Chapter 46

The prediction from the Japanese government office had included the shock wave from the collapse, the ashes, and the irregular weather, but there was a big difference between hearing about it and actually seeing it in person, and the strangeness of it forced Rentaro into feeling like the world was ending. Even so, he and the other civil officers managed to complete their battle formation in about three hours, but that did not seem to be the case for the self-defense force on the front lines. Because of the wind, the ashes from the Monolith were blown directly at the self-defense force’s camp. But even with that, they were able to rally because of their regular training and their reputation as defenders of the country. At around 7 p.m., even though it was summer, the sky had turned an indigo blue, and it was finally time for the invasion of Aldebaran’s troops. From where Rentaro and the others were, the back of the SDF formation was too far away to see Aldebaran’s troops beyond them, but the clouds of dust their enemies kicked up as they marched forward in lines blurred the horizon, and the low, beastly roar of their voices gave Rentaro goose bumps. They had probably gone around the fallen Monolith before finally making it inside the city. It was the omen of an unavoidable Great Extinction. He’d watched the scene on a video-streaming site many times—when Gastrea invaded a broken line of Monoliths, the possibility that the people living in that city would all be killed was 100 percent, and up until now, there had been no example of any city avoiding the Great Extinction once a wall went down. The next instant, someone opened fire. The self-defense force’s long-range weapons—self-propelled guns, tank guns, and automatic cannons—all fired at once, drawing a dazzling arc as they rushed into the enemy Gastrea. The next instant, there was an explosion. The first lines of Gastrea were blown away spouting flames, and the next line of them plunged in deeper than the first. A crimson battlefield appeared, and the sky burned. The shock wave came later and reached even Rentaro, and the hot wind of the battlefield hit his whole body. Rentaro lifted his arm to shield his face and narrowed his eyes beneath his hand. Looking at the scorching-red sky, Rentaro felt a throbbing pain at the base of his artificial right arm. It was the same. He had seen the same sky ten years ago. It was the hell that the young Rentaro had seen at the end of the Gastrea War: Gastrea had invaded the area where he had been living, and he had been pushed onto a train and sent to live with the Tendo family. On the way to Tokyo, he’d seen different battlefields from the window of that train—burning cities, burning farms, burning people. At the boundary between the jet-black sky and the red flames, the endless indigo blue gradation had warped and burned its image onto Rentaro’s retina. The passengers had shoved in close together and were all shaking and crying inside the train car, finally resorting to prayer—quietly, to themselves, of course. The fact that the train had arrived in Tokyo without being overturned or derailed by Gastrea was a miracle in and of itself. Rentaro squeezed his chest and tried to check the unpleasant sweat pouring out of him with all his might, trying desperately to put a lid on the terrible memories. Five hours passed in the way, until the time read midnight. The battlefield was locked in night, and it became a night battle in earnest. The sky was closed off with the ashes of the Monolith, so there was no moon, and there were no streetlamps in the Outer Districts, so it was surprisingly dark. From the midst of all that, Rentaro could intermittently hear the deafening roar of tank guns and shock-wave blasts that shook the atmosphere. There were the flames of 25-mm machine guns firing rhythmically like a typewriter. In the spaces between, he could hear the groans of Gastrea, followed by their angry cries and screams. And, just as he had predicted, the self-defense force never asked for support from the civil officers no matter how much time had passed. Rentaro was growing impatient. What were they thinking? Did they really think that they could win this war holding on to worthless things like distinguished service, territoriality, and pride? Shouldn’t they attack the Gastrea as one right now? Who was even winning? What was the current state of the war? When Rentaro turned his head to look at the civil officer troops’ battle formation, he saw that even though they had built campfires, many also watched the proceedings anxiously. From atop a small hill, Rentaro and his group could see the situation of all the squads clearly. His group was a kilometer in front of where the frontline base tent had been built, and they were spread out to the side as they waited. The troop, made up of a little over a thousand civil officers, was grouped into adjuvants, and they were placed under the charge of a company commander in sets of ten. The one in charge of the company commanders was Troop Commander Nagamasa Gado. Diagonally in front of Rentaro to the right, he could see the superior officer directly above him in rank, the company commander. Apparently, all the company commanders had been selected from Gado’s adjuvant, and this one was a young man equipped with a lead-colored, Japanese armor-type exoskeleton. His name was Hidehiko Gado, and he was the biological son of the general commander, Nagamasa. He had a pale face with hollow cheeks, with a long, thin face and glasses. He looked like an academic who was always shut up in research labs that didn’t get any sun, or perhaps a librarian. Next to him was an Initiator named Kokone. At training the day before yesterday, Hidehiko had rubbed her shoulders, lifted her chin, and stared at her profile entranced. It looked like he had feelings for his Initiator beyond that of a partner or family member. Looking at Hidehiko, Rentaro couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Even in just these last few days that the civil officer troops had spent training together, Hidehiko’s clumsiness was apparent. It wasn’t just that he passed down orders slowly—he seemed to lack the ability to make decisions, and Rentaro didn’t feel any confidence or dignity from the man’s orders. Even now, as he held his partner Initiator’s shoulders, he looked like he was desperately mumbling a prayer. He was probably praying that the SDF would win and that he would not have to take his turn. Behind adjuvant leader Rentaro was the president of the Tendo Civil Security Agency, Kisara Tendo, and her partner, Tina Sprout, who was holding an antitank rifle almost as tall as she was. And then there was the president of the Katagiri Civil Security Agency, Tamaki Katagiri, and his little sister, Yuzuki Katagiri. Also waiting were Rentaro’s senior disciple in the Tendo Martial Arts, Shoma Nagisawa, and his partner, Midori Fuse. They were all filled with nervousness, and they were holding their weapons at the ready so they could rush out and fight at any time. And right next to Rentaro was— “Rentaro, do you think the self-defense force will win?” Rentaro stole a sideways glance at Enju Aihara’s profile, her nervous face staring far out over the horizon. Even as Rentaro felt impatient, he closed his eyes firmly and tried to change his thinking. Right now, he could not prioritize Enju. He had to prioritize what they were doing. How much time had passed? The gunfire slowly grew sparse, and the voices of the Gastrea faded. And then abruptly, both of those sounds disappeared. On the flat plain in front of him spread darkness that seemed to absorb the stillness of night. Agitation spread noisily, like ripples, among the civil officers. Rentaro overheard people saying: “Hey, what happened?” “Who won?” “Someone go look.” Rentaro felt a sudden tap on his shoulder and turned around to see Shoma looking at him with a grave expression on his face. “What do you think, Satomi?” “I don’t know… But thinking about it rationally, the self-defense force probably won.” Rentaro stopped talking and looked up, into the darkness. “Right now, I can’t hear the voices of the Gastrea or the sound of the cannons. It’s probably because they drove the Gastrea away.” He had said that mainly