Along a narrow road still covered in snow, a small car was parked in front of a clothing store in a quiet, sparsely populated area. Tsushima, an air of exhaustion about him, smoked a cigarette under an overcast sky.
The smoke he exhaled was heavier than usual and didn’t rise into the air. It was just like his state of mind.
“To think I’m in this country protecting a brat, of all things!”
His depressed mutterings seeped into the piled snow and faded away. Then he heard the chime of a door opening, as if it were continuing his soliloquy.
Tsushima threw away his cigarette butt and looked at the store entrance. A girl with elegant silver hair and blue eyes was standing there. Holy’s pale skin was a perfect match for the snow. She looked somewhat dissatisfied as she checked out her newly bought clothes.
She was wearing a white secondhand shirt with a worn-out skirt. The outfit definitely wasn’t out of place. The length was a little off, but that was likely due to her slim frame. This was as good as it would get.
As Tsushima inspected her outfit, his gaze met Holy’s, and her expression changed to one of undisguised hostility.
“What? Something wrong?” she demanded. Tsushima lightly shrugged.
“Nope. It’s somewhat better than bloodstained clothes. Get in.”
Tsushima opened the door on the passenger’s side and beckoned her into the car. She got in without making eye contact with him at all. He deliberately closed the door roughly and let out a sigh.
“This is why I hate kids.” Tsushima reaffirmed his perception that he was bad at dealing with young people, then got into the driver’s seat.
After the massive manhunt at the port the previous night, the two of them had driven all night without getting a wink of sleep. Thanks to that, there was no sign of anyone following them, and it appeared they had managed to slip through the security net. Their decision to forgo sleep had also given them time to replace Holy’s clothes, which had been stained with blood, mud, and soot.
Glad to be free of her unpleasant outfit, Holy sighed slightly and looked out the window in the seat next to Tsushima.
As they drove along the snowy road, the car bouncing up and down, Holy finally opened her mouth just as the heater started working.
“Thanks for saving me yesterday,” she said abruptly, keeping her face turned away so her expression was out of view.
“Just doing my job,” Tsushima replied offhandedly, his hands still on the steering wheel.
“Speaking of which, you’re the Informationist that Storm Hill arranged to help me defect, right?”
“Yeah. I’m Tsushima Rindou, a level-seven Informationist from the Free City of Elbar.”
The girl listened to his simple introduction, then peered out of the corners of her eyes at Tsushima once again. Her gaze was clearly not friendly, and it carried a question, which he responded to.
“Dissatisfied with something?” he asked.
“Not particularly,” Holy stated firmly, as if she had no interest in who he was, and she started taking off her shoes. She struggled with her shoelaces for a while, but she lifted her head when she noticed Tsushima’s gaze.
“What?”
“I told you my name. Now it’s your turn.”
His request was quite reasonable, but for some reason, it offended her even more. She puffed out her cheeks and then begrudgingly spat out her response.
“My name is Holy. It’s an alias. I’m the youngest child of a local noble family and wish to defect to Elbar for various reasons. Didn’t you hear about me when you received the request?”
“I was just verifying the facts.”
Partly exasperated by Holy’s defiant attitude, Tsushima took his cigarettes from his pocket. As he pulled one from the brand-new gray pack, Holy screwed up her face.
“Could you not? I can’t stand you smoking when we’re both in this small, enclosed space.”
Tsushima snorted and took out his lighter regardless.
“Deal with it. We won’t be together that long anyway,” he declared, striking his lighter. The inside of the car immediately filled with the smell of cigarette smoke. Holy shook her head as if she had just witnessed something unbelievable.
“You’re an Informationist, right? Aren’t cigarettes supposed to be strictly prohibited for your kind, since they mess with the flow of blood to the brain?”
“I’m glad you seem so knowledgeable. But I’m good at what I do, so a little nicotine isn’t going to dampen my skills.”
Tsushima seemed to savor the sensation of being enveloped in smoke. Holy glared at him as if he were filth.
Informationist was the general term for the small percentage of people in the world who possessed special abilities.
Informationists could generate almost any scientifically feasible phenomenon by executing Codes. They would construct a Code in their brain and send it through their eyeballs to information factors in the atmosphere, producing various phenomena. Typically, their irises would take on a blue glow as a consequence of doing this.
People had once called their powers magic or alchemy, but now their abilities were currently understood to function within the laws of science.
Alcohol and nicotine had adverse effects on their powers, so many Informationists tended to dislike those substances.
But Tsushima, an exception to the rule, continued talking with the cigarette in his mouth.
“They were supposed to hand you over tomorrow. What the hell happened?”
Holy shook her head as she undid her shoelaces.
“I have no idea, either. That was the plan, but the next thing we knew, those guys were chasing us, and before we could do anything about it, they forced us to the port. Then you showed up. That’s all.”
Roughly tossing aside the shoes she had taken off, Holy sat with her feet on the seat, her arms wrapped around her legs. The passenger seat was by no means spacious, but she was easily able to sit with her legs up. Her frame was even more delicate than Tsushima had imagined.
With a quiet sniff, Holy buried her face in her knees, her shoulders trembling slightly. She was probably thinking back to what had happened at the port. No matter how tough she acted, she was still just a young girl at heart.
Tsushima spoke up again, softening his tone just enough to reflect his feelings.
“That group was the Fourth Division. They’re a regular unit of the Balga Imperial Army. What the hell did you do to get those guys on your tail?”
“That doesn’t concern you,” Holy said coldly before clamming up. Tsushima cracked the car window and let out a sigh at the same time he exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke.