exist in an ordinary building. Someone must have gone out of their way to build it—or rather fill it in—for a specific purpose. Someone had poured wet concrete into the entire first floor, or at least a significant portion of it. “So that means…” Suu gave a small gasp, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “This is a large-scale trap designed to capture intruders. And it’s based on Liquidizer’s ability…” “B-but…” Unable to accept that conclusion so easily, Minoru shook his head as much as he could within the small confines of the barrier. “That would make sense if the building were made like this from the beginning, but how would you fill a completed room or floor with wet concrete? It would be impossible to pour it in directly with a concrete mixer truck, and how would you dry it…?” “It wouldn’t need to be wet. They could’ve just carried concrete blocks to the second floor and then used Liquidizer’s ability to pour it into the room below.” “Ah…r-right…” Minoru breathed out slowly. “…That woman should give up being a murderer and become an artist or an architect instead. She could make as many stone statues as she wants without needing any money or tools,” he grumbled, then assumed a more serious tone. “At any rate, that means we’re surrounded by at least a meter of concrete in all directions. In order to escape, we’ll have to break through some of it somehow…” Suu spoke quietly from close to his ear. “Yes. And to do that…we’ll probably have to deactivate your shell.” Minoru nodded slowly. The shell would protect them from any threats, but since they couldn’t move, it was also preventing them from interacting with the outside world. In order to feel the concrete and determine its strength, he would have to deactivate it. But there was a problem. There was only about an inch between them and the concrete, which meant there could be very little oxygen. With both of them breathing, they would use it up in a matter of moments. Worse yet, they would probably then breathe in high concentrations of carbon dioxide. If they were to faint, it was highly unlikely they would ever wake up. “…Umm, it might be dangerous to breathe outside the barrier too much. We should take a deep breath and hold it before I deactivate the barrier. Then we can try and figure out as much information as possible in that time.” “Understood. On three, then.” Minoru nodded and breathed out all the air remaining in his lungs. With the last shred of breath, he whispered, “One, two, three, go,” then sucked in as much air as he could. Both of their chests expanded at the same time, but since they couldn’t move outward, they were pressed against each other, Suu pushing into his back in a way that almost made Minoru blow the air right back out of his lungs. Pulling himself together, Minoru deactivated the protective shell. The deep pulsing sound audible inside the shell ceased, replaced with a silence so dense that it almost hurt his ears. None of the noise from outside the building could reach them. Minoru quickly moved his right hand to touch the concrete experimentally. It was icy cold to the touch, rough like sandpaper, and overwhelmingly solid. He tried tapping a fingernail against it, but it didn’t leave a single scratch. Next, he made a fist and tried rapping on the surface, but there was no echo to indicate that the concrete was anything but solid. After about half a minute, when they had more or less gathered all the information they were going to get in this situation, Minoru began to feel suffocated. He turned his head toward Suu. “Ready? I’m going to bring back the shell,” he whispered. Suu’s response was immediate and just as quiet. “Ah— Change your posture a bit before you do it?” “Um…sure.” Minoru wasn’t sure what the purpose of this strange command was, but he did as he was told, shifting his hands down toward the front of his stomach before he reactivated the protective shell. Whump. He felt his hands being pushed into his abdomen, though not enough to hurt. Then he saw something unexpected. The re-formed barrier had pushed aside the concrete in the space where Minoru’s hands had shifted. The concrete, which was about as hard as natural rock, had a new hole in it as if it had been scooped out with a spoon. “Wh…what the…?!” Minoru cried, breathing in the air provided by the shell. Suu responded slowly, as if lost in deep thought. “You should understand the nature of your protective shell better than I do, Minoru. When you activate it, foreign objects that exist within its boundary line are pushed aside… When you changed your posture, the radius of the barrier changed, too, so it pushed away that area of the concrete.” “Ah…s-so that means…” Blinking repeatedly, Minoru stared at the wall in front of him. “We can expand this space if I move my body while deactivating and reactivating the shell…?!” “…That’s the only method I can think of. It’s too solid for us to do anything about it with our own physical strength. But…” Suu’s voice faded for a moment, and Minoru looked over his shoulder at her, but she quickly continued, “…No, it’s nothing. Give it a try, Minoru.” “O-okay.” Minoru nodded, counted to three again, and deactivated the protective shell. Then he pushed up against the concrete with both hands and formed the barrier again. This time, he felt sure he heard the sound of the concrete creaking. This was probably just a figment of his imagination, but in reality, he could indeed see small fissures spreading from where the concrete had been pushed in by his hands. The pressure he felt when he reproduced the shell this time was much stronger, too, but still not enough to cause any pain. This is going to work! Minoru thought, clenching his fists, but then Suu spoke with some sort of anxiety still lingering in her voice. “…I wonder why there’s recoil…” “Huh? Recoil…?” “Yes. When you produce the shell, it pushes the concrete back, but it feels as though we’re being pushed, too. Not enough to cause any damage, but…” Suu sank back into silence, and Minoru frowned. Try as he might, he couldn’t quite figure out what Suu was so worried about. The feeling of pressure was certainly unpleasant, but it was still well within the range of being physically bearable. He figured it was best to ignore it and focus on escaping as quickly as possible. “Um, is it okay if I keep going?” “…Go ahead.” Once again, Minoru deactivated the shell, shifted his body, and activated it again. Crack! The hole in the concrete expanded again, now almost twice as large as it had been before. Without pausing for conversation, Minoru continued working. Before long, instead of his hands alone, he began to move his feet and the rest of his body as much as he could in his efforts to drill forward. After repeating this process about ten times, though, Minoru finally understood the reason for Suu’s concern. “Huh…? I’m being pushed back…” The size of the gap in the concrete had expanded from a three-centimeter radius around their bodies to a long, narrow ellipsis, shaped