Chapter 51

BLACK BULLET 4 CHAPTER 04 DOGS OF WAR 1 After getting proper treatment of his wound at the first-aid station that operated out of the school nurse’s office, Rentaro could finally relax. When he was freed from being in constant fear for his life, the first things to attack him were lethargy and a sense of emptiness. The effects of the excessive amount of adrenaline wore off, and the sharp pain returned to his abdomen. But the deep emotions he felt at surviving passed, and he was soon filled with a different kind of nervousness. He was reminded to stay in bed for at least a day after this, but he didn’t have the time for that. He was now the leader of this worn-out group that could barely be called a troop, even if it hadn’t quite sunk in yet. Thanking Sumire, he left the nurse’s office and walked alone along the nighttime street. Now that he had become the commander, there were a ton of things he had to do. However, there was one thing he had to check, even if it meant putting aside everything else. Rentaro headed toward some facilities a little ways away from the school that were connected to the former first-aid station. When he told the person at the entrance why he was there, he was led through to a large hall. The room was spacious and dimly lit, and he occasionally heard sobbing. Laid out in an orderly fashion were five rows of black body bags. He thought they looked just like the rows of tuna at the wholesale fish market. He looked on with a strangely cold feeling, thinking that this would be his fate, too, if he died. The health-care center had turned into a storage area for the bodies of civil officers and their support personnel who had died in action. The corpses should have been promptly sent back to the bereaved families, but after Aldebaran’s second attack, the personnel who would have transported them got cold feet, and the spirits of those who defended their country were now sleeping together in a huddle with no one to care for them. Because of the ashes from the Monolith covering the sky, temperatures had dropped dramatically, but it was actually still summer. That meant that the phenomenon called rigor mortis set in immediately after death, and it was hard to avoid the sour smell that filled the air and hit Rentaro’s nose. The sound of shoes echoed shrilly on the linoleum floor, and the sound of the power generator in the room next door made the air vibrate slightly. Finally, the person on duty led him to where he needed to go, and then Rentaro stood in front of a single corpse. When the person on duty checked the tab, he bowed once and left. Rentaro watched him go, then got on his knees and quietly unzipped the body bag. Rentaro was greeted with muddy, wet eyes and a half-opened mouth. Compassion won over fear, and Rentaro looked at him face-to-face for a while. The man had lost both arms and legs, and Rentaro could see cruel cracks in his bright red exoskeleton, splattered with blood redder than red. “I…didn’t hate you, Gado.” From what Rentaro had heard, Aldebaran’s second attack had been aiming for the commander, Gado, from the start. The enemy troops used an extremely primitive form of organization with Aldebaran as the head, but in terms of base instincts, humans had not changed that much, either. The civil officer troops lacked even a standardized set of indispensable equipment for modern-day warfare, and they hadn’t had time for training, either, so it could be said that they had no choice but to fight with a primitive form of organization. The advantage was that the chain of command was simple, so it did not take long for orders to reach the soldiers at the end. The disadvantage was obvious—all the power was concentrated on the general, so if the general was out of commission, then the organization would simply collapse and everything would fall apart. Apparently, Gado’s squad was lured in and surrounded, and at the end of a hard, desperate fight, they were pulverized. The civil officer troops didn’t fall apart at that, but only because each and every civil officer was firmly aware of the fact that they were Tokyo Area’s last stronghold. Rentaro had a silent conversation with Gado. Even with all that had happened, Gado had an IP rank of 275. Rentaro could not imagine how much of a handicap the man had fighting with just one leg, but if Gado had been healthy, he would not have fallen behind even if he had been outnumbered. Old or young, male or female, smart or foolish, good or bad—death did not discriminate. This world