to make himself feel better. Then, he looked at Hidehiko Gado. “Hey, you. Why don’t you try sending a flare up to headquarters to sound things out?” The oval-faced company commander shook his head like there was no way he could. “None of the other squads are doing that, are they? We can’t act arbitrarily on our own!” Rentaro was about to protest that they should do it because no one else was doing it but then shook his head. This man’s thinking was so different from his own that it didn’t matter what Rentaro said. Suddenly, Tina, who had been peering into the darkness quietly this whole time, murmured quietly, “Big Brother, someone’s coming.” “You can see them?” Rentaro asked. Then, he remembered that Tina was an Initiator with the Owl Factor in her body. Her eyes had the ability to amplify even the tiniest bit of light and project it onto her field of vision. “Yes, there are people walking this way. And it’s not just one or two of them.” Before long, as if backing up Tina’s words, shadows of people appeared blurrily about a hundred meters in front of them, near where the limit of the light of the bonfires reached, and he could see shadows walking toward them. There were about fifty people walking in a line, side by side. They were all SDF officers wearing digital camouflage that met the technical specifications for the year 2031. Among the civil officers an obvious sense of relief spread, and Rentaro could see some civil officers break rank to rush forward and tend to them. But Rentaro felt uneasy. Thinking about it rationally, they probably came to report that they successfully drove away the Gastrea. But then, why did they send so many people? It would have been enough to radio the information over, so they couldn’t all be messengers. Even if he allowed that they would send messengers, then one, or at most, two, would have been enough. And they weren’t even riding motorcycles. Slowly, they grew bigger in his field of vision. They seemed to be injured and were walking unsteadily. Seeing them, the Initiator from the team right next to Rentaro couldn’t help but rush out toward them. She was a girl about eight years old. As an Initiator, she was probably just barely old enough to bear fighting. She had soft curly hair, and she looked kind. As she rushed toward the injured fighters, she peeked up at the faces from below, showing consideration for the soldiers. Then, abruptly, she stopped moving. At that moment, Rentaro also noticed something out of place. The soldiers were walking calmly, even as they held in their intestines that were spilling out of their stomachs. And they had gotten close enough that their expressions could be seen—their faces were ashen and their lips blue. The blood spilling out of their cut stomachs soaked bright red into their camouflage uniforms. From their half-open lips came cryptic groans. There was no question that they had lost more than a fatal amount of blood. It was an unpleasant sight that they were all too familiar with, and they all got chills. Rentaro called out to the girl. “Get away! Don’t go near them!” The girl turned back, looking like she was about to cry. Suddenly, everything above her neck disappeared. The next instant, blood spurted forcefully into the air like a geyser. The girl’s legs became tangled, and her body fell forward. There was a stifling stink of blood. Right next to Rentaro, there was a thud as something about the size of a basketball fell to the ground. He froze with his eyes wide open. He could not for the life of him find the courage to turn his head a little to look there. As if waiting for that moment, all the soldiers’ bodies burst open from the inside. What appeared from each was eight legs that included a set of two large pincers. Bodies, flattened, slid parallel to the ground, but their backs arched and at the tips of their gigantic tails shone things that looked like sharpened blades. Arachnids—mottled scorpion Gastrea—appeared, attacking with red eyes glittering. One made a giant leap into the adjuvant next to them. Even though it was still a larva, it was so sudden that they were too late and were cut, screaming with a shower of blood. Looking around, Rentaro could hear screams and shouts from different directions, and their ranks became a melee. Just then, from the centerline where the general commander was, a howitzer shot something into the air with a long white trail of smoke. It stretched far and then opened up a parachute high in the sky. It scattered oxidizing materials, combustible materials, flame-coloring materials, and brightening materials that were fastened to the lower part of it into the sky, giving birth to a small sun. It was a flare. One after another, parachutes opened, and in no time, a number of lights were in the air, greatly expanding how far they could see. Rentaro shielded his eyes with his hand and narrowed his eyes. Then, he took a step backward in shock. The strong light exposed a small mountain of countless silhouettes. They were probably two or three kilometers ahead. They were all various types of Gastrea, big and small. As if they had been waiting for that moment, red dots suddenly appeared in the darkness. When Rentaro realized that they were all the red eyes of Gastrea, he gave an involuntary groan. In order to approach the civil officer camp unnoticed, they had closed their eyes and tread softly. What was really frightening was their number. The Seitenshi’s prediction was that there were about two thousand Gastrea gathered outside the walls, but this was at least twice that. The self-defense force that was supposed to act as the advance guard was nowhere to be seen. And yet, the vanished SDF troops and the additional Gastrea seemed to balance each other out in his mental arithmetic. “There’s no way…” His stomach dropped, and he felt like hurling. How did the Gastrea Legion manage to defeat the entire self-defense force? The SDF should have had the knowledge to completely shut out the Gastrea the way they had in the Second Kanto Battle. The Gastrea realized they had been exposed by the flares, and so, no longer needing to hide, they looked toward the sky en masse and gave a loud howl. The air rumbled, sending Rentaro’s skin prickling. Finally, a conspicuously large Gastrea at the front rushed toward them, and the rest followed, one after another, making a number of rhombus-shaped battle formations. The front line drove toward the civil officers in a straight line, tips of their swords aimed forward. The invaders let out a rumbling war cry, one that sent a crack through the ground and clouds of dirt alike, to the point where it was hard to tell if it was the ground shaking or the entire earth. Sweat poured from Rentaro’s frame, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. What was with these Gastrea that could follow orders? They didn’t look like a troop of Gastrea, they looked like a school of fish that had gathered together, resembling one giant organism. Even humans who had trained for years would have had a hard time moving together like this. Just then, a piercing pain stabbed into Rentaro’s head. He felt like he had noticed something important, but the thought had dispersed before becoming clear. Enju came close to him with an uneasy expression on her face and squeezed Rentaro’s palm tightly. The Gastrea were less than two kilometers away. The civil officer troops were also experiencing a precipitous drop in morale. Even battle-hardened veterans were struck with fear. “E-everyone, prepare for battle!” Hidehiko instructed his subordinate adjuvants, but his voice shook, and the hand he raised into the air was weak. “Everyone, prepare for battle!” Rentaro repeated the order. Realizing that his own voice also sounded slightly nervous, he made an effort to stop his teeth’s chattering. He drew his XD gun from his hip and pulled the slide so it would be ready to fire at a moment’s notice. The Gastrea were one kilometer away. As the Gastrea slowly closed in on them, every single one of the civil officer troops seemed racked with nerves. Five hundred meters away. Reinforcing the front lines were the crustacean- and beetle-type Gastrea. Their forewings and bodies hardened with keratin and chitin were made into even harder armor by the Gastrea