“This is why I said I wish I didn’t have to…do it!” Josh stared at him, mouth agape, as he forcefully pulled out the knife. The blade was entirely covered in sticky, lustrous blood. Then Bā Xià roared. Its giant eyes stared at Yahiro’s bloody blade. Murderous rage dominated its expression. Rage, hatred, and fear. “We’re going full throttle! Everyone hang on to something!” Giuli grabbed the helm before any of the operators could wrap their heads around what was happening, and she merrily accelerated without hesitation. “We’re doing this?” Josh shrieked. “You’re going down, turtle!” Yahiro leaped off the bow without much run-up. Parts of the riverbank of the Sumida were collapsing, abandoned boat remains and timber floating all over the Moujuu nest. Yahiro used them as a foothold on his way to Bā Xià. The Moujuu lost track of him, its jaws vainly chomping the air. Giuli’s boat collided with the beast but managed not to capsize. Yahiro stabbed Bā Xià’s shoulder with his knife and used it as support to climb on its back. Starting from the stab wound, Bā Xià’s body began to change. Black miasma shot out of it like blood, and its skin—capable of resisting grenade explosions—began to crumble. The damage was limited, however. The affected area on the Moujuu’s huge body was too small, comparatively—far from a lethal wound. “Should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy against a big guy.” Bā Xià rampaged. Yahiro gripped its back so it couldn’t buck him off, then slashed his left arm once more. Yahiro’s blood was poisonous to the Moujuu. He did not want Rosé et al knowing, but defeating Bā Xià without this power was not possible. He wounded the beast’s back once again with his bloody blade, then poured the fluid flowing from his wrist into the cut. “How’s that tasty blood for ya, huh?!” Yahiro grinned savagely, all the while getting light-headed from the blood loss. Moujuu exuded miasma in explosive bursts when they came into contact with his blood. This mist was toxic for regular humans, but he resisted the potent acid-like substance with his jaw clenched. Bā Xià roared in pain, and the bridge creaked from its rampage. Its resistance was over soon enough. Its movements became sluggish as Yahiro’s poison spread throughout its body, until it finally went completely silent. “Good job, Yahiro. I’ll have them pick you up right away so you can continue guiding us. We lost a fair amount of time with that.” Rosé’s cool voice echoed into Yahiro’s ear as he breathed heavily where he leaned against the monster’s back. Just as she said, Giuli’s boat soon approached him. The twins had no intention of letting him rest. Talk about exploitative employers. “That was amazing… You killed that giant with a knife!” Josh shook his head in disbelief while looking back at the defeated Bā Xià’s body. All the other operators seemed to think the same. I know, right? he thought without much enthusiasm. They had their doubts about him really being immortal, but now they knew he was just as much of a monster as the Moujuu were. Would they ostracize him? Persecute him? It could go either way, honestly. He wouldn’t feel bad about it, though. He was already used to the loneliness. In the end, he was but a contractor, and he wasn’t looking for anything out of this other than info on his sister. “Yahiro… You okay?” Paola asked the Lazarus, who was in one corner of the boat. Yahiro couldn’t understand the question for a moment. He followed her gaze and noticed she was talking about his left arm. “I’m fine. It’s recovered already.” He lifted his arm. The uniform was still cut up, but his skin beneath the cloth had already healed, courtesy of the Lazarus blessings. “What…did you do back there?” She asked a second question. Yahiro shrugged. He wasn’t getting out of this one. “My blood is poison to the Moujuu. Though I guess I haven’t tried it on all of them.” “Poison? That was poison? The turtle just crumbled like bam!” Josh snapped his fingers; it was the opposite reaction Yahiro was expecting. “I see, so that’s how you’ve been surviving in the 23 Wards. I knew you’d be no ordinary kid, since the Princess brought you and all, but man… Wait, hold on, doesn’t that mean we could exterminate the Moujuu with your blood?” Josh said with great excitement. Yahiro shook his head with an awkward smile. Perhaps he had talked too much, but they would have eventually found out. “It’s not that convenient. The blood rapidly loses its effects after it leaves my body.” It was more like it went out of his control, to be more precise. Blood that completely left his body was no longer his, the Lazarus’s. It was no different from any other substance. Shooting bloody arrows from a safe distance didn’t work, which was why he used only a knife. “Whoa, what’s with that knife? It’s all worn out.” Josh’s eyes went wide as he saw Yahiro sheathe it. “Oh, it’s just… They turn out like this after being in contact with my