Black Bullet - Volume 1 - Chapter 1.2

2

“Do you have anything left to say before you die, Satomi? Do you?”

Cold sweat ran down Rentaro’s cheek, and he backed away from the voice, but his back was soon against the wall.

The girl with the dangerous-sounding voice had a frown on her face and her arms crossed, and her foot tapped impatiently. He knew that this would happen. She was extremely angry.

In front of Rentaro’s eyes was a beauty in black. In sharp contrast with her smooth skin white as light snowfall, her long straight hair was jet-black. The only places where her skin was exposed were her face, the nape of her neck, her hands, and the part of her thigh that could be seen between her skirt and her high socks. Everything else was covered in black with the school uniform of Miwa Girls Academy, and other than the red ribbon tied at her chest, it could be said that she was completely black and white. Her turned-up almond eyes were sharp. She was cute when she smiled, but she was usually in a sullen mood, which seemed like kind of a waste.

Rentaro was trying his best to protest while being overpowered, but he kept his voice low. “Wh-what’s done is done, right?”

“You moron!” Her shouting echoed in the small, cramped room, and when Rentaro avoided her sharp punch at the last moment, she seemed to snarl as she glared at him.

“Why did you dodge? You’re making me angry.”

“Don’t be unreasonable!”

When Rentaro made a move to escape, the girl followed, fists flying, chasing him around the reception area’s furniture.

Damn it, the whole day’s been like this.

“The only thing…you’re good at…is running…” The girl had no stamina and shortly fell back, her shoulders heaving as she caught her breath.

“C’mon, I’ll work hard when we get a new job, all right, Kisara?” said Rentaro.

“Don’t be stupid! This was our last chance!” the girl said. “And,” she continued, glaring at Rentaro, “at work, you are to call me ‘President,’ not Kisara.” Flipping her long hair, she briskly returned to her work desk. “Useless thing,” she said as she sat in her office chair.

Rentaro sighed. When he got back to the office, it wouldn’t be a mere butt-kicking waiting for him, it was an iron-fisted punishment that knew no moral bounds.

There was a large ebony work desk about the size of a grand piano and a well-tanned leather office chair. Seeing a girl wearing a sailor school uniform sitting there looked very strange.

Kisara Tendo. The youngest daughter of the Tendo family that took Rentaro in ten years earlier, and the president of the Civil Security Agency, that Rentaro worked for.

“In other words, is this what happened? You rushed off to buy the sale items that are sitting on that desk right now, and didn’t realize until you were halfway there that you had forgotten to get paid by the police?”

“Yeah…,” Rentaro mumbled brusquely as he averted his gaze.

He had hurriedly called Tadashima, who said, “What? I thought for sure that it was a pro bono service you were doin’ for us. Well, what’s done is done, so why don’t we just call it a free trial? If more jobs come up, I’ll make sure to work you good and hard!” he said, laughing as he hung up.

Kisara rested her chin on her knee and continued with a look of displeasure on her face. “And then all you bought were two bags of bean sprouts?”

“Y-yeah! It was limited to one bag per person, so I brought Enju and bought two!” Wondering what kind of report he was giving, he searched for something else to talk about. “Do you want some, too?”

A bag of bean sprouts flew right into his face.

“Come on, Satomi, we’ve had zero income this month. Whose fault do you think that is, you useless, good-for-nothing fool? Besides, is the supermarket time sale more important to you than your report to your boss?”

Suddenly, Kisara started trembling with her hand still in a fist. But instead of a punch, she put both hands on the table and stood up. “Most importantly, why didn’t you tell me about the limited-time sale?!”

As if on cue, Kisara’s stomach growled, and the girl collapsed on her chair, holding her stomach. Her eyes were blank. “I can’t take this any longer. I want beefsteak…”

“I do too, you know,” said Rentaro.

Kisara was currently living on her own, separated from the Tendo family, so even though she looked rich, her wallet was empty. “Hey, Satomi,” she said.

“What is it?” said Rentaro.

“Get to work.”

“Ugh, I’m getting spasms from my chronic disease.”

“They’ll stop if you work.”

Kisara looked down at the rush-hour traffic from the third-floor window of Happy Building, where the Tendo Civil Security Agency was a tenant. She shook her head gently and sighed. “Owning a business is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Did you think it would be easy?”

“Playing the stock market or foreign exchange is easier. Just moving things from the right side to the left side results in a profit margin. But a business is completely hopeless. That’s also because you’re an unreliable moron, Satomi.”

“You don’t think it’s because the second-floor tenant is a cabaret and the first floor is a gay bar? The fourth is a loan shark, you know.”

