Chapter 83

Kiri and Honoka smacked him, and he yelped in pain. Zen just sighed, and Sumika laughed out loud. 3 San Juan Teotihuacan de Arista. On a plateau at the heart of Mexico lay the ruins of the civilization of Teotihuacan. The remains of a gigantic holy city. The historic ruins were about fifty kilometers from the capital, Mexico City. Transport there was easy to find, as it was a popular tourist site. It took less than two hours to get there from the airport. Yet Ren Sumita’s facial expression was sour as he left the Mexico City airport and waited for his ride. The boy wore a baseball cap and a PMC-provided bulletproof jacket. He would be fourteen years old that year. Though he was over 170 centimeters tall, his face still looked quite juvenile. His sour expression was not just due to fatigue from the long trip. “Cheer up already.” A girl wearing a similar bulletproof jacket of a different color smacked his back. Rinka was Ren’s and Iroha Mamana’s non-blood-related sister. She was one year older than him. Ren was much taller, but she had a more mature air to her, thanks to her delicate features and bleach-blond hair. “You’re still grumpy about not going to Japan? I know you wanted to see Ayaho, but c’mon, there’s no need to be that bummed out.” “I’m not bummed out because I can’t see Aya. I told you it’s because of the thin air here.” “Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say.” Rinka smirked at his excuse. Ayaho Sashou was their elder sister, a seventeen-year-old high schooler. All the siblings loved their gentle and attentive sister. Ren in particular looked up to her, or so Rinka thought. Ayaho had remained in Japan when the younger siblings went to a boarding school in Switzerland. Special circumstances required her to stay. This summer break was their once-a-year opportunity to visit her, but their plans had been ruined out of the blue. Arms dealer Galerie Berith’s General Manager Giulietta Berith had given them an assignment: to head to the ruins of Teotihuacan. They were not official members of the Galerie, but Giuli was their guarantor in Europe and the sponsor of their tuition and living expenses. They couldn’t possibly tell her no. At the Geneva airport, Ren and Rinka parted ways with their younger siblings, who were heading back to Japan as planned while they traveled to the unfamiliar land of Mexico. “The air really is thin here, though. It’s over two thousand meters above sea level, isn’t it?” Rinka breathed in and out, feeling slightly suffocated by the completely foreign air. The Mexico City airport was the largest in Latin America, but the density of oxygen was low due to its high elevation. They even kept oxygen tanks on hand for travelers who suffered from altitude sickness. “They say Olympic athletes come here for highland training.” “And why did they have to bring us here?” Rinka glared at him. “I don’t know. They just said someone would come for us once we got to Mexico.” Ren scratched his head. A horn blared from a car on the street. It was a four-wheel-drive pickup truck. A familiar blond white man waved at them from the driver’s seat. “Josh? He’s the guide Giuli mentioned?” Ren walked up to the car while dragging the suitcase that contained all of their clothes. Josh Keegan, operator of Galerie Berith’s PMC division, got out of the truck to greet them. “Hey, kids. You’ve grown a lot since I last saw you in Japan.” “And you look a bit older.” “I haven’t aged that much in one year, twerp. I’m still in my twenties.” Josh frowned at Rinka’s quip while throwing the luggage into the truck bed. They’d heard that Josh had retired from his post as lieutenant in Galerie’s PMC division and left combat after things in Japan wrapped up. He was supposed to be working at the Japanese branch. The kids couldn’t hide their surprise at finding him here in Mexico. “Did the princess tell you why you’re here?” “Not at all. She just told us to go to Teotihuacan,” Rinka replied. “I thought that’d be the case. A verbal explanation probably wouldn’t suffice.” Josh didn’t pay any mind to the displeasure in Rinka’s voice. “What do you mean? Is it that complicated?” “The opposite, actually. We know practically nothing. It’s basically rumors. But we can’t just ignore them, so here we are.” “Rumors?” “Moujuu,” Josh said bluntly. Ren and Rinka looked at each other. “Moujuu? You mean the Ploutonion beasts?” “What?! Didn’t they disappear?! Isn’t that why Iroha and Yahiro…?” “Calm down. We still don’t know for sure. We’re here to check.” Josh ruffled the worried kids’ heads. Ren raised his head. “Hold on, so we’re here because we can resist Moujuufication?” Josh nodded. “Partly. We can’t send just anyone in if there really are Moujuu there.” The Moujuu were humans transformed by the miasma coming from the Ploutonion, and this phenomenon was related to this world’s true nature as the underworld. Everyone in this world had already died and been thrown to the underworld, and the Moujuu form was their true appearance. They turned into the spectral beasts immediately without the protection of the power of Ouroboros. However, a few individuals resisted Moujuufication: dragon mediums and their Lazaruses, as well as those who were immunized with the dragon factor through their partnership with the dragon mediums. The last of which included the operators of Galerie Berith’s Japanese branch and Iroha Mamana’s siblings. Now it made sense why Giuli had sent them to Mexico. Moujuu appearances meant there had to be a Ploutonion nearby, and only they could be sent to investigate without worrying about Moujuufication. “But there’s nothing we can do if we find Moujuu,” Ren said anxiously. Though they had once traveled with Galerie Berith, they had been grade schoolers at the time and had no real combat experience. They had participated in some of the Galerie’s training exercises since moving to Europe, but only for self-defense. They had no chances of survival if they had to fight Moujuu. Yet Josh was confident. “Don’t worry. There’s no way they’ll attack us.” “How can you be so sure?” Rinka asked with suspicion. Josh smiled boldly. “We’ve got an ace up our sleeve.” “What?” “You don’t remember? Forget fighting them—we can talk to them, thanks to her. We’re just here as bodyguards.” “Wait… You mean…?” Josh looked at the truck before giving an answer. He opened the backseat door and pointed inside. There, they found the seats already occupied by a white dog-sized Moujuu that resembled a wolf as much as a fox. And holding it like it was a plush doll was a girl who appeared to be about ten years old. ““Runa…?!”” Ren and Rinka shouted in unison. The youngest of their siblings, who was supposed to be in Japan, looked up at them with a blank expression and nodded. 