“N-nagi-neesan. . .?” My sister.
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“I told you, don’t call me ‘Neesan,’” she snarled. No one else talked like her. “And why in god’s name are you dressed like that? I dunno who the hell put you up to it, but you are a grade A dumbass,” she spit her words, tearing Boogiepop’s hat and cloak off me while I was still paralyzed.
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“Who the hell are you?” Kinukawa Kotoe asked, trying to get to her feet. But Nagi poked her with her stungun, which was the rod kind, much like a police truncheon.
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“You aren’t going anywhere, Kinukawa Kotoe.”
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“Whaaat?! You know me?” Kotoe stared, amazed.
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My sister snorted. “Thought so. Girl like Kinukawa Kotoe, suddenly acting crazy...”
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“What do you mean?!”
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“You aren’t Kinukawa,” she said quietly. “You’re just borrowing her face, or maybe you brainwashed her. I dunno, but absolutely every student at Shinyo Academy knows who I am.”
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She looked awfully used to this.
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“What are you?” Kotoe asked.
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“I’m not big on giving out my name as much as he is. And I’m the one asking questions. Who’s controlling you?” she asked, pointedly.
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I was confused now.
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What the...?
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Brainwashed?
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So it wasn’t this woman who’d done something to Orihata?
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"............" Kotoe fell silent.
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Then her face twisted into a smile again.
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“Oooooh. . .I get it. I found you, buried down in Kinukawa Kotoe’s memories. You’re that ‘Fire Witch.’ Didn’t seem that important, at the time, but I guess I blew it, not leaving that in the conscious registers. Never thought the class delinquent would be doing something like this.”
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This was nothing like the way Kotoe had been talking-she sounded like a middle-aged man with the face of a girl.
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“Answer me,” my sister said, unmoved. Was she always doing stuff like this?
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“My, my. First him, then the Imaginator, now you. . .problems everywhere I turn.” Whatever was inside her grinned at us. Her eyes stayed perfectly round, which made the smile that much more sinister. “Good thing I took the precaution of sending in two teams.”
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She snapped her fingers.
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".........!"
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My sister suddenly flung herself to the side.
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And from above, one after another, something-no, someone, fell on her.
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Punk-styled men were attacking from the air!
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(WHAT...?!)
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I looked up. Out of the second floor staircase window of the building beside us came a swarm of punks, skinheads, and yakuza-looking men, all leaping down into the alley. Like the first bunch, this motley crew seemed to have nothing to do with each other.
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The six men I’d knocked out earlier were just the main course?
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These others had all been waiting on standby?!
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“N-nagi-neesa-!” I tried to tell her to run, but...
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“Hmph!”
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Making a noise somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle, she dodged every nail-ridden bat they swung at her.
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Then she’d kick them, zap them with her stungun, dodge a blow from behind without even looking...
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It was all so fast...
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She was taking on five or six at a time, never flinching, never hesitating-knocking them down like bowling pins. She was insanely strong.
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(Wh-who the hell is she?)
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By any standard, she was far stronger than me. And it wasn’t because she had a weapon. No, she was good without one, but with a weapon, it was like it became an extension of her own body. It was a clear sign of just how good she was.
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Now that I thought about it, I remember once asking my Shishou what my sister, the daughter of his friend, had been like as a child.
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Shishou had laughed, and said only this: “I couldn’t keep up with her.”
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But I’d never thought he meant it literally.
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"........."
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Both body and mind now stunned and unable to move, Nagi suddenly grabbed me by the front of my shirt and flung me across the alley.
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‘Aaah! ’ I thought, and a second later, a skinhead landed where I’d been lying. She’d saved me from getting trampled.
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Now that is true strength.
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Barn, bam, all the punks went flying, kicked or zapped.
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"........."
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I no longer understood anything, but did my best to move, trying to keep out of my sister’s way.
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Suddenly, a yakuza-looking guy landed right in front of me.
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I panicked for a moment, but he was out cold. Wasn’t even twitching.
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Just as I started to get angry with him for startling me, I noticed the key holder hanging from his alligator belt.
