Chapter 49

Act 1 Relict Regalia 1 “A mountain! A huge mountain!” “Mt. Fuji? That’s Mt. Fuji, isn’t it?” “Let me see! Kyouta, Kiri, swap places with me!” The kids’ loud voices rang out alongside the sound of the running train. Iroha Mamana’s siblings, the nine-year-old-trio of Honoka, Kyouta, and Kiri, clung to the windowsill of the Yáo Guāng Xīng and exclaimed in joy at the scenery beyond the glass pane. “If you’re going to be that noisy, go somewhere else. We’re still eating over here.” Twelve-year-old Rinka Takio and another one of the siblings reproached the kids. It was her role as the dependable one to discipline the children in place of Iroha, who was too lenient. As she said, the dining hall in the Yáo Guāng Xīng was full, with over ten operators on break having lunch. However, they were all quite forgiving, and no one looked irritated by the children’s squeals. Galerie Berith’s destination this time was Kyoto, where they’d meet with a member of the Heavenly Imperial family: Karura Myoujiin. She had personally invited Lazarus Yahiro Narusawa, and medium of the fire dragon Avaritia, Iroha Mamana. Naturally, the intention wasn’t to fight, nor to compete with a different private military company. Having heard that, the operators looked calmer than usual. “I know how they feel, though. The view from the train is so exciting,” Ren Sumita, age eleven, whispered to himself. He normally looked mature for his age, but as he looked out the window, his eyes were lit up with childlike curiosity. It had been about four years since Japan collapsed. Ren was among the oldest of the siblings, but not even he had many memories of traveling by train. Travel on the heavily armored train couldn’t exactly be called comfortable, but it was an invaluably unique experience for them. Ren was being honest when he described it as exciting. “Ha-hah. You know it. Railways are so great. This huge lump of metal is not just a method of transport, but an accumulation of human history and culture. Don’t you agree, Yahiro?” Captain Josh Keegan amicably placed his hand on Yahiro’s shoulder. “I don’t know about their historical and cultural importance, but I love that they take me long distances. Also, Shen’s food is amazing.” Yahiro casually changed the subject while pretending to answer Josh’s question. Josh was a very helpful man, perhaps due to his former work as a policeman, but he was also a huge railway nerd, to the point of it being a character flaw. He loved the Yáo Guāng Xīng in particular, and he had even been involved in its design, so he wouldn’t shut up once he started talking about trains. Yahiro, quite frankly, could not be troubled to listen to his ramblings. “Food is definitely a big part of enjoying long journeys.” Josh nodded and smiled wryly. Kyoto was about five hundred kilometers from the Galerie’s Yokohama headquarters. The trip would have only taken two and a half hours in the age of the high-speed bullet train. Even a trip via regular trains would’ve only taken half a day. However, now that all the Japanese were gone, it took much longer. Without anyone to manage the railroads, Galerie Berith had to operate the switches on their own, watch out for the roads’ conditions, and remove any obstructions. Their arrival in Kyoto was estimated to be in seventy-two hours. Or later if they had to take out any Moujuu that emerged on the way. It was an undeniable fact that food was the greatest pleasure for the operators in the meantime. Although the Yáo Guāng Xīng was cramped, it had a decent dining hall, and the Galerie’s chef, Ji-Hwan Shen, served excellent dishes. Iroha’s siblings had been permitted to join the Galerie’s trip to Kyoto because they were expected to help in the kitchen, too. “It’s a real luxury, actually. Getting to see the scenery while having lunch,” whispered Iroha with a joyful expression as she stuffed her cheeks full of malassada, a Portuguese fried dough sprinkled with sugar. Today’s menu included those malassadas and a Brazilian acai smoothie bowl. Iroha turned out to be a huge fan of the malassada and went back for seconds and thirds. “Oh, you’re not eating, Yahiro? What’s the point of getting it freshly fried if you let it get cold?” “I’m okay. You eat it for me, so it doesn’t go to