Chapter 53

4 Leaving his bike at the Yonohonmachi Station bicycle parking area, Minoru boarded the rapid train on the Saikyou line. The time was 1:20 p.m. Bright sunlight was still streaming in through the train windows, but in this season, it would start getting dark by four o’clock. If his conversation with Yumiko and Olivier seemed like it was going to go on for a while, he would have to let Norie know he was going to be late. If only Liquidizer had made contact before our study meetup yesterday, it would’ve been so much more convenient, Minoru thought, heaving a sigh. In the end, the real problem was the fact that it took over an hour each way to get from his home to SFD Headquarters and back. Yumiko’s comment that it would take just over a half hour by way of the highway rattled around in his brain. “A motorcycle, huh…?” Minoru mumbled, leaning against the wall next to the door. Last year, Saitama Prefecture had repealed the infamous “Three-Nos Motion,” which stated that high schoolers could not receive a license, ride a motorcycle, or buy one. As such, many high schools now allowed their students to acquire a two-wheel license under certain conditions, but the Yoshiki High School regulations wouldn’t change until the following year, and even then it was going to be limited to vehicles with 50cc engines or less, also known as motorized bicycles. These motorized bicycles weren’t allowed on the highway, and Yumiko’s estimate probably required a bigger bike anyway. Minoru had never even ridden an electric bike before, so riding a big motorcycle was too intimidating by far. …I guess I just have to ride the train for now. With that, Minoru turned his gaze out the window. He knew he should really be mulling over the deal Liquidizer had proposed to him, but it was honestly too big a burden for him to bear alone. He’d been so tense throughout the entire conversation that his brain was fried, left with no capacity for such intensive thinking. Liquidizer had told him to “open his eyes,” but he already had his hands full just dealing with the issue of his grades being too high at school. As soon as he started thinking about the two answer sheets in his bag and the small smartphone in his inner pocket, his shoulders started to ache. When he’d left school, he was thinking about getting advice about Hazama from someone at the SFD, but now that was the least of his problems. Heaving a deep sigh, Minoru closed his eyes, thinking he could at least give his brain a break for a few minutes while he was on the train. An hour later, having transferred onto the Fukutoshin line at Ikebukuro Station, Minoru got off the train at Nishiwaseda Station. Once he’d gone up the stairs and out onto the street, Minoru took out his own phone and messaged Yumiko. “Where are you right now?” “HQ” was all she responded, so he asked if she wanted to go out for some tea or something. This time, she sent a sticker of a scowling rabbit saying “EXCUSE me?” but Minoru resisted the urge to give up right away and persisted. “I need some advice.” Liquidizer had warned him not to use his phone, but he figured that even if he was being monitored, they wouldn’t have any way of knowing what this was about. Besides, he had to contact her somehow if he wanted to get her out of headquarters. Yumiko suggested a patisserie near SFD Headquarters, the one where Olivier had bought those puddings the day before. Minoru quickly walked down Suwa Road, but by the time he arrived at the patisserie, Yumiko was already there. For some reason, instead of her usual uniform, she was wearing a tracksuit and pants under a letterman jacket, and her long hair was pulled into a messy ponytail. Looking tired, Yumiko raised her hand in greeting and then gestured inside the bakery with her thumb. Minoru had been here twice before, so he knew there was an eat-in area on the second floor, which was probably where Yumiko intended for them to talk. At the counter on the first floor, Yumiko ordered a pistachio roll cake and a café au lait, while Minoru got an apple stollen and a milk tea. Once they received their orders, they carried their trays up the wooden stairs to the second floor. Luckily enough, the eat-in area happened to be empty. It wasn’t very large, but the well-worn wood parquet flooring and black wrought-iron furnishings made for a chic atmosphere. The indoor heating was pleasant, too, especially after the cold wind outside. Taking off her letterman jacket, Yumiko staked out a table by the window, slumping into her chair with a loud huff. “…Why are you wearing that at the beginning of the school year? And why do you seem so tired?” Minoru couldn’t resist asking