“You don’t get it, do you? Location doesn’t matter to a truly good company.”

Was that how it was? Rentaro thought. “We should just pass out flyers or tissues and advertise on the streets,” he said aloud.

“Boring. Doing average things will only bring average results. If we’re going to do something, we need something with more impact.”

“Then why don’t you wear a maid outfit and pass out flyers?” He meant that because Kisara had extremely good raw material to work with, ten out of ten people would turn to look at her, but apparently Kisara did not get that. Her face turned red and the vein on her temple bulged.

“I am a Tendo! Are you telling me to imitate those lowly waitresses and hostesses? I will do no such thing! You should run into a crowd and shout ‘Tendo Civil Security Agency is right here!’ while setting yourself on fire or blowing yourself up!”

“That’s terrorism…” Rentaro was half-shocked as he looked around. “But, President, seriously, let’s hire another employee.”

Even if it was small and cramped, the Tendo Civil Security Agency rented out a whole floor for its offices, and having just Rentaro and Enju as its only two employees was too much of a waste.

“I will if there’s someone I think I can use,” Kisara said curtly and snapped her fingers to change the subject. “Satomi, make some tea.”

“Do it yourself,” he said.

“Oh my, what idiot was it that forgot to get paid again?”

“Damn it. Okay, okay. I shall bring it directly, Miss.”

Wondering how she could still put on such airs when she was so poor, Rentaro poured hot water into the teapot and put it on Kisara’s desk.

“Oh, thanks,” Kisara said, but didn’t look as she continued typing on her laptop with her delicate white fingers, but when she looked up for a second, their eyes met. “Hey, the Gastrea you defeated was an infected, right?”

“Yeah,” he said brusquely, and continued, answering what she left unasked. “We couldn’t find the source of the infection, but it was probably the same Model Spider Factor. Since it wasn’t a bird or winged insect type, another company probably found it and took care of it already. If it were above Stage Three, we would’ve been called in to help. Besides, the biohazard alarm didn’t go off, either.”

The single-factor Gastrea that Rentaro had defeated was just a scaled-up version of an animal on Earth, so it was still almost cute. With two or more factors, and especially with four or more, the DNA was so mixed up that the resulting Gastrea could only be called a monster.

For Gastrea in Stages One through Four, as their stage numbers increased, their strength rose exponentially. So even though the employees of the various civsec companies were by no means friends, if they were in a situation they felt was more than they could handle, they would work together to exterminate it. Because there was no request for help, the source Gastrea must have been easily exterminated.

Dropping her gaze to the computer display, Kisara rejected Rentaro’s opinion. “There are no reports to that effect, or any eyewitness reports at all.”

“What?” said Rentaro.

Kisara turned her laptop 180 degrees. On the screen was a map. It was from the civil officer agency website, and it showed where there had been fights with and sightings of the Gastrea over the past ninety days.

“This is…” Rentaro scowled and looked at Kisara, who nodded slowly.

“There aren’t any reports, are there?” she said.

“But there’s no way there wasn’t a single eyewitness report of a source, right?”

“There isn’t one here.” Kisara brushed back her hair and looked at him provocatively with upturned eyes.

Rentaro narrowed his eyes and looked at the map and the words on the website again. “Why isn’t the government sending out a warning to the whole region? This is a serious matter.”

“Satomi, the government is not incompetent, but they hardly ever use coercive means like evacuation orders, so there’s no point in getting your hopes up. I mean, that’s why we civil officers exist.”

It really is a terrible job, he thought, clucking his tongue. He shook his head lightly. “I need an expert opinion on this. I’ll go talk to Doc after this.”

“I’ll also try asking other civil officers indirectly about it. We’ll be hunting the remaining source, too, as soon as possible.”

“Roger.”

Kisara lowered her beautiful eyelashes and sipped her tea. Rentaro looked sideways at his boss with respect. No matter what she said, she understood that human lives needed to be put first.

Having no way of knowing Rentaro’s inner thoughts, Kisara finished working on her computer and closed it, clasping her hands together and stretching. Rentaro could hear her back cracking satisfyingly. He noticed that he was accidentally looking at her generous chest pushing up her sailor school uniform and hurriedly averted his gaze.

“Oh, come to think of it, where’s Enju?” asked Kisara.

“Huh?” said Rentaro. “Oh, she said she was getting sleepy, so I took her home first. If you’re going home soon, I can walk you partway.”

“Sorry, I have hemodialysis today, so I have to go to the hospital.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.”