factor, and they glittered as they reflected the flares they were being hit with one after another. An adjuvant line that was equipped with rifles took a step forward and fired them at the commander’s signal. There was the dry sound of bullets firing while muzzle flashes dazzled their eyes. The NATO-standard, high-speed Varanium rifle cartridges rushed into the first line of Gastrea. They were bullets optimized for destroying the insides of Gastrea, and would change into a mushroom shape to expand the wounds. The Gastrea’s flesh would be ripped apart in the display of attack power. That was what was supposed to happen. Rentaro let out an involuntary shout. The Gastrea did not fall. Surprisingly, the beetle Gastrea in the front row did not stop even after receiving wounds that would have incapacitated normal Gastrea long ago. The rifle squad faltered, but they soon fired again continuously. Over the sound of blood splattering and flesh ripping apart was the strange sound of the Gastrea roaring with all their might. They finally brought down a few Gastrea after blowing their heads off, but those were soon trampled and detoured around, and a hopeless number of Gastrea gushed forth. The number that had been taken down was a lot smaller. It was as if they could not feel pain. Rentaro didn’t really understand what had happened, but instinctively, he understood one of the ways they had broken through the SDF. Three hundred meters away. “Big Brother, over there!” Tina shouted. Rentaro put his face next to Tina’s. She was pointing at something in the air. At first, it was too dark to see anything, but then a flare exploded close by. A squad of flying Gastrea appeared in the area where the veil of darkness had been lifted. There were a little less than fifty of them. The problem was the round objects they were carrying between their front and back legs: other Gastrea. In other words, paratroopers. When that realization struck, chills shot down Rentaro’s spine. The flying Gastrea seemed uncomfortable at having light shined on them and tilted their bodies to move away from it, taking a large detour around the air above the civil officer troops and going behind even the area where they had set up tents, landing in the forest behind the backs of the civil officer troops. They released the Gastrea they were holding and then returned to the front lines. Rentaro looked at Tina. “Did you see that, Tina?” Tina paused. “Yes,” she said. Seeming to understand the seriousness of the situation, Tina gave a quiet nod. That was probably a detached force sent to attack the civil officer troops in a pincer attack. Rentaro looked around, but it did not look like anyone else had noticed. Rentaro made up his mind and ran, going for the front line where Hidehiko Gado was commanding the rifle squad. When he got there, he put his hand on the man’s shoulder and whirled him around. “There’s a detached force behind us. We’re going to be caught in a pincer attack. Let us go fight it.” “Don’t you understand that this is no time for that?!” shouted Hidehiko. “If they get through from behind, then it really will be over. We’ll be completely wiped out!” Hidehiko waved his arm in front of him with bloodshot eyes. “Right now, we have to deal with the Gastrea in front of us. Get back in line, Satomi!” Rentaro wanted to object more, but he controlled himself. Turning around, he went back to his adjuvant, where everyone on his team was waiting for him with uneasy expressions. “Satomi, what is it?” Kisara asked on behalf of the group, meeting his eyes. He hesitated for a second but then explained the developments as briefly as possible. “That’s serious!” said Tamaki, taken aback. Shoma watched Rentaro silently as he listened. “Satomi, what do you want to do?” “I want to go fight the enemy on our own.” Enju looked uneasy. “Rentaro, but that means…” Rentaro nodded silently. That would mean disobeying orders from his superior officer, Hidehiko Gado. During the civil officer training they had undergone these past few days, Rentaro and the others had been given detailed instructions about the severe punishment that awaited them if they disobeyed orders. Yuzuki contemplated for a while, and then looked to Rentaro. “You decide, Rentaro Satomi. I’ll do as you say, Leader.” The adjuvant members all looked upon him as well, waiting expectantly for his decision. “I…” he started. Just then, a thunderous shout reached their ears. “Cease fire!” When Rentaro turned to look, he saw that the rifle squad was moving back under Hidehiko’s instructions, passing the baton to the civil officers who had close-combat weapons. Rentaro’s adjuvant had more close-combat fighters, so they were supposedly part of that group. Rentaro and the others moved forward, as if being pushed by the rifle squad and their paranoid gazes. The Gastrea were a hundred meters away. The rumbling of treaded ground combined with war cries to bring about the thunderous roar of the Gastrea. There was no sign of the enemy decreasing. What was going on? Rentaro’s sense of crisis increased. No matter how he thought about it, he was far from being able to take an optimistic view of the situation. Looking left and right, he saw that the other adjuvants shared his anxiety. A young man to his right with hair sticking up like a rockhopper penguin was coincidentally the leader of the adjuvant next to them at camp, as well. Even though Rentaro was often hated by other civil officers for being an upstart, when the young man found out Rentaro was ranked 300, he put his hand on Rentaro’s shoulder and said with an affable smile, “I’m proud to be fighting next to you.” Rentaro ground his clenched teeth together. If he left right now, there was a possibility that the space left by his absence would cause the death of Hidehiko Gado or the neighboring leader. They were getting close to the time limit. A little longer and Rentaro would be saved by the easy ending that they had run out of time. In that sense, the choice of not choosing anything was undeniably an option. However, if the surprise Gastrea attack squad reached them without being noticed and they were completely overtaken from behind, they would lose more than ten or a hundred people. The last breakwater would burst, and Gastrea would flow into Tokyo Area. Rentaro took deep breath after deep breath and looked forward. This was no time to hesitate. It was time to move. “Let’s go.” He turned as he said this, and everyone nodded gravely. Watching each Promoter put arms around his or her Initiator, Rentaro also stood next to Enju and put an arm around her waist; she put her strong arm around his. His eyes met Enju’s; her black ones turned a deep crimson. The next instant, he was hit with pressure pushing down on his body. It had been a while since he had last felt the acceleration that seemed like it would blow him away. Enju had awakened her Rabbit Factor. They flew over the sky above the columns of civil officers in large parabolas, heading for the back. Rentaro’s uniform flapped in the gale, and it was hard to open his eyes in the wall of air pressing in on him. When Rentaro’s feet touched the ground again, he gasped as he pulled air into his lungs. Looking back at what they had left behind, he saw that most of the people were staring at them with their mouths open, not understanding what had just happened. However, one person—Hidehiko—grasped his fist tightly, shaking with anger. Rentaro felt a second of guilt, but he soon shifted his concentration on what was in front of him. Checking to make sure his whole team had followed, he went through the frontline base where they had camped for the last few days and into the forest that had been at their backs until now. Rentaro squinted through the wall of air that came at him and instructed Enju and the others to gather in the forest. It was dark there, and full of sticky, humid summer air. Once together, he made sure everyone knew the rough position of where the Gastrea had been last spotted, and then set off. The group moved by holding on to the Initiators, borrowing their ability to move at high speeds. With the Owl and Cat in the lead with their night vision, the adjuvant members jumped through the tops of the trees like ninjas. Leaves grazed Rentaro’s cheeks, and his gaze went left and right dizzyingly. Enju landed on a thin branch, and crouched to start another massive leap. This time, his chin was pulled down, and his vision rose and fell, practically giving him vertigo. Kisara, who had just newly formed a pair with Tina, looked like she was having a hard time with the girl’s freely changing directions, but Rentaro couldn’t say anything because he was having a hard enough time trying not to be thrown off by Enju’s superfast acceleration. Inside the still forest, four pairs forming a total of eight people were advancing, rustling the leaves as they jumped. Rentaro’s heart had been beating hard for a while as he stared in front of him at the impending confrontation. Some time had already passed since the airdropped Gastrea had landed; they’d most likely started moving already. If they were planning a surprise attack on the back of the front lines, then they would soon come across each other. Just then, there was a loud explosion behind them, followed by the sound of weapons firing. The main civil officer troops beyond the forest were finally fighting the Gastrea front lines head-on. From between the treetops, Rentaro caught glimpses of explosions’ red flames painting the battlefield crimson. “Leader, I’ve found them!” Midori shouted toward him. Looking in the direction she was pointing, Rentaro, who couldn’t see as well as she could in the dark, couldn’t immediately tell what she was talking about. He signaled Enju by tapping on her shoulder three times, and she used her rabbit jumping power to leap even higher. Rentaro gritted his teeth against the invisible hand that seemed to push down on him as they accelerated, until the pressure finally disappeared. With the sound of the wind in his ears, he opened his eyes narrowly and saw that they were already fifty meters in the air. Straining to look in the area where Midori had pointed earlier, he saw a pitch-black group, darker than the darkness, squirming in a clearing. And a straight line from that was the main civil officer force led by Nagamasa Gado. There was no sign that the main force had noticed the impending danger of the Gastrea sneaking in from behind them. “We’re going down, Rentaro!” After Enju spoke, they lost inertia and traced the trajectory of a free fall. The forest rushed toward them at a terrifying speed and the fundamental fear of falling engraved in his DNA ran through his whole body. However, Enju safely thrust her legs at a thick branch, and with exquisite timing, bent her legs perfectly to break their fall and jump toward the next branch. Before they had time to relax, Rentaro gave the hand signal to attack to those behind him. Everyone leapt off their branches. This time, he could see the enemy even more clearly. Their chests were made up of eight parts, and a pair of antennae extended from their heads like whiskers; each antenna had a pair of small compound eyes. The hard exoskeletons, like those of crustaceans, glittered like obsidian. And there were a lot of them. The Gastrea were shaped exactly like pill bugs, but in order to infect humans with their bodily fluids, their mouthparts were stretched wide and had giant fangs peeking out. They came up to about Rentaro’s chest, but because they did not have crazy shapes, Rentaro concluded that they were all Stage One simple factors. The Gastrea crowded together in a diamond formation, but because they were so vigilantly waiting for a chance to launch a surprise attack on the main force, they had, luckily, still not noticed Rentaro and the others. After a while, one dropped suddenly from the sky and screeched to the others upon spotting Rentaro’s crew, but by then it was too late. Rentaro and Enju jumped into the middle of the Gastrea gaggle side by side. Just before they landed, Enju cut Rentaro loose, and Rentaro rolled forward to break his fall as he landed. Enju released her terrifying natural leg powers and darted around, obliterating the enemy’s admittedly crowded battle formation. Her hurricane roundhouse kick surpassed even the claws of a tiger, ripping through the armor of the crustaceans easily. With their exoskeletons peeled off, their bodily fluids spurted into the sky, and they were covered by the high-pitched screams of the Gastrea. The Varanium weights on the bottoms of Enju’s shoes drew out a strong and unparalleled kick that was like a flash of death for Gastrea. They could not lose. “Haaaaaaa!” Rentaro released his artificial limbs. The artificial skin covering his right arm peeled off, exposing his black Super-Varanium artificial arm. Gritting his teeth at the fuzzy pain burning into his brain, Rentaro made a fist and raised it, activating its power. Empty golden shell casings were kicked out from his arm. At the same time, his arm was pushed forward with intense acceleration. He felt the thrust of Homura Kasen sink into the flesh of a Gastrea that weighed less than seventy kilograms. The next instant, it was thrown into the horizon like a bowling ball, impacting the surrounding Gastrea and scattering them like pins. The Gastrea had been planning a surprise attack, but they had ended up on the receiving end of one, and it threw them into confusion. The other members of Rentaro’s adjuvant landed like shooting stars, crushing enemies left and right. Midori’s nails sprinkled death before they could even be seen, and when the Gastrea tried to retreat, they were caught in invisible spider silk and exposed to the appalling slaughter of Tamaki’s Varanium chain saw. Soon, about thirty Gastrea had screamed and were starting to flee, succumbing to fear. A violent urge filled Rentaro. He couldn’t let them get away. Behind them spread the undefended Tokyo Area. If even one Gastrea created a Pandemic, it would be more than enough. “Leave it to me.” Just then, there was a hint of the smell of citrus shampoo right next to him. Kisara, with her long hair fluttering, danced out in front of Rentaro. Using her right foot as an axis, she rotated her body once, slipping her sword out of its sheath with centrifugal force. “Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing First Style, Number 8—” There was a ringing sound as the sword came out of the sheath. “Muei Musou.” The thirty Gastrea that had turned around and were starting to flee were suddenly cut in two, and there were screams and splashes of blood. In addition, the trunks of the pine trees and sugar maples in the area were also cleaved in half, and all the trees within range of the attack were felled. Rentaro stood still in amazement, forgetting for a moment that they were in the middle of battle. A whirlwind slash. It was the only way to describe that attack. But just then, Rentaro was surprised as the skin of the Gastrea that had been cut down started to foam, and then started to stand, convulsing. Gastrea that had escaped damage to their hearts and brains were showing signs of regenerating. “Kisara, get back!” Realizing what Rentaro was trying to do, Kisara retreated. Rentaro made eye contact with all the Promoters. Standing in a line horizontally, they drew their guns from their belts. The impact of the kickback reached Rentaro’s elbows and his eyes were dazzled by the muzzle fire that bloomed in the dark of the night. They pulled the trigger continuously without even checking to see where their shots landed. Rentaro, Kisara, Shoma, and Tamaki fired with unwavering control, rushing into the bodies of the Gastrea that were trying to regenerate, and the Varanium’s regeneration-inhibiting properties started to work. The Gastrea trying to revive themselves were pierced with a storm of bullets, and this time, they stopped moving. There was a strong smell of gun smoke from the muzzle of Rentaro’s XD that had emptied itself of ammunition. Rentaro changed magazines and waited for a while, but after realizing there was no sign of regeneration, he sighed. They had defeated them all. And because he thought that, when one of the bodies at Kisara’s feet suddenly jumped up and sprang at her, he wasn’t able to deal with it in time. “Kisara!” he shouted. At his voice, a look of astonishment appeared on her face. Just as the Gastrea’s fangs were about to pierce through Kisara’s skin, a fist came from the side, twisting into its torso. The Gastrea that had been hit by the fist expanded suddenly and then burst, like a balloon that had been pricked with a needle. A sullen mist of blood hung in the air, and Rentaro and Kisara stopped in their tracks, eyes wide. In the end, Shoma was the one who had saved her. However, Kisara was so astonished that she even forgot to thank him. Abruptly, Rentaro’s and Kisara’s eyes met. Even without words, he could tell that she was asking, “What was that move just now?”