as he sat down across from her. In response, Yumiko held up her palms to him. Her slim fingers were covered in black smudges. “I headed straight to base after school to do some maintenance and part upgrades on my Agusta. Truth be told, I wanted to do it yesterday, but instead I got stuck doing homework.” “Got stuck? Yesterday was the last day of winter break, so you would’ve had to do it either way…” Minoru felt like he was stating the obvious, but Yumiko waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t be so dull. Listen, you don’t actually have to turn in your homework until the first class of each subject, right? So there’s no reason to bring your homework on the first day when all we have is the opening ceremony. Depending on the class, you could theoretically stretch it for up to three days.” “Those just sound like the excuses of a slacker to me…” “Oh, hush, you. Just think of it as being flexible.” Yumiko harrumphed, then picked up her fork, cut off a big piece of the light-green roll cake, and carried it to her mouth. As she chewed the cake and followed it up with a big sip of the café au lait, her expression visibly relaxed. “Ahhh…the cake here is always so delicious.” All at once, Minoru realized how hungry he was. He’d been so stressed about the encounter with Liquidizer that it had slipped his mind, but he hadn’t actually eaten lunch yet. Taking a big bite of one of the three slices of stollen, he savored the dense bread and the generous helping of baked apple preserves, filling his mouth with sweetness and tartness at once. It really is delicious. I should bring something back for Norie… After demolishing half her roll cake in the blink of an eye, Yumiko put down her fork with a clink. “So what’s this all about? Romantic advice, perhaps?” “O-of course not!” As Minoru whipped his head back and forth rapidly, he felt the weight of the phone in his inner pocket. Pressing a hand against it through the outside of his jacket, he wondered how to broach the subject. He’d called Yumiko alone first because he didn’t think he could emotionally handle being yelled at by both of them at once, but even on her own, he didn’t really want to make Yumiko angry, either. Fortunately (though he wondered if he was allowed to be relieved about this), she seemed tired, so he hoped she would hear him out without exploding on him as he opened his mouth to explain. “So, erm…earlier, or I guess you’d say a little over an hour ago…” “Uh-huh.” “On my way home from school, Liquidizer approached me…” “Uh-huh.” Yumiko nodded and took another sip of her café au lait, then blinked a few times. Pitching forward, she nearly sprayed the liquid everywhere—but managed to stop herself, choking on it spectacularly instead. Panicking as Yumiko coughed and hacked, Minoru quickly handed her an unused napkin, which she pressed to her lips. After coughing for a few more seconds, the Accelerator finally looked up and spilled out a series of questions. “You mean…Liquidizer? That Liquidizer? The Ruby? The old lady who can melt anything?” “I—I don’t know if I would call her an old lady, but yes.” “………” Yumiko fell silent, a range of expressions crossing her face so rapidly that it was a shame Minoru couldn’t record her. Finally, she settled somewhere between “surprise” and “anger.” Her chair clattered as she leaned forward, her face just a few inches from Minoru’s. “Wh…why wouldn’t you contact us right away?! And how did she know to find you anyway?! Does she know where HQ is, too?!” “N…no, it doesn’t seem that way.” Minoru gave a small shake of the head, then repeated Liquidizer’s explanation. Yumiko seemed to regain a degree of composure as she listened, settling back into her chair and taking a deep breath. “Hmm… So she figured out you were involved from Biter’s cause of death? That seems like a serious shot in the dark to me. We’ll have to figure out how she got that information, too…” “Um, well…she seemed to know a lot about the 3E Committee, too. Maybe the source is connected to the committee…” “I’d like to think that’s impossible, but I suppose we can’t rule it out entirely. With that many government officials and politicians involved, it would be difficult to prevent anything from leaking whatsoever… Still, I suppose it’s better than if we had a leak directly in the SFD.” Minoru sighed again, and Yumiko glared at him. “So why exactly didn’t you contact someone right away?” “Because, um, she said not to.” “Excuse me?! And you just stupidly followed her demands?!” Yumiko’s anger meter started rising again, so Minoru hurriedly explained himself. “O-of course not! But she wanted to propose a trade with you, Oli-V, and me.” “A