Taking a sip of the half-cooled tea, she surveyed the inside of the office. Rentaro followed her gaze. The reception area furniture for meeting with clients faced the plain desk used by the only employees, Rentaro and Enju. Because there were times when they had to stay overnight, there was also a small kitchen to cook in, hidden behind a curtain. It was shabby and cramped and cold in the winter. It wasn’t comfortable by any standard, but strangely enough, she didn’t hate it.

“It’s been almost a year, hasn’t it?” she said. “Since you became a Promoter and met Enju.”

“It’s only been a year,” he replied. “We’re still not even halfway to our goal.”

Kisara tilted her head slightly to the side and smiled. “Satomi, you really have changed since you met Enju. You’ve started to smile more, and you can cook now. I never would have imagined you could turn out this way.”

Rentaro turned his head sulkily. “I’m not that different.”

“Hey, Satomi. What’s your goal now?”

“Huh?” His heart suddenly skipped a beat.

“To find Enju’s parents for her? Satomi, have you given up on your own mother and father? You said it a lot when we were kids, didn’t you? That your mom and dad were definitely still alive and that you’d find them. But I haven’t heard you say it recently. Do you really still believe it even now?”

She wasn’t particularly angry or blaming him, she was just looking at him. But Rentaro couldn’t bear it any longer and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” He tried to speak calmly, but a harshness remained that sounded like he was spitting out the words. “You just have to know everything, don’t you? It’s fine. I know that my parents are dead for sure.”

Damn it, now I’ve done it, thought Rentaro as he trudged down the night streets.

On the way, a lady from the cabaret on the second floor winked at him and said, “Stop by sometime.”

Then, on the first floor, a brawny man with a shaved head and goatee from the gay bar winked and said, “You’d be the best ‘top.’ Stop by sometime.” (Rentaro wasn’t really sure what a “top” was, but it seemed to be a gay term.)

And then a little ways from the building, the loan shark from the Hiroshima yakuza greeted him saying, “Yo, Rentaro, today was hot, huh?”

But Rentaro could only give a halfhearted reply to each of them.

When it came to his family history, he was never good at controlling his feelings, but he didn’t think that it would make him do something as dumb as taking it out on the people around him. Rentaro put both hands in his pocket and tilted his head as far back as it would go, gazing at the night sky sprinkled with stars. There was no helping it. Tomorrow, he would go back and apologize without becoming too emotional.

Rentaro headed straight for the hospital that was part of Magata University. He had never seen the lights off in the lab building next door to it. Magata University had many departments, from computer science to farming, on its vast grounds. It made the school Rentaro attended, Magata High School, look like a miniature garden. Next to the main school building was the university hospital, although it was actually a slight distance of about three hundred meters away.

The receptionist knew Rentaro and let him in without any questions. The front entryway was open, and the smell of disinfectant hung in the air. The people passing Rentaro in his school uniform (which, because of his chronic cash shortage, also served as his casual clothes and work uniform) all seemed to have unpleasant looks on their faces.

What? You got a problem with me? Rentaro thought at them, but he still bowed silently as he passed.

Once he got to the north side of the building, the number of people around dropped suddenly, and there was an abrupt dead end to the hallway where there appeared to be a square hole cut into the ground. At first glance, it looked like a pitfall, but when he looked carefully, he could see that there were steep stairs attached to it.

As he walked down the stairs, he thought about the look people would have on their faces if they heard that a mysterious individual had added a morgue to the university hospital without permission and was living there alongside the corpses. He was sure that the slight chill he felt wasn’t just because the temperature had dropped.

A strong mint fragrance wafted through the air as he pushed open the door engraved with grotesque demons with breasts that were probably meant to keep people away. Inside, it was dimly lit but surprisingly spacious. The whole floor was covered with green tile, and even though it was slightly eerie like an operating room, if he looked carefully, he could see underwear and lunch boxes and a chalkboard covered with German or some other foreign language, which gave it an overall lived-in feel.

However, the person this space belonged to was nowhere to be seen.

“Doc, where are you?” Rentaro called out.

“Over here,” said a voice.

Turning toward the voice, Rentaro gave a start. In front of him was a naked muscular body over 180 centimeters tall with sunken eye sockets. On the cleanly shaven head were fresh scars from where the skin had been extracted. It was the corpse of a man Rentaro had never seen before.

“Woah!” he shouted. No matter how he thought about it, the voice seeemed like it was coming from this man, but he knew corpses couldn’t talk. Rentaro was not very good with scary stories of this genre.

“Boo.” From behind the corpse was a woman in a white lab coat who he did know, and relief made his knees weak.

“D-don’t scare me like that, Doc!”