was fair to the point of being cruel. Nagamasa Gado had banished Rentaro Satomi and then had been forced into an inescapable situation. But Gado’s actions had all been based on a certain kind of logic, and part of that was that he was constantly making decisions in an almost heartless manner. He had cast Rentaro away mechanically based on his own logic. However, that man had also met his fate by the same reckoning. This was not the ending Rentaro had wanted. He had wanted to surprise this man by showing that he could come back alive from a mission he wasn’t supposed to survive. Rentaro turned his head to look at the rows of neatly lined up body bags. Their current combat power was a little over sixty civil officers who were up against one thousand, eight hundred Gastrea. They would not get any reinforcements. They had also run out of missiles and fighter aircraft. All of Tokyo Area was worn out, and it didn’t matter what tactics they used—they were already facing certain defeat. Aldebaran would come. It would definitely come one more time. Rentaro’s intuition, which had already surpassed rhyme or reason, told him that he would not be able to avoid a final decisive battle against that thing. The nihilist Sumire had often told him that there was no meaning to life, and that everything they did was just dancing on their graves. If that was the case, then was it complete coincidence that he was not already lined up alongside the rows of dead? Would the future change if he took command in Gado’s place? Rentaro shook his head silently. No, it was the same. Nothing would change. It was then that he noticed that Gado’s cloak had been taken off and folded. It wasn’t like they were distributing mementos, but he thought to take something back with him, so he took that and turned around. Suddenly, he stopped, noticing that someone was walking toward him from the front. He immediately realized that it was Gado’s Initiator. Asaka Mibu, whose hands were covered in mud from picking golden-rayed lilies, hung her head dejectedly, walking with heavy steps. It seemed she had managed to survive, but she looked so dazed—like she had dropped her soul somewhere—that it was hard to say whether she could be described with the word unharmed. When Asaka noticed Rentaro, she bowed and headed toward Gado’s side. When Rentaro started walking again, he suddenly heard sobs coming from behind him and stopped. Rentaro’s hand tightened into a fist. He ran without looking back. I’m not fit to be the commander. 2 Rentaro was still depressed as he took on the heavy responsibilities of Commander. He couldn’t even tell if he didn’t want to do it because he didn’t think he could, or because he didn’t think they could win, or if it was a combination of the two. Thinking to go back once to the hotel his adjuvant made camp in, he dragged his feet past what had once been a park and suddenly heard angry voices that made him raise his face. Straining his eyes to look, he saw a crowd of civil officers off in the distance. There was so much murderous intent, it was as if someone had stirred up a hornet’s nest. He could see Tamaki, Yuzuki, Enju, and Shoma. And in the middle of the uproar was a conspicuously tall masked man and a girl wearing a black dress. Oh no, Rentaro thought, starting to run. They had followed him and descended upon the civil officer frontline base. It looked like before they could find Rentaro, they had been found by other civil officers and had caused a commotion. “Kagetane, Kohina!” Rentaro shouted. The two of them noticed Rentaro, and Kagetane spread his arms benevolently. “There you are, my comrade. I was looking for you.” Enju shot a look toward Rentaro, startled. “Rentaro! What does he mean, he was looking for you?” “I’ll explain later, but he saved me.” “Saved you?!” Enju’s voice cracked. Just then, Kohina narrowed her eyes and stepped forward with flushed cheeks. “Enju, I missed you.” Drawing her black Varanium short swords, she licked a blade with her tongue. “Let’s cross swords, Enju. Okay?” Just then, a shining thread wrapped around one of Kohina’s short swords and restrained its movement. Kohina stared in surprise. “Wait a minute, you.” Stepping out to the front with her arms crossed and looking furious was none other than Yuzuki Katagiri. “You people are the enemy of all of us civil officers! Now that we know you’re alive, we can’t just let you leave.” Kohina gave Yuzuki a bored sideways glance and then pulled the hem of Kagetane’s tailcoat. “Papa, these people are in the