trade…? Well, of course we’re not going to accept that! What in the world does she want to trade, and for what?!” “Well, she wants us to help her rescue Trancer…” Yumiko started to rise from her seat again, but Minoru held up a hand to stop her. “And in exchange, she’s offering Stinger’s location and, um…something called Stargazer.” Immediately, all the indignation and emotion drained from Yumiko’s face. She sank back into her chair as if her batteries had run out, dropping her hands on the table. Her eyes opened wide, losing all focus. Finally, she spoke in a barely audible voice, her lips trembling. “…You mean she’d give us Claire back…?” “C…Claire? So ‘Stargazer’ is a person?” Yumiko nodded dazedly. “Yes…that’s her SFD code name. Her real name is Claire Saito…Oli-V’s younger sister.” This time, it was Minoru’s turn to be stunned into silence. Yumiko sat in thoughtful silence for a full two minutes before sighing and producing her phone. She sent someone a message, and within seconds, there was the chime of a response. “…Oli-V will be here in fifteen minutes.” “All right.” Minoru nodded, looking at Yumiko’s reflective black phone—the same color as her beloved Agusta F3 800—and hesitated a moment before speaking. “Liquidizer said the 3E Committee might be monitoring our phones…” Immediately, Yumiko grimaced. “Even they wouldn’t… Well, I guess I can’t say for sure. I’ll talk to the Professor about it.” “Thank you… So, um…Oli-V’s sister, you said…?” Minoru hadn’t even known she existed, never mind that she had a code name, so he pushed aside his hesitation to ask about it. Yumiko silently jabbed her fork into the last piece of her roll cake but then put it down as if she’d lost her appetite. Then, in a quiet murmur, she told Minoru about events that had occurred when the SFD was established. It was September 1 of the previous year when the Third Eyes fell around the area of Tokyo. Before long, the chief cabinet secretary’s 3E Committee and the Ruby Eyes’ Syndicate were formed, followed shortly by the SFD. The first members were Chief Himi, Professor Riri Isa, Yumiko Azu, Sanae Ikoma, and Denjirou Daimon, aka DD. They fought against the Ruby Eyes while searching for new Jet Eyes and eventually discovered Olivier Saito and his sister, Claire Saito. Though Olivier was now more fervent than anyone about hunting Ruby Eyes, at the time he was afraid of putting his little sister in danger, so he initially declined to join the SFD. It was Claire herself, then a sixth grader, who convinced him. The two of them became SFD members together on October 3…and just two weeks later, on October 17, Claire was taken captive by the Ruby Eyes. When Yumiko explained this in a carefully emotionless drone, Minoru couldn’t help asking more questions. “Taken captive…? You mean they sent a sixth grader into battle?” Immediately, Yumiko raised her head and glared at Minoru. “The Professor, Oli-V, and I all told her over and over to stay at HQ. But she wouldn’t listen, insisting that she was coming, too. Even when Oli-V tried to drag her out of the car, she just hung on to the seat… Finally, we told her not to leave the car no matter what, and DD, Oli-V, Claire, and I all went to the scene. We were just capturing a Ruby Eye who was hiding out in an abandoned house in Arakawa Ward. It should’ve been a simple enough mission.” “Doesn’t that depend on the Ruby Eye’s ability…?” “We had already done reconnaissance, of course,” Yumiko responded curtly. “The target was Identified Ruby Eye Host number 9, code name Grasper. A body-transformation type, who could enhance the strength of his grip…a similar type to Biter. He could crush a human limb in his hands easily, but that meant it was safe as long as you didn’t get too close, and even in close-range combat, it was nothing Oli-V’s division ability couldn’t handle. We lured Grasper out of the house and led him to a nearby park, and Oli-V kept him in check with his sword until I knocked him out with a Taser. Everything was going according to plan…until…” Yumiko trailed off, biting her lip in frustration as she recalled the incident. A few moments later, she grabbed her fork and pushed the rest of the roll cake into her mouth. Then she chugged the rest of the cooled café au lait and let out a long breath before she continued. “Until two new Ruby Eyes appeared. One of them was Trancer, who we captured recently. And the other one…is still unknown.” “Unknown?” “We didn’t get a single glimpse of them. They used some kind of power to make a bunch of water burst out of some underground water pipes. This was our second time facing Trancer, so we knew to be cautious of water, but we couldn’t avoid it