“Can’t we skip that? It really hurts.”
“Of course not. You’re just feeling it working!”
“Ugh...” Ignoring his complaints, Tatenashi made a quick three injections. He was so badly wounded that the normal one injection wouldn’t be enough.
“There we go. Good boy.” Nurse Tatenashi smiled as she finished the injection, her miniskirt riding up as she leaned forward.
“In thirty minutes or so, I’m going to see hell again...” Ichika shivered in anticipation of the pain that would soon wash over him, and Tatenashi sighed at his complete failure to notice.
“Speaking of which.” Sitting down on the bed, she glanced sideways at him. As his heart turned a backflip, Tatenashi took the chance to run a finger along his lips. “Ichika.”
“Y-Yes?”
The worried look on her face made him nervous as she spoke seriously, “Promise me. Promise me you’ll never do something like that again.”
“Well...”
He’d do it over and over again for his comrades. She knew that. And that’s why she insisted.
“What hurts you, hurts us. Do you want that to happen?”
“Ahh...” Ichika wasn’t the type to argue with gentle admonishment from his elders.
“Rest well, then. If you’re a good boy, I may just come back again.”
“Haha...”
Tatenashi disappeared with a smiling wink, leaving Ichika alone with his worries.
“.........”
He’d realized what IS really were now. But he still didn’t know what Tabane was really after or what her motivation was. How would he handle something like this? How would he handle himself? Would anything slow down the global IS arms race?
“Ugh, jeez.”
Worrying about it might not help anything, but that didn’t mean he could stop himself. Can we really trust IS with our lives? He remembered what Akatsubaki—no, Akatsuki, had said. That an IS acted on its pilot’s wishes. That it had kidnapped Houki in order to fulfill them. Could he really trust his life to something like that?
He looked down at the gauntlet on his right wrist. Tell me, Byakushiki. Just what are you?
The pale girl in his own subconscious. Was it just Byakushiki? Or the archetype of all IS? Ichika didn’t know. But he couldn’t help but wonder.
✦ ✦ ✦
Even two days on, Houki was still barricaded in the kendo dojo, meditating. She’d said the time had come where she needed to face her own weakness.
I’ve always been running away. From my own weakness. From my own immaturity. And now there was nowhere left to run. She wouldn’t let herself run away anymore.
“You’re still worried about that?” As she opened her eyes, she saw Ling leaning against the wall with her arms folded. It was a pose she took often, but today it looked different to Houki. “What’s your problem? How long are you gonna keep staring at me like that?”
“Um... Well...” Straight to the gut. Ling was nothing if not direct.
“Anyway, though. You’ve seemed really gloomy lately.”
“Wha—”
“Like something’s really weighing on your shoulders. Yeah, that’s it.” Ling shifted her arms to behind her head nonchalantly as she continued. This was more than enough for Houki.
“How rude!”
“Not trying to be. I’m just curious, you know? Isn’t your IS gone?”
“Ahh...”
Both Akatsuki and Akatsubaki had disappeared. Without them, she was just another average student. But... She didn’t mind.
“I don’t care. I can’t run away from my strength or my weakness anymore.” Houki was determined.
Seeing it in her face, Ling smiled. “Mhm. Well, good luck with that.”
Waving, Ling left the dojo. As Houki watched her friend leave, she was grateful for the concern. That’s right. I’m not alone. She now realized that that was true strength.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hmm.” Iris frowned to herself as she scanned through a magazine outside Ichika’s door. Well, it sounded good when I read it the first time, but... I’m not so sure now...
The headline of the article: ‘Must-read tips for nurses! Spice up your checkups with these!’ That said, this wasn’t Iris’s day to take care of Ichika, so she was in her IS Academy uniform rather than a nurse’s uniform.
All right. Double-check one last time...
‘The way to a guy’s heart? Never let him know how hard you’re trying’
‘Make it so you without making it about you’
‘He wants a nurse, not a doctor’
“Umm... Ummmmm.” Unable to work up the nerve to knock, she buried her nose back in the magazine for a triple-check. As she did, the door suddenly opened, catching her directly in the face. “Ow!”
“Hm? Alice?! Are you okay?!” Ichika was under strict orders for bed rest, but she’d caught him sneaking out.
“Ichika! What are you doing?!”
“Well, uhh...” Mumbling an excuse, he slouched back into his room. Before the door could close, Iris slipped in after him. “Jeez, c’mon!”
“What, you have a problem with me being here?”
“That isn’t the problem, Alice. Just, guys and girls shouldn’t sleep together after they turn fourteen. That’s just common sense.” Ichika was sure he’d heard that from Houki at some point. He patted Iris’s head as he led her back out into the hall.
“H-Hold on! Wait! What about your hand! Shouldn’t it be bandaged?!”
“Ah...” A guilty look washed over Ichika’s face. Seizing the opportunity, Iris grabbed him by the wrist.
“You... You’re completely fine! Ichika, did you learn some kind of healing magic?!”
“Well, umm...” As Ichika mumbled, trying to avoid eye contact, Iris continued to push him.
“What about here, then?!”
She pulled up Ichika’s shirt and examined his bare skin. His wounds, so deep just recently, had completely vanished. The healing nanomachines may have been effective, but they weren’t that effective. There wasn’t even a fading scar left on him. It was less as if he’d healed, almost more as if he’d been repaired.
“.........”
“Answer me, Ichika! Who... Who are you?!” The shock and anger on her face told him that he couldn’t make any more excuses.
“To be honest, Alice...”
“Mm?”
“I... I don’t think I’m a normal person.”
“What?!”
“Don’t tell anyone else what I’m about to say,” he answered reticently. “But this isn’t the first time I’ve healed so quickly from serious wounds.”
“Ah! Some sort of cybernetic fusion with your IS? But...”
Ichika shook his head, unwilling to go that far.
“I don’t know. But. Byakushiki isn’t normal. I’m not normal. There’s no way a normal human would be able to shrug things like this off. So... I... I need to talk with Chifuyu. She has to know something about Byakushiki and me.” Again, he patted her head. “That’s a secret, okay?”
His smile alone was nearly enough to make steam come out of her ears.
“It’s safe... between the two of us...”
“Yeah.” He forced a smile to his face. Neither of them knew that a third had been eavesdropping.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Mmm-hmm-hmhmm~♪ Mm-mm-mmm-hm-mmm~♪”
Somewhere in the deep, deep blue between sea and sky, Tabane happily hummed to herself.
“The time has come, Chichan.” Her finger poked at thin air, and around her, a 360-degree panoramic display opened tracing the status of every IS worldwide. “Time for the swan song!”
Her palm extended to the heavens, and the indicators turned as one from blue to purple.
“Activate IS Murasaki.”
A single phrase spread across the display, [CODE VIOLET ACTIVATED.]
The end had begun.