Chapter 8

The jaws seemed to have reached a width of twenty centimeters, and thick bundles of muscle rippled on their sides. The teeth had a silver-gray, metallic luster, and they glinted in the moonlight. It’s no good. The shell is going to get crushed. The moment Minoru sensed that, he shouted, “Whoooooa!!” Up until now he had allowed his right arm to be bitten, but now he desperately thrust it deep into the man’s mouth. His fingers—technically, the protective shell wrapped around his fingers—buried themselves in the soft tissue of the man’s throat, and the shark man’s head moved backward slightly. In an instant, Minoru pulled his right arm back with all his might. He could feel the tips of the fangs grind against the invisible shell as he somehow managed to pull his arm out. In that moment, the upper and lower jaws crashed together with violent intensity and orange sparks flew through the soundless world. This time the massive jaws came at him determined to latch onto his head, but Minoru evaded them by leaning to the left. With the same force, Minoru dealt a blow to the Biter’s side with his right knee. The moment the pressure on him lessened, Minoru rolled out from under the man and freed himself. He stood up, ran like he was going to go around behind the shark man, and put some distance between himself and the other man. He could still breathe, but it was difficult. Was the oxygen inside the shell actually close to running out? He couldn’t lose consciousness now, so he was forced to remove the protective shell. The same moment the sole of his running shoe touched the steel sheeting, the thick stench of the Ruby Eye that had been growing all this time pressed in on him. “…!” It made him want to stop breathing involuntarily, but he endured it and took a deep breath. Finally, the shark man staggered back to his feet and turned around. His height had grown as much as his head had enlarged, and he was probably at least 190 centimeters now. The muscles of his arms and legs had swollen as well, and the sleeves of his suit and the seams of his slacks were ripped in places. He had long ago lost his tie, and the buttons of his dress shirt had popped off all the way down to his stomach. The exposed muscles of his chest were just like that of a bodybuilder…no, a wild animal. Even with more than five meters separating the two of them, he was overwhelmed by the man’s physical power to destroy. Minoru picked up on it in the air. He inhaled another big breath and tried to activate the protective shell again. But just a moment before he could, the Biter gave a twisted smile and spoke. “Hah-hah-hah… It’s too bad I can’t see myself…” It was an inhuman voice, a mix of hoarse bass notes and a lot of scraping noises. The form of the lips and teeth and tongue was indeed completely different from that of a human, so the words themselves were irrational. The monster, who seemed to have crawled out of a nightmare, went on speaking as he stared at Minoru with eyes that shone with a strange red luster. “It almost makes me want to have you take a picture of me with your cell phone. Even if I told you what I ate to become like this, you probably wouldn’t believe me, hah-hah.” The shark’s mouth sneered. The exposed fangs gleamed viciously. “By the way, ragazzo, I wonder if you know how many kilograms per tooth the occlusion strength…that is to say, the bite strength, of humans is?” “…” He gave his head a small shake. At this, the shark held up the index finger of his right hand professorially. “Well, then, I’ll tell you. For an adult male, it’s about sixty kilograms, although there are individual differences. For lions, it’s four hundred kilograms. For crocodiles and hippos, it reaches one thousand kilograms. Those are about the highest numbers for land animals.” “…Are you trying to say that your bite strength is around that much?” Minoru asked in a hoarse voice. The Biter sneered again. “Unfortunately, land creatures and such are irrelevant. The largest of the rulers of the sea, tiger sharks and great white sharks, have an occlusion strength of two thousand kilograms. You could say they are the strongest among modern animals… But as far as extinct species, there are some that surpassed them. “The well-known dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex apparently had an occlusion strength of five thousand kilograms. How extraordinary.” “What’s your point?!” Minoru shouted. He couldn’t stand listening to the scholarly lines coming out of the shark man’s mouth amid this nightmarish spectacle. He did have reasons to want to use up time, but he was also worried about Norie laid out there on the beam in midair. If the sleeping pills wore off and she woke up in a panic, she might fall from the beam. But the Biter wagged the index finger he was holding up and continued speaking further. “Don’t be in such a hurry, ragazzo… Now then, did the strongest occlusion strength in history belong to T. rex? The answer is indeed no. In the oceans 5.5 million years earlier, there was a king that boasted an actual occlusion strength of fifteen thousand kilograms, three times that of T. rex. That’s around fifteen tons per fang, probably enough to easily tear through even the thick skin of whales. Even you have probably heard of it. That absolute ruler was the most powerful shark and had a length of a little over ten meters…Carcharocles megalodon!” His voice suddenly growing louder, the Biter shouted, “And now! The extinct Megalodon has risen above eternity and been resurrected! …In other words, as me—!!” The man’s feet dashed against the steel plating with a bang. The Biter sprang at Minoru with a speed unimaginable for such a massive body. Bounding to the left to avoid him, Minoru activated his ability again. But this time, he wasn’t certain that the protective shell would be able to keep those fearsomely huge teeth at bay. He could no longer use the strategy of attacking with his fists as he let the man bite him as much as he wanted. If I make it home alive, I should find a way to look into just how many tons of force the shell can withstand. After considering this somewhere in the corner of his mind, he shook the thoughts away. Right now he needed to focus on ways to defeat the monster that was right in front of him. If the Biter’s weapons were jaws that could bite through even iron, Minoru’s weapons were his fists covered by the shell. On top of being able to punch without worrying about damage to his wrists or the bones of his hands, his fists were as hard as steel. Because of this, he could expect them to exert about as much power as a hit with a large hammer—if they connected. “Wh…whoa!” Minoru had stuck out a fist as he came around on the Biter’s right side, but it flew