Black Bullet - Volume 4 - Chapter 4.4

4

Early the next morning, Rentaro put his hands on the washstand of the dimly lit public bathroom and stared at the partially clouded-over surface of the mirror. Amid the countless cracks on the mirror’s surface were reflected many Rentaros with grim expressions.

The words Kagetane Hiruko said in the forest the day before yesterday crossed his mind.

“I can see the mask you wear, you know. The guardian mask you wear when interacting with your Initiator, the Tendo Civil Security Agency Employee mask you wear when you work as an employee of that female boss of yours, and the facing the enemy mask you’re wearing now with me. Aren’t they all different Rentaro Satomis?”

Around the world, there were a number of ceremonies and rituals held by people of different races and ethnicities that involved the wearing of masks. When people wore masks, the lines between reality and illusion, gods and humans, life and death all became blurred, allowing them to believe that they could become something different from themselves.

If that’s the case, then I’ll become the civil officer troop commander, Rentaro Satomi, right now.

He told this over and over to the Rentaro Satomi in the mirror, imagining that he was putting on a cold mask.

“Satomi, it’s time.” When Rentaro looked toward the voice, he saw Kisara standing in the entrance of the bathroom.

“What about the thing I asked for?”

Kisara glanced at Rentaro’s remade jacket under her armpit with unease. “Are you really going to do it?”

“Of course. Stay next to me, Kisara. All right, let’s go,” he said, urging Kisara on and trying to go outside. But something seemed to be bothering Kisara that she just had to get out, and she stopped, looking up at Rentaro through her lashes.

“Um, you know, Satomi…”

“Hmm?”

“Satomi, have you noticed? You have a really scary expression on your face right now.”

The civil officers who had been gathered without explanation early in the morning and then made to wait in vain were obviously irritated. And that irritation reached its peak just as Rentaro took the stage with Kisara accompanying him.

“Hey, that’s…”

“That’s Commander Gado’s…”

“What the hell?” Rentaro could hear similar complaints all over the place.

Rentaro allowed Gado’s cloak with the troop crest to undulate, blowing in the wind as he walked in front of them to stand at the podium. He glared over the gathered civil officers, sighing inwardly without letting it show in his face.

Their numbers were sparse, and more than angry, they looked exhausted. Rentaro had heard ahead of time that they only had a little more than sixty people, but of those, there were hardly any who were uninjured. Their hearts were anywhere but here, and they were far from being unified. They couldn’t do anything with their anger and would do anything to vent, so they followed the closest thing that wanted them. They did not even seem to have the desire to win.

I see. So this is an army that would face certain defeat, Rentaro thought.

When he looked around, he saw Enju and the Katagiri siblings watching over him with concerned expressions.

“I’m Rentaro Satomi, and I will command in place of Commander Gado, who died in battle.”

Immediately after he spoke, angry voices flew about, booing and jeering. Rentaro could hardly bear to listen:

“You can’t take the place of Commander Gado!”

“Get off the stage!”

“If you’re gonna stick out that face, then I’m outta here.”

Just then, someone with a conspicuously loud voice appeared and shouted, “Hey, everyone!” It was a Promoter in his mid-thirties, one who was barely injured. He was probably the type who ran away right when the battle started and didn’t actually fight that much.

His face, including his nose, was flat. His head stuck out in the back, making it look like an inverted triangle. Was this what was called an expressionless face? He was a boring man with a boring face.

Said face turned red like a monkey’s as he jeered. “We can’t follow orders from someone like this. It’s all over for Tokyo Area. It’s over. If that’s the case, then don’t you want to go home to your family and loved ones and spend your last days with them, everyone?”

As the man stirred them up, other civil officers murmured their agreement. The man certainly had a point. With the daily reports, the whole world already knew that Tokyo Area was losing. The price of any and all the stocks on the Tokyo Area exchange had dropped so low that they were like scraps of paper. Interest rates for government bonds went up suddenly, and to make up for that, the yen suddenly became extremely weak. Despite all this, before the Third Kanto Battle, Tokyo Area had been considered a strong country with a safe haven currency, with its prosperous Varanium exports and track record of defeating the Zodiac Scorpion.

All the rich and famous had long flown to other areas or countries, and no one in the world thought the civil officers would win. It was a hard situation to remain hopeful in.

The man continued shouting. “Hey, let’s all indulge ourselves together. It’s not like there’s anyone who can stop us. The new commander’s so scared he can’t even talk.” The man stuck out his middle finger at Rentaro. “Hey, you. Try saying something.”

“Shut up,” said Rentaro.