like a cocoon. The wall was so full of cracks that it was beginning to look like old pottery. And the surface, perhaps because of all the pressure, was beginning to look a bit glossy. However, when Minoru tried to expand the hole farther by pushing his hands forward and activating the shell again, he was repelled back toward the inside. Panicking, he pushed against the wall with all his strength this time as he activated the barrier. But the results were the same. As soon as he produced the shell, his hands were pushed back instantly, without denting the wall at all. “…I knew it…,” Suu murmured. “What do you mean, ‘I knew it’?!” Minoru asked, disconcerted. “Why did it stop working all of a sudden?” “I think the space may have gotten too large. Think about it… Normally, when you’ve produced your shell at headquarters and such, it hasn’t made a hole in the floor or anything, right?” “Right… My body was always sort of lifted upward.” “The same thing is happening now. If there’s enough space, and the mass of the object in question is large enough, the repellent force will be applied to you instead of the object. Which means…we won’t be able to use that method to expand the hole any farther.” “But…that can’t be!” Unwilling to give up, Minoru threw himself against the wall with both hands and feet as he activated the shell again, but the results were the same—he was simply pushed back with equal force. As he took quick, shallow breaths to stave off the panic that threatened to creep up on him again, Suu spoke quietly. “This is bad… It’s already been twenty-five minutes since we got sealed up in here. If the Professor was quick to send people after us, they’re going to get here soon.” “What? It’s been that long already…?” Flicking the LED light in his left hand around the wall, Minoru impatiently located the biggest crack and aimed a strike at it with his right hand. Though his ability was a defensive one, his punch while his protective shell was activated was fairly powerful. Since he didn’t have to be afraid of hurting his hand, he could use all his strength, so he could easily put a dent in an iron plate, for instance. However, since he didn’t have enough room for a proper windup in this small space, his punch hit the wall with a thud and failed to cause any damage. The concrete wall that blocked them in remained the same, without so much as a single fragment falling to the floor. “Damn it…!” Minoru cursed. Suu gently put a hand on his arm. “We can’t break it. The compression is actually making the concrete even harder.” “…Yeah, it seems that way…” Minoru sighed deeply and leaned his forehead against the wall with a thud. “I guess this is as far as we’re getting… All we can do now is wait for help. I’m sure Oli-V will be able to cut through this wall…” With his ability, Divider Olivier Saitou’s sword would slice up the block of concrete like butter and free them in no time. We’ll just have to wait. Minoru resigned himself to a long period of standby. But at that moment, Suu spoke from his back with a decisiveness he had never heard in her voice before. “…No. We can’t let any of them come near this place.” “Huh…?” “If Liquidizer is lying in wait, they’ll all be killed. The only way that Ruby Eye could ever be defeated is a surprise attack. There’s a reason we can’t beat her.” Taken aback by Suu’s uncharacteristically clear, intense tone, Minoru widened his eyes. “I don’t believe it… No matter how strong she might be, I’m sure Oli-V, DD, and Yumiko together could—” “They would lose. I think you might be the only person who could take on Liquidizer, Minoru. That’s why the Professor assigned you to this mission. We have to get you out before it turns into a battle even…if it’s just you alone…” Alone? Minoru shook his head. It didn’t make sense. As long as they were bound together by the harness and his protective shell, they were in the same boat. There was no way one of them was getting out without the other. “Just me? There’s no way—” But Suu interrupted him by lightly putting her arms around his shoulders. “No, there is one way. A single method that can get you out of this place, right now.” “What…? Of course there isn’t. It’s not like we have a drill or explosives or anything…” Suu’s next statement caught him completely by surprise. “You’ve seen it before, too. The Third Eyes…disengaging.” “Dis…engaging?” Minoru repeated, dumbfounded. Before he could fully understand the meaning of the phrase, a memory came back to him all at once. Late at night. A large figure rampaging wildly in an underground parking lot engulfed in flames. Most of the body had been hideously burned to the point of carbonization, and what’s more, most of the head had been blown off. Suddenly, there was a burst of red light from the remains of the body’s neck. It shot straight up with ferocious speed, opening a huge hole in the ceiling of the parking lot, then streaking high into the night sky before dissolving among the stars. The Third Eye “disengaging.” When a Third Eye host’s vital functions ceased, or the Third Eye was removed from the host via surgery, the Third Eye parasite would shoot up toward the sky, returning to the same place it had come from. Suu continued to speak as Minoru listened numbly. “When the SFD performs Third Eye removal surgery, it’s often done in an operating room in the back of a large vehicle with a roof that can open and shut. But a while ago, when a different government-based research team attempted to remove a red Third Eye from a dying host, it broke through a triple-alloy barrier and the fifteen floors above them, leaving huge holes in the ceiling of each. Nothing can stop a Third Eye disengaging to the sky. Not even nine meters of concrete—” “What…are you saying?” Minoru interrupted in a pained voice, unable to listen any longer. “Are you trying to suggest that we should attempt to perform Third Eye removal surgery right here so that the exodus phenomenon will blow a hole in the concrete? Don’t be ridiculous! We don’t have an anesthetic or anything to stop the bleeding… And if it failed, you wouldn’t be able to fight anymore!” Minoru couldn’t believe he had to explain his objections to such an out-of-the-question idea. But Refractor responded in an even tone. “Minoru. Even under ideal circumstances, my Third Eye can’t be surgically removed.” “Huh…?” “My Third Eye parasite is inside my brain… It’s fused with my thalamus. No surgery can possibly detach it. So…” “What do you mean, ‘so’?! What are you saying?!” Suu’s arms were still entwined around Minoru’s neck, and he grabbed her right hand instinctively. “That just makes your plan even more ridiculous! Even if we were able to trigger Third Eye exodus and break through the concrete, it’s pointless if we wouldn’t get out alive!” “But you would.” “I’m telling you that doesn’t mean anything!” Minoru shouted, squeezing her hand more tightly. “I… All I can do is shut myself away in an invisible barrier! You’re a hundred times more important to the SFD—to the battle