Chapter 73

PERIOD.21 Black hair done up in buns on either side of her head and a baggy sweater. A miniskirt and black stockings. Aside from the smartphone, the one-seg TV, and other precision instruments with small screens on them dangling from a string around her neck, she was a completely ordinary girl. If you told someone she was actually a Kihara shaking the world right now, they almost certainly wouldn’t believe you. Enshuu Kihara. And in fact, this girl—who was always nervous and unsure of herself—had not been given a passing grade as a Kihara. She could neither form the characteristic thought patterns or produce positive research results that would allow a Kihara to continue to be a Kihara. “Heeey! Over here. Over here…” “Auntie Byouri!” Enshuu’s face lit up as she heard the familiar voice. That part of her was what had been deemed “uncharacteristic,” but it was a weakness she didn’t realize she had. The voice had come from inside the waste treatment plant, but Enshuu unflinchingly ran into the mountain of stench. As she turned over all the garbage, her clothes dripping in black goop, she eventually turned up a crushed-up wheelchair. She dug some more until eventually a familiar face appeared. Byouri smiled helplessly. “As you can see, I lost. These people who are ‘outside of science’ really are powerful,” she said, tapping on her leg with a weak motion. The leg had been completely crushed, transformed into something that resembled a twisted metal bat. Not only that, the robot parts bolstering her leg strength had dug deep into her flesh. If one’s leg and a metal pipe got caught in a pressing machine, this would probably be the result. “You lost?” repeated Enshuu. “But how?” “I’m not fully sure myself,” said Byouri. “But more importantly, could you let me borrow your communicator? I want to open a port to Academy City and do some readjustments.” “What are you going to use them for?” “Well, the wheelchair is broken. And so are my leg strength–bolstering robots. That’s the only thing left.” “I’m scared it’ll hurt you.” “It’s fine. Just give it to me.” At Byouri’s insistence, Enshuu took the smartphone out of the array of precision devices hanging around her neck. It was supposed to be Enshuu’s ace in the hole, but she didn’t hesitate to lend it to someone else. Byouri removed a ballpoint pen from her pocket as she fiddled with several of the smartphone’s settings. Without a second thought, she shoved the pen into her twisted-up thigh, but no blood came out. Instead, its tip began to glow with a faint blue light. “…Signal reception and transmission confirmed. Beginning form change into the Number Two Level Five, Dark Matter.” There were seven Level Five espers in Academy City. Of them, Number Two had sustained major wounds in a battle with Number One, having been quite literally sliced to pieces. Despite his body being subdivided in several pieces, though, they were all hooked up to an enormous life-sustaining machine, meaning he was still hanging on by a thread. But no matter what state he was in, as long as he could use his ability, he could still function as valuable research material. In fact, it was more convenient for the Kiharas that he lacked a sense of self and could be made to use his ability by sending him electrical signals. “Is there a chance you could go out of control if you integrate Dark Matter into your body?” asked Enshuu. “It’s a possibility,” replied Byouri. “That’s why I typically carry it along with me, like a normal piece of equipment. Separate from my body. But I couldn’t call myself a Kihara if I let the basic theory hold me back. A Kihara would step into the mists. A Kihara would forge a path through the darkness of the unknown!” Krrrrick-krick-krick-krick! Strange noises began to come from Byouri’s legs. They weren’t something flesh or bone would make—it was more like plastic cracking. Her legs, twisted and deformed, started to crack back into place from the inside. The debris from the robot parts, which dug into not only her flesh but also her bones, was ejected from her body by the force. Dark red blood flowed, but only briefly before stopping. It was as though her body had just expelled the impurities within it. What was left were two pretty legs without a single wound on them. In this situation, though, the fact that they were pretty was utterly off-putting. Even as all the protrusions came out of her knees and thighs—things that looked like blades and wings—Byouri slowly, placidly stood up. She’d disengaged the limiters in her Dark Matter legs in advance—the function that normally prevented her body from being eaten into. “Ranny and Utgardaloki took out each other,” Byouri mused. “And I lost to… What was her name again? Marianne something? That makes one loss and one draw. Not exactly fitting results for the Kiharas.” “I just remembered!” exclaimed Enshuu. “I saw someone who looked like Uncle Kagun.” “…Kagun Kihara? He did vanish from Academy City. But what’s he doing here?” “It’s, um, not good, right?” “Oh? I don’t think it’s that much to worry about. The Kiharas will almost