Black Bullet - Volume 3 - Chapter 1.3

3

Things had gotten bad.

Rentaro hurried home, his hands in his pockets and eyes downcast. The moon shone in the sky, and the dazzling streetlights cast his shadows dancing across the paving stones, while cheerful jazz music leaked out of a store somewhere in the distance. Hearing it, Rentaro paused and turned his head.

The area around Happy Building—the building that Tendo Civil Security Agency was a tenant of—turned into a street full of bars at night. The night tribe of drunk men staggering with their neckties around their foreheads, thin dogs nosing about the trash, and people passing out flyers for their establishments became a thick crowd.

Normally, Rentaro wouldn’t even pay attention to them, but tonight, he gazed upon them for quite some time. The scene was completely normal—it didn’t look as if Tokyo Area was going to be annihilated in six days. He wondered if the Seitenshi tricked him; if he was just being made to play along with a bad joke.

But this was just an attempt on his part to embrace plausible deniability. He shook his head and rebuked himself. That straitlaced national leader would not lie about nor fabricate something of this level.

What a pain.

He glared in the direction of the faraway Monolith, but of course, it was too dark to see it. The ever-standing wall that had protected people for ten years…the strongest, most reliable wall, built from the knowledge of mankind: The Monolith. It was going to be destroyed. In six days, it would definitely be destroyed.

Rentaro realized that he was starting to feel on edge and turned onto the road that led home.

The fact that the Seitenshi came to see him directly probably meant that she had high hopes for him. It was a big improvement from the arrogant attitude she had held during the terrorist incident. Even so, he could not give the Seitenshi an immediate answer when she offered him the job. This job was just too dangerous.

Besides, how could civil officers who were all show-offs form a team and fight? If it weren’t under these conditions, he would want to tell her not to be ridiculous. She shouldn’t expect such a prideful group to work cooperatively. Even when her commander gave his order, the best they could probably do was fight separately, on their own.

And looking at the facts of the Monolith attack, the enemy Gastrea corps was undoubtedly a highly organized system. In a team battle, it didn’t matter how specialized each individual was, as evidenced by many recent battles in history.

The tepid night wind blew from his chin to his neck, and the soles of his shoes hit the stone pavement rhythmically.

What should he tell Enju? With the Kagetane Hiruko terrorist attack and the Seitenshi assassination attempt still fresh in their minds, could he tell Enju to risk her life again? She was still a child, only ten years old.

Before he knew it, he was standing in front of their run-down apartment. Scratching his tired face, he climbed up the metal stairs that creaked with rust and turned the knob of the door.

Suddenly, he was accosted by two pointed blades pushed against his chest.

There were two magical girls standing in the doorway.

More precisely, there were two girls dressed in costumes from the Ako samurai magical girl cartoon, Tenchu Girls. Looking closely, Rentaro could see that the weapons were toys called Stick Blades, fake swords that had magic-wand handles.

“Are we really going to do it, Enju?” Tina, who was dressed as Tenchu Pink, said uncertainly.

Enju, dressed as Tenchu Red, puffed her chest. “What are you saying? This will make those things called ‘men’ yours in a second. All right, Tina. Let’s do it just like we rehearsed.”

With a quiet, “Ready, set, go—!” the two girls turned flirtatious and announced in unison, “We’ll give your heart divine Tenchu punishment!”

Everything Rentaro had worried about today seemed foolish all at once. That was right—Tina was sleeping over today.

Rentaro put a floor cushion down next to the low table in the living room and sat down. Looking at the clock, he saw that it was past 7 p.m. He turned on the TV but was too concerned about the goings-on behind him to focus on it. In the kitchen, he saw the two girls excitedly swinging something shaped like a cotton swab.

“We will cook today so that you should quietly be waited on, Rentaro!” It had been some time since Enju had sat him down and said that, earlier in the evening.

It was not just because Rentaro’s usual spot in the kitchen had been taken that he was unable to sit calmly. What is it with their clothes, anyway? At his seated eye level, Rentaro saw two pieces of cloth that were so short they could barely be called skirts fluttering on their hips.

Rentaro wasn’t sure who the target audience for the anime that mixed and matched Ako samurai and magical girls was, but it was probably the generation of innocent girls, with the addition of adults with impure spirits that could not be called innocent by any means. Rentaro got that feeling from the flashes of underwear he glimpsed under the skirts of Tenchu Red and Tenchu Pink.