waste.” “Whoa! Really?!” Iroha blinked as Yahiro offered her his plate. Yahiro had only eaten a bit of his acai bowl and left the malassadas mostly untouched. Iroha looked more confused than happy. “That’s not fair, Mama!” “You said there was no more!” “We wanted more!” “Pipe down, you three. Just ask Iroha to share my piece… Uh, what’re you doing?” The nine-year-old trio protested Yahiro’s present to Iroha, and he tried to shoo them away in vexation, but then Iroha placed a hand on his forehead. “Are you okay, Yahiro? You didn’t finish your meal yesterday, did you? Are you sick? Feverish?” “I’m just not hungry. It’s no big deal.” Yahiro gasped at the sudden proximity of her face. Josh and the other operators grinned at the sight of him, but Iroha didn’t notice and only drew closer. “That’s not okay. You’re looking pale, too.” “You’re seeing things. And stop it already. What’re you, my mother?” “Don’t call me that! Say I’m your sister instead!” Iroha huffed indignantly. Yahiro sighed. “Forget about me and worry about your real sister.” “My sister? Oh, Ayaho?” Iroha’s eyes widened for a moment before she smiled softly. “She’ll be fine. Her fever’s down, but she’s fatigued. No surprise after all that happened.” “Yeah.” Yahiro nodded. Iroha’s sister, Ayaho Sashou, was attacked by a Fafnir soldier before being saved by Acedia’s medium, Sumika Kiyotaki, and her Lazarus, Zen Sagara—who proceeded to kidnap her. They used her as a hostage to draw Yahiro out, and he had draconized and gone on a rampage. It had been four days since. Ayaho was only fourteen, so it wasn’t strange for her to have become unwell as a consequence of the experience. Yahiro couldn’t help but feel responsible, too, as he had played a significant role in the whole mess. As wrinkles appeared in Yahiro’s expression unconsciously, Iroha yelped. “Hey! That’s my malassada!” Kyouta and Honoka had snatched her malassada while her attention was on Yahiro. Iroha immaturely chased her siblings with a scowl on her face. “It’s not yours, it’s Yahiro’s!” “And you already had thirds!” “You shouldn’t be eating that much. Your belly’s gonna show in your livestream today.” “Ugh… I hate that you’re right…” Iroha stopped at Kiri’s warning. She glared at her siblings with envy, put her hands on her stomach, and sighed as the kids gobbled up the bread. Her stream outfit was quite revealing, so she needed to mind her figure. “Stream? You’re doing one on the train?” Yahiro gave her a puzzled glance. The acoustics of the Yáo Guāng Xīng, a military vehicle, were the worst for videos. There couldn’t be a reason to do one in these conditions, no matter how addicted Iroha was to streaming. Yet, she nodded with a serious expression. “I want everyone to know about the Moujuu. I should make the best use of my rising subscriber count.” “Wait…you’re going to publicly announce that the Moujuu are all human?” Yahiro’s voice hardened. The operators in the dining hall feigned disinterest while eavesdropping on their conversation. “We can’t keep quiet about it. You realize the supposedly extinct Japanese people are actually alive, right?” “But turned into Moujuu.” “Shocking, right, Nuemaru?” Iroha said while picking up the Moujuu at her feet. The puppy-sized white beast looked at her with annoyance for interrupting its nap. “Could it be you were also a human before?” she asked the white Moujuu while forcefully rubbing her cheek against it. Hearing that made Yahiro feel like he was about to faint. He staggered and leaned against the wall of the dining hall while subconsciously grinding his teeth. Sweat ran down his back. His throat closed up and left him unable to breathe. The small Moujuu in Iroha’s arms filled him with terror. “Yahiro?! What’s wrong?!” Iroha panicked as she noticed Yahiro’s pale expression. With Nuemaru still in her arms, she ran over to him. “Don’t mind me. I’m just getting motion sick.” “How can I not mind you? You should see your face. Here, take my seat instead. You’ll feel better facing the direction we’re traveling in, right?” “I’m fine, just keep quiet. You screaming in my ear makes me feel worse.” “Ah, sorry.” She hung her head. Yahiro felt bad about souring her mood. She shouldn’t have to worry about him. His sense of guilt had nothing to do with her. He brought it all upon himself. So, Yahiro changed the subject. “You got the twins’ permission for the stream?” “Well, Rosé didn’t seem completely on board. Giuli said it was okay if I managed to post it, though.” Iroha pouted. “Huh,” Yahiro replied. Weird way to phrase that, Giuli, he thought. 