Azuma and the rest of Charon were in Ikebukuro. They had just received a report of a hero sighting.
“SKREEE!!”
An insect-like screech rose into the air. The hero looked like what might be described as an amalgamation of books. Its body was shrouded in numerous volumes that functioned almost like appendages.
A hero comprised of countless books forming a single creature. It was shaped almost like a snake—its belly looking like an accordion’s bellows with how the alternating books connected. They could hear the pages fluttering with the creature’s every move, which made their hair stand on end.
“Azuma, do you have a read on the egg?”
“No…”
Azuma strained his ears, but once again, he couldn’t hear it. There was a kind of static scream that interfered with his ability to hear the egg.
Unfortunately, the hero was much larger this time. It was about as thick around as a child’s trunk and looked as if it could swallow at least a smaller human without trouble.
The mouth, however, was not visible due to the dark shadow that blotted out the space around its face.
Inside that void, Azuma had a clear view of the face of the young girl who had turned. It was like a hallucination that was only visible to his right eye. Bleakness, like heavy lead, spread throughout Azuma’s body as he witnessed the sight.
They just had to defeat a hero—same as always. This had once seemed like the most natural thing in the world to Azuma, but no longer.
Now he could see them—their faces. And he had chosen to look so that he could remember their final moments for them.
“…Hah…”
The mental strain it caused was extreme. Koyuki had warned him not to get too reckless, so he was making an effort to tone things down. But sometimes, when he saw those faces, it took a moment for his emotions to catch up with his thoughts.
I thought…I would be able to get over it, but…
A hideous grin of madness confronted him with each swing of his katana. And there he was, like a reaper delivering quietus. A merciful executioner.
Before, against the fog hero, he thought he would get over it eventually.
But ever since Kaguya wound up in a coma, I’ve been stuck. At the end of the day, all I can really do is defeat heroes.
Every time he saw one of the heroes’ shattered smiles, he was reminded of the fact that he, too, had once been in their shoes. The thought was like agony.
“Azuma, are you okay?” Koyuki said, sounding concerned.
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing. Right now, we need to focus on trying to find the egg.”
“Y-yes, you’re right. And it doesn’t look like this hero is going to make it easy for us.”
She could say that again. The members of Charon had relied on Azuma’s ability for so long that they didn’t know how to fight properly once they were forced to go in blind.
The hero began to make its move.
“Ah…!”
The snake hero suddenly reared up, baring its belly to Azuma and the others. The countless thick, mismatched books on the creature’s underside opened up, exposing their contents to the other squad members. But there were no words or pictures inside, only darkness. It was a blinding dark, as if every page had been doused in blackness.
“Don’t look at it!” Azuma shouted. He knew his voice was trembling. “It’s the same as the darkness around its head. It’s all the same!”
The hero’s face awaited within the blackness of the books. An illusion, of course. A glimpse into the depths of the hero and the shadows inside.
The girl was approaching adolescence but still younger than Azuma and the others. Her childish face—distorted in a hideous smile—repeated infinitely in each of the open books.
Her visage bore a twisted cackle, but there was no time for panic. Azuma heard someone click their tongue over the comms. It was Rindou.
“I hate when they go for quantity over quality. We’ll just have to cut a path open by force. Isn’t that right, Koyuki?”
“I guess, but you’re making it sound so easy. Each of those books might be weak on their own, but it’s always the heroes that try to overwhelm you with numbers that turn out to be the worst.”
All the many books began moving independently, like butterflies, each taking on their own twisted forms to attack. They morphed into birds, insects, trees, and other shapes and began harassing the members of Charon.
A hero could not move without an egg. Parts that were sliced off from a hero’s body, apart from the egg, became mere meat. There was always an egg. But Azuma could no longer hear it.
“SKRRREEEEE!!”
The hero’s scream caused Azuma to snap out of his thoughts. No amount of confusion was enough to put a damper on his fighting instincts. It was almost laughable in a way.
The books flocked to attack. These books that colored the girl’s interior world were all different sizes and thicknesses.
The first book to enter Azuma’s field of vision resembled a dictionary.
Blotted out in darkness and transformed into a blunt weapon, the book flew toward Azuma. He slashed through it as easily as silk and then prepared for the next attack. A novel, a picture book, a comic—he chopped through each with a single slice of his blade.