Rentaro put his hand in his chin, and before he knew it, he was staring at the cooking team. Tina’s face, covered in flour, was full of energy, unlike the soundly sleeping countenance she had this morning. Thanks to the Owl Factor in her body, she was extremely nocturnal. Who would believe that out of the 240,000 civil officer pairs in the world, she ranked in the top hundred? That she was an assassin who could hit a target over a kilometer away and deliver the finishing blow?

In the midst of their hustling and bustling, a fragrant smell wafted toward him, and soon Enju and Tina returned to him with their hands under a large plate. Looking at the large dish placed on the table, Rentaro let out an involuntary sound of awe.

It was a gigantic pizza that was almost extralarge. The rich smell of bubbling cheese covering a bright red layer of pizza sauce made his stomach growl. The toppings were simple, with just salami and mushroom. There was nothing to criticize about it.

“Come, Rentaro. We made this with everything we have. Please eat it,” said Tina.

Looking sideways at Tina, who was covered with flour from the dough, Rentaro brought a slice to his mouth. The full-bodied flavor of the slightly burnt parts of the cheese, along with the juices from the salami, seemed to mix with the dough to give it a crispy texture as the bite spread through his mouth.

Enju and Tina didn’t blink as they stared sideways at Rentaro, giving a suggestive cough.

“Yup, it’s good,” he said.

“You think so?” Tina’s eyes crinkled as she smiled.

Rentaro laughed teasingly as he gave Enju a sideways glance. “You get especially high points for not adding honey cake or steamed cheese bread into the crust.”

The girl leaped to her feet. “I-I know not to add that now!”

“Enju, you want to feed that kind of food to Rentaro?” Tina sighed.

Rentaro turned to face Tina. “No, it’s just that the girls around me have a knack for catastrophic cooking, so I had been about to give up on you, too, but this was delicious. But why did you make pizza?”

Tina put the palms of her hands together and smiled softly. “Pizza and Pepsi are traditional foods from my country, America.” (Tina’s words would have made an Italian very angry.)

“Hey, Tina, I have a favor to ask. Will you cook for Kisara like that, too? If I leave her alone, all she eats are frozen dinners from the convenience store.”

“Then, next time, I’ll make anchovy pizza.”

“What? No, I mean, you can make other food.”

“Then, I’ll make carbonara pizza.”

“I said, something else.”

“Marinara pizza.”

“Why is it all pizza?”

“I only know how to make pizza, you know.”

“Seriously?”

Tina was a pizza machine. Rentaro sighed.

Tina Sprout. She was the criminal behind the Seitenshi assassination attempt, but she was also under probation thanks to that very same Seitenshi, so she was currently living as a freeloader with Kisara. It had only been about a month since the incident, but Enju had no problem treating her as a friend, and Kisara had no problem treating her like a little sister.

Rentaro could not suppress a wry smile, thinking of the irony of that fate. At one point, both Enju and Kisara had fought against Tina with their lives on the line. When he asked how they could change their minds so easily, they both said unanimously, “There’s no need to bear a grudge after the fight,” which honestly bewildered Rentaro.

Was that really how it was? He didn’t understand it.

“Tina, by the way, those clothes…”

When Tina looked down at the Tenchu Pink clothes covered with frills, she looked awkwardly embarrassed. “Is it…cute…?” she asked.

“You know about Tenchu Girls?”

“Yes, Enju let me watch the whole first season the other day.”

“How was it?”

“It was quintessential Japanimation.”

“You think it’s that good?”

Tina sidled up next to Rentaro and suddenly grabbed his arm, leaning her head against his shoulder. She was a soft weight, with her sleek platinum blond hair giving off the nice, light scent characteristic of girls. “I am grateful to you, Rentaro. I’m living a dreamlike life I definitely would not have been able to experience if I had remained with Professor Rand. I always wanted a big brother like you, you know.” She paused for a moment and looked up at Rentaro through her lashes. “Can I call you ‘Big Brother’?”

Rentaro’s heart skipped and he looked away, scratching his cheek. With Kisara and Enju, the Tendo Civil Security Agency sure wasn’t lacking in beautiful girls, he muttered to himself.

“You can’t, Tina! You’re not allowed to get a head start!” Enju stood hurriedly and squeezed between Rentaro and Tina, looking at Rentaro like she was about to bite. “You, too, Rentaro! You looked lovestruck and careless just now, even though you never look happy when I press my bosom against you!”