blood for an extended period of time.” The nearly new knife was all chipped now, barely maintaining its original appearance. It was rusted red like a thousand-years-old antique. “It…can’t withstand the touch of your blood?” Paola asked with a stern look on her face. Yahiro smiled self-deprecatingly and nodded. “Yeah, so you better not get too close to me. No way something that’s so poisonous to Moujuu could be safe for humans. They’re not wrong when they call me the cursed Japane—” “Hmm… I wonder, though…” Giuli interrupted Yahiro with a lighthearted tone. Yahiro stared at her in confusion. The orange-haired girl leaned over to him and stuck out her tongue. He immediately froze up at the soft sensation on his cheek. It took him a second to realize she had licked a drop of his blood. “Giuli?! Wh-what’re you doing?!” “See? I’m fine. So don’t worry.” She stuck out her tongue again cutely and smiled mischievously. “Yahiro doesn’t seem fine, though.” “You’re red…like a tomato…” Josh and Paola grinned, teasing him. The other operators clearly were thinking the same thing, though they said nothing. “I’m… I’m not…!” Yahiro tried to argue back, but he was too flustered to come up with a retort. “Good to know the Lazarus is no different from any other teenage boy. Don’t worry—I’ll teach you how to seduce a woman if we make it back alive.” “Just…don’t fall for Giuli… You should see the look on Rosé’s face right now.” Josh cheerily grabbed his shoulder, while Paola looked away. Rosé was staring at Yahiro from the boat behind them. No emotions. Not even winking. He didn’t need Paola’s warning to know she loved her twin sister excessively, and what she would think after seeing her lick a man’s face. “I didn’t do anything, though!” Yahiro looked weakly at the sky, weariness weighing down his body. What frightened him the most was Rosé’s prolonged silence. 5 Count Hector Raimat received the report at the Japanese branch of Raimat International. RMS’s young communications officer read the recon drone’s findings out loud with a confused expression. “Galerie Berith’s troop defeated Bā Xià near the Kuramae Bridge.” “Bā Xià?” The count’s face twisted in suspicion as he leaned forward in the unadorned, spartan chair. Raimat International was using the former JGSDF Camp Omiya building as its base. Everything, including the communications network and furniture, had already been there. Considering how the chair felt to sit on, he surmised the Japanese Self-Defense Forces hadn’t been a very wealthy organization. “I heard they sent only one squad of operators into the 23 Wards… How could they possibly defeat a large Moujuu, Grade III, without a tank?” “We don’t know the details, but no large-scale bombardments were observed.” The officer simply read what was on his tablet. The count’s brow furrowed. “Grades” were indicators of a Moujuu’s threat level, based on existing military powers. Each grade was four times stronger than the last. Grade-I Moujuu could be taken care of by one infantry squad, and infantry was only of use up to Grade II. Grade III and higher needed tank support. And yet, Galerie’s troops had supposedly defeated Bā Xià, Grade III. Which meant they held some sort of power Raimat didn’t know about. “The Lazarus… Is it true?” the count muttered gravely. The spark in his eyes put the comms officer on edge. “What about Major La Hire’s troops?” “They are currently heading south through National Route 17, near the Hakusan-ue Intersection. They are less than three kilometers from the goal.” “Tell him about what Galerie Berith did. It shouldn’t be a problem, but he should be made aware of it.” “Yes, sir! Right away!” The officer saluted like a soldier before running from the room. The count waited for his subordinate to be out of his sight before standing up. His displeased expression remained as he headed to a newly built chalk structure within the premises. A securely isolated facility similar to that of a pharmaceutical laboratory. “How’s Brynhildr looking, Sir Nathan?” The count went through multiple biometric checks before entering the pressurized lab. Behind the glass window at the end of the room, like a large aquarium, lay the patient. A girl with white hair wearing a thin hospital gown. Multiple tubes were connected to her body, leading to countless pieces of diagnostic equipment. Curiously, the unconscious girl was restrained by heavy silver chains. Brynhildr was the name of a demigoddess from Norse mythology. A valkyrie who was said to sleep with armor on. They gave her the name due to her importance as a special test subject. “No big changes so far. The polysomnograph shows her in slow-wave sleep—deep non-REM sleep.” Near the glass wall stood Auguste Nathan. He slowly turned around to face the count. He was a tall Black man wearing a white coat. Not a Raimat employee. Brynhildr was not the count’s, either. He was merely lending them the lab; they were partners. “What