—because Rentaro felt exactly the same way. If she were just asking the name, he could have told her that it was Rokuro Kabuto, which drew a circle around the opponent as it was released, but that wasn’t a move that made the opponent explode. Shoma had improved on the move. Seeing Rentaro’s and Kisara’s eyes on him, Shoma turned his body around awkwardly. It was as if he suddenly regretted using the move. “Leader Satomi, we have finished here.” Turning around, Rentaro was just in time to see Midori slipping her claws out of the last pill bug’s body. She had skewered the brain easily through its armor by going through spaces between segments, and the light of life had already been extinguished in the Gastrea’s eyes. In the middle of a terrible battlefield filled with corpses, the four Initiators looked at him with their eyes shining red. They killed them all in such a short time… Rentaro shivered. They were strong. This was the true value of the adjuvant system. Rentaro returned to himself with a start when he realized they were all watching him, waiting for orders. “All right, now let’s hurry up and go back and help the main force.” Rentaro and the others tried their best to move quietly as they hurried back. As he held onto Enju’s shoulder, with her kicking trees and rustling leaves as she moved, for some reason, the uneasiness he felt showed no sign of going away. It was true that they had nipped the surprise attack in the bud, but everything they had encountered so far was Stage Ones. Where were the Stage Twos and higher? Finally, they could hear the rapport of weapons and hardened voices beyond the trees, and see red through the leaves. Suddenly, the forest cleared, and his vision widened all at once. The rough voices that had been muffled by the trees became noticeably louder. Because they had been in the dark until now, Rentaro involuntarily narrowed his eyes as light flowed into his retinas all at once. “Damn it, they’re already here…?” They had only been away from the formation for a short time, but the battlefield had changed considerably. The battle formation that had been organized before had collapsed, and they had been pushed by the Gastrea all the way back to the tents. Flames were blazing here and there all over their own camp. A melee of enemy and ally mixed together; shouts and cries, guns and swords—the battlefield played the music of pandemonium. An enormous, cylindrical Gastrea that looked like a snake but had a mouth like a sucker smashed the tents around it as it writhed; it was a leech Gastrea. Fighting more than equally with a pair that had swords in both hands was a Gastrea that looked like a strange combination of spider and scorpion—a pseudoscorpion Gastrea. There was a group of civil officers with spears who had gathered to form a line around a boar almost ten meters in length. Pushed back by the fierce attacks, the civil officers fought hard within the camp, but no matter how Rentaro looked at it, there was too big of a difference in their numbers, and the civil officers were at a disadvantage. In this situation, it didn’t matter which squad they were in anymore. In the back of his mind, Hidehiko Gado’s face looking at him with betrayal crossed his mind for a moment, and he shook his head. He had to at least try to find them. Rentaro signaled his team members to follow him and then ran like the wind through the battlefield. Fortunately, all the combatants were focused on their own bouts, so they were able to weave through the gaps as they ran. Climbing the small hill in front of them, Rentaro suddenly found a shining, dark gray exoskeleton and sighed with relief. There was no mistaking it. It was Hidehiko Gado. In a spot a little ways away from the battlefield, not even giving any orders, he was wandering around idly. “Hey, you. This place is done for. Give the order for the troops’ immediate retreat.” Rentaro started to stretch out his arm, but he noticed something strange and stopped his hand in midair. “Well, if it isn’t Leader Satomi.” Hidehiko turned his pale face around to face Rentaro. Rentaro had always imagined that the man shut himself in a research lab all day, but at that moment he was more than pale; he was pallid. Even though he had been so nervous before the attack that even the roots of his teeth were shaking, right now, the man was strangely calm. However, rather than putting Rentaro at ease, it seemed eerie. The problem was the object Hidehiko held in his right hand. “Have you seen the Spear of Light?” Hidehiko asked. “The Spear of Light?” Rentaro repeated. Hidehiko chuckled. “If those guys have such a thing, then humans have no chance of winning in the first place. It’s over.” Saying that, he showed Rentaro the object he held in his hand. Next to Rentaro, Enju took a sharp breath. It was a human arm. It was a distorted cross section, as if it had been ripped off, and there was nothing past the elbow. From its size, it looked to be that of a young girl. It was probably his Initiator’s. “Kokone and I were a real family. We said we would be together even until the end and held hands the whole time. That’s when we were attacked by the Spear of Light… Before I knew it, the spear went astray and came right next to me. Kokone disappeared, leaving only her arm.” One glance at Hidehiko laughing loudly, and Rentaro could tell that he was not in a normal state of mind. “But I’m glad that you’re okay, Leader Satomi.” Seeing Hidehiko take a step as his armor creaked, Rentaro involuntarily took a step back. In the end, that action decided their fate. Suddenly, the ground started to crack beneath Hidehiko’s feet, and there was a sudden bump, and it split in half with a roar. “Look out!” Rentaro pulled so hard he thought his arm would be dislocated, and before he knew it, he had fallen on his back on the ground. Where Hidehiko had been standing, about ten meters of the ground had completely fallen away, and there was a giant hole. Gado had disappeared. Suddenly returning to his senses, Rentaro quickly took a flashlight from his hip and ran up to the hole. He covered his mouth to keep out the choking earth and its smoky cloud of dust. The second he shined the light on the bottom, however, he met the eyes of creatures. They’d dug their way out of the earth. Except—to be more precise, their eyes had degenerated so much and were so small that they could no longer see. They had fur that looked like wet velvet. Their five gigantic claws that had become enlarged were for pushing through the dirt, but the feelers and bright red flower that broke through their fur gave off the stink of a Rafflesia plant. If they didn’t have the feelers radiating out from the tips of their noses covering their faces, Rentaro probably never would have noticed that they were star-nosed mole Gastrea. He had not expected this attack from directly below them at all, and it gave him the chills. They were probably Stage Twos. From what he could see, there were about five of them. They’d caused the cave-in and were coming to attack them. When the moles realized they’d been seen, they quickly rushed into a side tunnel. “Tinaaaaa!” Rentaro called out. “Yes, sir!” Tina leapt and jumped down to the bottom of the hole and thrust the antitank rifle that was almost as big as she was into the side tunnel and pulled the trigger. There was a dull bang, and a great muzzle flash spouted out of the tip of the rifle from the V-shaped muzzle break. The discharge gas that flowed backward blew up a cloud of dust that covered the surrounding area. In an instant, there were screams of Gastrea coming from deep in the tunnel. Without pausing to take a breath, Tina changed her aim and pulled the trigger again and again, mercilessly, until finally all the Gastrea were silent. “Big Brother, I have defeated them,” she