Chapter 68

Act 2 Rebellion 1 After being restrained, Yahiro was taken to a hotel room near the station. The ruins of a hotel, that is, abandoned for over four years since the J-nocide—but other than the dust, it was in good shape. It had a portable toilet and a bed. Not bad treatment for a prisoner. “Bizarrely nice cell, isn’t it?” said Yahiro, looking around with his hands still cuffed. “The Galerie doesn’t want to make an enemy of you. At the very least not when there’s still a chance of smoothing things over. The powers of a Lazarus are pretty valuable, after all,” Giuli responded. After they captured him, she had followed all the way to the room, along with four or five operators from HQ, who were the real watchmen. “Why did you escort me all the way into the room, anyway?” “To make a deal. There’s no point locking you up once you get serious about escaping. Seducing you would be more effective, wouldn’t it? Oh, or would you rather have Rosy charm you?” “Yeah. I think it’d be easier to bargain with Rosé.” “You’re smart. Yeah, she is a sweetheart.” “I just meant that she’s easier to understand than whatever goes on in your head.” Yahiro sighed, baffled by how she acted as whimsical as ever, despite having just betrayed him. A biting remark or two wouldn’t shake her, though. Yahiro cut to the chase. “Why are you getting in my way, Giuli?” “Let me ask you first: did you really think you could leave with Sui under those circumstances? What would you do after, if you had succeeded?” “I…” Yahiro looked away from Giuli’s serious expression. He was sure he could get away with it if he took Cyrille hostage, but dragging around an unconscious Sui during the Galerie’s subsequent attack would have been impossible. As much as it pained him to admit it, he’d been reckless. “You don’t have to worry about the Galerie being rough with Sui. She’s special among the dragon mediums. Trust Cyrille when he said they want to treat her. Nathan trusted them enough not to do anything, right, Nathan?” Giuli turned around to call over the Black man in a suit. “Nathan? They got you, too?” Yahiro asked in shock. He had wondered why he hadn’t seen Nathan since the Yáo Guāng Xīng reached Kyoto, but Yahiro didn’t think they had him confined. After all, the Relict Deserver could have escaped at any moment. “Technically. The Galerie couldn’t let me roam around the camp. I let myself be caught to maintain the Berith sisters’ reputation.” Nathan shrugged and sat down on an empty sofa in the room. “Thanks for your understanding. Very mature of you, Nathan.” Giuli smiled in satisfaction. Apparently, she meant to monitor the both of them at once—but why? Either way, it was convenient for Yahiro. He had to tell Nathan something. “Listen, Nathan. Karura’s here.” “…I see. She used a Moujuu, didn’t she? With her Regalia.” Nathan nodded, unsurprised. Yahiro was shocked to hear him reveal Karura’s power where Giuli could hear him, but the girl didn’t say anything; she just kept a smile on her face. Yahiro sighed and shook his head to rouse himself. “Ganzheit’s troops are surrounding the Myoujiin territory. We have to get her out of danger.” “I see.” “Aren’t you worried?! You can get us out of this cage, can’t you?!” Yahiro raised his voice, taken aback by Nathan’s lackluster reaction. Nathan shook his head and pulled down the collar of his shirt. He had a crude ring around his neck. “Breaking out would be easy, and Galerie Berith knows this. You’d be too optimistic to think they wouldn’t take measures against that.” “Don’t tell me that’s a bomb?!” The device around his neck was as thin as a watch strap, but it should have enough power to blow his head off. “You would be fine after a while, even if they blew off your head, Lazarus. Relict Deservers do have some regeneration capabilities, but I would not want to test this,” Nathan said without a shred of sorrow. “Your Goreclad can’t protect you?” Yahiro suggested in confusion. Nathan used the dragon factor to create a dragon-scale armor called the Goreclad, which was capable of deflecting bullets. Yahiro had seen Nathan using this power once before, but the Goreclad was not invincible. It was not enough to stop an explosion’s shock wave. Still, it would be better than no defense. “I suppose it would be worth a try. That said, we aren’t in that desperate a situation in this moment. The Myoujiin barrier hasn’t broken yet, has