about small changes?” Nathan’s report was standard, but he felt something was slightly different from usual, so he reworded the question. Nathan glanced at the indicator before him. “Low-frequency brain activity in the occipital cortexes has decreased, and I’ve been observing a constant increase of high-frequency activity in others. This is happening as we speak, in fact.” “Mind explaining that in English?” “…She’s dreaming,” he replied bluntly to the count’s annoyed remark. People usually had dreams when sleeping, and that was no different for this test subject. The confirmation of it, however, was nothing short of surprising. He hadn’t thought of her as useful for anything save as a guinea pig up to this point. “What about the Red Gold?” The count changed the subject, losing interest in the girl’s condition. Nathan looked at him suspiciously. “I gave the major the improved Mod-2 F-med. We should wait for his report.” “Not that. I mean the real Gold.” The count raised his voice. The F-med would be a fantastic product once completed, but it wasn’t what he truly wanted. Nathan knew that, and still, he shook his head emphatically. “Unfortunately, Count, we still have a long way to go before her awakening, and we need a conscious weapon in order to obtain the Ichor.” “So we have no choice but to capture the Kushinada… Fine. I will see you around, Sir Nathan.” The count turned his back on Nathan, hiding his restlessness and disappointment. He glanced to the slumbering test subject beyond the glass before exiting the room, saying: “Enjoy your dreams while they last, Deadly Maiden.” The white-haired girl continued to smile faintly as she slept. “Whoa! Why?! I was so close! So close to perfection! Gosh, why do I always mess it up at the very end?! “Oh, anyway, rhythm games are very fun! Been a long time since I streamed one. Let’s do one more! One and we’re done. And I’ll choose…this one. I love this song! It was everywhere back when I was in grade school… Ah… No, wait, I’m seventeen thousand years old, so… Forget it! “Wait, sorry, I’m streaming… What? No way! Enemies?! “……… “‘The stream has ended.’” “Yahiro, what is this?” Rosé asked in a monotone, staring at the orderly farm before her eyes. The lush green leaves swayed in the wind, glittering under the strong summer sunshine. “Cucumbers. And…those are tomatoes and green soybeans,” Yahiro replied absentmindedly as he looked out at the field of crops. The vibrant and juicy-looking vegetables were nearly ripe for harvesting. “Wow… This is what Japanese cucumbers look like? They’re different from what I’m used to,” Giuli muttered with childlike wonder as she crouched beside the furrows. Her sister and the operators looked on with warm smiles. “No, wait. That’s gotta be wrong! How in the world is there a cucumber plot smack in the middle of the 23 Wards?!” Yahiro objected, being the only rational one remaining. They had left the inflatable boats back at the Kanda River and were now at the ruins of the Tokyo Dome. This area had suffered particularly heavy damage from the J-nocide—the buildings surrounding Suidobashi Station were wrecked beyond recognition. The Tokyo Dome itself had also vanished, leaving only a giant crater behind. They had found the vegetable field at the garden adjacent to the crater: what had once been the Koishikawa Korakuen metropolitan garden. The place wasn’t expansive. Just barely bigger than a homemade veggie garden. It was well maintained, though—tidily plowed and without weeds. An unthinkable sight to be found right in the middle of Moujuu territory. “Yahiro, what’s that flag? What does it mean?” Josh noticed a swaying cloth near the back of the field while he was on the watch for Moujuu. It was awfully colorful, about three feet wide. A bit faded but still vivid enough for Yahiro to figure out the drawing on it: a character from a children’s anime. “That’s no flag; that’s a kiddie bedsheet. It’s laundry.” “Laundry?” Josh repeated, bewildered. Yahiro had heard some countries didn’t have the habit of drying laundry outdoors. Perhaps he found it strange that someone was doing that here without worrying about how it looked from outside or any safety concerns. That wasn’t the issue here, though. The bedsheet, held tightly by a couple of clothespins, had clearly been put out to dry not long ago. It hadn’t been there for four years, at least. “Ah…!” someone exclaimed from right beside Yahiro. A steel bucket fell to the ground with a high-pitched clang. There was a girl wearing a straw hat on the other side of the cucumber patch. A young boy with a baseball cap stood beside her. Both of them looked younger than Yahiro, like just before middle school age. “Ch-children? How are there human kids in here?” His jaw hit the ground, and he even forgot to grab his knife in caution. It didn’t make any sense. Was he dreaming? “Wh-who are you?” the straw-hat girl asked, voice cracking, and placed herself