stated. Nodding once at Tina, who had jumped out of the hole and returned to his side, Rentaro looked over the battlefield. It had become a melee with no logic or reason. Once it had come to this, the commander’s instructions had no way of reaching them. On the other hand, he did not have the power or authority to do anything about their current battle. Rentaro closed his eyes and then slowly opened them. “We will split up and help those civil officers who are fighting tough battles.” Everyone gave a nod. Rentaro closed his eyes and took three steadying breaths, then announced, “Let’s go.” Promising to reunite, they bumped fists and split up by pair. Rentaro ran along the battlefield, looking for civil officers who needed to be rescued. Enju was able to make enemies retreat and rescue their allies at what seemed like lightning speed. They rescued an Initiator who had been cornered by Gastrea and was desperately scooting backward to escape, then saved a pair that had lost their comrades, and carried out the wounded without a break. Some of the people they saved were dumbfounded and stupefied, some repeated their thanks more than necessary, and some looked Rentaro in the eye and squeezed his hand, saying nothing as they returned to the battlefield. However, as was natural on a battlefield where life and death competed with each other, they didn’t meet with just beautiful situations. Unfortunately, they were unable to make it in time to save an Initiator who they watched get ground up between numerous rows of sharpened teeth. In particular, their eyes were filled with the sight of confused Initiators who lost their Promoters, their commanders, and emotional pillars of support. In one place, there was a girl sitting unmoving next to the corpse of her Promoter. When Rentaro pulled her arm to try to get her to a safe place, he was met with resistance. “Stop,” said the girl. “If I leave this man’s side, I’ll be hit a lot.” The words were an account of the kind of treatment she had received from her Promoter when he was still alive. No matter how many times Rentaro told her that her Promoter had died, the girl wouldn’t believe it, and Rentaro left to rescue someone else. When he passed by that area again, a large number of Gastrea had swarmed over, devouring something greedily with their backs turned to him, looking like they were fighting over something in front of them. They seemed to notice Rentaro, but they showed no sign of coming to attack him. They must have really liked whatever they were eating there. In another place, there was a Promoter who was turning into a Gastrea. He was aiming his gun so that he could at least die as a human, but an Initiator with her dyed hair in buns stood in his way, imploring him with tears in her eyes. “Shun, it’s not too late. So don’t kill yourself!” The next instant, the transformation was complete, and the girl’s head was plucked off by the Gastrea behind her. Her body fell, spinning like a top. The smoke made Rentaro’s eyes sting. His breathing became shallow. His face was probably black with soot and mud. The effective temperature was around a blistering 50 degrees Celsius. Rentaro ripped off his necktie at the battlefield’s heat. He had gotten separated from Enju without realizing it. When he looked around to see where he should go next, he saw a flame of fire approaching an abandoned cottage right next to him. The flames of the burning civil officer tents called to each other and merged. When they did, they transformed into an intense swirl of flame that reached over 2,100 degrees Celsius. The roar made by the surge of crimson was like the bellowing laugh of the devil. If he remembered correctly, this building held gasoline— The instant he saw the tongues of flame stretch to reach the drums, the blood in his entire body froze. The next moment, there was a burst of flame, and his body was hammered with the wind from the blast as it was thrown into the air. Rentaro was thrown almost twenty meters back, and his body was pushed into the ground. He rolled a few times with the momentum until he finally stopped. There was damage to his inner ears. As his world turned, he spit out the gritty sand and put his hand on the ground, pushing up his hurting body. From his scorched uniform came the stink of burning synthetic fibers. His clothes were ripped all over the place, and there were dark red spots of coagulated blood. He breathed in too much thin air and dizziness hit him like a tank. Ringing reverberated deep in his ears. Feeling strange, he put his hands over his ears and realized that he could no longer hear. Damage to his eardrums… Rentaro stood, dazed, looking across the battlefield that had lost its sound. Black smoke rose from the civil officer’s base at the front lines, which was red with flames. Ashes danced in the air. The remaining officers were shouting desperately with their mouths wide open, trying to turn the tide in their favor, but their situation just kept getting worse. There was an Initiator with her arm around a Promoter without a head. She was looking desperately for a medic. A reptilian Gastrea threw an Initiator’s body high into the sky, then, when it caught her in its mouth, it and another Gastrea ripped the body clean in half. There was an Initiator who must have gotten separated from her Promoter. She had white skin and wore a white dress, and in the middle of the scorching battlefield, she covered her face with both hands, crying. At her feet, there were pieces of bodies mixed together that came all the way up to her ankles. The organs of the dead went flying, and opened-up craniums had brains showing as they rolled around covered in mud. It was hell. That was the only way to describe the scene unfolding before him. “What are you doing, Rentaro?” Suddenly, he felt strong pressure on his head. Enju’s voice and the sounds of the battlefield returned to his ears. “It’s coming this way! Get down.” “What do you mean by it?” Before he could even finish those words, it suddenly happened. Far off in the distance, beyond the curtain of fire, he thought he saw a brief flash, and something that looked like a beam of light mowed down an area right above where Rentaro was, moving at the speed of light. The next instant, everything that was in that silver path had been cut, and with a strange sound, ten or so civil officers were split in two, their bodies dancing in the air. Chills went down his spine. Standing up reflexively and looking behind him, Rentaro could see those silver paths cutting through, with frantic screams one after another. Spears of Light—Those three words appeared inside his head. “No way…” Rentaro took a step back in shock. The anti-Gastrea tactics they had developed in these past ten years had been made on the assumption that Gastrea did not use projectile weapons. That assumption was crumbling from its base. This was probably the thing that had shot down the Tomahawk missiles fired by the aegis cruiser the other day and brought down the helicopter and fighter aircraft. His instinct told him that they could not win. They were all going to be killed. Rentaro himself, Enju, Kisara, Tina, and all their other adjuvant members would be killed for no good reason. At that moment, a long roar echoed across the battlefield. This roar reached from one end of the forty districts to the other. The roar that sounded like distant thunder was not a war cry or a shriek, but a scream of agony. All the Gastrea froze at once and turned their heads toward the roar. After a brief moment, the sound disappeared from the battlefield. Rentaro also followed their gazes, looking in the same direction. He saw an enormous silhouette that looked like a small mountain twisting its body in agony. It was obviously tens of times bigger than the other Gastrea. Rentaro knew instinctively that that was Aldebaran. On the heels of that thought, the Gastrea moved as one. Caterpillar Gastrea crawled along the ground, and insect and bird Gastrea all hung in the air around the enormous one, using their own bodies as a wall to retreat. Because of the Gastrea flying like a defensive mosquito swarm around Aldebaran, even if Rentaro strained his eyes, he could not see what the Gastrea in the middle looked like. However, the hoarse scream