it?” “No. Karura said so.” “Then there’s no reason to fret. To begin with, it is not Ganzheit’s entire force attacking the Heavenly Imperial House. There would be no reason to stall the Far East Branch with a party if that was the case.” Nathan recrossed his legs and smirked. He’d known the party was a distraction from the very beginning. “You mean someone is resisting the warmongers within Ganzheit?” Yahiro remembered that Karura said the warmonger faction had their hand forced. They were in a bad spot after failing to summon Superbia and losing Sui Narusawa. “All organizations have inner conflict between factions, and Ganzheit is no exception. Au contraire, the group has been far removed from any sense of unity or loyalty since its inception.” “But in any case, the warmongers win if the Heavenly Imperial House falls, right?” Yahiro objected. The faction took Sui away and captured the rebel, Nathan. Once they got their hands on the Heavenly Imperial House’s divine instrument, there would be no one to stop them. Hence why Eusebius Berith mobilized an army to destroy them without care for the losses. “On the other hand, they would have no standing if they failed to destroy it,” Giuli interjected. Her remark was cold and merciless, even though it concerned her father. Yahiro was surprised. “Giuli…?” “Indeed. More precisely, if you got hold of the Myoujiin divine instrument and Sui Narusawa, the tables would turn.” “Sui… Her again…” Yahiro clenched his fist in response to Nathan’s comment. “Why do Eusebius Berith and the Heavenly Imperial House fixate on her? What’s her deal?!” “Heh…” Nathan chuckled at the sight of Yahiro punching the wall. “What’s so funny?” “Nothing. I just found it curious. You shared a childhood with her, yet you ask us that?” “What?” “She is a special dragon medium. Why does she keep falling into the death slumber when the other mediums don’t? Why did she kill your father? Why did she start living with you to begin with? All of this is connected, you see,” Nathan declared as though telling a riddle. Yahiro didn’t have any answers to those questions. “You said you needed Sui to resurrect the Japanese, didn’t you, Nathan?” “Yes.” “And Nina fought us to get Sui back. There’s a reason for that. A reason they want Sui back.” “Yes. Sui Narusawa’s secret,” Nathan affirmed. Yahiro looked devastated. He was overcome with wrath and hatred for Sui to the point that he hadn’t cared to learn anything about her, and that fact was slapping him in the face now. “Do you know what it is?” “Yes. I am pretty certain after investigating her. Do you want to know?” “No… I think that’s something I should find out for myself.” Yahiro shook his head after a moment of hesitation. He was just being stubborn. He felt it was dishonest to Sui to have an outsider divulge his own sister’s secrets. “Good judgment. Allow me, though, to give you some help. I’ll tell you how to wake Sui Narusawa up.” “You…you knew that all along?!” Yahiro glared daggers at him. If they could wake Sui, there would have been no need to keep her connected to the life-support system, and they could’ve interrogated her on the way to Kyoto. However, there was a high chance that trouble would arise on the way, and Nathan would have wanted to avoid that. A selfish decision, but not a wrong one. “Sui Narusawa falls into the death slumber due to a shortage of dragon factor. This is because Iroha Mamana’s purifying flames burned the dragon factor she sent to you when she summoned Superbia. We simply need to compensate for it to wake her up.” “Compensate for it how?” Yahiro asked. Nathan said it as though it was so easy. Nathan looked at him and narrowed his eyes. “You should know how already. By taking it from the Lazarus.” “…You’re telling me to kiss her?” Yahiro grimaced. To help them stop Vanagloria’s rampage, Sui asked for Yahiro to kiss her. Her request made sense now if it was meant to replenish her dragon factor. “Be careful whenever in contact with Sui Narusawa. Ensure she doesn’t take something away from you that you don’t want to give,” Nathan warned vaguely. Yahiro nodded. 