Rentaro scratched the back of his head. “You scrape against me like a washboard, and it hurts.”

Enju stamped her feet in frustration then and there. “What?! I, too, will become one with elite breasts one day! So you should just endure it for now!”

What the heck are “elite breasts”…?

Just then, Tina erased the expression from her face and stood up quickly, looking at Enju. “Enju, I do not want to make a surprise attack, so I will tell you clearly right now: I am serious about Big Brother. I will not let you or President Tendo have him.”

Enju looked like she had been stabbed in the back by a comrade in arms. “T-Tina…? B-but, you said we should work together to defeat the Great-Breasted Queen, Kisara, whom we faced…”

Tina shook her head slightly. “That’s what I believed at first, too. It’s true that President Tendo’s resilient breasts are a threat. In terms of Gundam, she would be Big Zam. However, there is only one Big Brother. Even if we were able to steal him from President Tendo, after that, there would be a bloody battle between you and me. In that case, I would rather not have any allies from the start.”

Enju widened her eyes in shock and earnestly gripped the fabric on her chest. The letters C.B. were written on a pin arranged there. “Then, what about the anti-boob organization we formed, Counter Breasts?”

Tina shook her head again. “Today, we will disband.”

Tina tore off the C.B. pin on her chest and threw it to the ground, stepping on it with her heel.

“Whoaaaaaa! Wh-what are you doing, Tina? After we went through all the trouble to make it!” Enju fell at Tina’s feet in tears and hugged the pin close.

Tina snickered coldly, gazing down at Enju. “Besides, look. I have a bigger chest than you do.”

“T-Tina. You traitor! Homewrecker! Female panther! Female cat!” Enju screamed.

It was hard to believe that this was a conversation between two ten-year-old children. Rentaro sighed as he watched the political violence of the Counter Breasts as their internal rift started. In any case, Tina appeared to be getting along in the Tendo Civil Security Agency just fine.

The warm night air floated through the eight-tatami-mat room. It was filled with the medicinal smell of mosquito repellant, but outside the window, Rentaro could hear the reserved chirping of bell crickets and pine crickets.

It was past 10 p.m., and it had been a while since they turned off the lights. Rentaro’s eyes were already used to the darkness. He was deep in thought as he lay in the middle futon between Enju and Tina, gazing at the complex wood grain in the ceiling.

As they ate, during the height of their feast, Rentaro tried explaining to the two of them about the collapse of the Monolith and the worst-case scenario of the Gastrea invasion after that. As expected, the two of them paled for a second, but then Enju retorted angrily, without a moment’s delay: “We will fight as well! It’ll be fine as long as we do something, right?”

“Enju, are you…okay with that…?” You might die, you know, he started to say. Enju and Tina had experienced battling against the Gastrea many times as civil officers. He did not think that they misread the threat that a faction of two thousand Gastrea would be.

“Big Brother,” Tina said as she stepped forward. She had a stern look on her face. “The Initiator ranked ninety-eighth by the International Initiator Supervision Organization, Tina Sprout, once fought the one thousandth–ranked Rentaro Satomi and lost. She died once. The life I’m living now is without a doubt my second life. Please use it as you wish.”

Rentaro was taken aback both by Tina looking up to him and by Enju’s dignified eyes. Rebelling against death, or resigned to living—where did the core of their strength come from? Even he and Kisara, who were closer to being adults than the two of them, could not come to an immediate decision after hearing the Seitenshi’s request.

Rentaro shook his head. “Very well. I will definitely tell Kisara of your determination.”

He found Enju snoring on the futon to his right as his consciousness came back to him. The silence hurt his ears. The sound of the clock’s second hand ticking away seemed louder than usual in his ears.

“Big Brother, are you awake?” He heard a voice that sounded like the buzz of a mosquito. It was Tina.

Rentaro tried to sound as calm as he could. “You can’t sleep?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t surprising. With the nocturnal animal factor in her, this was when she would have been the most active.

“Will you talk to me for a little bit?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

“I thought it over, and I was thinking of taking sleeping pills at night to change my sleep cycle so I can wake up in the morning.”

“You don’t have to force yourself.”

“No, I want to. Because I want to live in the same time as you, Enju, and President Tendo.”

After hearing her say that, it would be unfair to stop her.

She continued. “I said so during dinner, as well, but I am grateful to you, Rentaro. The Tendo Civil Security Agency is warm and comfortable, and I want to stay here forever. I’m the happiest I have ever been in my life.”