“Hey, Rentaro. Welcome to the Abyss.” She spread her arms wide to complete the performance. She was wearing a tight skirt with a white lab coat so long it dragged on the ground. Her skin was an unhealthy pallor, and her presence was so faint that she seemed like a ghost. She didn’t bathe and let her bangs grow so long that they covered one eye, but underneath it all, she was a beauty.

Sumire Muroto. Head of the forensics lab and a Gastrea researcher. She was the queen of this dimly lit basement room and had severe social withdrawal to boot. If left alone, she would stay here for as long as her stockpile of food lasted.

“Who is this man?” Rentaro asked her.

“Charlie,” she answered. “I forget his real name. He’s my lover.”

“Didn’t you have a woman named Susan here before?”

“Unfortunately, she is no longer here. He is her replacement. Corpses are great. No idle chatter from them. They are the only ones who understand my feelings.” Saying that, she lovingly applied embalming liquid to the corpse’s cheek.

Even though he had already given up on trying to understand her, Rentaro scratched his upper arm as he watched the scene with dreary thoughts. Because of her extreme dislike of coming into contact with other people, she was openly ostracized within the school. Her favorite motto was, “In this world, there are only people who have died and people who are going to die.”

He needed to take care of his business and leave as quickly as possible. Rentaro started to open his mouth, but Sumire was faster.

“The Stage One Gastrea you defeated was just brought to my lab,” she said. “Do you think you can kill a little more cleanly next time? The impact of the bullets injured the flesh. On top of that, the bullets were all over the place. Nobita is a perv and lazy and weak, but at least he’s a good shot. You’re a perv and lazy and weak and a terrible shot on top of that. You’re the worst. Honestly, why haven’t you already committed suicide? It’s not like you have a hope left in this world, do you?”

“I’m not that hopeless!” Rentaro sighed. This depressing beauty was actually entrusted by the government with the dissection and research of Gastrea, and even though she didn’t look it at all, she apparently had a high IQ and was once the darling of the academic world.

“By the way, did you eat dinner yet?” she said.

“Huh?”

“Dinner.”

“Not yet…”

“Then eat this, my culinary creation.” She stood up and took out a plate from the microwave, unwrapping it. At first glance, it looked like completely white porridge, but it was half-solid, or rather oatmeal-like, and when scooped with a spoon, the closest word to describe it would have been gloopy. Rentaro wondered how it had gotten to the point where it smelled like it had gone bad.

Involuntarily, large drops of sweat beaded on his face. “Doc, do you know the food called Tastee Wheat from the movie The Matrix?”

“Yeah, that looked delicious, didn’t it? Guri and Gura’s pancake, Laputa bread, and Tastee Wheat. You could call them the top three on my list of 2-D foods that I want to eat.”

“Isn’t one of those things not like the others?”

“Huh? Wait, even though a TV screen is flat, The Matrix was a live-action movie, so should it be counted as 3-D? What do you think?”

“Oh, I know! Let’s talk about work.”

“Hurry up and eat. If you don’t eat it, I won’t tell you anything.”

“S-seriously…?” Rentaro looked at the dim ceiling, then gazed at the Tastee Wheat, puzzled. A bubble rose to the surface and popped with a “glop,” almost as if it were sneering at him. Chanting a prayer, he put it in his mouth.

It was unexpectedly good!

No, that was a dream that could not be. Instead, the next instant, he felt a piercing pain and the collective outrage of his senses. “Gahhh, my throat itches!”

“How is it? Is it good?”

“Does it look like it was good?”

Sumire used her thumbs and forefingers like a photographer to form a frame. Peeking through it, she gave a thoughtful nod. “If I were a photographer, I would call it ‘Anguish: Trapped Between Hell and Purgatory.’”

“Ugh, on top of being sweet, there’s also a gross sourness. What the heck is this?”

“Oh, it’s half-melted, but it started as a donut. It came out of the stomach of a corpse.”

Rentaro pressed a hand over his mouth.

“The sink is over there.”

He tried to throw up all the contents of his stomach. Gagging, he said, “W-wasn’t that evidence?!”

“No, the case was already solved. When I asked the inspector in charge if I could eat it, he gave his consent right away.”

“That’s definitely a lie!”

“You’re too concerned about the details.”

“It is not! A detail! At all!”

“Oh, I know,” she said, changing the subject, “since we’ve finally got three people here in these wonderful catacombs, let’s do something like the Oath of the Peach Garden from the Three Kingdoms! ‘Even though we were not born on the same day, when we die, let it be on the same day, at the same time.’ Oh, but Charlie is already dead.” She laughed, amused at her own joke.

What should I do? Rentaro thought. I seriously want to go home.

“For the cast, Charlie is Guan Yu, you’re Liu Bei, and I’ll be Zhang Fei. Hey, that unhappy-looking Liu Bei is terrible. I don’t sense a shred of personal virtue. It’s terribly miscast.”