way. Can I kill them?” Rentaro’s hair stood on end. If they went wild here, it would be trouble. However, not even Kagetane would get into a brawl with this many civil officers, already surrounded on all sides. That was Rentaro’s way of figuring, anyway, but Kagetane betrayed his expectations and snapped his fingers. “Kohina, you can kill half of them.” Raising clouds of dust, Kohina seemed to disappear, then appeared the next moment in front of Yuzuki’s eyes. “Wha—?!” “You know, you’re kind of strong, but—” Yuzuki threw up her arm suddenly in defense, but Kohina’s short sword went past that to pierce Yuzuki’s side. Kohina continued on to ram her, knocking Yuzuki off her feet and then treading on the overturned Yuzuki’s abdomen with her feet. Cracks radiated out on the ground, and there was the sound of air being squeezed out as Yuzuki spit blood. “Gah…!” “It’s not over yet,” vowed Kohina. An Initiator with an IP rank of 1,850 was defeated in seconds. However, there was no time to be surprised as two Initiators struck at Kohina from both sides. Kohina spun with the speed of a tornado and slashed the stomach of the Initiator on the left and the tendon of the Initiator on the right and then kicked both to send them flying. The two of them pounded into the ground, outside of the crowd of people. She was amazingly strong. “Let go of Yuzuki, you little—” Tamaki rushed out, pulling the trigger of a large revolver. “It’s no use. Imaginary Gimmick!” A repulsion field spread out around Kagetane, who had stepped between them. The bullet Tamaki fired hit the dome-shaped field and ricocheted with a thunderous roar. Tamaki’s gun shook in his hand. “Wh-what the hell… It was a bullet from a .454 Casull, you know!” Kagetane chuckled. “Too bad!” This is bad. At this rate… As Rentaro rushed out in a rage, he suddenly felt tremendous killing intent coming from somewhere. “Please get out of the way,” said a low voice, and the civil officers stopped in their tracks. There was a commotion as the crowd parted, and a single Initiator walked toward them. She held two fully automatic Glock guns in her hands, and her platinum blond hair was half-ruffled. “Release Yuzuki this minute. I’m getting angry…” “Tina!” said Rentaro. Apparently comprehending her unusual presence, Kohina took her foot off of Yuzuki. “Oh? You look strong. What’s your rank?” Tina said her rank quietly in a voice only Kohina could hear. The instant she heard it, Kohina’s eyes grew wide, and she muttered, “Interesting.” She turned to Kagetane. “Papa, I’m going to kill her! I’ll definitely kill her! Even if you tell me no, I’ll definitely kill her!” Kohina abandoned the sword that had been wrapped in thread and pulled out a new one from her waist, crossing her swords and lowering her hips. At the same time, two Shenfields spilled out of Tina’s sleeves and danced in the air. “You’re not a close-combat Initiator, are you?” said Kohina. “What if I’m not?” Tina replied. “You can’t win. Not someone like you.” Tina looked momentarily confused but then soon shook her head. “What a joke.” “Then why don’t we give it a try?” The murderous intent and fighting spirit clashed, turning the air explosive. Shoot, Rentaro thought. Even if he ran out himself, there was no way he could stop them. However, he didn’t expect a second intruder to appear just then. He heard the ringing of a sword departing its sheath and saw skirts fluttering gently. “That’s enough.” Kisara suddenly appeared between Kagetane and Kohina and flipped her long hair. She had an eye patch protecting the left eye she’d damaged in the recent fight. “If you insist on continuing this, I will intervene in the fight.” Kagetane drew his gun from its holster and pointed it at Kisara’s brow. “Oh dear, lovely Miss President. Do you remember me?” “Yes, of course. It’s been a while, Kagetane Hiruko.” Kagetane held his mask as he chuckled. “But your joke makes me laugh. You will intervene in the fight? What of it? I am the one who will destroy the world. No one can stop me.” Just as Kagetane put his finger on the trigger of his Beretta, Kohina suddenly realized something, and the color drained from her face as she screamed. “Papa, no! She’s the most dangerous out of everyone here!” Kagetane looked at Kohina in disbelief and then returned his gaze to Kisara. Kagetane held his weapon at the ready, and Kisara had her hand similarly on her scabbard. Invisible sparks flung between the two. Rentaro didn’t know how Kagetane judged Kisara’s strength, but surprisingly, Kagetane was the one to back off first. Kohina even looked regretfully at Enju and Tina and sheathed her short swords. Rentaro didn’t understand what had happened. Even though Kohina had been even more eager to challenge Tina after learning her rank, she panicked the instant Kisara said she was going to intervene… Wait a minute. Does that mean— “My friend.” His train of thought broken, Rentaro looked up to see Kagetane smiling softly as he held his mask. “I wanted to test the strength of your adjuvant. Sorry.” He chuckled. Rentaro didn’t say anything as he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. After encountering Kagetane in the forest and somehow or other working together to defeat Pleiades, Rentaro thought that maybe even someone like Kagetane could change his ways for the better. However, in the end, even as Tokyo Area was on the brink of destruction from the approaching Aldebaran, this pair was more concerned with pissing contests. After glaring at Kagetane silently, Rentaro exchanged glances with Tamaki and nodded once. Tamaki lent a shoulder to his little sister, Yuzuki, and hurriedly took her to the relief squad. In the end, neither Enju nor Rentaro, nor the white-coated Shoma, had found an opportunity to join the fight. Hmm? Rentaro felt like something was off and looked around him, realizing that there was an Initiator he hadn’t seen this whole time. Casually looking around him, he walked to where Shoma was. “Shoma, bro, where’s Midori?” A startled nervousness spread on the faces of the members of the adjuvant, and Rentaro felt uncomfortable at that baffling answer. “Enju, did…did something happen?” Enju looked down, not meeting Rentaro’s eyes. “Satomi, there’s something I need to tell you.” Solemnly, Shoma opened his mouth slowly and spoke. And then Rentaro understood why Enju had been silent. “No way…” Kisara shook her head gloomily. “Anyway, you should go see her. You’ll still make it. She was waiting for you to come.” 3 Rentaro went through the dense forest and came once again to Central Heights Hotel, careful as he went through the entryway with the collapsed ceiling and up the metal spiral staircase to the second floor. Relying on memory, he stood in front of room 201, stopping his hand just as he was about to knock. Rentaro realized that he still did not have his feelings in order. What kind of face was he supposed to show in front of her? There was nothing more worthless than an adjuvant leader who wasn’t there when it really mattered. He couldn’t complain if she blamed him. “Is someone there?” He heard a feeble voice call out from the other side of the door. Rentaro prepared himself and exhaled from his nose. He twisted the knob and entered quietly, but the screech of a rusted hinge mixed with the stagnant air inside the room. In the orange light of a silently burning lantern, he saw Midori Fuse lying in the bed on the right. Next to her was a water pitcher and cup. When she saw Rentaro, she hurriedly took the pointed hat from the side table and put it on to hide her cat ears. The light was only shining on half of her face, but she was sweating profusely, and her cheeks were flushed. At first glance, it seemed like she had just caught a cold, but Initiators were protected from a variety of illnesses in exchange for the corrosion rate that bound their bodies, so of course that was not the case. Rentaro brought over the stool in front of the vanity and sat down next to Midori. “How are you feeling?” “I’m all right, Leader.” She tried to sit up and bow politely, but Rentaro hurriedly kept her down. The shoulder he held rose and fell with small movements, and she was panting, her pulse beating hotly. To Midori right now, even that small feat was difficult. “More importantly, are you really…?” Rentaro asked as he helped her lay down again. She smiled faintly, as if answering a question about the weather. “Yes, I’m sorry. I fell behind. The Gastrea got me, and now I cannot move my body as I would like.” He couldn’t help but feel compassion for the conditions of how she fell in battle. Alone and unaided, surrounded on all sides with the enemy closing in…it would have been possible for her to survive if she and Shoma had been able to keep their usual formation and focus on defense, but… Midori had seen an Initiator in trouble during battle. Apparently, they had only bumped into each other in the camp and exchanged silent bows, but because they were both shy, they had never actually exchanged words. But when Midori found out that girl had gotten