“A diorama? What do you mean?” Azuma asked Kaguya.
“It didn’t exist at first. This so-called Extermination Bureau.”
“What…?”
“There was no organization dedicated to defeating heroes at first. This whole place is just the setting for an experiment.”
The hypothesis had only just occurred to Kaguya. She began to mull over her thoughts, confirming her suspicions in order. The Extermination Bureau had been their entire youth. But what was its true identity?
Kaguya had experienced a lot. She had joined Charon, been at loggerheads with Azuma, and lost Sakura. She had fought battles, and as she fought, she had begun to shoulder the tragedy of these heroes all on her own. She had met Haru, learned that there were some people who didn’t want to be saved, and then made up her mind to try to save these people anyway.
But what was the truth behind the Extermination Bureau?
“It’s all a sandbox designed to help perfect the weapons known as Chronoses. That’s what this fighting has been for.”
The existence of the heroes. The existence of the Bureau. All of it. It really was to defeat the heroes. But not for humanity’s sake. Just for their own.
A million thoughts ran through Kaguya’s head, which she tried to corral together.
“Thirty years ago, heroes were created by the Extermination Bureau in order to make Chronoses. But twenty-five years ago, they made some kind of mistake. So what did they do next…? Naturally, they would have begun investigating the cause and implementing countermeasures. That is almost the most fundamental process in clinical research.”
And the Extermination Bureau likely carried out this process correctly. Clinical research into the Chronoses, investigation of the causes, and application of countermeasures. They did it all.
And they did it within the closed sandbox known as the Bureau.
For instance, their fights with the heroes. Every fight with each of the many heroes they had encountered to date must have provided the Bureau with extremely valuable data. Data as to why the heroes had suddenly turned dangerous and aggressive. Those many long years of research were all for a single end.
“B-but…who’s doing all of this…? What did you call it…? ‘Clinical research’?”
“I suppose it must have been Technical No. 1. The group wiped out by that hero that appeared six years ago.”
Appeared? No, that probably wasn’t quite right, either.
Were they really supposed to believe that every member of Technical No. 1 just happened to be present where the hero appeared? That didn’t add up. The Bureau must have been involved in the hero incident six years ago as well.
“But so then why was the Director killed? Wasn’t she carrying out their work? It wouldn’t make sense for them to kill her.”
“I think she must have caught onto something. Something inconvenient for them. Such as the fact that the Chronoses were sentient, or maybe the organization’s real goals.”
The fact that the Chronoses were sentient would have been very inconvenient for the Bureau. A spark that could lead to the complete destruction of their sandbox. Already, the cracks were beginning to show.
Why had the sleeping dogs been left to lie for twenty-five years? There must not have been anyone capable until now of putting the pieces together. After all, who would ever imagine that a weapon could possess a mind and awareness?
But the Director had figured it out. And the reason she had been able to do so…
“Of course… It was me.”
It was because Kaguya had discovered that the heroes had mental worlds. The introduction of an outsider, the external element Kaguya Shinohara, had caused the sandbox to break.
This had clearly been a major miscalculation on the Extermination Bureau’s part. Enough to make them eager to collect Kaguya. But they had made an even bigger miscalculation along the way. Mari knew the truth. And—according to Mari—the reason she had decided to tell Azuma and the others what she knew was because of the strong will displayed by the members of Charon.
It was their powerful will to save people. That was what had led to the sandbox becoming broken. It was almost ironic in a way.
“But what about the Bureau’s real motive? What in the hell are they after?”
“They want to reengineer Chronoses. Without the rebounds, I suspect. To perfect them… That was what the Director was trying to do. It was the same thing.”
The same thing, but their methods had been as different as night and day. As had been their motivations.
The Director was so idealistic and direct that she sometimes came across as mad. Everything she had done, however, had been for the sake of humanity. That was why Kaguya had stayed by her side.
But the Extermination Bureau’s motives—this experimental sandbox’s motives—were not the same as hers. The Bureau did not hesitate to sacrifice people for their own ends. Why were they so desperate to develop new Chronoses?
“What in the world are Chronoses…?” Azuma muttered, voicing Kaguya’s exact thoughts. “Who are they for? What are they for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we don’t need to know. This all dates back to something from thirty years ago. Something they failed at.”
Kaguya gave the matter some thought. How did the people attempting to reengineer the Chronoses view Charon? Charon’s members were the only people capable of using Chronoses without rebounds, which was exactly what the Bureau had been hoping for.
Hence why they had brought them all together into a single squad and forced them to fight heroes. The data collected from Charon’s battles would have made it evident that Charon’s members possessed extraordinary physical attributes. But just having them fight heroes may not have been enough to answer the question as to why they didn’t suffer rebounds.
That explained why they had sent in a technological liaison.
At least, it accounted for why they had suddenly transferred Kaguya—someone who was researching how to turn heroes back into humans—to Charon and why they had gone so far as to approve of her participation in battles.
“But things didn’t go quite as they had expected.”
Because Kaguya had discovered the interior mental worlds that existed within the heroes. According to what Azuma told her, his decision to temporarily remove her from the squad had been precipitated by panic from someone higher up.
After she had returned to Charon, they had sent Haru in another failed attempt to detach Kaguya from Charon.
But Kaguya had stayed. And then, just as they were running out of options for how to deal with her, the Director had sent that report. And they knew, of course, that the Director and Kaguya were in close contact with one another.
I was on a mission at the time. She would have told me once I got back. And then—just like now…
The sandbox was starting to come apart at the seams. That was why they had her killed.
That explains their behavior, but there’s probably still more that needs answering.
“Kaguya?” Azuma’s voice snapped Kaguya out of her reverie. “Are you all right?”
“Oh… I’m sorry. There’s just a lot to think about.”
“You’re telling me. It’s not only the Chronoses or the heroes. There’s a lot about the Extermination Bureau that doesn’t make sense.”
Azuma had summed it up perfectly. Kaguya guessed, from the lack of deliberation in his tone, that this wasn’t his first time giving the matter thought.
“But it makes you wonder who they are…”
“They?”
“The people inside my sword and in Koyuki’s and Rindou’s weapons. I can’t help but wonder…who are they?”
“Good point… Not to mention that pistol…”
Whose consciousness was it that was sealed inside the pistol that Kaguya sometimes used?
“Do you think…this is something we should share with Koyuki and the others?”
“Of course. They have the obligation and the right to know, Kaguya. If you don’t tell them, I will.”
The members of Charon held strong attachments to the Extermination Bureau. As did Kaguya, to be honest. They had spent their whole lives fighting for the Bureau, on the front lines, after all.
“I don’t believe any of us are so weak as to run away over something like this. Do you?”
“No, of course not. They’re all strong… You’re right. We should tell them.”
Their faith in the members of Charon was unshakable. If this was what it took to cause them to lose their will to fight, they would just have to cross that bridge when they got there.
It wasn’t until several hours after Haru’s message that Kaguya told them.
The reason she waited was because both she and Azuma were in agreement that Haru needed to be there to hear this as well. Once Haru finally returned, everyone gathered in the meeting hall to hear what Kaguya had to say.
That the Extermination Bureau was no more than a testing ground for the research and improvement of Chronoses, the weapons refined from heroes.
That heroes existed for the creation of Chronoses and had not originally been hostile. That something happened that had caused the heroes to run amok—and that the Extermination Bureau existed in order to clean up that mess and to collect data.
Once Kaguya finished explaining, the room fell silent. No one knew what to say.
The silence was uncomfortable. They all kept their mouths shut, aware of what the others were thinking. But after a bombshell like that, they couldn’t just trudge back to their separate rooms as if nothing had happened.