Black Bullet, Vol. 1: Those Who Would Be Gods (19 page)

Looking at the small girl walking next to him, he thought to himself that this was the difference in perception between the Stolen Generation, who experienced the horrors of ten years ago, and the Innocent Generation. He uncharacteristically felt a generation gap.

Enju grinned. “Don’t worry. Now there are strong people like me fighting, so everything will be fine. If the enemy finds us, I’ll carry you again and jump away.”

“Thanks to you, I don’t think I’ll be scared of the free-fall rides at the amusement park anymore.”

“I’m glad. You should thank me.”

Rentaro let out a large sigh. She didn’t understand sarcasm when she heard it.

“But something seems strange…,” said Enju. “Ever since coming here, I’ve been feeling excited for some reason.” Enju opened and closed her hands curiously.

Of course you would
, agreed Rentaro silently. The Varanium that Gastrea hated also had an effect on Enju and the other girls, who were infected with small amounts of the virus. Most Initiators, when they
went outside of the Monoliths, felt temporarily better, or even high. Their wounds also healed faster.

Even as they talked, they proceeded with caution. Even though they were a considerable distance away, the surrounding forest had been woken up once, so they couldn’t be too careful. Once in a while, Rentaro would put his ear to the ground and send Enju high up into a tree to check for danger. It slowed their progress considerably, but in the end, that gave them early notice of a light that was burning far away.

As they approached warily, there was a break in the brush, and they could see an obviously man-made stone building. It was a small, one-floor stone building, and at the entrance was a wall of piled sandbags.

It was a pillbox shelter built during the Great Gastrea War. It was dilapidated and had lost most of its function, but it still served as a place to get out of the wind. Light leaked from inside. Rentaro’s heart started beating faster at the thought that it could be Kagetane.

Giving Enju a hand signal, he took the gun from his hip and approached from the back. Enju approached from the front. He could hear the crackling of the firewood burning.

Apparently, there was a fire burning inside. From the holes in the pile of rocks, he could see the changing shadows created by the flames. Rentaro stood with his back to the wall and took two deep breaths. Then, he held out his gun and rushed inside.

“Don’t move!” he said. Rentaro’s XD and the muzzle of his opponent’s shotgun intersected at almost the same time.

Rentaro was speechless when he saw his opponent. “You’re…”

His opponent panted, looking at him with blank eyes. She was wearing a dark, long-sleeved dress with tights. It was an outfit unsuitable for the hell of the Unexplored Territory. However, his eye was drawn to the painful-looking wound on her arm that blood was gushing out of nonstop. It looked like she had been bitten by a giant beast, and the wound had been gouged out with tooth marks.

Rentaro remembered seeing the girl before.

“If you do not put the gun down, I shall kick your head off.” With that cold threat, Enju, who had snuck in from behind, kicked her leg out to lay it on the back of the girl’s neck.

“Wait, Enju,” said Rentaro. “She’s not our enemy.”

“Wha…?” Enju looked from Rentaro to the girl a few times and finally put her leg down reluctantly.

Rentaro went to where the girl was sitting weakly and looked her in the eye. “Hey, we met once at the Ministry of Defense. Do you remember me?”

“Yes, of course.” The girl spoke as she exhaled painfully.

“Anyway, let’s stop the bleeding and get this bandaged up. We can talk after that.”

Then he noticed Enju watching them from the side, grinding her teeth. “Wait a moment,” she said. “I do not know this woman. Explain your relationship with her, Rentaro.”

Rentaro turned back to face Enju. “Oh yeah, this is your first time meeting. She’s the Initiator partner for a Promoter named Shogen Ikuma.”

When they threw the dry branches they had gathered into the bonfire, the fire revived and rapturously scattered orange light on the stone walls. Once Rentaro used his emergency kit to stop the bleeding and disinfect and bandage the wound, the wound started regenerating with help from the Gastrea virus. However, her regeneration speed was very modest compared to Enju’s.

Afraid the enemy would approach while he was treating the girl, he had Enju stand watch. However, Enju seemed put out for some reason and pouted, saying, “I don’t accept that girl!” and “If it were me, my wound would’ve healed in three seconds!” as she went outside the pillbox shelter. Rentaro wanted to say that three seconds was too short, but she seemed really unhappy, so he didn’t.

The girl’s name was Kayo Senju. Rentaro was astounded at himself for not knowing the name of the girl he had thought of as the “hungry girl” until now.

“For some reason, it looks like your partner is extremely angry.” The girl spoke with a strangely cool attitude.

Rentaro looked in the direction Enju had gone. “Jeez, why did she suddenly get so upset? Don’t tell me she’s already at that rebellious age…?”