in front of the boy. Yahiro was flabbergasted. She spoke Japanese. “You’re…Japanese?” He took one step toward her out of reflex. The girl froze up in reaction, pure terror in her eyes. “Noooo! H-help! Mama!” “Uwaaaah!” Yahiro, too, froze at their shrieking. He was used to being shunned for being Japanese, but no one had ever been frightened at the sight of him. The cap-wearing boy grabbed a tomato and threw it at him. It smashed right into his shoulder. Josh yelled right away. “Yahiro!” It’s just a tomato, man. His calm was short-lived, however. Yahiro felt a tremor, like an earthquake, and then realized why Josh had warned him. A giant figure had landed right on the other side of the field. A baboon-like creature nearly three meters tall. Its whole body was covered in tiger-striped bristles. Three claws at the end of each arm. Two giant horns on its head. A Moujuu. “Don’t shoot! You’ll hit the kids!” Giuli kicked Josh’s machine gun right as he was taking aim. Yahiro jumped back and unsheathed his knife. But strangely, the Moujuu did not attack. The tiger-striped beast stayed before the children, growling at the squad of operators. “The Moujuu’s…protecting them? Why…?” Yahiro was baffled at the sight. Japanese survivors were wary of him and getting guarded by a Moujuu. How in the world did this make any sense? The tiger-striped Moujuu appeared to be between Grade I and II. The Galerie could defeat it without much trouble. But it appeared to be protecting the children without any intent of attacking. He couldn’t bring himself to be the first to strike. And the Galerie’s operators were hesitating as well. The Moujuu lost its patience, seeing how they wouldn’t run, and roared once again. Yahiro reflexively raised his knife into position. Then there was a white flash before his eyes. “—?!” The ground burst open, the shock blowing him backward. Electrical currents ran through his whole body. The air stank of ozone. It was as though he had been struck by lightning. It wasn’t nature, though—it was an attack meant to push him back. “Mama…!” “Iroha!” The baseball-cap boy’s and straw-hat girl’s faces lit up in relief. Then another lightning bolt struck the ground right in front of Yahiro. A tornado shook the crop field. A giant Moujuu landed before them with a violent howl. It looked like a ferocious amalgam of a wolf, a fox, and a tiger. Its body was around six to eight meters long, excluding its long tail. Its beautiful pure-white fur let off blue sparks. It had to be Grade III or stronger. Judging from its agility and the power of its electric shocks, it was much more dangerous than Bā Xià. Its appearance and powers were reminiscent of the Raiju—a thunder beast from Japanese mythology. But what amazed Yahiro the most wasn’t the Moujuu. It was the figure on its back. A human woman was riding the beast. Her long hair fluttered in the wind. She wore a fashionable pair of high-top sneakers and a miniskirt. A maroon school jacket on top. She looked to be about Yahiro’s age. She was a teenager. “You two get inside! Rinka, take care of Kyota!” the girl on the Moujuu yelled in Japanese. The straw-hat girl nodded hurriedly and grabbed the boy’s hand before running away. The pure-white Raiju snarled, and the tiger-striped Moujuu ran after the kids. They were acting like bodyguards—loyal, competent ones. “H-hey!” Yahiro reached his hand out after them unconsciously. Then lightning struck at his feet. The Raiju glared at him with golden eyes. He could tell it had held back its power for that strike, and still, it could have killed him had he taken another step forward. “Don’t move!” the girl in the school jacket yelled at him. “Who are you?! What do you want?!” “Who are you?! Are you even human?!” Yahiro yelled back, gripping his knife tightly. The girl had full control of the atrocious beasts—perhaps it wasn’t the Lazarus’s place to judge, but she couldn’t possibly be a regular human. She narrowed her eyes and puffed out her cheeks in a slight pout. “What? What am I if not human? You thought I was an angel or something?” “…Well, that’s shameless… You say that while wearing a PE jacket?” Yahiro was more impressed than shocked at how easily she called herself an angel. Though, sure enough, only someone that sure of themselves would ever try riding a Moujuu. “Sh-shaddup! Who cares?! Put that knife down or I’m gonna make Nuemaru bite you!” She yelled hard, trying to distract from her reddening face. Josh and the rest observed in silence as they talked; they did not understand the girl’s warning, for they did not speak Japanese. “Nuemaru? You mean that Moujuu? What in the worl—?” A sudden gunshot interrupted Yahiro. It wasn’t a Galerie operator who had shot. It came from behind the girl in the jacket. From the direction in which the kids had run. “Wait, there’s more of you?!” the girl asked him, pale in the face. “More of us?” Yahiro looked around in confusion.
Chapter 6
17 min read