separated from her Promoter and had lost both her legs and was just abandoned in the middle of the battlefield, she didn’t think about anything else but rushing in to rescue her. What was frightening was how elaborate the Gastrea’s tactics had been. At the very least, the Gastrea’s mind had been developed enough to calculate profit and loss beyond immediate kill of the prey it had brought down. They had waited for another to rescue their haul, and thereby get both at once. Just as Midori rushed in to comfort the girl whose name she did not even know, the sandlike ground caved in under them and hollowed out into a funnel as they watched. At the end of the upside-down cone, a repulsive Gastrea with a snapping lower jaw appeared. It was probably an ant lion larva Gastrea, but its form had changed so much that she couldn’t be sure. A minute passed. In that time, her arms and legs were being pulled down by the sand as she slipped down, and her movements were being stopped by neurotoxins as she was injected with the Gastrea virus. Organisms that had turned into Gastrea grew something called a virus pocket somewhere in their bodies packed with the virus, and they injected it into their opponents in one way or another to turn them into Gastrea, too. There were, on average, over two hundred million Gastrea viruses in each milliliter of the virus pocket. A normal person would have been turned into a Gastrea in no time, but it was unknown what would have happened to Midori if Shoma had rescued her even a second later. All that could be found of the Initiator Midori had tried to save on the battlefield were traces that looked like scraps of food, and there was no way to know exactly where she was. In addition, according to Sumire’s close inspection, Midori had a Gastrea virus corrosion rate so hopeless that she hesitated to even say it. And Midori herself did not know this. “Leader, I’ll get better soon and be able to fight again, right?” Rentaro looked down, unable to look straight at her face. “Kill that girl.” Involuntarily, the masked man’s baritone voice ran through his head. Those were the words of Kagetane, who had been eavesdropping when they were talking about the circumstances of Midori’s situation earlier. “It’s over for her. Even if you kept her alive, she would just slow you down. No, she would definitely get in the way. You should send her off swiftly before she turns into a Gastrea. That is your first duty as the new commander.” When Kagetane murmured that, Kisara flared up fiercely. “You can’t. I’m against it. If we keep Midori stable…at best, she could still live for another month.” Kagetane shook his head in disgust. “This is ridiculous. Are you really going to face Aldebaran with the nonsensical illusion of friendship?” Kisara turned once and glared sharply at Rentaro. “Satomi, you better not listen to what a guy like this says. If you kill Midori, I’ll scorn you forever.” “Satomi, kill her. In the past, we fought because I wanted to throw the world into confusion, while you wanted to maintain world order. You won. This is the world you desired. You must deal with the consequences.” The two of them glared Rentaro down, making him feel extremely conflicted as he left. I will… I will… “What’s the matter, Leader?” Midori’s voice brought him back to himself, and he shook his head listlessly. “It’s…nothing…” Rentaro put his hand behind his back and checked the position of his XD gun. Midori had no way of knowing Rentaro’s thoughts as she poured water from the pitcher into the cup and slid her finger around the wet brim. “Leader, I have a favor to ask of you.” “A favor?” “Yes. I’m having trouble feeling my extremities… Will you play along for a while?” Saying that, without waiting for an answer, she stuck her arm out horizontally, still lying down. And then, she slowly closed her eyes. “Leader, please take hold of any finger you’d like.” Rentaro look suspiciously at the outstretched hand but gently took hold of her middle finger. “Just now, did you touch…my thumb?” Rentaro was taken aback. There were no uniform symptoms for Initiators whose corrosion levels were close to the borderline. There were those who turned into Gastrea while in a deep coma, but on the other hand, there were those who turned mad in the midst of agonizing pain, losing all emotion as they turned into Gastrea. There was also the unfortunate case of the girl Rentaro had helped die in the past, Kayo Senju, who looked on clearheaded as she watched herself helplessly turn into a Gastrea.