They were like ordinary books. All it took to cut through them was to connect.
“However…,” Azuma said, hesitating for a moment.
He had once started to turn into a hero himself. He could no longer remember it clearly, but immediately before turning, he had seen things.
Images of his younger sister completely transformed into a hero. A girl scattering into pink. Many other visions. So many humans who had become heroes—the ones he couldn’t save. The images were still burned into his eyes.
Don’t think about that now.
Azuma shook his head. A trip down memory lane could wait until later.
“Azuma, maybe you haven’t noticed the way you’re just standing around…but things are starting to look pretty bad here.”
Apologizing briefly, Azuma turned to face the hero again. He took it all in—the mad smile resting within the darkness around its face.
If Kaguya were here…
…What would she do? What choice would Kaguya want him to make? What was it she expected from him?
“Captain Azuma, please.”
A memory of her voice, lingering in the evening light, suddenly passed through Azuma’s mind. He remembered what he had said to her in response. That he would do what he could, when it came to the heroes.
More books attacked. This time it was some sort of illustrated encyclopedia series. There must have been dozens of them lined up in impressive spectacle. They formed a clump as if the cover of one were glued to the back of the next. Azuma stood in their way.
Koyuki had fired her rifle several times by now, causing relatively serious damage with each shot. She seemed to have realized something.
“There, it’s protecting that area over there…,” she muttered. “Rindou, look!”
Rindou did as he was told. Azuma also turned his attention in the direction that Koyuki was indicating with her eyes.
The area corresponded to what would have been the snake’s eye. A thin book was placed there. It was an extremely small notepad, noticeably different from the swarm of books currently causing havoc all around them.
Encyclopedias, comics, and other thick books were rotating in the air around the notepad as if to protect it.
“That’s it! Koyuki, cover me!”
“Leave it to me!!” Koyuki hollered, readying her weapon.
The hero realized that the jig was up, and its main body, which was made up of countless books in the shape of a snake, suddenly began to rampage. The chaos prevented Azuma from getting close.
Koyuki, however, did not back down. She kept her gun at the ready, paying the commotion no mind.
She had made plans with Rindou in advance.
Their first priority had been locating the egg. The egg was the core of the hero. It was like the heart of a living creature. If heroes were in fact living creatures, then surely heroes would also attempt to protect their hearts.
“So the plan is, I attack with everything I’ve got,” Rindou had said, “and you stay back and keep your eyes peeled. Try to figure out if there’s an area it’s trying to protect.”
While Rindou served as bait, Koyuki would watch how the hero moved and countered and try to identify where its defenses lied. Once she identified the spot, she would shoot.
Despite the sheer volume of matter rampaging about her, Koyuki never broke her stance. She was waiting for an opportunity. A single moment was all it would take. One moment when nothing interfered with her line of sight toward the egg.
It was a delicate task, like threading the eye of a needle. Several of the rampaging books seemed to recognize Koyuki as a new threat as she took aim. They moved to attack.
With enough of them together, even books made for fairly dangerous weapons. Koyuki, however, held her ground. A hardcover illustrated encyclopedia flew her way. It was sure to hurt if it made direct contact, but just as a corner of the heavy tome was about to connect with her face, Rindou kicked it out of the air.
The two functioned like a well-oiled machine while Azuma stared in amazement from the side. Each time Rindou found himself in a pinch, Koyuki came to his rescue. Likewise, whenever Koyuki was in danger, Rindou swooped in to her aid.
Up until now, they had relied on Azuma’s power and then later Kaguya’s power at the end of the day. But now that neither Azuma nor Kaguya could use those powers, it was up to them instead.
“Duck!”
Rindou dropped down immediately. There it was, just above his head.
Koyuki had her line of sight. She could see the notebook, which formed the creature’s red eye, clearly in the middle of her scope. Although she could neither see nor sense them, she also spared a thought for the original human who must be resting inside. Whoever they were, they, too, must have had a reason for ending up like this.
“What kind of dream are you dreaming, I wonder?”
She pulled the trigger.
Instantly, the bullet launched from the barrel and hit its mark—easily destroying the snake’s face, along with the egg inside, and causing the book to catch fire and explode. As the crimson flare seared itself into her eyes, Koyuki offered up a solitary prayer.
Whatever frustrated wish, whatever dream this hero might have been dreaming—may it end gently, at least.