“I think the reason is obvious…” She spoke as if spitting out her words into space, with a tone devoid of all emotion. Rentaro was at a loss. Because she had a calmness that didn’t match her age, it was hard to read her emotions. At the Ministry of Defense, Rentaro had thought she had a better sense of humor than that, but apparently he was wrong.

“Do you think I am strange?” the girl asked.

Realizing that he was staring, Rentaro shifted his gaze. “No, not really…”

The girl closed her eyes and put her hands to her chest. “Do not worry about it. I am used to being treated this way. I am also one of the first generation of Cursed Children. However, because I possess the Dolphin Factor in my body, I have a higher IQ and better memory than normal Initiators. My IQ is at around 210 points.”

Rentaro was startled. “You have more than twice my IQ?”

“Well, intelligence tests taken as a child have the tendency to overestimate.” She showed humility even though she was a child.

Rentaro was overwhelmed with a strange sense of defeat. “So then, you take the command and the rear guard with your brains, and Shogen is the advance guard? That’s an unusual style.”

“That is just because Shogen has muscles for brains and has no patience, so he can’t back up anyone. He still gets upset when we get battles taken from us. His way of thinking is old-fashioned and inflexible, which is problematic.” The girl broke a thin branch in two and threw the pieces into the fire.

Utterly amazed at the way she did not mince words, Rentaro looked at the shotgun lying beside her. “Let me see your gun.”

She thought for a while. “What if I say no?”

“That’s fine. If you don’t feel gratitude for being rescued, you can do that.”

Kayo looked resigned and exhaled through her nose, handing him the gun. “If there’s one thing I have learned, it is that when a good deed is done for a reward, it becomes corrupted.”

Rentaro pretended not to hear as he examined the gun. Kayo’s fully automatic shotgun with a silencer had an add-on-type grenade launcher unit on a 20-mm equipment expansion rail. Both were Shiba Heavy Weapons 2027 models. When Rentaro slung the launcher
out to the right and peeked into the chamber, he frowned. Then he looked up, staring at the girl in front of him. “Why did you use explosives in the forest? This is the empty case of a 40-mm high-explosive projectile.”

It was because of that that Rentaro and Enju had been chased by a Stage Four Gastrea and almost died. In the Unexplored Territory, preserving silence was a hard and fast rule no matter what one was doing. A pair whose ranking was far above Rentaro and Enju’s should have known this. Kayo hugged her dainty knees and gazed at the fire for a while.

“Shogen and I were caught in a trap,” she said. “Thanks to that, we were not only injured, but we were also split up.”

“A trap?” said Rentaro.

“Yes. We were also dropped off in a deep forest, and inside the forest, we saw a short flickering light pattern. We thought it was an ally and approached with our guard down.” Hugging her knees harder, the girl became smaller. “If we had been more careful, we would have realized that no one would use such a dim, blue, will-o’-the-wisp-like light.”

Rentaro gulped. “What was it…?”

Kayo glanced at him and looked back into the fire. “The first thing I noticed was a rotten smell. There was an intense stink of something rotting, and a large swarm of flies had gathered. The Gastrea had disgusting flowers growing here and there, and its tail was emitting light. When it saw us, it trembled disgustingly, like it was delighted. I have seen many different kinds of Gastrea, but that stopped me in my tracks.

“Thinking I would be killed, I used the high-explosive projectile at the spur of the moment. After that, it happened as you imagined. All the Gastrea in the forest woke up, and while we were being chased, I got separated from Shogen. That was also when I was bitten on the arm. Fortunately, only a small amount of bodily fluid was injected, so it does not seem like it will have much effect.”

Rentaro put his chin in his hands as he listened to Kayo’s story. “This is just a guess, but I think that was a Firefly Gastrea.”

“A firefly?”

“Yeah, fireflies live on pollen and nectar, but did you know that there are fierce carnivorous fireflies, too? They imitate the light patterns of other fireflies and prey on the fireflies that approach them. In order to
prey on humans, it probably evolved specially to emit a light pattern it thought would draw humans. You guys fell right into its trap. The plants surrounding it were probably orchids. I’ve heard that there are species that give off smells like mold, urine, and rotten meat in order to lure flies and small winged insects to them to carry their pollen… It probably synthesized a smell that would draw humans. It’s unusual to see a Gastrea mixed with a plant type. With a specimen specially evolved that much, it is probably a Stage Three.”

Kayo’s eyes widened. “Is that possible?”

“Gastrea do that in order to outwit mankind. Humans wouldn’t lose to dumb organisms.”

Kayo didn’t say anything for a while. However, when the tension in her shoulders was finally released, she let out a slow breath. “Anyway, you did a good job guessing the type for a Gastrea you didn’t even see. Are you a fan?”