against Ruby Eyes! Getting me out of here isn’t even remotely worth you losing your life!” His voice cracked as he choked out the words desperately, but Suu’s voice in response was still thoroughly calm. “No, that’s not true. Your ability has so much more potential than you think it does. You could protect everyone from Liquidizer’s attacks. And on top of that, the data we copied before must contain information about the Syndicate’s headquarters. If we find out where that is, the 3E Committee would definitely take action. You’d be able to protect everyone and bring down our enemies… Besides, if I can set you free from this prison, that’s already worth more than enough to me.” “Th…that’s not nearly a good enough reason to just sacrifice your life!” Minoru shook his head furiously, continuing in a loud, shaky voice. “That’s it…we can use mine. My Third Eye is just in my sternum. If we gouge it out, the wound wouldn’t be fatal. We can escape without anybody having to die! Doesn’t that make much more sense?!” Minoru unzipped his jacket with his left hand and started to pull up his undershirt. But this time, Suu’s left hand covered his to hold him back. Her slim white fingers stopped his impulsive action with a quiet strength, and she spoke in a voice that held equally strong conviction. “I wouldn’t be able to protect Yumiko and Olivier and the others.” Her words startled Minoru. Until now, Suu had always referred to the other SFD members by their last names or code names. The reason she was saying their names freely now was not lost on Minoru, but he pushed that thought aside. “I-I can’t protect them, either! I can’t even break us out of this stupid floor! I…I don’t have any of the power you’re saying I do! All I have is a shell that I can use to run away and hide…!” Click. His desperate cries were interrupted by a snapping sound, then another. At the same time, the weight on his back started to become lighter. Suu was undoing the buckles of the harness that held them together. Even the straps around her waist that she had claimed she couldn’t reach were unfastened, and her body heat on Minoru’s back faded away. “What are you…? No, stop! There has to be another way. I’m sure we can come up with something else if we think harder!” “That may be true. But we don’t have time to keep thinking anymore.” Abruptly, Suu put her hands on his shoulders and turned him around. As he faced her, his protective shell shifted around them. From point-blank range, Suu’s deep violet eyes stared directly into Minoru’s. There was no fear or impatience in her eyes. They simply shone with intense determination, and her voice, too, was full of resolve. “Minoru…I care about them. I love all the members of the SFD. I was always too cowardly to show myself around them, but still…they were my family. Please, Minoru…protect them.” “But…” Minoru still shook his head and replied pleadingly, “But I…I can’t. If I sacrifice you to save Yumiko and the others, I…I can’t just go on fighting after that as if nothing happened…” “Don’t worry. You’ll forget.” Suu smiled a little. “We’ve barely known each other for three days. I’m sure in another three, you’ll be able to forget all about me.” “O…of course I won’t!” Minoru cried, reaching out to take hold of her slim shoulders. But before he could reach her, her violet eyes fluttered shut, there was a soft whooshing noise, and Suu vanished alone. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t even find the black dots of her pupils. In the faint illumination of the LED light, Minoru stared at the spot where Suu’s eyes should be. “Suu…,” he whispered desperately, his voice breaking. “You said my sight line was light gray…the color of apathy mixed with a trace of fear, right? It’s true that I am afraid of other people. I don’t want to get involved with them or get close to them… But that’s only because I’m afraid of making more memories! Suu, you…you’re already burned deep into my memory. I could never forget you!” For a moment, silence filled the small gray room. Finally, Suu replied in a voice that trembled slightly: “…Thank you.” “Wh…” “Ah…even with the light blocked out like this, I can still see your sight line. It’s beautiful…a warm color…I haven’t seen it for so long…” Suddenly, Minoru felt her soft hands on his own. Then, something indescribably soft and a little warm lightly touched his lips. Once it left, a quiet voice reached his ears. “If you see my brother, just tell him…I’m going on ahead. Good-bye, Minoru.” Immediately, he felt a powerful impact on his chest. Suu had pushed him away with one hand as hard as she could, he realized instinctively. The instant his subconscious recognized the strong rejection implied by that action, whatever force had been connecting them and allowing them to share their abilities was severed. And the Refractor, Suu Komura, was forced out of the protective shell toward the concrete wall at a terrible speed. The snow was falling in earnest now. Soaking the asphalt black, it now began to pile up and cover the ground in white. It was still only about 3:00 p.m., but the light was already fading from the sky, and the temperature began to dive precipitously. Even if Mikawa didn’t use his abilities tonight, the frozen streets were sure to cause plenty of accidents. Mikawa blew lightly into his hands and peered at the Syndicate’s Aoyama safe house through the resulting white steam. Then he posed a question to the person at his side. “…So, is there really a black spy pickling in concrete in there?” “Well, my timed trap certainly was activated. Whether it caught a Jet Eye or a mouse or what, your guess is as good as mine.” “You don’t want to dig it out to check?” “Of course not! I’m not rescuing someone from my own trap,” she huffed. Mikawa looked at her and shrugged slightly. The two of them were encamped on the roof of an abandoned factory just southwest of the five-story building that served as the safe house. Of course, this meant they had no walls or ceiling to protect them from the biting cold, which Mikawa’s flimsy jacket did little to abate. And yet next to him, Liquidizer, who was even more lightly dressed than he was, gave no indication that she was bothered by the cold. Stranger still, instead of her usual brand-name business suit, she was wearing a high school girl’s sailor uniform. He cleared his throat to prepare himself. “…So, I’m not sure I can hold this question in much longer. Is that a disguise? Or is it your true identity?” Liquidizer responded with the same mysterious smile as always. “Which answer would you prefer?” “…It doesn’t really matter to me, since you’re older than me either way.” “What a boring answer.” Perhaps to avoid her intense gaze, Mikawa looked over their surroundings again. The site of the abandoned factory stretched around the safe house building to the south and west—or perhaps it was more accurate to say that the hideout was nestled into the northeast corner of the factory. It seemed as if it had once been a metalworking factory, with