Tina’s words were becoming more and more passionate. Rentaro hesitated, but he opened his mouth slowly. “Tina, there’s just one thing I think I should tell you. This life will probably not continue for long.”

“Is it about Aldebaran? Then, you don’t have to worry.”

“That’s not it.” Wind blew outside, and the window shook. Then the wind was completely gone, and there was the sound of leaves rustling against each other.

“Is it about…Enju’s body’s corrosion rate…?”

Rentaro looked sideways at the girl in question. She had kicked off her blanket and was sleeping with her underwear displayed for all to see. She made a small sound and turned a little. “There’s that, too,” he said.

“Is there something else, as well?”

Rentaro put both hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling. “That’s right, Tina, this concerns you now, too. Tina, why do you think Kisara and I started the Tendo Civil Security Agency in the first place?”

Tina didn’t seem to understand where the question was going, and he could almost see a question mark appear on top of her head. “To defeat Gastrea and protect the peace of the citizens, right?”

“In other words, you’re saying it was in the spirit of justice? Unfortunately, that’s not the case. We became civil officers purely for revenge. My arm, leg, and eye were eaten by Gastrea, and Kisara’s parents were killed by them, too. That’s why we started the agency: with hatred, and the desire to get revenge by annihilating all the Gastrea in the world. Like most of the rest of the Stolen Generation, I also hated the Cursed Children, so I really didn’t want to partner up with an Initiator, and if that Initiator had done something strange, I would have shot and killed her on the spot. But the one who came was Enju, who had been betrayed by humans many times before, and she had even colder eyes than we did.”

In the darkness, he could hear Tina holding her breath. She probably couldn’t believe that the Tendo Civil Security Agency now was the same as the bloodthirsty Tendo Civil Security Agency back then. “You were able to reach the state you’re in now just a year after that?” she asked.

“That’s right. First, Enju and I changed. And then that spread to Kisara. But that’s all it is.”

Tina responded with silence, thinking in the darkness. “I would like to hear more about that. May I ask President Tendo about it, too?”

“No.” Before he knew it, he had thrown off his covers and gotten close to Tina. Surprised, he put his hand to his mouth and shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry… But don’t touch Kisara’s past.”

As he looked at Tina, who was tilting her head, he saw panic in her eyes. “Tina, what’s the Kisara you know like?”

“She’s…kind, of course, good at her job, broad-minded, and cool.”

“Then you should definitely not talk to her about the past.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’ll turn into a different Kisara than the one you know.”

“What?”

Rentaro exhaled slowly through his nose and closed his eyes. His sleepiness was mostly gone.

“Tina, the three of us each have our own goals. I want to know the truth about my parents’ deaths, Enju Aihara is looking for her birth parents—and Kisara Tendo lives to kill the people who killed her family.”

Tina trembled and pulled her blanket up to her shoulders. “No way… President Tendo is…”

“Tina, I’ll tell you more later. As much as I remember about my parents. Why Enju’s last name is Aihara. Kisara’s regret. But go to sleep for today.” Rentaro put his hand on top of Tina’s head.

Tina was silent for a while, but then finally lifted her gaze. “Then, please let me use your arm as a pillow.”

“What?!” He had no idea why that warranted a “Then.”

Without Rentaro’s consent, Tina crawled into his blankets. When he reluctantly offered his left arm as a pillow, Tina happily put her head on it and started sniffing his sleeve. Wondering what she was doing with a bitter smile, he let his gaze return to the ceiling. He wouldn’t be able to fall asleep for a while, anyway. That’s what he thought, but strangely, the warmth of a body next to him was comforting. His eyelids grew heavy, and he finally went under.

Light flickered behind his eyes. A gentle breeze, filled with the fresh scent of morning air, blew over the back of his neck and his shoulders. Something swayed in the wind, causing a fluttering sound. Opening his eyes slightly, Rentaro lifted his head. The wind came in from a crack in the window, which was blowing the curtains, which in turn was causing the light to flicker. But it looked like it would be a nice day, along with yesterday. Getting up and looking at the clock, he saw that it was 6 a.m.

Enju, a morning person, was already out of bed. When she noticed Rentaro, she raised a hand as she swung her pigtails. “Are you awake, Rentaro?! I’m making the morning coffee.”

Just then, as if Enju’s words had given a signal, the teapot whistled, and the TV announced that it was six o’clock with up-tempo music as a new program started. The morning became noisy all at once.