he heard for a moment and the excessively large silhouette were more than enough to send shivers up and down his body. Finally, all the Gastrea had left the battlefield, and all that was left were the living and the dead. “Have we been…saved?” The small Promoter next to him muttered this quietly, but it echoed in Rentaro’s ears for a long time. 2 The next day, a black rain poured down on Tokyo Area. The torrential rains drenched Rentaro’s whole body and dripped from the bottom of his chin. He thought about the temperature being 15 degrees Celsius in July and found it hard to believe how cold it was. However, that was only to be expected. When Rentaro raised his face, he saw a dark, lead-colored sky. The day before, the enormous Varanium structure, the Monolith, had collapsed. The seriousness of the effects had become clear after a night passed. On the news Rentaro watched in the morning, he learned that when the Monolith collapsed, a large amount of ash from the Monolith had drifted up into the stratosphere and formed a thick cloud. It blocked the sun and looked like it would remain in the sky above Tokyo Area for three days. The sound of the Monolith’s collapse had been heard even at the edge of Tokyo, and the vibrations from the collapse were felt all across Japan, reaching even Hakata and Hokkaido Areas. The shock wave from the collapse went halfway around the world and was even seen at the weather observatory at Pike’s Peak in Colorado, USA. On a global scale, there was a 0.3 hectopascal rise in atmospheric pressure measured. Based on recent weather observation models, the ashes and sand from the bleached Monolith were carried north by the westerlies and were expected to fall as far north as Hokkaido. Even the black rain that drenched Rentaro’s body right now was apparently from the ash and sand from the Monolith’s collapse that had been dissolved by the rain and were now falling back down. From the announcement made by the government, there was nothing harmful in it, but he could not tell if that was the truth or not. At the very least, he did not try to whet his thirst with it. Even more serious was that for the next three days, the sun would not peek out onto the surface of the earth. There was already a gloomy, defeated mood spreading through the civil officer troops who had survived the hell from last night. If at least the weather changed for the better, their moods could be changed so too, thanks to the secretion of serotonin in their brains, but… The bottoms of their boots were filled with mud, and it felt very uncomfortable. Rentaro lifted his head and looked around him. The surrounding area was a wide, vast plain, and Promoters were spread out. There was a mountain nearby of raised ground with one side covered with debris, telling the story of how intense the battle had been between the Gastrea and the self-defense force. Rentaro was walking where the infantry division of the SDF had made camp. He was sandwiched between body bags for some reason. This morning, only the Promoters were gathered under the pretext of searching for survivors and rescuing those in the base camp. Everyone had noticed that it was just a pretext to conceal the real reason they were here. The SDF facilities they were visiting were destroyed, and its officials were mainly lying around in a state where they did not need rescuing. The fact that the Aldebaran army had flooded the civil officer rear guard meant that the fate of the self-defense force that had been the front guard had already been decided, but it was still a shock to see it with his own eyes. They had been completely wiped out by Aldebaran first, after all. They could not come to an agreement with the Gastrea or take prisoners of war, so once they started fighting, it inevitably became a war of extermination. Thanks to that, there wasn’t really anyone in need of rescue. It was reasonable to assume that most of those who were not here had become Gastrea themselves. Apparently, the goal given to Rentaro and the other Promoters was to retrieve the corpses before they rotted and spread serious infectious diseases, as well as to send them back to their bereaved families. Rentaro thanked them silently as he tried to gather as many of the parts of the corpses as he could and put them into the body bags one by one. Nevertheless, part of his brain was still stuck on asking why this had happened. There had been two battles in Kanto already. In the First Kanto Battle, the self-defense force suffered a defeat. In the Second Kanto Battle, the self-defense force had won. During the Second Kanto Battle, the SDF had come up with a strategy to force the Gastrea out and keep them out, so they were confident that they would be able to win the third battle as well. It was hard to believe that they had been defeated so easily this time. Just what was the difference between the last battle and this one? If they could not determine the cause of the self-defense force’s defeat, there was no way they’d find the clues needed to help them defeat the Gastrea. Moved by instinct that was close to conviction, Rentaro walked around the remains of the battlefield in search of his clue. Before long, he came across one strange thing after another. A tank was split completely in two. From the sharp cut on it, he thought that it was probably from the Spear of Light. There were also those that had fallen into holes and couldn’t move. Taking a quick look around, he saw that there were self-propelled guns and missile silos that were also in the same situation. This was probably the work of the Model Mole—the mole Gastrea that Rentaro had also encountered. They dug tunnels until they were right under the weapons of the main force and then scraped away at the dirt to make a hole, inducing the ceiling of the tunnel to cave in. No matter how good the tank treads were on bad roads, they did not appear to be able to get out of deep pitfalls. Rentaro’s feelings had surpassed fear and had turned into admiration for their superb strategy. With their sniping, the moles had even brought down the general, Hidehiko Gado, in front of Rentaro’s very eyes. No matter how Rentaro looked at it, they were being led way too well. They were like a single colony of insects. How in the world were they sharing information? Just then, he felt a prickle in his mind. That’s right, I had thought about this possibility before. If he remembered correctly, that time, he thought they looked like a school of fish that gathered together to look like one giant fish. Suddenly, in the back of his mind, this image overlapped with the image of Aldebaran retreating with its subordinates circling around it like a swarm of mosquitos. A lightbulb flashed in his head and Rentaro involuntarily raised his voice. Could that be what it was? If that was the case, then Aldebaran’s real ability was— “Man, this is terrible.” There was a splash, and Rentaro turned his head to see Tamaki Katagiri standing with a grim look on his face. His dark blond hair had gotten darker after being in the black rain, and his face, under his sunglasses, was somber. Rentaro made a sound of agreement and turned to Tamaki. “Speaking of which, I haven’t thanked you for your help yet.” “Huh? What are you talking about?” “With Kisara.” Tamaki seemed to understand and looked around them, saying, “Sure.” Rentaro followed Tamaki’s gaze and saw all the Promoters moving slowly, putting the corpses in the body bags. As a Promoter, Kisara should have also been called for this work, but after talking to the higher-ups about it, he convinced Kisara not to go, saying it wasn’t something a girl should be doing. Kisara put up a fight, but Tamaki helped Rentaro try to convince her, and they somehow settled the matter without incident. Kisara had said, “What, both of you?” sulkily, but after seeing this scene with human body parts scattered all over the place, he confirmed that his judgment was correct. Tamaki shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not like I did it for you. I did it for her.” Just then, there was a noise from far away that split the air, and they lifted their faces. Rentaro had heard this noise before. It was a helicopter rotor. Looking in the direction Tamaki was pointing, he saw a helicopter the size of a bean growing larger and larger. Rentaro saw the logo of the news company on the side of the helicopter and got a bad feeling. Looking around, he saw that other civil officers had also stopped working and had turned their faces to the sky. The helicopter passed over Rentaro’s head with a roar that made him want to cover his ears. He couldn’t hear very well with the sound of the rain and the rotor, but a sliding door opened and a reporter shouted something. He could predict what the reporter was saying. In the first place, humans liked news where they could laugh about others’ mistakes more than they liked news about others doing heroic things. What did the organization that was optimized for getting ratings have to say to the civil officers who couldn’t even be said to have won an easy victory if they were being nice…? Rentaro gritted his teeth. Damn it, are they here to publicly scorn us? Suddenly, Rentaro was surprised by an explosion at his ear and a roar that moved upward at the same time. Covering his ears and looking next to him, he saw Tamaki looking up with white smoke rising from the muzzle of his Magnum revolver. Rentaro then heard the hoarse scream of the reporter in the helicopter. Apparently, the bullet had hit inside the helicopter, and the helicopter made a sharp turn and turned tail. “Shit! In movies, handguns could make military helicopters blow up, but it doesn’t work like that in real life, I guess?” Tamaki muttered. “You were trying to blow it up?” Rentaro was dumbfounded for a moment, but when his shock subsided, a smile rose to his face. The civil officers working around them laughed pleasantly and cheered, and that slowly grew louder. Rentaro realized that the stagnant mood that had been on the battlefield had been driven off for a moment, and looked with wonder at Promoter Tamaki Katagiri. 3 In the end, the Promoters rescued sixty-eight survivors in half a day. Thinking about the fact that the self-defense force’s infantry was a large force that had more than seven thousand people in it, this was only a hundredth of them, which was a depressingly low number. The injured were immediately brought to the medical squad. Those who were crying and had lost their will to fight from fear of Gastrea were deemed unable to withstand more battle, and were given similar treatment. They were currently hearing what had happened from the survivors, but Rentaro wouldn’t hear anything from his lowly place on the totem pole, so he could only imagine what they were saying. After a while, the black rain stopped, and when it grew dark, they used that as a chance to end the search. They kept trying until the very end, so even though they didn’t have any proof, they were able to feel pretty confident that they had picked up all the survivors. They returned, completely exhausted, to a town close to the plain. The towns in the Outer Districts had been abandoned for ten years and were growing wild, overrun with trees and grass, with plants budding from their roofs. The plants had grown bigger due to the Gastrea virus, and some were swallowing up whole houses with their massive roots. Tokyo Area, District 40, the Outer District where Rentaro and the others were fighting, had plateaus and steep slopes extending far into the area, so few people lived there. As such, there was little chance of coming across Manhole Children or people living illegally in the ruins, so the civil officer troops, who had lost their base to the Gastrea attack, requisitioned these buildings. Fundamentally, the buildings in the Outer Districts were exposed to remarkable aging the moment people stopped living in them and heating them, as they went through differences in temperature and expanded and contracted over and over. The government did not recommend living in the Outer District buildings that could collapse at any moment, but everyone was tired of exposing their skin to the black rain that had been falling since morning, so there were no objections. There were many different buildings of various sizes in the town, but only about a tenth had the minimum facilities to protect them from the rain and keep them warm. Peeking through a convenience store window whose glass had been shattered to pieces, Rentaro was very surprised to see a goat that had gone wild sprawled between the product shelves. The park he stopped by on the way back had an abandoned tricycle and a flattened soccer ball being blown drearily by in the wind. The letters on a rotting signboard with red rust making it thicker could only be half-read from the stains and peeling. Even on the day it started being evacuated as a Gastrea danger zone, the residents must have thought they could return in two or three days. The whole town still looked as if time had stopped on that day ten years ago, with traces of the residents’ lives over everything. Rentaro was heading toward a certain junior high school deep within the town. Faint light leaked from the gym that was connected to it. If he remembered correctly, this was where Kisara and the others were working. Thinking that, he diffidently opened the emergency exit door with a loud creak. When he did so, the noise that had been absorbed by the walls rushed at him. There was the sound of people groaning and sobbing mixed with other unintelligible screams, with the sound of slippers running on top of all of that. Inside the building, it was like a field hospital. Injured civil officers and self-defense force troops lay on beds and futons, and when there weren’t enough, on rush and straw mats. Between them, volunteer doctors and nurses in white coats hurried back and forth. It was so loud that one had to yell in order to be heard by the person next to him or her, and the smell of medicine wafting through the building was so strong it made Rentaro’s head hurt. Because they had no electricity, there were lanterns and candles all over the place, with electric lights tied on top of generators used in place of the normal lights, so the whole place was dimly lit, and there was a strange mood in the air that was hard to explain. “Oh, Rentaro, Rentaro, Rentaro!” An especially loud voice called out, and he saw Enju waving an arm above her head as she ran toward him. With a thud, Enju’s head rushed into him and a soft weight rested on his chest. Hugging Enju to him, he noticed a pink nurse’s cap on top of her head. When Rentaro pointed at it, Enju lifted her face as usual and laughed gleefully. “Isn’t it cute? They gave it to me since I was helping. They said workers had to wear this.” “I-I see…,” said Rentaro. Enju tilted her head slightly. “What’s wrong, Rentaro?” “Nothing—” “Oh, Satomi, you’re back early.” Turning around, he saw Kisara holding a washbasin with hot water in it. She also had a nurse’s cap on her head, like Enju. “Our shift is almost over, so please wait a bit.” Rentaro looked around at the bustling atmosphere before looking back at Kisara. “Even Enju’s here. She’s not being a bother?” Kisara smiled and shook her head. “Not at all. Enju’s a big help, holding the injured people’s hands tight and just being with them. Everyone seems to appreciate her. On the other hand, I can only do random chores, so I’m sure I’m more in the way of the doctors and nurses.” Enju stuck out her chest proudly and sniffed. “You see? I am being of help.” Rentaro watched Enju silently. It was possible that Enju was recovering from the painful incident of her classmates being killed in a bombing. He had the urge to ask her directly, but considering the possibility that he was stirring up a hornet’s nest, he could not speak carelessly. Rentaro hid his inner turmoil and patted Enju on the head, as if going through his usual movements, saying, “Yes, yes, good job,” pretending to act normally. Enju did not seem to notice. “By the way, Satomi, have you met up with Dr. Sumire already?” Kisara asked. “What? Doc? Doc’s here, too?” Just then, Rentaro felt a weight on his shoulders as someone draped their arms over him from behind. Cold skin like a corpse. Said person put lips close to his ears. “Good evening, Satomi. It’s a nice night.” “Gah!” Jumping away quickly and turning around, he saw a smiling face shining brightly with enjoyment through a curtain of hair that was left to grow as it pleased.