through only air. The Biter had jumped out of the way in an agile movement. Minoru narrowly avoided the fangs that came at him a moment later. He swung his fist at the man once more, but he dodged it again. He was aware that the big swings of his punches revealed him to be inexperienced. But Minoru, who really was a complete amateur, didn’t have the faintest idea of how to punch. Little by little, the Biter began to evade Minoru’s punches with room to spare, while Minoru began getting scraped by the Biter’s fangs. If things went on like this, he’d get caught eventually. A weapon. Didn’t he have any other weapons aside from his fists? Kicks would probably be more powerful than punches, but they were out of the question. He’d either fall over the moment he kicked or his leg would be bitten. If things were going to be like this, should he have brought a kitchen knife from home? No, if he put on the shell while holding a knife, it would be flung inward and he might cut himself. What am I going to do? What can I— As he barely continued to attack and defend, Minoru had at some point been driven to the eastern edge of the huge roof. He couldn’t go back any farther. Possibly realizing this, the Biter spread his arms wide and closed the gap between him and Minoru little by little. He wouldn’t be able to dodge the next attack. If he jumped back, he would fall to the terrace on the highest floor or to the road surrounding Saitama Super Arena if he really messed things up. From this location, it would probably be about a sixty-meter fall… Wait. Hadn’t he already thought this through earlier? And from the other way around? That was right. He did still have a weapon. A huge one that left no chance for escape. Squatting down, he glanced to the right. As if sensing that Minoru would try to escape that way, the Biter shifted his center of gravity as Minoru dove at him in one leap. Norie, I’m coming right back, so just stay there for a little bit longer!! As he spoke to his beloved sister inside his heart, Minoru bent his knees and pounced on the Biter. Pushing off from the plating of the roof as hard as he could with both feet, he leaped straight back. Right on the verge of sinking his teeth into Minoru’s face, the Biter’s eyes grew huge. He stuck his left hand out behind him, but it was already too late. Intertwined, the two men who possessed Third Eyes shot off the edge of the roof. Absolute faith in his own power. Takaesu in Megalodon mode had that unshakable faith, but he hadn’t thought that the boy did as well. His reason for thinking this was that the boy had made awkward escape after awkward escape, not allowing his shell to be bitten. That’s why Takaesu hadn’t imagined this. He hadn’t imagined that the boy would actually fling himself off a roof sixty meters high, taking Takaesu with him. “Graaa!” Takaesu roared in a mixture of rage and horror as he desperately tried to grab hold of the roof’s edge. But his outstretched fingers only grazed the concrete beam. Directly below the roof, there was a terrace on the top floor that connected to the emergency stairs. But with this amount of force, they would fly past it and fall all the way to the ground dozens of meters farther down. When he’d chosen the roof of Saitama Super Arena as the location for the battle, he had of course considered the risk of falling. However, be that as it may, the roof was about thirty thousand square meters wide. As long as they fought in the center of it, there would be no way to fall, and the boy wasn’t likely to go near the edge, either. He couldn’t believe that, despite his predictions, he’d gotten so absorbed in the hunt that he drove the boy to the edge…or that the boy had sprung on him without Takaesu seeing through his plan to take them both down together. How foolish. How foolish. Had even his brain actually become that of a shark? It was too late for regrets. Somehow, he had to minimize the damage from the fall. To do that, he could use the boy as a cushion… No, no, that wasn’t right. The boy was wrapped in a shell harder than iron. If Takaesu fell on top of that it would double the impact. He had to get away from the boy. He had to get away and fall on top of the bushes or the trees lining the street. After running through all of those thoughts in an instant, Takaesu tried to push off the boy who clung to him. But the boy’s arms had a tight hold on him and Takaesu couldn’t peel them away. The ground was coming up fast already. The spot where they were falling was a wide sidewalk bordering the eastern edge of Saitama Super Arena. He wouldn’t be able to avoid smashing into the asphalt. The only thing he could do now was believe in the power the eye had given him…no, in the power he had found on his own within himself. He would endure it. He would survive. “Grrooooo!!” As he released a fierce roar at the rapidly approaching ground, Takaesu stiffened all of the muscles in his body. Impact. First, everything he could see turned a pure white, then immediately went black. Since the Biter had twisted his body right before they hit, Minoru landed on the road on his left shoulder. There was the feeling of a sudden slowing and the feeling of pressure as if the core of his body was being pushed on. That was all. He’d made a huge crater in the asphalt, yet Minoru hadn’t even felt an impact, let alone pain. The invisible protective shell had completely blocked the fatal blow to Minoru’s body that a sixty-meter vertical drop would have dealt him. What in the world is this shell? This was the first time that Minoru had felt something akin to fear about his ability, but even that was only for an instant. Right now, he was nothing but thankful. Because the Biter, who’d fallen at the same time on his right shoulder, was lying a little way away on the road, unmoving. An inky black pool of blood was spreading out underneath his massive body. The tips of his hands and feet alone were convulsing with irregular twitches. He was dead—or was he? Had the “weapon that left no chance for escape” Minoru used—in other words, the asphalt-covered ground—destroyed the Ruby Eye who was so proud of his menacing power and toughness? That would mean I killed him. The realization came on him suddenly, and he deactivated his power without thinking. The soles of his shoes stepped on asphalt debris, making a gritty, crunching noise. There should have been an unbelievably deafening noise when they fell, but a complete silence hung over the world. On the right was the wall of Saitama Super Arena. On the left was a road hemmed in by train tracks. Geographically, the only ones who would enter this road were cars headed for Saitama Super Arena’s underground parking lot, and the parking lot had already closed quite a few