“Ugh… Don’t call me that.”

“You seem like you had a gloomy childhood where you were pleased when you submerged an anthill with water. Were you like, ‘Hah, drown! It’s Noah’s great flood! Know the wrath of God!’? I imagine you had fun, huh? I understand.”

“Yeah, that’s right, that’s how it was. I killed a ton of ants, I’m sorry, all right?”

Kayo looked amused for the first time and crinkled the corners of her eyes. Then she dropped her gaze back to the fire. “But it must be nice. I do not think I would be bored if I had a Promoter like you. I am just a little jealous of Enju.”

Rentaro tried to act as nonchalant as possible as he asked, “Do you have fun with a Promoter like Shogen?”

She paused. “Initiators are tools used to kill. That is all there is to it.” Kayo did not answer Rentaro’s question. “Enju has probably never killed a person before, has she? I can tell by looking at her eyes.”

“That’s true, but you have?”

“Yes. I killed a pair that we met along the way here.”

At first, Rentaro thought he had heard her wrong. “Why did you do something like that…?”

“Shogen ordered me to. When we were lured in by the firefly’s light, if it had been another pair of humans and we had the chance, we
probably would have done the same then, as well. According to Shogen, ‘I won’t let anyone else kill that jeering masked bastard.’”

Rentaro made a fist. “You don’t think anything of killing someone?”

“I was scared. My hand shook. But that was it. This was my second time. I think I will get used to it eventually.”

Anger flared inside him. Before he knew it, Rentaro had grabbed at Kayo and pushed her down. “Don’t joke around! The scariest thing about killing someone is getting used to killing. When people realize that they won’t get punished for killing someone, that’s when they forget that it’s a sin.”

“Is that something you can say because you have stained your hands with murder before? You have mysterious eyes, Satomi. It seems you have had a complicated past. They are kind, but extremely frightening eyes…”

Rentaro paused. “Hey, do you know why Enju speaks so pompously? It’s because she thinks she is doing the important job of protecting mankind that she is able to speak proudly with her head held high. Simple, isn’t she? Once, there was a time when Enju half-killed a has-been Promoter. Enju moped around the operating room the whole time, and when she heard that he had survived, she was happy the whole day and even went to visit him in the hospital. I think that’s just fine.”

“Satomi, that is just lip service.” Kayo looked up at Rentaro with a strange look in her eyes. The orange from the bonfire was reflected in her eyes.

Rentaro got up slowly and turned away from the girl. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m saying such self-important things. Damn.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

Something grabbed the sleeve of Rentaro’s uniform tightly.

“Huh?” said Rentaro.

“Why are you apologizing even though what you are saying is right?” asked Kayo. “You are right. Please have more confidence in yourself. I feel odd right now. I do not understand this feeling. Even though I immediately thought of dozens of rebuttals to what you said, I do not want to deny the words you spoke… This is the first time I have ever felt this way.”

“Kayo…” A strange emotion welled up in Rentaro’s chest. The impression Rentaro had of her from their first meeting had not been
wrong after all. As she quickly wiped her eyes on her sleeve, the chink in the armor he saw in the weak ten-year-old girl went away.

“Do you want something to drink?” Kayo said as she pulled out a kettle and some instant coffee from her pack and started boiling water.

Listening to the popping of the firewood, Rentaro looked at the ceiling. A sharp crescent moon shone in the sky that peeked in from the roof of the pillbox shelter that had collapsed in the wind. Looking around inside the house again, he saw the ruins of rusted small arms left behind by the self-defense force during the Great War.

Rentaro picked up one of the bullets that was lying by a 9-mm gun and held it above the bonfire. Deep beneath the thick rust and dirt, the brass shone, lit by the orange light. “Do you know what this is?” he asked her. “It’s called a 9-mm Parabellum. A Parabellum is—”

She cut him off. “I know what it is. It came from the Latin that meant ‘prepare for war,’ right?”

Rentaro shot a glance at Kayo. “As expected of someone with an IQ of 210. You know everything, don’t you? Yeah, it means, ‘If you seek peace, prepare for war.’”

Kayo poured some coffee into a paper cup and handed it to Rentaro. His palms gradually warmed up. Kayo held her cup with both hands and blew on it to cool it down.

“Is this the result of preparing to fight?” she asked. “Large numbers of land mines in the Unexplored Territory, large numbers of unexploded cluster bombs scattered everywhere, and after all that, all we won was this small miniature garden, far from peace.”

“It was a time when they couldn’t worry about appearances, that’s why,” said Rentaro. “But in these past ten years, they have been able to carry out proper restoration.”

“Is the restoration they are doing these days really a healthy restoration?”