“Huh?” At first, the man was taken aback, but the next instant, he looked at his supporters around him and started to smile with contempt. “Hey, you heard that, didn’t you? He said, ‘Shut up,’” the man scoffed.

“Kisara, I’m going to borrow this.” Saying that, Rentaro didn’t wait for an answer as he drew the murderous blade Yukikage.

“Hey, wait—” offered Kisara, but he left her behind as he jumped off the stage and went near the man.

The crowd of people parted briefly, and the man snorted. “What do you want? If you’re gonna do it, go ahead and try, you lily-livered—”

Before he finished talking, Rentaro casually stuck the Japanese blade into the man’s shoulder.

The air around them froze. There was the sound of someone gulping. The frozen man turned his head, trembling with fear, and looked with disbelief at the naked sword sticking out of his shoulder. “Gyahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

After Rentaro stared down at the man rolling on the ground with cold eyes, he slowly looked at around him. “Does anyone else have any questions?”

The crowd drew back with a stir. The scornful voices stopped. Even Enju’s eyes were wide at the sudden change in him.

A Promoter with a bandanna seemed on the verge of tears as he said plaintively, “Why us?!”

“Because there’s no one else but us,” Rentaro answered.

“There’s no way we have enough people with these numbers!”

“If we don’t have enough people, then we will add some to our number.”

The man was about to laugh at the impossibility of it, and smiled stiffly. “Where would we find people like that? Don’t tell me you’re going to recruit the doctors and suppliers deployed to us?”

“There are people. Over there.” Saying that, Rentaro jerked his chin, and everyone looked in the direction he indicated. And then groans of surprise could be heard here and there.

“Wait, don’t tell me you—” The man’s face was pale as it turned from the gym back to Rentaro.

“That’s right. The injured.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! There are people whose ears or arms and legs have been blown off in there, you know.”

“But they aren’t dead. If we lose this fight, everyone’s going to die anyway. And there are those who are faking illness because they don’t want to fight. We’ll take all of them and add another forty people.”

The man’s face beaded with sweat. “Y-you’re crazy. You’re insane! Hey, everyone, why aren’t you saying anything? The new commander’s out of his mind!”

That man looked behind Rentaro and a grin appeared on his face. “Chikaze! Kill him!”

Rentaro turned reflexively and saw the muzzle of an AK-47 assault rifle. The girl pulled the trigger, and with flashy muzzle fire, 7.6-mm bullets rushed at Rentaro in a fully automatic sweep.

Right before they hit Rentaro, there was a thunderous sound, and a bluish-white phosphorescence repelled all the bullets, sending them in all directions. Rentaro protected his face from the scalding wind pressure and opened his eyes slightly. “Kagetane, huh?”

The coattails of the mysterious masked man standing in front of Rentaro fluttered in the wind.

The assault rifle fell to the ground with a clang, and the girl called Chikaze held both arms up in surrender. At the girl’s neck was Kohina’s short sword, which had cut a thin line into the skin.

In the midst of the frozen spectators, Kagetane slowly turned off the field and spread his arms dramatically. “Kohina and I will also put ourselves under Satomi’s command. Do you still think we don’t have enough people?”

The crowd trembled with fear. “No way, that terrorist…?”

“He was formerly ranked 134…”

Rentaro glared at Kagetane spitefully. “What’s with this turn of events?”

“Don’t you need my help, my comrade?” Kagetane chuckled, holding down his mask, as Rentaro glared at him coldly.

“I can trust you, right, Joker?”

“Leave it to me, King.”

Rentaro nodded once and then threw out an even colder glare at the civil officers. “That’s how it is. If you try to run away or cause trouble, then you will be eliminated. After this, anyone who points a sword at me or attacks me will be eliminated. I’m not as soft as Gado. I will give you orders later. That is all. Dismissed.”

Rentaro left with a wave of his cloak.

“Wait a minute, Satomi!” He walked a little farther before turning around to see Kisara, as expected. From her indignant eyes, it was clearer than the sun that she was not feeling kindly toward him.

“Why did you do something like that? Making people obey you in such a violent way. Everyone’s afraid of you now.”

“That’s good.”

“What?”

Rentaro turned his back toward Kisara again and closed his eyes without speaking. “Kisara, you saw it, too, didn’t you? Everyone’s exhausted, and they’re all overwhelmed by fear of the Gastrea. They couldn’t fight like that. That’s why from now on, I’ll have them fear me, not the Gastrea.”

Rentaro could see that Kisara’s head and body were shaking. “Don’t tell me, Satomi… Then that was all a performance…?”