“But a Zhang Fei that can only love corpses is okay?” Rentaro’s whole body felt tired. His shoulders drooped.

Sumire laughed happily as she took notes. “All right, let’s get down to business. Did you want to hear my autopsy report on the organism you killed?”

“Doc, the source—I think it’s probably the same Model Spider Factor, but there have been no eyewitness or extermination reports. At this rate, there will be more victims. I want to exterminate it as soon as possible. If it were to go into hiding, where do you think it would be?”

“Let’s see.” Sumire started to play around, spinning in her chair and crossing and uncrossing her legs. “One possibility is that it opened the lid of a manhole and went underground, shutting the lid firmly behind it.”

Rentaro raised his eyebrows. “With those spider’s legs?”

“It’s got twice as many limbs as a human. Wouldn’t that actually make it easier?”

“‘Gastrea are not intelligent organisms. They are simply lower life-forms that act on their natural instincts.’ Isn’t that what the textbooks say?”

Sumire shook her head, as if saying “Oh dear” and spread her hands. “For some reason, it’s become the accepted theory in Japan that Gastrea are not intelligent, but it’s been proven that this is mostly wrong. In the West, the opposite is the accepted theory.”

“Well, that’s what I think, too…,” said Rentaro. “But while your hiding underground theory seems to be on the right track, I don’t think that’s quite it. Recently, even the sewer system has security cameras equipped with night vision. If it’s as you say and the Gastrea ran underground, it would’ve been caught by those devices.”

“Oh, when did Japan become so advanced? I suppose being down here, I don’t know enough of what’s going on in the world. Hmm, the DNA of the source of the infection this time was overwritten with that of a jumping spider, huh…?” She looked at him. “Now that I think of it, you know a lot about animals in general, don’t you?”

Rentaro scratched his head and looked down, muttering to himself. “Well, I just know a little about natural science and ethology, that’s all. It started because I liked Fabre’s Souvenirs Entomologiques, and it kind of continued from there…”

She laughed at him. “I get it. You were the type who had no friends, so you watched bugs instead, right? You were pleased when you submerged an anthill with water, weren’t you?” Her voice changed a little. “‘Hah, drown! It’s Noah’s great flood! Know the wrath of God!’”

“Is that supposed to be me? Don’t just make stuff up!”

Sumire rested her chin on her elbow, which was on the armrest, and grinned broadly. “Anyway, you’re a real wimp. With such a gloomy hobby, you won’t be able to catch Kisara’s eye. If you like her, you should make her yours by sheer strength.”

Rentaro scowled. Why’d she start talking about this? “Doc, didn’t you know? Kisara is a master of the Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing Style. I’m only at the beginning level, so I’d just be killed. Her kidneys are failing, though, so she can only move for short amounts of time and does mostly office work now.”

When they were little, Kisara often protected Rentaro, who was bullied a lot by her older brothers at the Tendo house, but he didn’t like how she’d treated him as a servant ever since then. Even though he’d gotten strong enough to protect her now…

“Oh? Ah well, let’s get back to the topic at hand,” said Sumire. “Do you know the distinguishing trait of a jumping spider?”

“Its coloring, isn’t it?” said Rentaro. “And it’s famous for jumping to catch its prey.”

Sumire pulled out her own Tastee Wheat from the microwave and suddenly thrust a spoonful into her mouth. Eww! Rentaro thought as he watched her.

“That’s right,” she said. “You know, of course, that even if it became human size, the jumping spider, which uses its powerful jump to capture prey, would not be able to maintain the jumping distance of ten times its body size, right?”

“Yeah—uh, wait, really?”

“Hey now, get yourself together,” said Sumire. “They say that if a flea were human size, it would be able to jump as high as the Tokyo Tower, but if a flea were actually to become that big, never mind its jumping ability—it wouldn’t even be able to support its own body weight with those legs, and it wouldn’t be able to get enough oxygen through cutaneous respiration. It’s the same thing. Based on the law of gravity and the principle of scale, it’s pretty obvious that such a creature should not exist. But the Gastrea virus turns that idea on its head.”

The woman in the white lab coat stopped talking for a moment and smiled enigmatically.

Rentaro remained silent, urging her to go on. This wasn’t entomology anymore, it was physics. There was no place for the layman Rentaro to interrupt.

“When a Gastrea transforms, the hardness of its exoskeleton and its body functions increase to match its size. That’s why the larger the Gastrea, the harder and stronger it is. The Gastrea virus, which redesigns living organisms, is a threat. In principle, it is very similar to the reverse transcription of a retrovirus, but it doesn’t just replicate copies of itself—after analyzing its host’s DNA, it reconstructs it into its most suitable form.