2 After that, Iroha took some time to get ready for the stream before sitting in front of the camera with an unusually stiff expression. She kept touching her wig to adjust the ears and her bangs, trying to distract herself from the anxiety. “Gosh, I’m so nervous.” Iroha’s smile was forced, but she proceeded with her vocal exercises. Under the effects of the dragon, humans had turned into Moujuu. The information itself was dangerous; it could plunge the world into a panic. Iroha wasn’t unrelated to that event, being a dragon medium herself. She could even be accused of causing the Moujuufications. She was aware of this and still decided to make it public; how could she not be nervous? The anxiety infected Yahiro and Rinka, too. “You could just…not do it. It doesn’t have to be you making it public,” Yahiro said, unable to stand the tension in the air any longer. Iroha shook her head and smiled. “Maybe, but there are soldiers out there fighting Moujuu as we speak. We could stop unnecessary conflict if we let everyone know they’re human.” “You’re doing it to protect the Moujuu?” “No? I’m doing it to protect all human lives.” Iroha looked back at Yahiro with a baffled expression after his comment. Yahiro clenched his fists in silence. Yes. The Moujuu were human. But few people would be able to accept the fact as easily as Iroha had. After the J-nocide, armies all over the world sent troops to Japan, and had been killing millions of Moujuu since. Accepting that the Moujuu were human would mean accepting that those armies had slaughtered millions of people. And Yahiro was no exception. During his four years living in the 23 Wards, he killed innumerable Moujuu. He did not do it for sport or anything, but that did not change the fact that he had massacred them. Iroha’s words reminded him of that painful fact and made him feel like a serial killer. Unaware of his inner conflict, though, Iroha looked back at her phone’s camera and booted up the streaming app. After Douji Yamase’s exposé on her, her channel had surpassed five hundred thousand subscribers. There were already two thousand people waiting for the stream to begin, too, because she had advertised it multiple times before. “Waooon. Hi everywaon, Iroha Waon here.” Iroha did her usual greeting less energetically than normal. Her viewers immediately reacted to her unusual mood. Words of confusion filled the chat. Upon seeing this, Iroha steeled herself and paused to take a deep breath. “I have an important announcement to make today. It’s about the current state of the Japanese people. I’m sorry to bring up such a serious topic out of nowhere, but you see, the Japanese people that were thought to have died in the J-nocide four years ago… they’re, u-uh… What?” As she stared at the phone’s screen, confusion quickly replaced Iroha’s serious expression in the middle of her explanation. Rinka, who was in charge of the lighting, whispered: “What’s wrong, Iroha?” “I dunno. The screen began buffering all of a sudden… The app didn’t crash, so what happened? We still have internet, right?” Iroha asked as she stared at the unresponsive phone. Iroha was using a military connection using a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite. The connection remained stable even on the train. If it wasn’t the app itself freezing, then it would have to be an issue with the website’s servers. “I’ll reboot it, gimme a sec… Wait, wha—?” Iroha stopped the stream and tried restarting the app, but she froze when a message appeared. Her eyes grew wide in shock. “No way! Why?! Whaaa?!” “Iroha?” “They…banned my account…” “Banned? They deleted your account?” Rinka asked in confusion. Iroha nodded weakly, tapping away at her phone on the verge of tears. Yahiro took out his own phone and looked up Waon’s channel, but he only found a cold message saying the channel he was looking for didn’t exist. “What the…? Why? No, no… Now all my old videos are gone, too… No freaking way!”