2 “Rosé! Is it true they captured Yahiro?!” Iroha rushed to the party venue—which was still full of the Far East Branch members—with the black Moujuu in her arms. She looked frazzled when she found Rosé under a field battle tent inside the station. “Why?! The only ones who did anything wrong are the Galerie people who tried to take Sui away!” “Calm down, Iroha. Giuli is with him. There’s nothing to worry about,” Rosé responded flatly. Iroha was nearly overwhelmed by the girl’s cold stare before she started raising her voice again. “How can I not worry?! What about Sui?!” “She’s being isolated for treatment.” “What?” “She is Galerie Berith’s prisoner and a valuable dragon medium, after all,” Rosé responded as though she was reading from a script. Then, she looked at the creature in Iroha’s arm. “More importantly, what is with that black Moujuu?” “Huh?! O-oh, this is…Nuemaru’s friend… C-cute, isn’t it?” Iroha looked away, trying to gloss over it. Then, she noticed that something was off about the place. There were plates of food untouched—a pretty common feature in parties like this—but there were more unopened bottles than one would expect. The Far East Branch operators got hyped up at the beginning, but they were already sober, quietly chatting while checking their weapons as though they were getting ready to launch an attack. “What’s everyone doing?” “They’re disassembling their weapons. The Far East Branch is disbanding.” “The branch…is disbanding…?” Iroha parroted, tilting her head. The explanation didn’t quite match up with the scene, but maybe it made sense to clean their trusty weapons before doing away with them. “Oh, right. You’re leaving Japan.” “Yes. The Yáo Guāng Xīng will now be HQ’s property. The troops left back in the Yokohama base will be going home, too.” “Everyone’s leaving… The kids are going to school, too…” Iroha sniffed, feeling a sting behind her eyes as she was reminded of the fact that she would have to say good-bye to the operators and her siblings. “Iroha.” Rosé gazed at her with an unusual show of emotion. Iroha shook her head right away. “I’m okay! I have to help Karura resurrect the Japanese… Ah…” “What is it?” “Karura asked us for help. The Myoujiin territory is surrounded by Ganzheit troops, and she said it was your father who sent them…” “…I see. So he did it.” Iroha thought for a moment that maybe she shouldn’t have told Rosé, but the other girl’s reaction wasn’t what she expected. Rosé mulled it over with a serious look on her face, as though analyzing Eusebius’s actions. “That’s sooner than expected. So he is that desperate.” “You’re not surprised, Rosé?” “I imagined something like this from the moment I heard he was in Japan. He must’ve dissolved the Far East Branch as a precaution.” “What do you mean?” “He fears that Giuli and I might betray him.” Rosé smiled. “He does? But he praised you so much, and even gave you a promotion.” “That was just an excuse to seize the Far East Branch’s achievements. His only skill is his cunning for self-preservation.” “R-Rosé…?” Iroha stared at Rosé, taken aback by how critical she was of her father. It sounded as though she hated Eusebius. “There were eighteen of us.” “Huh?” “The Marionetta series—that’s how many artificially created sisters we had.” Rosé placed her hand on her chest as she spoke. “Only Giuli and I survived. The rest were worked to death. The ones who were sent to hopeless battles were the fortunate bunch; there were more than a couple pairs who were forced to kill each other in the name of testing our skills. And I killed the last of them with my own hands back in Yokohama.” “And you still work for House Berith?” “Yes, of course. There’s no other way for us to survive.” Rosé closed her eyes. “There was no other way. No chance for revenge—until today.” “Huh?” Rosé’s aura changed the moment she opened her eyes again. The unexpressive, machinelike mask fell off as the light of joy filled her eyes like never before. “Josh, tell everyone that it’s dinnertime.” Josh raised his head in surprise, his humming cut off as he paused in cleaning his gun. “Milady…” The next moment, his lips curved up like a predatory beast’s. “Yes, ma’am! Everyone, listen up! Word from Milady! Our food is finally ripe for the eating!” Josh shouted as he stood up to look at everyone. The operators went silent right away and, after a pause, they shouted with delight. “Wh-what…? What’s going on?!” Iroha froze over as she saw the operators’ cheer. She had no idea what was happening within the Galerie’s Far East Branch. The only thing that was clear was that they had been waiting for this moment. That they had hidden a boiling rage within them, away from sight.