milling machines covered in rust tossed aside underneath an overhang. The building itself was half-rotted, too, its roof dotted with holes. Why was a ruin like this in the Aoyama area, even on the outskirts? According to Liquidizer’s explanation, the real estate company that had owned this land had gone bankrupt, so the unused building had been abandoned. Thanks to this, there were no homes in use in the area, and in this weather, especially on New Year’s Eve, there was nobody around to interfere, no matter how violent things might get. There was only one problem left… “…Are they coming or what?” he muttered. The black ones were always prancing about like self-proclaimed knights in shining armor, but it was still hard to imagine they would casually show up knowing that the enemy must be lying in wait. If they had decided to cut their losses and abandon the spy caught in the trap, Mikawa and Liquidizer would be waiting in vain in the cold. Besides, the spy was almost certainly dead by now, anyway. However, Liquidizer’s response was simple. “They’ll come.” “They’d come in the face of danger and go through all the trouble of breaking through the concrete just to recover a dead body?” “Oh no, they’re still alive in there. Otherwise the Third Eye would’ve disengaged by now.” “…” Mikawa frowned and took another look at the building. Its roof was higher than the factory’s, so he couldn’t see for sure, but it was true that there were no broken windows or anything. The Third Eye exodus phenomenon tended to leave destruction in its wake, since it would break through any obstacles in its way, so it was doubtful that the fifth floor would be completely intact if it had occurred. “…Alive? But it’s been at least thirty minutes, hasn’t it?” “Indeed. Either they were carrying an air cylinder as a precaution, or maybe…” Liquidizer narrowed her eyes under her thick black glasses, and the rest of her sentence faded into a thin smile. Having long since learned that this expression meant she wasn’t going to elaborate, Mikawa thought for a few moments before figuring it out on his own. “Ah, I see. Or maybe it was that hunter from the spirit photography video who…” Before he could finish, Liquidizer suddenly placed a white fingertip over his lips. “They’re here.” “What? Really?” Following his former master’s pointing finger, Mikawa saw a black van approaching rapidly from the south in the falling snow. “Right there. Stop them.” “Understood.” Right away, Mikawa inhaled deeply and blew the air out sharply toward the van that was still at least forty-six meters away. The snow that was piled up unevenly on the street froze at once, icing over the road. The van began to swerve left and right, its tires losing their grip on the road. But it didn’t slow down, stubbornly careening toward the safe house. “I don’t think so,” Mikawa muttered, this time aiming an airy breath toward the trees that lined the right side of the street. Instead of vaporizing the ice that had piled up on the dried leaves, he gently urged on just a bit of molecular movement, turning it into liquid. Once the water poured down onto the street, Mikawa quickly froze it back into ice. The car’s tires hit the freshly made ice slope on the road, and it quickly began to spin out. The driver recovered quickly, but the van was still off its original course, sliding left and right. CRASH! The van smashed through a pair of locked gates, sliding not into the safe house but on the site of the abandoned factory. “…Oh dear, they’re in here now,” Mikawa remarked. The van was scattering snow as it hit the brakes, and it screeched to a stop, its front bumper crashing into the wall of the factory. As he watched, the side doors of the black van opened, and three of the black hunters jumped out into the snow. “Here we go. You take care of the one on the right, boy. Feel free to kill him, but try not to damage the brain. I’ll have Empathizer get some information out of it.” Liquidizer’s voice revealed no excitement as she gave orders. When Mikawa took one last glance at his former master, there was a cool smile on her lips. “All right.” Mikawa jammed into his jacket the object he’d made out of snow while waiting on the roof and leaped off, after Liquidizer. Landing for a moment on the rusted emergency staircase, he jumped down again to the ground five meters below. Immediately, he spotted a fast-moving shadow charging at him from the right out of the corner of his eye. Mikawa dove to the left. Milliseconds later, a sharp silver light flashed through the spot where his body had been moments before, and the snow on the ground flew into the air in two straight lines. Mikawa gave a thin smile, watching the double-edged blade warily. It was glittering intensely, as if it were wet. “What’s this? No time to chat with me today, Divider?” The gangly, handsome Jet Eye shifted his blade back into position. “I’m not letting you steal anything else away from me,” he spat in a low voice. “If you want to freeze stuff so badly, try freezing yourself in hell for eternity!” Divider’s blue eyes glinted, but Mikawa held his smile as he responded. “Goodness, how rude. I’m just following orders here, like always. Unlike you, still knee-deep in your own grudges…” A fragment of a memory projected itself onto the screen of the thickly falling snow. Two months ago, shortly after joining the Syndicate, Mikawa and two of his colleagues had attacked a car that Divider had been in. Their target, however, was not him but the passenger in the backseat. Mikawa’s job was to freeze the target in ice and capture them unharmed. “…You know, Divider, I didn’t even know anything about that girl when we ‘stole’ her…although I don’t know if you could really call it that. After all, unlike you, she—” “Not another word,” Divider interrupted sharply, cutting through Mikawa’s remark. Then, suddenly, he launched himself forward with a roar. Mikawa aimed a thin stream of air at the blade, just as he had a few days before. He froze the water molecules inside the snowflakes as they touched the sword, expecting to see the blade turn into a dull stick of ice. But instead, he saw a small spark appear on the handle of the sword. Whoosh! Suddenly, the blade was engulfed in orange flames. So it looked so shiny before because it’s coated in some kind of combustion agent, huh? But he couldn’t come up with a countermeasure for it right away. The snow that would hit the sword as it swung through the air wouldn’t be nearly enough to counteract the intense quantity of heat produced by the blade. Quickly, he opened his mouth wide and blew. Instead of freezing, the water in front of him transitioned into steam. The pure white mist took over his field of vision immediately, but his lungs ran out of air after that. He couldn’t produce steam hot enough to damage his opponent. Passing through the steam, the fiery blade swooped toward him at a terrifying speed. Mikawa bent his body backward as far as he could, trying to dodge the strike. A spasm from the