hours ago. There was no sign of security guards or police running over, either. Minoru stood still for a while, hearing only the sound of the northerly wind shaking the leaves on the trees lining the street. Fight the Biter and take him down… He had intended to harden his resolve to do just that. But now he realized that he hadn’t been prepared enough to consider what it meant to take him down. Unconsciously, he had been avoiding the word kill. It had been the same as a message in an RPG to defeat a monster, to punish it. Ultimately, Minoru hadn’t been able to look reality full in the face until the very end… As he thought this, Minoru cautiously took one step toward the Biter, then another. The Ruby Eye was lying facedown. His head was still the sharply pointed one of a shark. Even the hair that remained on the back of his head had become blue and needlelike. If he was going to stay like this, not returning to his human form, how could his body be disposed of? And was it even Minoru’s responsibility? But how would he do it? As Minoru considered this, taking another step forward, it happened. He heard a weak yet strange sound. Crack, crack, crack. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Like something hard being crushed. No, to be precise—like something hard being crushed by teeth. “—!!” His eyes widening in horror, Minoru jumped back a step. A moment later, the Biter’s huge body moved as if it were on a spring. When his sturdy right arm slid out like a serpent and grabbed Minoru’s right ankle, Minoru flung it off with all his might. Without even time to put on the shell, he plunged backward into the bushes between the sidewalk and the roadway. Minoru couldn’t get up immediately. Right before his eyes, the Ruby Eye he had just believed to be dead dragged himself up. He had taken serious damage. There was no doubt about that. His white shirt was dark with blood, and blood still dripped from his lower jaw. But something else was also dropping to the ground. The Biter’s mouth kept making tiny movements, and from the corners of it, fine little pieces fell one after another. Crunch, crunch, crack, crack. He was eating. The street. Lumps of asphalt. When Minoru looked, there was a large hole at the Biter’s feet. It wasn’t one that had been created by the man’s fall. He had bitten it open with his massive fangs. “…Cattivo,” the Biter spat. Minoru couldn’t even identify what language the word was from. The shark man lifted his face, and the edges of his mouth twisted in a smile. “…Well, I suppose there are similarities between the main component of asphalt, hydrocarbon, and the main component of rice and bread, carbohydrate. Once you eat them, isn’t it all the same?” “…You can’t… No matter how much of a shark you are, there’s no way you could digest asphalt…,” Minoru muttered blankly, still toppled over. As he did so, the countless lacerations carved into the Biter’s upper body closed up little by little. His ability to recover was unbelievable. “Ha-ha… Don’t underestimate a shark’s power of digestion. Sharks can also recover from wounds that would instantly kill any other fish,” the Biter claimed as if he had read Minoru’s thoughts. “…But it is true that a fall from that height was a bit much to bear… It would be an annoyance to climb up there again; should I have you reschedule for a new time and place? You can just keep lying there.” Turning to face the other way, the Biter started walking slowly. As far as Minoru could tell from the way he was avoiding using his right shoulder and dragging his right foot, there was definitely still remaining damage. In the direction the Biter was heading was the slope that continued down to the underground parking lot. Did he have his car parked inside? If he took the car, there was obviously no way Minoru could catch him by running. Minoru should finish him off while he was hurt. If he lost sight of him here, he would probably go after Tomomi or Norie once his wounds were healed. Even though he understood that in his mind, Minoru stayed buried in the bushes, unable to move. He wouldn’t be taking him down, he would be killing him. Although he was this strangely formed shark man now, Minoru would be taking the life of someone who had started off human. The weight of that action pressed down on Minoru and drained the power from his limbs. I can’t do it. There’s no way I could kill a person. I never once considered something like that. I didn’t even imagine it. That’s why it’s impossible. I can’t fight any more than this. And even the Biter might have been just a normal person before he had encountered the Third Eye. If mental interference affected him and he was forced to kill people in a so-called brainwashed state, then do I have the right to punish him for those sins? That’s right… I can’t do it. Whether it’s the Biter or anyone else, taking someone’s life by my own choice… That’s not something I’m… No. That was wrong. There was just one person who Minoru could kill without a moment’s hesitation if he had the chance. Minoru had within him a murderous intent that would never disappear no matter how much time passed. The perpetrator who took the lives of his father, mother, and sister. The perpetrator who hadn’t been caught even after eight years had passed. Minoru didn’t know what they looked like or what their name was or even their gender, but whatever the person was like and whatever the circumstances were, that was the only person he could kill. He wanted to kill them. He wanted to kill them in the most brutal way possible. The Biter had done the same thing. He himself said that he had already killed four people before he attacked Tomomi Minowa. Whether he was or was not being manipulated by the Third Eye, that didn’t change those facts. The victims probably had families, too. Families pushed down into the same abyss of grief, anguish, and despair as Minoru. It did have something to do with him. It did matter. Even if he didn’t have the right, Minoru had the duty. The duty to take down—no, kill—the Biter here and prevent him from taking the next victim. The Biter had already finished descending the gentle slope and was now making his way into the parking lot. The lot’s business hours were over, so the interior was pitch-black. His huge back sunk down slowly into the darkness— Balling up his fists and clenching his back teeth, Minoru tore himself away from the bushes. He stood up. He put his left foot forward. He pushed off from the pavement with determination. He ran. He dashed down the long slope, came out through the pedestrian walkway next to the bar gate, and ran into the underground parking lot. There were almost no cars in the large space dimly lit by green emergency lights. But at the Biter’s destination was parked a large sports car with a flashy exterior. Pouring every last ounce of determination into his voice, Minoru yelled out to the large figure that swayed irregularly. “Wait!!” The strange silhouette came to a sudden stop. “Are you going to run away with your tail between your legs because of a little fall from a roof?!” The figure was briefly still, then slowly turned around. “…Run away…?” Deep in the darkness, his eyes gave off a red light. “Ha-ha-ha… What daring things you say, especially when you yourself fled in panic on the roof like a little sardine.” “Yeah. But I won’t run anymore! Right here, I’m going to…kill you!!” Minoru’s declaration reverberated through the large parking garage. The red eyes gave one slow blink. Minoru was struck by the feeling of the temperature plummeting but gathered his mental strength and continued to stand his ground. “…Kill me…? You, the prey…are going to kill me, the predator…?” The Biter took a step forward with his right foot, the sound of it solemn. “Are you saying that you, with only that single thin layer of that measly shell, are going to kill me, the truly superior species…?” Next came his left foot. The black figure was becoming larger at a speed beyond what could be accounted for by perspective. “I can’t allow that… I’ll have to teach you just how foolish and sinful those words are…” The Biter’s muscles bulged as his bones squealed. His countless fangs glinted viciously in the hazy light. “I’ll bite you… I’ll bite you…bite you, bite you, bite you, bite you, bite yoooou—!!” With this strange war cry, his massive body leaped into the air. At the same time, Minoru pushed off from the concrete floor, too. He activated the shell. He clenched his right fist as hard as he possibly could. “Waaaaaaah—!!” Minoru screamed as he drove his fist toward the shark that was descending on him from directly above. The fist wrapped in the shell smashed into the tip of the Biter’s pointed nose. The bluish-black skin split, tears radiating outward, and huge amounts of blood sprayed into the air. But after the shark turned his head to the left and deflected the fist, he opened his jaws as far as they could go and took Minoru’s entire head into his mouth. Rage. A rage like something he had never felt before—a fierce rage that surpassed even what he had felt when his mouth was being scorched by the girl’s stun baton raced through Takaesu’s entire body. Was it because he’d gotten caught up in the boy’s plan and taken an unsightly fall? Was it because he’d been in such a mess that he’d eaten asphalt to heal his wounds? Was it because the boy had rained those disgraceful words down on him, saying that he’d fled with his tail between his legs? It was, and it wasn’t. This rage had existed deep in Takaesu many hours before…since the time he’d raided the boy’s house and abducted that woman, the boy’s adoptive sister. Truthfully, he’d intended to kill her right away. Compressing her carotid sinus would do nothing more than knock her out for a few minutes. This time he would be passing through the center of an urban area, so it would be a nuisance if she came to in the trunk of the car. He would be killing the boy right away anyway, so as long as she seemed to be alive when looked at from a distance—no, even if the boy spotted that she was dead, it wouldn’t be much of a problem. But once he had silently chewed through the key cylinder, opened the door to slip inside, and stood behind the woman as she made dinner preparations in the kitchen, Takaesu was overcome by a certain indescribable sensation. He hadn’t even been able to recall what he came there to do. As she checked the heat of the gas stove where she’d placed a frying pan, she spoke to Takaesu in a bright voice as he stood there behind her. “Welcome back, Mii. You came in so quietly today. Wait just a minute; I’ll get dinner ready right away.” In reality, Takaesu probably stood frozen behind her for only about a second. But in that second, he felt waves of confusion and turmoil like he’d never experienced before. It might have had something to do with the atmosphere that filled that space. The smell of freshly cooked rice billowing out from the rice cooker. The light sound of oil popping in the frying pan. The apron strings swaying along the woman’s small back. The atmosphere that these things came together to create should have been something unreachable for Takaesu. Still, he was enveloped by the sensation that he had returned home from a place that was cold and dark. Someone was speaking to him with a smile on her face as she sat in a chair on the other side of the table, which would soon be set with rows of dishes. As a reward for getting 100 percent, I made your favorite spaghetti and meatballs today, Hika. Eat a lot and chew it well… Once he had become aware of things again, Takaesu had his right arm wrapped around the woman’s neck and was carefully pressing on her carotid sinus. When the strength soon drained from her petite body, he laid her gently on the floor. This wasn’t what he had planned. Knowing this, he tried to make himself break her cervical vertebrae, but his right hand around her thin neck could only tremble and didn’t have an ounce of strength in it. Since the red eye had come to dwell in his body, Takaesu had already taken the lives of four people. And when he’d tied up his prey on the big dining table in the basement of the villa and chewed on their bones from the feet up, he hadn’t felt a bit of hesitation. But no matter how many times he tried to put some force into his right hand, the muscles of his arm would only quiver, not obeying Takaesu’s will. The eye pounded in his lower jaw and called for him to kill her, kill her. But this voice that had always been pleasant now brought only a dull pain in the center of his head. Unable to avoid changing his plan, he’d had the vaguely conscious woman take some of his valuable barbiturate sleeping pills. Then he shoved her in the large suitcase that he had originally prepared to carry her corpse in. He went so far as to leave the zipper open a bit to keep her from suffocating. He left a message for the boy on the tablet he had found in the dining room and left the house. He piled the suitcase into the back of the minivan that he had parked nearby. The car was something that he’d stolen yesterday up north. His beloved Maserati would attract too much attention, and the trunk was small. He’d also had another motive for the trip. By the time he was gripping the steering wheel and starting to drive toward the new city center, he had stopped thinking about the reason his right hand hadn’t worked. But deep in his subconscious, he already knew. It was a fact he never wanted to admit to. The fact that he