Rentaro didn’t say anything.

He could hear Kisara making a hard fist. “You’ll be hated by everyone! Detested! Then who will be on your side, Satomi?”

“I don’t need anyone. At least, not right now.” This was the conclusion Rentaro had come to while looking at Midori’s dead body yesterday. If he wanted to do his best to keep there from being any more victims, he would have to abandon all his feelings as a human. He would think about allowing himself the luxury of feeling emotions like everyone else after he was still breathing when this war was over.

Just then, he was hugged hard from behind in a surprise attack, and Rentaro’s body stiffened.

“Idiot.” There was strength in the arms that wrapped around him from behind, and body warmth found its way into Rentaro’s chilled body.

“Kisara……” He felt the inside of his heart slowly become warmer.

Kisara sounded like she was sulking. “Next time, you must consult with me, your boss, before doing anything like that. You’re mine, Satomi. You need my permission even to breathe, you know.”

Rentaro laughed. “You’re dangerous.”

“Idiot.”

“Sorry…”

“Idiot.”

Just then, Rentaro noticed the quiet figure of a girl behind Kisara and slowly separated himself from Kisara, stiffening his expression again.

“I heard your excellent speech.” Asaka Mibu, wearing light blue Japanese armor, opened her closed eyes just a little. “However, please allow me to speak frankly. You are not fit to be commander.”

Kisara looked angry, but Rentaro held her back with his arm and had the girl continue.

“If it were Master Nagamasa, he would have been able to gather the troops better and handle everything better. Simple people may not have noticed, but you cannot fool me. You are acting like a dictator.”

Rentaro looked down at Asaka coldly. “Gado is not here anymore. And I’m not Gado. His way of doing things failed. The way he was doing things was wrong. That’s why we lost two battles in the past and it’s turned into this war. Right?”

Asaka’s anger flared and she crouched down, drawing her long sword from its scabbard. “You dare insult Master Nagamasa, you peasant?!”

The next instant, it seemed like Asaka had disappeared as she left an afterimage and rushed at him a high speed. The long sword she was brandishing drew an arc and would reach Rentaro’s throat in no time. Just as it was about to get to him, a hand suddenly stretched out from the side and twisted Asaka’s arm up.

She gasped in surprise. Her body spun once and she was thrown onto the ground back first, making a depression in the ground. Her small frame convulsed sharply.

Asaka looked at the sky with her eyes still open, looking bewildered.

“Are you confused? That a simple human threw you?” The tall man in the long coat looked at her emotionlessly. “You rushed like a fireball. Are you only calm on the outside? Or did you get angry because Commander Gado was being made fun of?”

Asaka leapt back like she was being repelled and fumed with teeth bared, “Who are you?! State your name!”

“Shoma Nagisawa. Actually, I also lost my Initiator, so I was just looking for a strong Initiator. Wanna pair up with me?”

“I will not serve two masters.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not looking for a replacement for Midori, either. It’s just, rather than fighting alone, I think we could more efficiently fight Gastrea as even a temporary pair. That’s all I’m suggesting.”

“You mean…a pair to last only until the end of the Aldebaran War?”

Shoma nodded. “I mean, I’m sure you know yourself how far off the mark you are by blaming Satomi. Satomi isn’t the one who killed your Promoter. It was the Gastrea. Get rid of your grudge by fighting Aldebaran on the battlefield. Don’t be mistaken about where to point your hatred.”

Asaka was silent for a while, thinking. However, she finally got on her knees and respectfully offered her sword to Shoma with both hands. For someone militaristic like Asaka, offering her sword meant she was offering her trust and allegiance. “I give you my sword for the time being. Use it as you will, Master.” She exchanged glances with Shoma and nodded.

Asaka and Shoma seemed to have a lot in common. Neither was very approachable, and they both had reticent but sober and honest personalities. They were an impromptu pair, but they would likely work together well.

Rentaro felt emotions flare up inside him like magma. He finally had all his cards together:

The King—Rentaro Satomi and Enju Aihara.

The Queen—Kisara Tendo and Tina Sprout.

The Jack—Tamaki Katagiri and Yuzuki Katagiri.

The Ace—Shoma Nagisawa and Asaka Mibu.

And right now, Rentaro also had the strongest wild card in his hand:

The Joker—Kagetane Hiruko and Kohina Hiruko.

The plan he had from the start for a five-pair adjuvant had finally come together at the eleventh hour. It was the strongest party he could think of.

Rentaro glared at his old enemy, Aldebaran, beyond the grave marker of the collapsed Monolith.

This fight will not necessarily end in our loss.