For some reason, he was startled by her question. “Why do you ask that?”

“I am part of the Innocent Generation who did not know the Great War. However, in the hearts of the Stolen Generation, whose children were devoured before their eyes and whose lovers transformed into ugly Gastrea, I can see glimpses of frank hatred. Public morals and sentiments are in disorder, and there are many weapons that are made especially for slaughter, like the Stairway to Heaven.”

Looking up in the direction Kayo was pointing, he could see a ladder-shaped object that was moving behind thin clouds.

“This is no more than the tip of the iceberg,” she continued. “You have also heard of the New Humanity Creation Project, right? The project was abandoned once people realized the fighting abilities of us Cursed Children, but there were experiments in the past to create the ultimate soldiers using the power of the Varanium alloy. I heard that they were even performing experiments on people. This is something that no one would have been able to imagine in a Japan before the Great War.”

Rentaro listened without moving a muscle. Kayo stopped talking and took a sip of her coffee. “Well, the latter part I thought was just an urban legend until I saw Kagetane Hiruko,” she added.

“Relying on that kind of power is something cowards do,” said Rentaro.

“Satomi?”

Rentaro didn’t know what to say and put his coffee to his lips instead. He grimaced involuntarily at the bitterness that filled his mouth. Suddenly, he was startled by the static and roar of a rough male voice that came from the black receiver next to Kayo.

It appeared to be a radio. When Kayo turned the knob that was sticking out, the sound became clear, and turned into the voice of a man he couldn’t forget even if he wanted. “C…ome here. Hey! If you’re alive, reply!”

Kayo signaled Rentaro with her eyes. She was probably telling him not to talk. Rentaro nodded silently. It was true that it would be hard to explain to Shogen why he was here with her.

“I was worried because there was no contact from you,” she said. “I am glad you are safe, Shogen.”

“’Course you are! More importantly, Kayo, I’ve got some good news.” Shogen Ikuma stopped talking for a moment, as if about to make an important announcement. Through the radio, Rentaro could imagine him smiling under his skull-patterned face scarf. “I’ve found the masked bastard.”

Rentaro’s and Kayo’s eyes met.

“Where did you find him?” Kayo asked.

Rentaro pulled his map out of his pocket and spread it out on the ground. He quickly found the location Shogen described. An urban area near the coast? It was pretty close.

“Right now, the civil officers nearby are gathering to launch a joint surprise attack. I really want to jump the gun and act first, but well, he
is
ranked higher than us, and the Initiators seem reluctant. We finally decided on the plan I just told you right now. If we all split everything equally, it won’t be interesting. You should hurry up and meet up with us, too.” He disconnected without even waiting for Kayo’s answer.

Rentaro had heard rough voices and laughter behind Shogen. The attack plan was probably progressing as he had said.

Kayo immediately started packing and putting out the bonfire.

“So you’re going?” Rentaro asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “In spite of it all, he’s still my partner. What about you, Satomi?”

Rentaro became uncertain of his own feelings. If the other civil officers could take care of it, then he was inclined to rely on them to do so. He had acted cool in front of Kisara, but the fear of being half-killed by Kagetane without being able to lift a finger was only a little over a day old and wasn’t something he could forget yet. He shook his head softly. No, he had to do it himself.

Rentaro put his own personal feelings aside for a moment and analyzed the strategy objectively. The problem was how good those people Shogen had joined forces with were. Their ranks were unknown, but it didn’t seem like there were only one or two pairs behind him. There were probably at least a little under ten pairs. And among them, they even had the battle god, Shogen Ikuma, with an IP Rank of 1,584, who could fight without the assistance of his Initiator. Whether Kagetane won or the civil officers team won, it would inevitably be a fierce battle.

“How’s your arm?” Rentaro asked.

When the girl took off the bandage silently, he could see that the wound was still in the process of healing.

Rentaro looked in the direction of the town. At the very least, he should see how this battle turned out.

4:00 A.M.

Rentaro called Enju back, and the three of them left the pillbox shelter. Compared to Rentaro and Kayo, who had been snug inside with the
bonfire, Enju, who had been standing watch for a long time, had better night vision by far, so he had her take the lead.

After walking for a while, there was a break in the forest, and they found themselves in an open field with a good view. If they continued that way for a few more kilometers, they would find themselves in the town, but Rentaro deliberately went around and headed for a small hill. There was nowhere to hide in the straight path to town. He decided that they needed to proceed with caution here.

As they walked, the smell of water was carried to their nostrils. The ocean was close.

Partway there, there were traces of a night camp in a place that was surrounded by tall undergrowth. They must have been afraid that there would be smoke, so there was no sign of cooking, but pouches from portable food were scattered around. It was a bigger group than he had expected.