“The problem is the speed at which this occurs. The corrosion speed of a Gastrea virus overwriting DNA is outside of the standard of all the living organisms on the Earth. Dawkins would probably piss his pants. If you told me that that it’s not from this planet, I’d believe you.

“And once its corrosion exceeds fifty percent inside the host’s body, the host is no longer able to maintain human form, and goes through the process of shape collapse, resulting in the host becoming a Gastrea. Through that process, some individuals gain original abilities that should not exist. Get it? It’s an evolutionary leap through mutation.”

Before Rentaro knew it, Sumire’s plate was empty. What in the world is wrong with her sense of taste?

“That was a long tangent, but the missing source could possess some sort of new ability, you know,” she said.

“Since we haven’t been able to find it, could it be some kind of optical camouflage?” Rentaro suggested.

“It could be a simpler mimicry camouflage, like a chameleon. If it really had the ability to distort light, Tokyo Area could be annihilated by a Pandemic tomorrow, even.”

“Don’t worry. Enju and I, as Initiator and Promoter, exist to prevent that from happening.”

“Enju, huh?”

“What is it?”

“I find the Cursed Children especially creepy. Especially once I found out about their origins. Ten years ago, at almost exactly the same time the Gastrea virus first appeared in the world, children in the womb with Gastrea-controlling factors were born, as if to oppose them. At first, a big deal was made of them being a gift from God to control the Gastrea, but in the end, that was completely wrong.”

Sumire looked like she was dreaming as she squinted in the air and let her gaze wander.

“The only way for an ordinary person to contract the Gastrea virus and become a monster is through the blood. Aerosol, or airborne infection, is not believed to occur. There were also many experiments that confirmed that infection did not occur orally or through sexual intercourse.

“However, when the virus entered orally, it did not die immediately, and if it happened to enter a pregnant woman’s mouth, then the child in her womb stored up the virus before it was born.

“The Cursed Children had red eyes when they were born, but appeared normal otherwise. In other words, even though they were infected with the Gastrea virus, the progress of the disease was extremely slow. If we think about the fact that normal people who are infected with a large amount of Gastrea virus at once change shape almost immediately, the fact that these girls’ bodies don’t change shape for years is miraculous. It is extremely interesting. See? I explained it without using a lot of technical jargon. Even an idiot like you can understand the gist of it, right?”

“Yeah, I wish you’d always talk like that…,” said Rentaro.

She’d stuck in plenty of nasty asides, but he was able to understand the general concept, thanks to her. Mimicry camouflage, huh? No matter what you might say about her, she was pretty amazing.

“Well, I’ll be going then, Doc.”

Sumire smiled as she gave a light wave to see him off. “Come again, FBI Agent Starling.”

“So we’re gender-bending now, Dr. Lecter?”

“Rentaro, you are late!”

When he returned to his dear apartment, the window of the second-floor bathroom suddenly opened, and out with the bath steam came Enju, leaning her upper body out of the frame. He was glad that she was welcoming him with her face wreathed with a smile, waving her hands, but he couldn’t condone her doing so while she was obviously naked and in the middle of taking a bath.

“Hey, idiot, what if someone’s looking?” he shouted back to her. “Close the window.”

“Don’t worry. My body belongs only to you!”

“Will you please try to understand what I’m saying? I’m saying it’s embarrassing for me!”

Rentaro ran up the stairs and thrust his key into the door of the corner room on the second floor. He flew into his eight-tatami, one-room home, and when he got to the changing room, he could hear the sound of the shower and see the silhouette of Enju’s slender body. It was a modest bodyline, but thin and supple and very beautiful.

He was flustered for a moment, but when he noticed the piece of paper that said “You can peek if you want” in Enju’s messy handwriting taped to the bathroom door, his strength left him all at once and he sank to the floor.

He could hear a voice from the bath. “You are late. Were you doing something naughty with Kisara?”

Rentaro plunked down and crossed his arms. “Shut up. She beat me up and told me to get to work.”

Enju laughed. “She would. That’s what I thought happened, as well.”

“You’re an evil freeloader.”

“Anyway, is dinner ready yet? My stomach feels like it’s caving in.”

Okay, okay, he thought as he picked up the clothes Enju had shed with abandon and put them in the laundry hamper with his own dirty clothes, then took them to the coin laundry on the first floor. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around, so he decided to use the machine that worked the best, the newest one in the back.

