Chapter 5

CHAPTER 3 A Subtle Blank, and Signs of Future Connections
Girl. 1 “Over here.” Hanzou beckoned, and the girl of about ten followed. They were headed toward the entrance to the underground mall. A male delinquent and a doll-like girl—they were a pairing as strange as coffee and sushi. Fremea Seivelun. Her appearance was certainly unique. Her fluffy top was mostly white and pink, and it was decked out with a copious amount of frills and lace. Beneath that, her outfit was more tasteful; a miniskirt plus thick wine-red tights covered her lower body. She came across as an idol—not the real-life kind, but one that might appear in a video game. It seemed like she hadn’t picked out her getup on her own; someone had chosen it for her. That in itself went to show how charming she was. With slender limbs, soft blond hair, fair skin, and clear blue eyes, she looked every bit the perfect doll, which enhanced her overall image. In plainer terms, it seemed like everything she wore would be the new trend a day later. Ordinarily, her appearance would have been a benefit, no questions asked. But not now. Her outfit stood out like a sore thumb. This was only detrimental for someone on the run. And Hanzou knew that. After all, he was a natural at blending in with the crowd, even in a delinquent group like Skill-Out. The reason he was taking the extremely conspicuous girl to the underground mall was very simple. Their pursuer had sniffed them out. …Hanzou always maintained a number of hideouts. It was actually something of a hobby of his. He would set up a new one whenever he had free time. As long as he could get some shut-eye there, the safe houses could be anything—from cardboard-box houses to high-class apartment complexes. He had them scattered throughout the city. He’d look for internet cafés that regularly had vacancies because they were useful for gathering information, and he’d get motorcycles and cars on the cheap—and in secret—not to mention forge several identities. The more options, the better. You could get in trouble for lacking what you needed, but not the other way around. At least, that was what he had always thought. I screwed the pooch this time, he decided honestly. They figured out when I do regular maintenance on my hideouts and used that to tail me. Damn it! What was the point in having so many if this was going to happen anyway?! Luxurious apartments and cardboard boxes alike got dinged up over time, so he visited these hideouts regularly. At some point during that process, their hunter had found them. Hanzou didn’t know how much they knew about him, but it was best to assume every single one of his many hideouts were off the table now. They weren’t running through the underground mall now to reach a safehouse. And Fremea, of course, probably didn’t have a clear destination in mind. Hanzou was holding his phone; he’d heavily modified it to pick up more than just cell phone signals. For example… …the radios belonging to that group of teachers trained in peacekeeping operations who constantly patrolled every inch of the city—Anti-Skill. They’re in the middle of checking this place out as precautionary measure for the planned transport of a major criminal. If we charge in here, too, any shady characters will be forced to back off!! Perhaps his plan had been naive, though. This would have been enough to frighten off his pursuer—if he was being chased by a city-dwelling delinquent. And by forcing them to change their route, he should have had a pretty good chance at shaking them. Unfortunately… Wha-bam!! All of a sudden, the ceiling of the underground mall caved in, and his pursuer swiftly descended. Someone who didn’t care one bit about Anti-Skill. Clouds of dust and smoke were hurled into the air. The hunter had landed about three hundred meters away from Hanzou and Fremea—and it wasn’t shaped like a human. What…what is that…? The silhouette inside the dust looked like the top half of a human pasted to the top part of a giant insect. And it was huge. It almost reached the ceiling of the mall at full standing height. The thing’s movements were so smooth that it seemed biological, but a moment later, Hanzou revised his thinking. It was a powered suit. And an eight-legged one, at that. It didn’t have a head, just a body with lenses and sensors attached. The waist portion looked like it could rotate three hundred sixty degrees. Hanzou had no clue how human beings were supposed to map their four-limbed motion to its eight legs, but considering the whole thing was over five meters long, the pilot must have been very well protected inside it. But the craziest part of the suit was its arms. They were mismatched—the left was twice the size of a human’s, and the right over four times. And both of them were shaped like tubes from the elbows down. Something had been affixed to each of the wrist joints as well, like bayonets.