hadn’t been able to kill the woman even though he’d planned to was because he sensed in her the aura of a mother. Takaesu had killed his real mother the day he graduated from college. For twenty-two years, she had been his ruler, constantly giving him countless commands and refusals, pains and humiliations. Now he had removed her from existence. He took the plan he had perfected over time and put it in action. The moment he did, the only things that existed inside his heart were hatred and bitterness at having had his teeth pulled out with pliers. In the six years since then, he had never once regretted it. That’s why this was unacceptable. It was unacceptable for him to feel something maternal in the woman, who was nothing more than bait to lure the boy out. Because he, Hikaru Takaesu, was the superior species that had discarded all worthless emotions. Because he was a predator who swam elegantly through the city hunting humans as prey. He would prove it. After he broke open both the shell and the boy’s head, he would return to the roof of the arena and bite the woman to death as well. If he did that, Takaesu would wipe out the weakness left within him. “Garraaaa!!” Channeling an energy that was probably rage into a roar and dispersing it, Takaesu bit. And bit and bit. Every time the boy’s swinging fists hit his chest and shoulders, his muscles were crushed and his bones creaked, but he ignored the pain and continued to bite. “Grrrooooooo!!” Another hoarse howl shot from his throat. The eye in his lower jaw was pulsing stronger than it ever had before, and something hot permeated his entire mouth. The tendons and muscle connecting his upper and lower jawbones made a stretching noise as they enlarged. Takaesu’s mouth already took up more than 70 percent of his head. The fangs grew bigger and bigger. They grew thicker. The roots of his teeth penetrated deeper and deeper into the alveolar ridge so that they could endure the intense pressure. A pain shot through his nerves, worse than what he had felt when the stun baton burned him. Despite this… The boy’s shell continued blocking Takaesu’s teeth without even a sound of protest. Even if this was a supernatural phenomenon created by the eye, the shell was made of some sort of matter. So, then, was it really possible for it to take this much pressure without deforming even a little? No. It shouldn’t be. If he mustered just a little more strength…just a little more, it would certainly break. He heard a strange clicking sound coming from inside his body. Unable to take the extraordinary pressure, the bones of his jaw were cracking and being restored immediately. Tendons and muscles were being created by the same process, and every time his skin split and then closed, drops of blood went flying. And yet—the shell didn’t break. It was so hard it was unreasonable. This was certainly the final test that Takaesu would be put through. The moment he bit through the boy’s shell, the weakness in his spirit that couldn’t shake off the phantom of his mother even now would fade away. Then Takaesu could become a true predator…a real shark. That’s right, I…I am a shark. Takaesu’s favorite shark. The shark he identified with more strongly than the mako shark, which swam the fastest; the tiger shark, which could break open even sea turtle shells; and the emperor Megalodon, which was the most powerful. That was the gray nurse shark. It belonged to the order Lamniformes and the family Odontaspididae. It was a maximum of about three meters, almost never attacked humans, and had an incredibly ordinary form. But among the approximately five hundred species of sharks, there was only one characteristic that no shark but the gray nurse shark had: oophagy, cannibalism. Gray nurse shark fetuses eat not only unfertilized eggs, but also other shark embryos in their mother’s womb. Takaesu was the same. From the earliest time he could remember, his mother had told him over and over that he should have been twins, a boy and a girl. Hikaru and Akari. Apparently they’d even picked a name for her. But the only one born was Takaesu. He didn’t know what specifically had happened, but as a result of some little mishap in early pregnancy, one twin was absorbed into the other—namely, Takaesu. It was a rare phenomenon called “vanishing twin,” and it seemed to be an underlying cause of his parents’ divorce as well. Whenever she could, his mother would tell him, You have to work hard and eat enough for little Akari, too. When she was enraged, sometimes she would go as far as to say, After all, you ate her. He was in third grade when he learned about the ecology of the gray nurse shark from a field guide in the library. He had thought, It’s the same as me. I’m not human. I’ve always been a shark. That’s why I ate my sister inside Mama’s belly. If I’m a shark, it’s okay if I don’t have friends. It’s okay if I have to have sardines as a snack. I’m a shark. I’m a shark. After his mother had pulled out nearly all of his teeth with pliers, those magic words were the only thing that gave him emotional support. Sharks lost and replaced teeth endlessly throughout their lives. So someday, he’d get new teeth, too. Three months ago, the magic words had come true. And now the time to prove that truth had come. He could admit it; the boy’s shell was essentially the hardest of any material in existence. But Takaesu’s teeth were the strongest of anything ever created. When he bit the shell open, Takaesu would go over the final wall. He would shed all human weakness and human foolishness and become a real shark. “Garaaaaaaa—!!” Takaesu howled from his throat, which was starting to close up from the continuing enlargement of his muscle fibers. As his mouth continued the cycle of destruction and regeneration, a spurt of blood like a flame burst forth from it. Suddenly, all sound disappeared. It was as if even his inner ear had been converted to muscle. What do I care? Just make everything into jaws. The moment after he thought this, he felt a sensation like both eyes bursting as his vision was enveloped in darkness. The taste of blood disappeared. The metallic smell disappeared as well. The pain that made his face feel like it was burning disappeared. I’ll give it to you! I’ll give it all to you! Takaesu screamed inside himself in silence. I’ll give you everything, so take that hopelessly hard…hard… What? What am I biting? Why can’t I remember…? My brain… Even my brain is turning to muscle… The only thing that was left was the sensation of something warm pulsing in the core of his body. The pulsing intruded all the way into his brain and changed to muscle, taking away his memories and sensations. Inside Takaesu, the memory of becoming a predator three months ago disappeared. The memories of his six years of success as a gourmet food critic disappeared. The memories of going through his student days desperately hiding the fact that he had dentures disappeared. The memories of his mother pulling his teeth out with pliers, his mother making him memorize his multiplication tables, his mother making him chew on sardines, his mother praising him for getting a hundred on a test disappeared. The memories of his father giving him candy on the day they said good-bye and the memories of taking a walk with his father on the riverside as they held hands disappeared. Takaesu’s head was now nothing but an enormous mouth and a clump of muscle fibers to move it. There was a thunderous howl not belonging to a human. A huge volume of blood spurted from him. All of his muscles contracted, pushing past their limits— In the next instant, his jaw made a stuttering motion. Countless silver lights scattered, twinkling beautifully as they flew through the air. What had broken was not the boy’s shell, but the teeth that gave Takaesu his identity. Immediately after… The lump of flesh that had been the face and head and brain of the human Hikaru Takaesu burst open with violent force. Dark blood and chunks of flesh were blown outward like a waterfall. One of the teeth that was mixed in there shot into the ceiling of the parking lot and carved a deep hole in it. The body had lost the entire head, and only part of the lower jaw remained. It slid wetly down that transparent shell, which had held out to the end without so much as a sound of protest, and fell to the asphalt. He heard an irregular chattering sound. That’s strange. I should only be able to hear that bizarre heavy bass sound inside the shell, Minoru thought vaguely until he finally realized the source of the noise was his own teeth. He was completely unable to stop the shaking of any of the muscles in his body, not just those in his jaw. It was like ice water ran in his veins instead of blood. He was numb and tingly from head to toe, so much so that it was a mystery how he was still standing. This was the second time—no, maybe the third time—he’d been this close to death in his short sixteen years of life. On that night eight years ago, Minoru had been hiding in the storage compartment under the pantry floor and didn’t see the murderer’s face. Minoru had always regretted that, but after being this close to the literal “jaws of death,” he could do nothing but stand frozen in fear. The Biter’s rows of teeth that had so solidly held on to Minoru’s head were instruments of destruction. Their dull gleam concealed overwhelming power. Each of the massive teeth was like a blade honed with many layers of malice and murderous desire. He had thought it was over. That there was no way the shell could hold off that kind of power. In that short time, he even imagined how things would go the moment the shell was disabled. Would it shatter into countless fragments like glass? Would it be stretched out like rubber? Or would it pop and disappear in an instant like a bubble? And when would that time come? He would kill the Biter. Minoru had already resolved to do that much. But he hadn’t known that battling to kill or be killed would be so terrifying or so grotesque. It was a clash of naked hostility without even a shred of heroism. Of course, there was hatred inside Minoru, too. Hatred for the person who’d killed his family. Hatred for the Biter who’d tried to kill Tomomi and Norie. He didn’t think that the energy of those hatreds was weaker than the hatred the Biter aimed at him. But whether he could channel it into power was another question altogether. The Biter used hatred and murderous desire as energy to fight. This made Minoru realize that he wasn’t equipped with the circuits for that. Or maybe that was exactly the difference between Jet Eyes and Ruby Eyes. That’s why Minoru hadn’t even been able to heave a sigh of relief, let alone raise a cry of victory, when the Biter’s head caved in as if his inability to control his own excessive murderous desires imploded it, or even when the man’s massive body had collapsed to the floor as it scattered huge amounts of blood and flesh. “…This…,” Minoru whispered as he watched blood like black rain pour down on the shell that had protected him to the end. “…This…” …Isn’t a fight. That’s what he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come out. The Ruby Eye Biter was dead. His ruthless, headless corpse lay on the ground. All of the memories he had built up scattered meaninglessly and left the world. And this was indeed something Minoru had done. Even if he had only stood there, Minoru had killed the Biter using his own power. Was this the inescapable conclusion? Or did another option exist? No voice answered these questions. Minoru averted his gaze from the corpse on the floor before him and staggered up. This action sent every last drop of the blood that had pooled in a hollow of his shell dripping down to the parking lot pavement. When he deactivated the protective shell after retreating a few steps, the sick smell of blood pressed in on him and Minoru screwed up his face. He had hesitations about leaving the Biter’s body on the floor like it was, but nothing could be done about it now. He had to hurry back up to the roof of the arena and rescue Norie from atop the beam— The violently expanding air beat against Minoru’s back. Then the sound of the synthetic rubber soles of someone’s shoes scraping against the asphalt echoed. He nearly put the shell on again reflexively, but stopped himself and turned around. Standing at the nearest end of the slope that led to the exit of the parking lot was the high school girl wearing a black blazer. It was Yumiko. The only thing he knew about the Jet Eye was her name. Just like three days ago, she had a large stun baton in her right hand. Running her gaze over the Biter’s body on the ground and Minoru standing far back, she brought the watch with communication capabilities to her mouth and whispered a brief message. “DD, I found him. The underground parking lot.” She dropped her left arm and jogged over with a stern expression. Her small lips moved to speak. But the one who spoke first was Minoru. He hurled words at her in a volume that surprised even him; he was almost shouting. “How can you show up when everything’s over?!” The reason Minoru had tried to use up time before beginning the fight with the Biter was that he had anticipated—no, expected—that Yumiko and DD would notice the smell of the Ruby Eye. It was selfish of Minoru to expect a rescue when he had refused to work with the two of them. He had that much self-awareness, but he just couldn’t keep himself from yelling. “Didn’t you tell