wound he’d received from the same sword just a few days ago, still scarcely healed, slowed his movements a little. Luckily, the steam he’d created served as a smoke screen, obstructing Divider’s aim. The tip of the flaming sword only nicked his left shoulder lightly, and Mikawa was finally able to catch his breath and release another cloud of steam, retreating as he did so. Divider, likewise, jumped aside, creating distance between them. “…Well, that was a shock. As if that giant sword wasn’t tacky enough on its own, now it catches on fire! What’s the coating? Sesame oil?” “Trioxane,” Divider replied flatly. Mikawa had never heard of it. It was probably a chemosynthetically created high-efficiency combustion agent. This was just further proof of how advanced the black group’s product development was. “…Hmm. Well, it’s too bad you weren’t able to take me out with that strike. Looks like your party trick doesn’t last very long.” The flame that had engulfed the blade was already going out. No matter how effective the combustion agent, the small amount that could be coated onto a blade’s edge was unlikely to last much longer than ten seconds. Now it’s my turn. Mikawa reached his right hand into his jacket. However, before he could grab the object inside, Divider made an unexpected move: He quickly slid the now-flameless sword back into its sheath. Shiiing! When he unsheathed it again with a sharp, metallic noise, the sword’s blade was once more shining with fluid. “…I see,” Mikawa said darkly, the smile finally vanishing from his lips. Keeping a careful eye on his opponent, he glanced around to assess the other battle unfolding nearby. On the other side of the car that had crashed into the factory wall, the sailor suit–clad Liquidizer fought against two black combatants. One was a young woman with long hair and a blazer-style black uniform—most likely the one whose code name was Accelerator. The other was a short male in a camouflage jacket, whom he’d never seen before. Both held suppressed automatic pistols in their right hands. A few empty shells lay scattered in the snow, suggesting that shots had already been fired. Neither one was much farther than nine meters away from Liquidizer, so it was hard to imagine that all those shots could have missed, but somehow she was completely unharmed as she stood calmly between them. Just as Mikawa was wondering whether she had somehow dodged all the bullets, the two Jet Eyes fired again. Pff, pff, pff! They fired at least ten times, the muted shots sounding like those of an air gun. In the face of such a merciless onslaught, Liquidizer casually raised her right hand and simply stretched it out in front of her, palm facing front. Then Mikawa’s eyes widened in shock, and he imagined that Divider’s did, too. Every one of the bullets that had been fired at Liquidizer’s body with murderous intent, whether they made impact with her hand or not, melted in midair into lead-colored drops of liquid and fell to the ground. Mikawa was all too aware of how terrifying Liquidizer’s powers were. But he’d had no idea that she could use them on an object without directly touching it with her hand. It looked like the effect had a radius of only a half meter around the palm of her hand, but that was more than enough to protect herself from shooting. As he thought it through that far, Mikawa hit upon a small problem. Even if she could liquefy a bullet, it should still have kinetic energy. Shouldn’t the liquid stay clumped together and carry on forward to hit Liquidizer and deal some degree of damage before scattering into the air? But this question, too, was answered once he saw the dissolved bullets forming a whirlpool in midair. Inside the barrel of a gun, there are spiral-shaped grooves called rifling. This causes the bullet to spin as it’s fired from the gun, improving its accuracy. However, this spinning turned in Liquidizer’s favor when she liquidized the bullets, the centrifugal force overwhelming the liquid and scattering it in all directions. In other words, in order to shoot Liquidizer, a gun with a smooth, unrifled barrel—which Mikawa wasn’t sure even existed—would be far more effective. The Jet Eyes were sure to have realized this by now. Unfortunately for them, they would never have the chance to act on this information. Because now that they had seen her trump card, she was certainly not going to let them escape with their lives. All ten bullets were turned into little silvery droplets, the heat from the transformation diffusing into the cold air and creating little white clouds of steam. At that moment, the girl, Accelerator, dropped her gun and pulled a knife from inside her skirt—perhaps thinking she had nothing to lose. Fwoosh! She launched herself at Liquidizer with an explosive sound, snow whirling up around her. She was using her acceleration ability. All that Mikawa could see of her was an inky black shadow as she dashed forward at inhuman speed. However, far from the metallic sound of steel piercing flesh, the sound that rang out was a simple splash of water. Liquidizer had pushed the fast-approaching knife away with the back of her right hand. The blade was liquefied immediately, drops of liquid steel scattering in the air. This time, Liquidizer’s left hand shot out toward her opponent, her white palm pushing against the right side of Accelerator’s abdomen. She’s a goner, Mikawa thought with grim confidence. Her whole torso would be turned into liquid, collapsing into a puddle of protein soup. However, the liquid that sprayed into the air from Liquidizer’s left hand was pure black. All that she had liquefied was her opponent’s blazer. At the same instant, there was another explosive sound, and Accelerator retreated across an enormous distance. Once she stopped again, he could see that all that was covering her upper body now was a tight gray bodysuit. “…You didn’t really think you could beat me just by firing a bunch of bullets and hoping for the best, did you?” Liquidizer addressed the two Jet Eyes calmly. The faintest hint of a smile danced across her lightly colored lips and her eyes underneath the black-rimmed glasses. Somehow, that smile was even chillier than when her face was layered in makeup. “You’ll have to do better than that.” Watching his former master step forward smoothly, Mikawa concluded that her victory was only a matter of time and turned his attention back toward Divider. His bitter enemy’s handsome features showed more killing intent than he had seen in any of their previous encounters as he lit another spark on his long sword. Watching as the sword burst into flames again, Mikawa reached into his jacket with his right hand and pulled out a secret weapon of his own. If Minoru had deactivated his shell even a split second later, Suu Komura probably would have died instantly. Pushed into the tiny three-centimeter space between the barrier and the concrete wall, every bone in her body would have instantly broken and her internal organs ruptured. But as