when it was spraying out of the ground. Oli-V and I got soaked, and Trancer froze us in place… DD tried to take him down with a handgun, but more water came out of the ground at Trancer’s feet, and he used it to freeze all the bullets. By then the ice was up to my face, and I thought I was going to suffocate, but then Claire came running into the park. Trancer tried to freeze her, too, but then…something strange happened.” “Wh…what happened, exactly?” “An explosion. A huge one that left a crater in the ground. It was explained as a gas explosion on the news, but I didn’t smell any gas. Trancer got blown away just like we did, and we couldn’t see anything in the smoke… By the time we managed to get out of the ice, Trancer, the other Ruby Eye, and Claire had all disappeared.” Yumiko fell silent, and Minoru gazed at her face. Trying to re-create the situation in his mind, Minoru slowly repeated it to get his thoughts together. “Erm, so…you and Oli-V got frozen by Trancer…then Claire showed up, and there was immediately an explosion? Wasn’t the explosion Claire’s ability, then?” “I thought of that, too, of course, but…Claire’s ability could never even hurt a fly, never mind cause such a huge explosion. She got the code name Stargazer because…” Yumiko paused for a moment, looking up at the sky through the window. “…she had precognitive abilities.” “Precognitive…?” “Yes. A mysterious power, like yours… If she looked up at the stars at night for long enough, she could find out one thing that was going to happen the next day. But she couldn’t control the details or timing of the prophecies, so most of them were silly things, like what snacks someone would have the next day or where a lost item would be found. There was one time when she predicted a somewhat large earthquake almost down to the minute, though, and she was occasionally able to predict where a Ruby Eye would appear. The Professor believed that if she honed her ability, she would someday be a huge asset to the SFD…” Yumiko’s words faded into a sigh, and her eyelids fluttered closed. Minoru gazed at the small crease that had appeared between her eyebrows as he thought. If Claire Saito’s ability was the real thing—not that he imagined it could’ve been fake—then having an explosive power as well would go against the basic rule of Third Eye abilities: “manipulating specific atoms or molecules.” Then was the explosion that saved Yumiko and the others from suffocating caused by someone other than Claire? And if so, then why had she charged onto the battlefield…no, why had she been so insistent on going with them for that particular mission? “…Could it be that Claire knew that you and Oli-V would be in danger…?” Minoru murmured. At that, Yumiko opened her eyes. But her gaze stayed on the table as she shook her head slowly. “Maybe so, maybe not. Only Claire would know for sure.” “…Are we certain Claire was captured by the Ruby Eyes? I, um… I don’t even want to say it, but…if the explosion was big enough to make a crater, isn’t it possible she got caught in it…?” “No. At the very least, we know she didn’t die in the explosion, because the Third Eye ‘exodus phenomenon’ didn’t occur. But it was only about a week ago that we confirmed with certainty that she was captured. When Oli-V fought Trancer in Minami-Aoyama on New Year’s Eve, he said something before he fled: Your princess is still safe. They’re taking extremely good care of her.” “I had no idea…” Minoru lowered his head and took a deep breath, but after a minute, his gaze flicked up at Yumiko. “But why didn’t you tell me sooner about all this? No, more importantly…why isn’t the entire SFD making rescuing Claire a top priority? If Oli-V’s sister has been captured by the enemy, shouldn’t we be focusing on that…?” Though his tone bordered on accusatory, Yumiko’s expression remained unperturbed. “It is a top priority. To rescue Claire, we need to know everything about the Syndicate, but ultimately that just means capturing Syndicate Ruby Eyes and trying to get information out of them. It was Oli-V’s request that we not tell any new SFD members about the incident unless it became necessary.” “What…? But why…?” “Because he blames himself for the entire thing. He thinks he wasn’t able to protect Claire because he wasn’t strong enough.” “………” Minoru wasn’t able to respond to those words. Before he could open his mouth, there was the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. Wearing a mountain parka over his blazer-type uniform, Olivier strolled right over to the pair’s table, leaning over as if he couldn’t waste a second on sitting down. “What’s this important thing you have to talk to me about?”