me?! Didn’t you say you’d find the Biter?! So why…are you so late…!” “…” After biting her slightly parted lips harshly, Yumiko asked in a low, restrained voice, “So you fought the Biter alone? Are you all right? You’re not hurt?” The unexpected question knocked the wind out of his sails and he nodded. “…I’m not in any pain at the moment…” “I see. Just in case, I’ll make arrangements to have you taken to the hospital.” After returning the stun baton to the holster on her right leg, Yumiko started to raise the wristwatch to her mouth again. “Oh, w-wait!” he broke in hurriedly. He was hesitant to rely on her after his yelling, but he couldn’t say so. He turned his gaze to Yumiko and explained quickly. “My sister was left behind on the roof. The Biter attacked her and made her take some medicine… I have to hurry and save her, then take her to the hospital—” But Yumiko held up her left hand to interrupt the rambling Minoru, then nodded. “It’s okay, DD brought your sister down from the roof. She doesn’t have any wounds, and her vitals are strong.” “…I-I see…” He breathed a sigh of relief. Holding up her watch, Yumiko contacted someone as she walked toward Minoru. “We’re done here. The Biter is no longer active. The kid’s all right, but we’re going to have him seen to just in case. Bring the car around to the underground parking lot once you’ve recovered the rescue target.” After ending the call, she turned her gaze to the strange figure of the body on the ground a little way off. Next, she looked up at the roof, making an expression as if she had been convinced of something. “The car will come right away… I’d like to confirm something, just in case… The Biter… You were the one who…?” “…Yes. I’m the one who…killed him.” “Huh,” she answered briefly. Yumiko looked straight at Minoru. He did his best to look back into her eyes, so deep and dark they seemed to see straight down to the bottom of his soul. He thought she would probably reprimand him like she had three days ago. That was because, although he had let his emotions get the better of him when he shouted at Yumiko earlier, he was aware that 70 percent of what had brought on Norie’s abduction by the Biter was his own negligence and thoughtlessness. But Yumiko defied his expectations, her long hair swinging as she bowed low. “I’m sorry. We’re in the wrong this time. Yesterday, the Biter broke into a construction company in Kumagaya. There was no one there since it was Sunday, but one car was stolen. DD and I interpreted this as him escaping to the north, so we took Route 17 up there… But today we finally realized it was a feint and came back. Judging him to be an impulsive-type Ruby Eye because of the tendencies associated with his MO and ability was our mistake…” “…” This was a drastic change compared to three days ago. Minoru was confused by Yumiko’s attitude, which could even be considered admirable. His rage from a few minutes ago seemed to have completely dissipated as he listened to her explain. In its place, a doubt rose up in his mind. “But…you have a so-called teleportation ability, don’t you? If you used that, couldn’t you have transported yourself in an instant…?” he asked. At this, Yumiko gave a faint, wry smile and shook her head. “My power is different than what you’d call teleportation. How can I put it…? It amplifies my ability to accelerate and just moves me straight ahead. I can’t go through obstacles or anything, so there’s no way I could use it to travel long distances. If I collided with a building or a car while accelerating, I’d probably die.” Minoru nodded, thinking that was probably why she hadn’t been able to chase the Biter as he ran through the bushes three days earlier. “So… That’s what it is, huh? The Third Eye abilities are kind of…useful and inconvenient at the same time…,” Minoru muttered, thinking of how he couldn’t hear any sound from outside the protective shell when he activated it. “Just what standards are used to determine the powers…” “Oh, that… It’s based on the memories of the Third Eye’s host…,” Yumiko began to say, looking down. The sound of an engine coming down the slope interrupted the conversation. What appeared was an ordinary black minivan. After the van entered the underground parking lot, the engine stopped and the driver’s side door opened. DD jumped down wearing a camo-print vest just like the one he had on three days ago, although this one seemed to be a black-and-gray one for night missions. He slightly lifted the brim of a baseball cap in the same color and beckoned to Minoru once he had seen him. Yumiko nodded, too, so Minoru jogged over to the car. When DD opened the left rear sliding door, Minoru’s eyes flew to the petite figure laying on top of the fully folded-down rear seats. “…Norie!” he shouted in a strangled voice, bending his upper body into the car. After clutching her in his arms frantically and bringing her out of the car, he knelt down on the floor and spoke to her again. “Norie… Are you okay? Norie!” The body of his adoptive sister, wrapped in a light Windbreaker to maintain her body temperature, was shockingly light. Her eyelids were still closed and her face looked white as a sheet under the emergency lights. He had a feeling that her lips moved ever so slightly at Minoru’s voice, but she didn’t regain consciousness. “She’s still under the influence of the sleeping meds right now, but there’s no danger to her life, kid,” DD said. Clapping Minoru on the shoulder as if to reassure him, DD walked over to the Biter’s body on the ground a little way away. He peered into the huge open wound and then looked up to the ceiling. As if he understood what had happened from this alone, he bowed his head with the same serious attitude as Yumiko. “Sorry, kid… And thank you. We’ll make our apologies and acknowledgments again another time. First, we gotta get you and your sister to the hospital. You okay with letting us pick the location like we usually do?” “Y…yes.” When Minoru nodded, DD turned his gaze to Yumiko. “I asked the chief to collect the Biter’s body. He was just on his way to the hospital, so I’m having him drop by here first. I think he’ll be here in like twenty minutes, so can ya stand by here till then, Yumii?” For a moment, Yumiko made a disgusted face at the thought of being left in a dark underground parking lot with a corpse, but she nodded in compliance. “All right. For now, just hurry up and take these two to the hospital.” “Got it, got it.