In the end, Kaguya kept her promise to Mari.
It was several days after they had handled the fog hero. Kaguya was visiting the Extermination Bureau Headquarters at Mari’s invitation.
“For God’s sake. Who would leave important documents tucked away inside a book somewhere and lose them?!”
“Oooh, I’m sorry…”
This time, however, they weren’t meeting around a lunch table.
Kaguya and Mari were in the headquarter archives, relying on what Mari could remember as they searched for a certain set of documents.
The archives were not off-limits. Anyone assigned to the department could enter whenever they liked. However, between the massive number of documents stored inside and how disorganized the place was, as all old documents now out of use (things that were not important enough to be destroyed) were placed inside, very few people ever actually bothered to enter.
The place was chaos. Mari and Kaguya were currently huddled up in one corner of the archives, which was the size of a university library, as they searched through separate shelves.
Kaguya was searching the shelves closest to the entrance. She was going through each book, one by one, because there was a chance someone had left what they were looking for tucked away inside one of their pages.
“Huh?”
As Kaguya was furtively rifling through the books, she heard Mari say something.
“What is it? Did you find what we’re looking for?” Kaguya asked her.
“No, something else.”
Mari approached Kaguya tentatively and held out a small square of paper. It was smaller than what Kaguya had been expecting, and didn’t look like something that belonged in a repository such as this.
“Is that…a photograph? It’s rare to see one printed out…,” Kaguya remarked.
“It looks like it was probably just a commemorative photo, but see here, in the background?”
Kaguya directed her attention to where Mari was pointing, and her eyes went wide. Mari was right; there was an aberration in the background with its face blacked out. The couple in the photo looked happy. Adults couldn’t perceive these monsters.
But that wasn’t the most interesting part. An electronic display had been installed on one of the buildings in the background, showing the date and time at which the photograph had been taken.
April 6, 2030. 2:20 PM.
Mari hesitantly said what was on Kaguya’s mind.
“This photograph is from thirty years ago, isn’t it…?”
“I-it is…”
Kaguya stared transfixed at the hero in the photograph’s background.
It didn’t resemble a hero. It looked like the kind of aberration Kaguya knew all too well, its face blacked out. The kind of creature that made you want to look away. There was no way the name “hero” had come from a creature such as this.
But from what Kaguya had heard, heroes were supposedly given their name because their appearance had at first been similar to an anime or cartoon hero.
“Well, it probably would have taken a few months after heroes appeared for people to figure out what was going on. For all we know, this could have been the dozenth hero or so to show up.”
“Yes…you could be right.”
And yet it was hard to shake the feeling that something seemed off.
For starters, there were no existing records of the first hero. In other words, strictly speaking, no one knew for sure why heroes had been given that name. Furthermore, while they knew how many years ago the creatures had first appeared, they didn’t know the exact month and day—a fact which, for some reason, no one seemed to find strange.
But even before getting to that, something seemed even stranger.
Despite the presence of a hero, the surrounding neighborhood looked fine. The couple was smiling happily. Heroes, by their very nature, were supposed to hurt people. They were supposed to be monsters. So then…why didn’t there seem to be anything wrong?
If the hero had gone on a rampage right after the shutter had been snapped, this photograph wouldn’t have survived in the first place.
“Heroes…”
There was an advertisement for an anime on one of the other buildings in the photograph’s background. Written there, in the advertisement—
Heroes had the power to save.
“No, heroes…”
Heroes had the power to destroy.
“What is this…?”
Kaguya was confused. Everything they knew was being turned on its head. She flipped the photo over and looked at the back. She stared in amazement at the words she found scrawled there:
Technical No. 1
It was the predecessor to Technical No. 2, which had been destroyed six years ago. Why would those words be written here?
“Lieutenant, are you there?” It was a call from Azuma over the comms. Kaguya snapped out of her thoughts. “Another one has appeared. They’ve been showing up a lot quicker lately—this one’s in Tokyo, Ward Three. It shouldn’t be far from where you are now. I’ve been authorized to go as well. Come quick.”
“Ah… R-roger! I’ll head there now.”
She returned the photograph to Mari, who furrowed her brow.
“I’m sorry, Mari. we’re going to have to postpone this. I need to go.”
“O-okay… Be careful out there.”
Mari sounded strained, but accepting. Kaguya smiled apologetically. Internally, however, she sensed that something was off. It was a feeling she couldn’t quite shake. It felt like there was something she was missing.