Rentaro thought that Enju wouldn’t want her clothes to be washed with his, but unexpectedly she had said, “Imagining you getting excited about wearing clothes that were washed with my underwear is fun,” and said it was fine. They were being washed with detergent, so there was nothing to get excited about, but it still meant he could wash them all in one load, so he let her believe what she wanted.

Thinking there was no way anyone would steal their clothes, he went back to the room and opened the fridge. He lined up the ingredients they had, including the bean sprouts they had bought, and thought for a moment.

Today, he would make egg-topped rice out of the eggs, braised burdock and carrot out of the burdock root and slightly old carrot, and fry the bean sprouts with the bit of cabbage that was left over. Once he figured out what to make, he knew the rest of the work would go quickly. He put a pink apron on over his school uniform and started cooking at lightning speed. Before he knew it, he was humming merrily away as he manipulated his long cooking chopsticks.

There was one time when Enju pestered him into letting her cook, but the result tasted so bad that he’d wanted to spit it out, so he had firmly sworn that he would never let her in the kitchen again. Sumire’s cooking not only tasted bad, but she also used unknown ingredients that gave it an unearthly feel. When Kisara cooked, the kitchen went up in flames.

Why did all the women around him completely lack cooking abilities? Just once, he wanted to meet a woman who could make a miso soup that tasted better than his.

With those thoughts floating around in his mind, the sauce of the last dish, the braised burdock and carrot, turned golden. He turned off the heat, removed his apron, and looked at the clock. It was eight p.m.

As he returned from getting the clothes downstairs, Enju had just finished her long bath. When she saw the kitchen, she said, “Ooh!” and jumped, reacting like the kid she was.

“Wait, don’t eat yet,” said Rentaro.

Enju turned to look at him like she was about to bite. “Why can’t I? When I came home, I gargled and washed my hands!”

“That’s not it.”

“I took the neighborhood circular next door like I was supposed to, and I didn’t doodle on it like last time.”

“I said, that’s not it.”

“I didn’t watch more than three hours of TV today!”

“That’s not it, either.”

“I’m not on trash duty today, am I?”

“That’s not it, Enju. Please, just notice!”

The small head couldn’t take it any longer and began to roar. “Just give me my food! Are you trying to starve me to death?!”

Enju seemed to notice something at that point, and her face turned bright red as she looked at him with upturned eyes. “Don’t tell me you were thinking that an empty stomach would exacerbate my lust, and that this was a roundabout way to tell me you desired to have an ultimate fight with me?”

Rentaro put both hands on Enju’s shoulders. “Just put on your underwear. We can start from there.”

“Thanks for the food,” said Rentaro as he put his chopsticks down and bowed.

“Thanks for the food!” said Enju, imitating him and giving thanks. “The food you cook is delicious, Rentaro. How is it that you can make such delicious food from such plain ingredients? You are like a magician.” Enju, who had changed into casual clothes, looked at him with her face bright.

Rentaro thought with a wry smile that she was overreacting. But it didn’t feel bad to be praised. “Well, yes, being imaginative and creative is important in every endeavor, Watson.”

“Who’s that? More importantly, will I be able to learn how to cook like you soon?”

“Uh, well, um, yeah…I’m sure you’ll be able to…eventually,” Rentaro answered, not meeting her eyes. “Everyone has their own strengths.”

“You said too much.” Rentaro poked her head gently, and she laughed with a “Tee-hee” and stuck out her tongue.

That was when Rentaro noticed a small cardboard parcel next to Enju. “Enju… What’s that under your arm?”

“Oh, it’s a new laptop computer! It just arrived.”

“How much was it…?”

“I found a cheap place, so the newest model was only 180,000 yen.”

“O-o-one hundred and eighty thousand…” Rentaro got dizzy and had to prop himself up with his hands.

Because Enju was also an employee of the Tendo Civil Security Agency, she received a salary that was way too much for a child’s allowance. To Rentaro, who was living hand to mouth, Enju cheekily buying expensive things and rubbing them in his face gave him stomachaches.

Seeing the greedy expression on Rentaro’s face seemed to make Enju realize something, and a smirk unbecoming of a child crossed her face. “I will lend money to you any time you wish.”

“Oh, you little devil. It’s your fault that I…”

One time in their poverty, right before they were about to be evicted from their apartment, he went crying to Enju and borrowed money to pay the rent they were defaulting on. However, the next day, Enju spread the story after dramatizing it to make it more amusing. Because of that, the people around him gave Rentaro the blunt nickname of “Lolita-complex pervo living off of a ten-year-old girl” (which spread to residents of the apartment, as well). After that, he made do with his own salary even if it killed him.

As he carried the dirty dishes to the sink, he glanced at the clock and remembered. From the dresser drawer, he took out a needle-less pressure syringe and flicked it open with his nail. “Enju, it’s time for your shot.”