soon as Minoru felt her being ejected from the shell, he deactivated it almost unconsciously. As a result, he had prevented the instant destruction of Suu’s body and the resultant exodus of her Third Eye, but this may have just been delaying the inevitable. The sound of Suu’s back crashing into the concrete at a violent speed was still reverberating as she collapsed forward into Minoru’s arms. Her body crumpled, and Minoru saw a frightening amount of blood gushing from the back of her small head. “Ah… Ahh…!” Minoru cried hoarsely. Desperately pressing his right hand against the area of the wound, he reactivated his protective shell. He could feel a weak heartbeat from her chest, but the bleeding showed no signs of slowing, and the color was draining quickly from her face, her eyes closed. The injury wasn’t only to the back of her head. A trickle of blood bubbling from her lips showed that it was much more extensive. Her lungs or alimentary canal must have been damaged. “Suu…Suu!” he called desperately, but of course, there was no response. At this rate, it probably wouldn’t be long until her heartbeat stopped, and the Third Eye would sense the death of its host’s body and burst out through her head when it disengaged. If he couldn’t prevent that…then there was only one thing for Minoru to do. He would have to end Suu’s life himself, right now, to force the Third Eye to disengage. Because right now, the worst possible situation he could imagine was this: Suu’s Third Eye would burst through the concrete and allow him to escape, only to find that Yumiko and the others had already been killed. If that were the case, Suu would have sacrificed herself for nothing. She had laid down her own life, entrusting Minoru with the task of rescuing Yumiko, DD, and Olivier—her family. But… But he couldn’t do it. There was just no way. Suu had said that since they’d met only three days ago, it should be easy for him to forget her—but by that logic, he had still met Yumiko and the others at Akigase Park only three weeks ago. He couldn’t choose which of them to save and which to let die. Never. “…I’ll find a way. I’ll save them. Yumiko and the others…and you, too.” Minoru gritted his teeth, forcing out words in a wavering voice. “And if I can’t…I’ll die here, too. I don’t care about fighting to save the world. I just…I just want to protect what’s within my reach, what’s close to me. And you’re close to me too now, so…so…” Unable to put the rest into words, Minoru instead held the unconscious Suu’s head close to his chest with his left hand. If her Third Eye were to leave her body right now, it would put a hole in Minoru’s body, too. But he wasn’t afraid. The feeling that resounded strongly in his chest was one he wasn’t accustomed to. Unlike the burning heat he’d felt in his heart when he protected Yumiko from Igniter’s explosion, this was more like a calm blue silence. Pressed on by this feeling, Minoru raised his right hand and pushed it firmly against the concrete in front of him. He was already well aware that if he were to deactivate his shell now and then activate it again, all that would happen was that he would be pushed back. So in order to put more pressure on the concrete wall, he would have to expand the barrier itself. Currently, the invisible, unbreakable shield was projected three centimeters around his body; he would have to find a way to increase that radius to eight centimeters—no, even more. It was something he’d never attempted to do before. But he felt certain it was the only way he could break out of here. “Nn…nnngh…” With a low groan, Minoru pressed his right hand against the concrete wall with all his strength. The palm of his hand wasn’t actually touching anything, but he could feel the joints in his wrist and elbow creaking. Minoru’s protective shell. For a long time, he’d thought that this ability, which he had gained from a jet-black sphere that came down from the sky three months ago, was the physical manifestation of his rejection of the world around him. But that didn’t seem to be true. After all, he had been able to bring Yumiko inside the barrier, then Suu. If the source of his power was the emotional wound that made him reject other people, that should have been impossible. So the emotion inside the shell wasn’t rejection or fear. It was the opposite. It was love. The one place on this earth that he could believe in and a place where he could feel at ease. This quiet world was a gift to him from the one person he had truly loved and trusted, his older sister Wakaba Utsugi. “S…sis…” His face twisted in pain that ran from his right arm through the rest of his body, Minoru whispered intently, “Please…lend me your strength. I want to save her…to save everyone. I…I don’t want to lose them…!” Of course, there was no reply. But Minoru continued to cry out to his sister deep in his heart. Eight years ago, a home invader had slaughtered his sister and their parents. Wakaba had hidden Minoru in a storage space under the floor of the pantry and gone to call for help. But she hadn’t made it. As she’d passed through the living room, she was spotted by the murderer and killed with a dagger. The last time Minoru ever heard her voice was in a whisper as she was closing the hatch above him. Her voice had been tense, but he could still hear that she was smiling. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you, Mii. Trust me and just count silently to yourself in there, okay?” She had kept her word. The perpetrator had searched the kitchen for Minoru, overturning all the cupboards and cabinets, but he hadn’t opened the hatch to the storage space beneath the floor where Minoru was hidden. Minoru’s protective shell was an imitation of that cramped hiding place. A place where he was completely protected, just as his older sister had wished. A world that couldn’t be invaded by any threats or malice. “Sis…I-I let you die without doing anything to save you. I…I don’t ever want to do that again. So please…give me strength…to save Suu and Yumiko and the others…!” As he spoke, Minoru heard a sharp cracking sound from inside his right hand—most likely, he’d broken a bone. Intense pain pierced from his right shoulder to his brain, sending sparks across his vision. But at that same moment, a crack like a single thread from a spiderweb formed in the concrete wall before his eyes. “Hngh…aaargh!” Holding Suu’s body tightly against his own, Minoru mustered all his strength and pushed his right hand even farther forward. The tip of a broken bone pierced through the back of his hand, scattering fresh blood. Crack! Snap! More breaking sounds came from his right arm. He could feel his finger joints disconnecting, a crack forming in one of his thicker bones. At this rate, it felt like his right arm was going to explode before he could break through the concrete. But Minoru didn’t slow down, focusing desperately on a single mental image. The space in his shell that he’d always thought was limited to three centimeters was expanding