“Hey, Satomi? I’m coming in.” Just as he heard the voice outside the door, there was the sound of the spare key being inserted roughly into the lock, and Kisara appeared in her black sailor school uniform, looking angry with a hand on her hip. “All right, I’ll have you return Tina now.”

Rentaro pleaded as he smoothed the stray hairs from his bedhead. “What do you mean, ‘return’? It’s not like I stole her.”

“You might as well have. Yesterday, I was lonely sleeping by myself. Recently, I haven’t been able to sleep without cuddling Tina. So return her immediately. Besides, I’m worried that you’ll do something weird to her.”

“I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“By the way, where is Tina?” Enju asked.

At the question, Rentaro and Kisara looked around, but they saw no sign of the girl anywhere in the eight-tatami-mat room. Just then, something shifted in Rentaro’s blankets near his groin. Rentaro looked up at the ceiling and prayed. No way, give me a break here.

But his prayer was in vain, and Tina crawled out from under his blankets, rubbing her eyes sleepily. The sweatpants she had been wearing had come off along with her underwear, and all she wore was the dress shirt he had lent her as pajamas.

Not noticing Enju and Kisara, who had been stunned speechless, Tina looked at Rentaro’s face and tried earnestly to smile with her sleepy eyes. “Good morning, Big Brother. Last night was fun. You were so desperate, and there were scary parts, too, but I’m glad you taught me a lot of different things.”

Kisara paled and looked at Rentaro, pulling out her cell phone with shaking hands. “I-I’m going to report you…to the police…”

“Wait! Wait a minute! I just talked to the night version of Tina! That’s all!” Rentaro said.

“What do you mean, ‘night version of Tina,’ you perv! You’re the worst! I can’t believe you! Tina is only ten years old!”

Enju screamed, looking like she was about to cry. “Tina got ahead of me!”

Kisara pushed some buttons on her cell phone and yelled, “Oh, hello? Is this the police?”

Just as it seemed like Rentaro was about to start a life on the run, from behind them they heard someone say with a sigh, “The Cursed Children have finally started even this, huh?” and everyone stopped in their tracks.

Behind them was the TV that had been left on. But because his senses were honed to expect biased news about the Cursed Children based on what was regularly broadcast, it was almost animal instinct that told Rentaro the news would not be good.

Looking back fearfully, he saw on the TV that a reporter at the scene was talking with a commentator in the studio. The reporter held the mike with both hands and seemed to look right at Rentaro. The caption in the upper right corner of the screen said in harsh brush strokes, VIOLENT ACT BY ONE OF THE CURSED CHILDREN! ACTIVIST MURDERED!!!

The room froze, and Rentaro’s temple pulsed with burning pain. Tensions had already mounted to the point where there was no doubt about who the perpetrator was.

According to the reporter, the Tokyo Area branch chief of a secret anti-Children organization with almost one hundred thousand members in Japan was found dead in a park a few kilometers north of his home in Tokyo Area District 2. The park was a gathering spot for young delinquents, so at first, it was thought to be their doing, but that was not the case. According to the eyewitness report, the man was attacked by a group of children who looked like they were from the Outer District, and in the heat of the fight, he hit his head on the handrail near the stairs. His skull was cracked, and he died at the hospital he was brought to due to a cerebral contusion. Before he died, he was also confirmed to have traumatic cuts.

The Pureblood Japan Association was a large organization said to have many politicians and influential people from different Areas. The chairman was subsequently reported as harshly denouncing the savagery and brutality of the case.

The female reporter was polite. She kept to the broadcast codes and continued speaking respectfully. However, the words she used dripped with contempt for the Cursed Children.

Rentaro shook his head softly. “Kisara!”

Kisara had turned pale with her eyes open wide and was hugging his body. “This is bad, Satomi… This will greatly change public opinion.”

Kisara’s misgivings soon turned to reality. The Seitenshi’s measure that was going through the House of Councillors that would respect the basic human rights of the Cursed Children, the New Gastrea Law, was rejected. In its place, a newly prepared measure on “the reevaluation of the danger of transmission of the Gastrea virus from the Children to humans and countermeasures against it” was efficiently submitted and passed through the lower house of the Diet.

This measure was popularly known as the Family Register Revocation Law, and the moment this measure went into effect, Enju and the others had their family registration and citizenship taken away, losing all protection under the Japanese Constitution. It was an extremely cruel law.