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There were a bunch of keys that looked to go to various motorcycles and cars, and so on, but the one my eyes had latched onto, was...
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"Th-that’s..."
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I forced my frozen arm through horrible pain, and grabbed the key.
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I’d seen that key before.
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I’d seen her holding it, once.
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“Oh god...”
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It belonged to Orihata. It was her apartment key.
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It hit the girl square in the back.
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“Unh!” She fell forwards. . .and turned it into a forward som-ersault. She was back on her feet in a second flat.
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Bulletproof clothing...!
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She spun towards Kotoe, and glared at her.
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“Sh-shit!” Kotoe fired the gun a few times. But the enemy was moving too fast, and none of the bullets hit her. Most of them hit her allies, the terminals.
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They, however, were not bulletproof. They simply toppled over, Spurting blood.
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“Stop it!” the girl roared.
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(I’m finished...!) Kotoe thought, and fled, abandoning her allies.
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“Wait!” the girl called, but that wasn’t going to happen.
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“Keep her here!” Kotoe yelled at the terminals.
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They did as they were told, flinging themselves at Taniguchi Masaki’s sister, despite their wounds.
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“Argh!” she roared, knocking them aside, one after the other.
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When the last one went down, she looked around her.
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There was no Sign of Kotoe.
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“Damn,” she muttered. Then she noticed her brother was missing too. “That idiot!” she said, irritated, but her tone was more worried than annoyed.
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“Okay. Guess I’ll have to take care of you boys first,” she said, looking down at the groaning terminal in front of her.
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She poked her stun gun against his head.
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“If this is the guy I think it is, this ought to fix things,” and a weaker burst of electricity coursed through the terminal’s head.
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She repeated this with all of them. Even those with gunshot wounds-none of the wounds were fatal, so she let them be.
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“Okay...” she said, looking up. She checked to see just how many power lines were running overhead.
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Then she picked up the five guns lying on the ground. They all had silencers on them, so she unscrewed them, and held the pieces in both hands.
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She fired and fired until there were no bullets left, leaving the street echoing with more gunfire than a yakuza flick.
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“What-?!”
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She had already fled onto a different street, but the noise carried like the wind.
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Everyone in earshot knew something was up.
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(What is that crazy bitch thinking...?)
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The people around her were turning their heads, and moving towards the noise. Presumably they had never heard real gunshots before. In this respect, Japan was still a peaceful country.
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But Kotoe had no intention of turning back and making sure of anything. She wanted to get away as quickly as humanly possible.
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But, as everyone around her headed towards the noise, and Kotoe started up the road in a temporary vacuum, her feet suddenly stopped.
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A man was standing in front of her.
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He was not heading towards the noise, but looking right at her, waiting quietly.
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He was wearing white.
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".................."
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Kotoe could not understand why this had such an impact on her. To be strictly accurate, the surface consciousness Spooky E
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had imprinted on Kotoe did not understand.
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(Who. . .is this again?)
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She thought, mystified to find herself fretting because he’d seen her.
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".................."
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The man in white moved slowly towards her.
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He looked very sad. Kotoe felt that expression was very familiar.
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Like something she had long since left behind...
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“Wh. . . . . . . . .wh-who. . . . . .are you?!” she shrieked.
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Right there in the middle of the street, heedless as to who might see her, she pulled out her gun and pointed it at the man.
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"............" The man in white kept walking toward her.
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Kotoe took a step backwards, helpless.
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She couldn’t let him get close to her. She couldn’t even look at his face.
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She had to run away. She turned her back and took a step...
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And he grabbed her hand.
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“-Kotoe-chan,” he whispered.
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When she heard his voice, Kotoe burst into tears. “L-let go!”
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she screamed, but it was a very feeble scream.
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The man in white did as she asked.
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Kotoe staggered, tripped over her own feet, no longer able to walk.
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The man was in front of her again.
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“I’ve known how you felt for a long time,” he said, quietly.
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Kotoe could not answer. Consciously, she was unable to understand anything he said, but her body had frozen, unable to react.
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“Wh-what. . .?” slipped out of her mouth despite this, but he ignored it completely.