4 The blond girl lay on Iroha’s bed. She looked terribly weakened and continued sleeping even after the sun rose. Iroha had carried her to the cabin, washed her sea-drenched hair, and changed her clothes all by herself. Yahiro offered to help a few times, but Iroha insisted that he not touch her. “So who in the world is this, Yahiro?” Iroha raised her gaze up from the girl to glare at Yahiro. “I have absolutely no idea,” Yahiro responded before he yawned. Both of them were sleepy after looking after the girl all night. “Don’t lie to me! She knew your name!” Iroha pouted. Yahiro shrugged. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know.” “Be honest. I won’t get mad.” “You’re already mad. And why would you be mad about this girl knowing me to begin with?” “Whoa! Are you hearing yourself?! Weren’t you my fan?! You’ve got another idol now?! Changing bias now?!” Iroha raised her arms in anger. “You’re not accusing me of cheating, are you…?” Yahiro looked at her with surprise. Iroha was always brimming with confidence and assurance that Yahiro was her biggest fan, yet this mystery girl’s appearance had revealed her jealous side. He found that interesting. “Forget about the bias stuff and just think: how could I even meet this girl without you knowing? We’ve been here for three years.” “Umm… Maybe you got in touch with her while I was in my streaming booth?” “No.” Yahiro shot down her flawed inference. “Also, just because she knows my name doesn’t mean that I know her. Maybe she found out about me from some stream. I was on-screen when we crushed the Tokyo Station Ploutonion, remember?” “Hmm… That does make some sense…” Iroha crossed her arms and considered it. They had livestreamed their journey to the 23 Wards’ Ploutonion from the Galerie Berith train. They had needed to broadcast hope to the people to prevent the world’s collapse. Naturally, Yahiro featured in it fighting Moujuu. It wouldn’t be that difficult to find his name with some research. “I’ll say I have my suspicions about her identity, though.” Yahiro looked at the girl in the bed again after Iroha’s doubts were soothed. She was small and thin. Her hair was a light blond, lacking in pigment. And her face was intricately, symmetrically, artificially beautiful. Yahiro knew one other girl with similar features. “Do you mean Sui?” “She looks like her, don’t you think?” “…Yeah.” Iroha nodded. Sui Narusawa, the earth dragon’s medium, and raised as Yahiro’s sister. The girl had an artificially beautiful visage, too. And indeed, Sui Narusawa had been created artificially. “They said Ganzheit used genetic engineering to create an artificial dragon medium, and that’s how Sui came to be. It wouldn’t be surprising if they made more.” “So you think she might be a dragon medium, too?” “That’s the first thing I thought… But I’m not sure. What do you think?” “Mmm… How can you tell whether someone is a dragon medium?” Iroha looked at the girl on the bed. She poked the sleeping girl’s cheek and head, then tilted her own in confusion. “I don’t know… But she doesn’t feel like one.” “Yeah, I think she’s different from Sui,” Yahiro agreed. It was hard to put into words, but the girl didn’t feel the same as the other dragon mediums they knew. Yahiro couldn’t feel the magnetic aura that Iroha was always emitting. That likely meant that this girl did not have the dragon factor. That did nothing to solve the mystery of her identity, though. “Ngh…” The girl frowned in her sleep after all of Iroha’s prodding. She slowly opened her eyes, and Iroha leaned in close to her face as soon as she noticed. She saw her own face reflected in the girl’s unfocused blue eyes. “You’re awake? Thank goodness! How are you? Does anything hurt? You hungry?” “…No,” the girl muttered in confusion, with a voice so faint one could hardly hear it. She was clearly overwhelmed by Iroha’s pushiness so soon after she had recovered consciousness. Yahiro reached for Iroha to peel her away from the poor girl, when their visitor suddenly jumped off the bed. “Avaritia…!” The girl’s eyes grew wide as she dragged herself to a corner of the room, staring at Iroha with great caution. “Huh? Whaaat?!” “Iroha… What did you do to this girl?” “Nothing! I didn’t do anything! You know that!” Iroha shook her head, tears in her eyes. The mystery girl remained guarded—though more from fear than enmity. Iroha, unable to accept the reality, inched closer to her, only spooking her further. “Relax. We won’t hurt you. So long as you don’t try to hurt us, that is. Got it?” Yahiro told the girl while grabbing Iroha by the collar and pulling her back. “Ah…” She seemed to calm down when she looked at Yahiro. The shock hit Iroha harder, but no time to waste comforting her now. “Do you understand our language? Does anything hurt?” The girl nodded in response to Yahiro’s question. Iroha protested, “I literally just asked her that!” but he ignored her. “Do you want some water?” “…Water.” The girl cautiously accepted the bottle of mineral water he handed her. She struggled with the cap, and he ended up opening it for her. Yahiro waited for her to finish drinking before asking more. “So who are you? How do you know us?” “…Who?” she said after a pensive silence. “You can’t tell us?” The girl shook her head weakly. Yahiro got the feeling that she wasn’t refusing to answer.