surely never be annihilated. Perhaps if the rest of humanity died out, we would, too, but that isn’t the case.” “What do you mean?” “You’re not Kihara enough, En, so I suppose you don’t have a good understanding of it yet. But that’s how the Kiharas work. There are many different forms of Kihara, aren’t there? Little Noukan is a golden retriever with an external processing circuit. And the way you work is the same—‘that thing’ can be replaced with Kihara thought patterns, which are like parasites in human thought processes, in order to acquire ideas that simple AIs wouldn’t be able to replicate… You see, the Kiharas aren’t restricted by blood ties or even human forms.” The wicked thing that appeared when science lost its purity. The thing that had distorted history many times in the past—that was the essence of the Kiharas. Thus, while the whole world might hate them, they would never disappear. A Kihara disappearing was the same as people rejecting human civilization. At the moment, the main school of the Kiharas was supported by a common bloodline, and Byouri and Enshuu were part of it. But the example she’d given showed that bloodline wasn’t everything. Even if the Kihara bloodline died out, another bloodline would surely take up the Kihara name. Even if nobody decided on it. It would happen on its own. For as long as humans clung to the blessing called science. “So there’s nothing to worry about, En. The Kiharas losing would mean the end of civilization on this planet. I doubt the people we’re fighting against have as much strength as we do. Therefore, we won’t lose. No matter what happens, we will triumph in the end. Simple, isn’t it?” “Yeah, Auntie Byouri. Anyway, what should we do now?” “We’ll start with what we know for sure. That’s the golden rule. First, we’ll destroy the burnable waste treatment plant the city uses to get hot water for heat. Then we’ll pursue Marianne and defeat her. Whenever you have a complicated problem, it’s best to take it one hurdle at a time.” “Okay! All right. Then I’ll help you and fight with you.” That was a fairly un-Kihara-like thing to say. Enshuu took her “treasure” out of her pocket—a photograph of several people in the same family. “Uncle Amata, Uncle Ransuu, Auntie Byouri, Auntie Telestina, Uncle Kagun… Not everyone is here anymore, but it’s okay. If all the Kiharas work together, we can overcome any problem. I just know it!” Byouri smiled to herself as she heard those words. On the side of her leg, letters appeared in orange: Equ. Dark Matter. Originally, while they had all been categorized as Kiharas, they had lacked a sense of camaraderie. And that lack of camaraderie was proper for a Kihara. …Well, I do want to be the only one who knows what the subtler control conditions for Number Two are. As Enshuu calmly turned her back, Byouri stepped toward her. Pretending to come up alongside her, she positioned herself for a single attack that would kill the girl instantly. Like I said, the Kiharas come in all shapes. The loss of Enshuu Kihara could well lead to the birth of a new and better Kihara. She had no hesitation. She launched her surprise attack. Whooooom!!!!!! Her white legs, made of something that was clearly not human flesh, suddenly snapped around Enshuu’s neck faster than the speed of sound like a guillotine. A moment later… Whirl! Enshuu swung her upper body in an unnatural direction, effortlessly avoiding the killing blow. Only the photograph she’d had in her hand fluttered into the air. “Yep. Uh-huh. I get it, Uncle Amata.” The devices around her neck clicked and banged together, emitting an eerie light. Graphs appeared on them, twisting and turning chaotically, and her eyes absorbed them all. “If a Kihara ever says anything like that, it means they’re about to do a surprise attack!” “…Shit! Even malfunctioning, she’s still a Kihara?! Then take this!” Byouri shouted as big winglike parts began to extend from her thighs—so that she could pull off movements impossible for a normal set of four limbs. Amata Kihara’s thought patterns, which were currently supporting En-shuu, were mainly used to take down high-level espers in precision brawls. They made for an effective fighting force to be sure, but it obviously had its own weaknesses. As another Kihara herself, she knew it right away. She knew how awful it would be if she was beaten. However. Enshuu caught the fluttering photograph between her index and middle fingers, then said something else. “I understand, Touma.” A chill. This time, Byouri definitely felt something awful up her spine. This was different from before. A possibility outside what she’d predicted was about to bear its fangs. Her entire body was engulfed by the fear that a Kihara wielded, that a Kihara could truly bring about. “In this situation, Touma Kamijou would do this, right?!” Kihara thought patterns were far from the only ones that had been analyzed. And for someone of the darkness like Byouri, she could imagine nothing worse than what Enshuu had just said. Enshuu, misusing good for evil purposes—exactly how a Kihara would act—brutally attacked.