wider, farther. One by one, more cracks radiated out from his hand in the concrete wall. But at the same time, he heard more crushing noises from his own arm, his tendons snapping apart. “AAH! AAAAHH!!” Brought on by sheer pain, tears began to stream from both his eyes, warping his vision. Cracks were forming in the body of the LED light in his left hand, too, and he could dimly see the white light flickering. Finally, just as the light was completely destroyed and the space was plunged into darkness, Minoru saw it. Someone’s arm, illuminated with a faint golden glow, reaching over his right shoulder and gently placing a hand on his bloodied one. Reaching into his jacket, Mikawa pulled out a simple sphere of ice, less than eleven centimeters in diameter. There wasn’t anything hidden inside it. He had simply shaped some snow into a ball and frozen it solid. Anyone could make the same exact thing with a freezer at home, given enough time. Brandishing his combustion-coated flaming sword, Divider moved to attack. Mikawa tossed the ice ball at him with his right hand. At the same time, he breathed on it strongly with his mouth wide. Narrowing his eyes slightly, Divider attempted to strike the ball as it approached in midair. Most likely, he had guessed that his sword could divide a ball of ice this small simply by touching it. And he was right. However, the moment the flaming blade made contact with the ice and began to cut through it— BANG! The ball violently exploded. Mikawa had instantly turned the water molecules in the center of the ball into vapor—in other words, transitioning it into steam. The resultant internal pressure turned the ordinary ball of ice into a tiny hand grenade, scattering countless tiny shards of ice toward Divider at point-blank range. “Nngh!” Divider gave a low grunt as his upper body reeled back. Thin streams of blood began to leak from the cuts on his face and shoulder. Still, he stood firm, bracing himself without falling. Mikawa reached into his left pocket and produced another ball of ice, hurling it at Divider’s abdomen. At the same time, he fired off a short, broad breath. This time the sound of the explosion was much lower, mostly absorbed by his opponent’s body. Divider was blown back violently, falling toward the ground, when Mikawa huffed out a third large breath of air. This time, however, his target was not the enemy himself but the snow on the ground where he was about to land. The white snow in that spot disappeared in a two-meter radius, turned not into vapor but water, so that Divider splashed down into a tiny pond when he landed. Immediately, Mikawa shot out a sharper breath. There was a loud creaking sound, like a live tree being split apart. The pond had frozen back into pure white ice, capturing Divider in the middle. Mikawa gave another long breath, but this time it was just a sigh, not another attack. “…Well, it looks like that went pretty well,” he muttered. “It’s not easy to go back and forth between freezing and melting, you know. I have to keep jumping back and forth between imagining one or the other. Not that I expect you to understand that, since all you do is cut everything up.” He stepped toward Divider, who seemed to be ignoring the pain and struggling with all his might to force his way out of the ice. Coming upon the sword, which was still slightly aflame, Mikawa kicked it as hard as he could into a far-off snowdrift. Kshh! A small sound turned his attention back toward the ice that held Divider. Small cracks had appeared in the ice’s surface. “Oh, wow. Trying to break through my ice with brute strength alone, huh? But unfortunately…” He grinned and blew another thin stream of air, and the snow that had already piled up on top of his frozen opponent and melted from his body heat promptly turned into more ice. Kshh. Kshh. Mikawa continued to spray breath around him, gradually entrapping his enemy in a thick shell of ice. “Well, it was always going to end up this way, Divider. I’m sure even you must have known from the start that you wouldn’t stand a chance against me on a snowy day like today. Was your colleague we caught in our trap there that important to you? Or maybe you just can’t abandon a comrade no matter who it might be. That’s the problem with you Jet Eyes…” At this point, Mikawa wasn’t sure whether Divider could even hear his rambling anymore. After all, his opponent’s entire face, except for his mouth, was now completely covered with ice. If I keep freezing more snow over him like this, will he eventually stop being able to breathe and die quietly? I don’t know where his Third Eye is, but as long as it doesn’t leave through his head, his brain should be perfectly preserved like this. I didn’t even wind up having to use the gun, Mikawa thought to himself while looking back over toward the other battle. It appeared that the two black hunters were utilizing Accelerator’s speed to attempt some kind of disturbance strategy. The one in the camouflage hat would shoot at Liquidizer, and while she was dealing with that bullet, Accelerator would change positions at ultrahigh speed and fire from there. It seemed like a decent strategy, but Ruby Eyes like Liquidizer who were qualified to be leaders in the Syndicate far exceeded ordinary humans even in basic physical ability alone. As if she had eyes in the back of her head, Liquidizer easily followed Accelerator’s position and liquefied both black hunters’ bullets with both her hands. It seemed as though this back-and-forth had been going on for a while. The man in the camouflage took a large jump back and reached into his jacket. Presumably out of ammo, he shook the magazine out of the pistol in his right hand and attempted to replace it with the new one he had just produced. At that moment, Liquidizer dashed forward with a speed that seemed to rival Accelerator’s, closing in on the male Jet Eye. Leaning forward and stretching her hand to its limits, she managed to brush a fingertip against the suppressed muzzle of his gun. That was all it took. The metal of the gun from the tip of the muzzle to halfway down the slide melted into steely blue liquid and splashed onto the snowy ground. As her opponent’s eyes widened in surprise, Liquidizer turned in midair and started to bring her hand down toward the nape of his neck. However, just as her lethal fingertips were about to make contact, a black shadow slid up by her left. Accelerator was trying another close-quarters attack. This time, her left hand held not a knife but a black baton-shaped device. Watching from a distance, Mikawa’s mouth dropped open in surprise. It was an extremely high–voltage stun baton. Even Liquidizer couldn’t do anything to electricity. She would get hit by the shock before she could touch the weapon itself. Giving up her attack on the camouflaged opponent, Liquidizer ducked her body downward and nimbly leaped back. But however impressive her physical abilities might be, her movement was no match for Accelerator’s. The Jet Eye caught up in a single step and doused her in an electric shock. Or so it seemed, but moments before the strike landed, Accelerator’s body suddenly wobbled and pitched forward. On closer inspection, the sole of the speedster’s right shoe had suddenly sunk three centimeters into the asphalt that had been exposed by the raging battle. As she retreated, Liquidizer had touched the ground’s surface for just an instant, liquefying just a bit of the asphalt. As soon as Accelerator stepped onto that asphalt, the pavement had most likely rehardened, fastening her shoe to the ground. The Jet Eye’s face froze. She bent over quickly, trying to unfasten the buckles of her waterproof boot. However, presumably to support her ultrahigh-speed movement and braking, Accelerator was unluckily wearing tight ankle-length boots instead of ordinary shoes. Before Accelerator could get out of her shoe, Liquidizer’s right hand pushed down on the asphalt. Gloop. Accelerator’s leg sank into the pavement up to the knee, and the ground immediately hardened again. The technique was similar to how Mikawa himself had trapped Divider, but undoubtedly even tougher to escape. “Damn…!” Tossing aside his melted pistol, the camouflage-wearing young man pulled out a small revolver. “Don’t move!” Liquidizer ordered sharply, freezing him in his tracks. Her right hand was still level on the asphalt as she continued, “Drop your weapon. Unless you want me to bury this girl up to her head.” “…” He stayed frozen for a second but obeyed before long, tossing aside his revolver. “There’s a good boy.” Liquidizer gave a thin smile. “Now, as long as you’re here, tell me something. That friend of yours caught in my trap over there…the boy who makes the invisible barrier. How does that ability work? It’s been more than thirty minutes, so why on earth hasn’t he died of suffocation by now?” She really is terrifying, Mikawa thought. I’m sure she plans to kill these two—no, probably all three of them, counting Divider—but she’s still trying to get information out of them while they’re alive. Standing stock-still, the camouflaged young man visibly set his jaw. “Don’t say anything! Get out of here now!!” the trapped Accelerator cried out despairingly. Her other leg sank into the ground. Presumably, Liquidizer had used her ability again for just a moment. The other Jet Eye grimaced and started to open his mouth. Then, suddenly, Mikawa heard a mysterious noise. Rrrrg… Something creaked heavily. Coming up from the ground, it was almost more like a tremor than a sound. Alarmed, Mikawa looked around for the source of the noise. Then he gasped when his eyes fell on an unexpected scene. The Syndicate’s five-story safe house building about eighteen meters away. Snow was tumbling over the sides of the roof. The cause wasn’t wind or an earthquake. The building itself was trembling, shaken by some enormous unknown force. In his shock, Mikawa was momentarily distracted from the frozen Divider behind him. As a result, it took him a moment to notice what was happening. Divider had managed to work free a single finger, and dangling from it was a sharp object, an icicle less than eight centimeters long, with which he was slowly cutting up the ice around his hand. Crack! The sound made Mikawa whirl around, and his eyes widened. Divider had already broken his arm free of the icy pond. His hand now gripped a much larger weapon—a pointed shard of ice more than a half meter long. Before Mikawa could freeze his arm again, Divider slashed it horizontally with a flash. Don’t tell me his ability even works on a blade of ice? I thought it had to be metal! As panic flashed across Mikawa’s mind, Divider broke free and leaped toward him, cutting from his chest to his left shoulder with the icy blade. “Uuugh…” Mikawa groaned and jumped back, but Divider didn’t follow him. With fresh blood gushing from the wounds that covered his body, he held the icy sword aloft and bellowed, then threw it toward the outside wall of the trembling building. Sparkling brilliantly, the white shard of ice rotated in the air as it flew toward its target. When it struck the concrete of the building, instead of breaking, it silently cut right through the surface. Then, as Mikawa collapsed to the ground, he saw some kind of energy burst forth from the deeply cracked cement. BOOOOM! An overwhelming sound reverberated from the building as a large portion of the front wall was blown to tiny pieces. It seemed like it could have been caused only by some kind of explosives, but then the person inside would have presumably been blown away along with the wall. However…as he clutched his fresh wound, Mikawa heard something. Out of the darkness of the hole that was almost two meters in diameter, the faint but unmistakable sound of footsteps approached. Mikawa wasn’t the only one who’d heard it. Divider, who had returned to a crouching position; the trapped Accelerator; the camouflage-wearing Jet Eye; and even Liquidizer all stared transfixed at the hole in the building. After a few moments, a figure appeared beneath the falling snow. It was, indeed, the young man who’d appeared in the spirit photography video. There was no way that the building should have exploded just from the shard of ice Divider had thrown at it. It was hard to imagine how he could have broken free from the middle of the concrete, but it looked as though it had cost him, as his right arm was clearly wounded and bleeding. And in his left arm, he was carrying a young woman Mikawa had never seen before, who was in far worse condition than even he himself was. Half her face was covered in blood, and she looked to be near death. In other words, these two posed no threat in the current battle, he thought. It would be easy to take them out with a preliminary attack from a distance. But there was one problem… His eyes. At first glance, the boy’s eyes looked weak, but there was something in that look that made Mikawa hesitate. Liquidizer, too, backed about three meters away from the trapped Accelerator and surveyed the situation intently. The first person to move was the one closest to the building, the camouflage-wearing Jet Eye. As if a switch had been flipped, he suddenly rushed over to the boy, took the unconscious girl into his arms, and laid her gently on the ground. Producing something like a first aid kit from his jacket, he began to treat her wounds. The other boy watched this for a moment and then continued to walk forward. Finally, Liquidizer spoke in a low voice. “So, you actually managed to break out of my trap… How very interesting. What’s your name, boy?” The young man wore a black jacket, and his hair was tinged with gray. “Isolator,” he replied shortly, not slowing his approach. “Hmm. As in separating yourself or as in being alone, I wonder…” Her split low ponytail bobbing behind her head, the powerful woman of ambiguous age smiled slightly. “A pitiable name. But perhaps a fitting one, since you can’t protect anyone but yourself with your power.”
Chapter 31
65 min read