—Oh yeah, just a quick check first to be sure. Kid, the Biter’s Third Eye disengaged, right?” “D-disengaged?” Unaware of what the word meant, Minoru tilted his head. “Disengaging is a phenomenon where, after a host dies, the Third Eye leaves the body and floats into the sky as it glows,” Yumiko explained. “It nearly always happens the moment the heart stops.” “Uh…into the sky…?” Minoru muttered as he looked up. Yumiko and DD looked up just the same. The ceiling, covered in concrete and exposed piping, had a dark hole with a diameter of about five centimeters bored into it. But it wasn’t the Third Eye that had made it. Bringing his face back down, Minoru spoke as he recalled his memories of a few minutes earlier. “Um…the Biter’s head was blown off in front of me… His body collapsed just like that… But I don’t think there were any glowing things flying around…” Hearing this, Yumiko’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, but there’s a hole there.” “One of the Biter’s teeth that was blown off embedded itself in there and left the mark. See, if you look closely, you can see something silvery deep in—” Before Minoru could finish his sentence, Yumiko yelled, “This is bad, DD, it didn’t disengage! We have to extract the Third Eye fast or…!” Simultaneously, the three of them looked at the headless corpse of the Biter laying a little way off. The head was still missing. But at some point, it had stopped being a corpse. The right arm, bent at a strange angle, was trembling as its fingers dug into the pavement. It was trying to lift up the torso. Unable to believe what was happening right before his eyes, Minoru just blinked over and over as he clutched Norie’s body to him tightly. But the thing that used to be the Biter’s corpse didn’t stop moving. It tried to distance its torso from the ground with awkward movements, the joints of its arm making disgusting crunching noises. The bleeding from the neck had mostly stopped already. A large amount of viscous liquid oozed from the massive lower jaw, half of which remained, covering the exposed cross section. Foamy pink bubbles continued to rise up and then burst; was it because air was going in and out of the trachea? “…But… It doesn’t even have a head…,” Minoru whispered in a hoarse voice. The Biter had compared himself to a shark. But there was no way any shark could live after losing its brain. Despite this, the thing that had been a corpse just a few dozen seconds earlier was moving more and more intensely. Finally, even its legs were shaking, and once the soles of its shoes touched the ground, it tried to stagger to its feet. Thick new flesh was rising from the place where the head had come off, fusing with what remained of the lower jaw as it widened into a shape that resembled a trumpet. Minoru thought it looked exactly like the mouth of a lamprey—but immediately after this crossed his mind, countless sharp teeth grew in, bursting through the writhing flesh. With a whoosh, air mixed with a mist of blood erupted from the dark hole that had been the Biter’s esophagus. Every time the broad chest moved like a bellows, blood that had flowed into the trachea was expelled. After these motions continued for a few seconds, the thing that had been the Biter suddenly stopped moving. Underneath the round “mouth,” some of the flesh moved around, wet with mucus— Deep within the flesh that had divided into left and right like a vertically opening eyelid, it was just as if a red, glowing orb was showing its face. Even Minoru immediately understood that it was the Third Eye that had latched on to the Biter. That was definitely an eye. Its color and structure were completely different from a human eye, but he clearly felt the magnetic gaze it gave off. Next to Minoru, DD gave a low groan. “Is this…a physical transformation–type Ruby Eye doing a runaway? It’s like…a completely different creature…” “A…runaway…?” Minoru asked in return. Not looking at him, DD explained in a hoarse voice, “That’s what we call it. When a host takes a fatal wound and their heart stops, Third Eyes normally disengage right away. But in some cases when the brain takes serious damage but the body’s still fine, the Third Eye itself starts to control the body.” “What happens…after that…?” “In all the earlier cases without exception, the Ruby Eyes started to attack living things around them indiscriminately. But their hearts stopped right away because of massive blood loss and they disengaged.” “B…but his bleeding’s already stopped…” “This is the first time we’ve seen a runaway with a Ruby Eye that transformed its own body like the Biter did. The fact that it can heal wounds this bad… Seems like even if we wait…” “It seems pointless to wait,” Yumiko whispered in a resolute tone, finishing DD’s thought. “I can’t imagine it surviving for long, but this doesn’t seem like a situation where we can expect an immediate disengagement, either. We have to do something about it before that thing gets out into the city or something.” “Something…like what?” “Kill it again.” Yumiko looked at Minoru with completely calm eyes. “It’s okay, DD and I will take care of it. Get out of the parking garage with your sister.” “B…but will you be okay against that guy with only the stun baton…?” As they were talking, the monster was trying to complete even more transformations. Its arms grew thick like a bodybuilder’s, the sleeves of its suit ripped all the way to the shoulders, and the expensive-looking watch on its left wrist popped off into the air like it was nothing. The centers of its enlarged hands split horizontally, and it looked like sharp fangs were growing from there, too. It seemed like the hands alone, not to mention the round mouth on the head, could break Yumiko’s favorite stun baton with no problem. But Yumiko nodded with an expression of determination, and a faint smile played at the corners of her lips. “I’ll show you how my ability is really used,” she said, hiking her skirt far up with her right hand. A holster of a different shape from the one on her right leg was attached to the upper part of her slender left leg. From it she pulled out a large combat knife with a shing sound. The blade, imposingly thick and easily twenty centimeters long, glinted in the glow of the emergency lights. Slowly leaning forward, Yumiko whispered in a low voice, “DD, cover me.” “I’m supposed to be behind-the-scenes support, but sure…,” he grumbled. DD stuck his right hand into the bottom of his camo-print vest and, surprisingly, pulled out a small handgun. It was automatic and equipped at the end with a tube that seemed like a silencer. That’s all Minoru knew, but if DD was bringing it out in this situation, it had to be real. He took the safety off with an experienced hand and pulled back the slide with a slight shick sound. When DD whispered, “Okay,” Yumiko turned to Minoru behind her and said, “Once we start attacking, back away slowly so you don’t attract the thing’s attention. When you’ve got enough distance, go up the slope and outside.” “O-okay.”