“Drat, is it that time already?” she said.

He urged her to put her arm out. Enju hated shots, but she grudgingly stuck out her arm, her body stiff and eyes squeezed shut. Rentaro pressed the piston with a bitter smile. The girl’s frail body gave a twitch. The soft arm, thin as a small branch, sucked up the transparent blue liquid.

Once a day, it was the duty of all Initiators to get a shot of corrosion-inhibiting medication. If she neglected to do so, the corrosion percentage in her body would increase, and in the end, she would turn into a Gastrea.

The girls were born under special circumstances. Most mothers who gave birth to red-eyed children who were Gastrea factors went half-mad. For a time, there were a slew of infanticides where women would give birth to their children by a river and drown their babies in the water. Kids playing by the river could see the corpses of babies floating down the river. Rentaro also saw one once in the past, and it gave him a feeling of emptiness that was hard for him to describe as a child.

Before he knew it, Rentaro was looking intently at Enju’s face, eyes closed tightly, bearing the pain of the shot. Laughing, crying, angry Enju. It had taken a whole year for her to show him this much emotion. He thought about how she was when they were first introduced a year ago, and his heart was pained.

When he first met her through the mediation of the International Initiator Supervision Organization, or IISO, he’d been taken aback by her hostility and distrust of people, as well as her wild eyes. Rentaro had never felt such obstinate rejection in his life.

But now, Rentaro loved her smiles and even how she sometimes seemed too mature for her age. Of course, he loved her as a much-younger sister—or even, if he were bragging, as his own daughter.

“All done, Enju,” he said gently.

The girl’s wet eyes opened slowly, and her rosy, glossy lips opened slowly as if cramped. For some reason, Rentaro felt guilty and looked down in a hurry.

“What’s wrong, Rentaro?” she asked.

“I-it’s nothing!” He would never say it out loud, but Enju had grown very pretty recently. If Kisara were a beauty with a dark side, then Enju was her complete opposite.

“All right. We’re done with our work for the day. We’re done with dinner. Now that we’re full, there’s only one thing left to do.”

Enju looked embarrassed for a second and looked downward, spreading her arms and smiling as if she would accept anything that was done to her.

“Yup, good night.” Rentaro pulled the string of the light twice, pulled the blanket over himself, and lay down. After a while, he suffered a blow to the crown of his head that made his skull ring.

“Owwwww!” he groaned.

“Why are you ignoring me?!” shouted Enju. “When a lady makes a demand, it is a gentleman’s duty to quietly go along with what she wants.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What lady are you talking about? You’re a ten-year-old child! Save the sleep talking for when you’re actually asleep!”

“Then let me ask you this: What part of me is not a lady?” Enju stuck her chest out as far as she could.

“Hah, first of all, a lady is modest and prudent,” said Rentaro. “And your chest is completely flat.”

“What?!” She turned red as she balled up her fists, shaking. “Th-they will keep growing!”

“Enju, it’s important for a person to know when to give up.”

“It’s Kisara’s fault. She stole the part of my boobs that were still getting ready to grow!”

“Kisara has no such weird, goblinlike ability. I can guarantee that from when we used to bathe together as kids.” When he said that, he was surprised at his own perverted statement.

“Argh! I shouldn’t have bought a computer! I should’ve saved up to pay for breast implants in the future.”

Rentaro didn’t like the idea of an elementary school girl thinking about breast implants.

Enju pushed herself up. “However! There are unfortunate men like Rentaro in this world who are unable to love adult women. ‘Big brother, pwease give me a shot of love!’ That’s the kind of stuff you like, isn’t it? Sumire told me, you pervert.”

His head started to hurt, and he pressed his temples. “Please, don’t tempt me with your hellish sorcery. Anyway, where do you keep learning all those words?”

Enju puffed out her chest haughtily. “I learned them from my friend, Gookle.”

“That person’s evil! How many times do I have to tell you not to hang around with Gookle?!”

“Who cares? Let’s just get married. Let’s get married today! I will accept all of your perverted desires!”

On top of making him out to have a Lolita complex, she’d decided that he had perverted desires, and thumped around repeatedly, jumping so that it echoed into the apartment below them. Their downstairs neighbor, woken up by the noise, started to bang angrily on the ceiling with a bamboo stick, and the situation became extremely confused.

Rentaro held his head. If it weren’t for this, she’d be cute. Tilting his head to look at the clock, he sighed and wondered what time he would get to sleep tonight.

Enju blushed as she turned her head sharply in his direction. “That’s enough. I will take off my clothes.”

“Leave. Them. On!”