Black Bullet - Volume 5 - Chapter 1.05

5

The new Magata City Hall building was still under construction, its bare concrete walls lit dimly by the pale moonlight, which itself fell through a mass of scaffolding and temporary platforms to create an evocative piece of shadow art.

In this landscape stood Suibara, scuffing at the floor with his hands in his pockets. He was a good hour early for the planned meeting because he was fresh from a little quarrel with his Initiator back home.

He began to wonder if meeting in a more crowded public place would’ve been a better idea, but quickly shook it off. There was no way they could have a relaxed conversation someplace where there was no telling who might be listening in.

Just a little bit longer, Suibara forced himself to think. If I get this out to the public through Rentaro, it’ll all be over. Then I can finally sleep in peace again. Everything’s going exactly as I want it. Just a little bit—

Suibara turned around, hearing heavy footsteps behind him that echoed across the darkness. His shoes were the first things to appear, the moonlight streaming in diagonally through a crevice, illuminating the man from the bottom up.

Checking his cell phone, Suibara realized he still had forty minutes to go. He grinned to himself. Man, he’s here already? What’s with all the hurry? The idea of Rentaro being as impatient as he was gladdened him as he walked up.

“Yo, Renta—”

The roar and light of the muzzle flash was perfectly synchronized with the impact he felt on his side. The force made his cell phone fly out of his hand and into parts unknown.

“Uh?”

He didn’t know what had happened at first. An empty shell casing clinked on the floor, and right after that, his side felt burning hot, as if someone took a branding iron to it.

Hesitantly looking downward, he saw the blood that seeped through his shirt in the abdominal area.

“Ah…nnh…!”

The moment he realized he was shot, Suibara experienced an intense pain across his entire body.

No. This isn’t Rentaro.

The figure fired two more shots as it walked forward, striking Suibara in the thigh and stomach. He crumpled to the floor.

He couldn’t breathe. And as a second wave of pain crested over him, he felt something rise up from his stomach and vomited a large volume of blood.

Now chills ran across his body. Not wanting to die without knowing what happened, he bent his body like an inchworm, stretching it out, trying to get even another millimeter away from his assailant.

But the awkward attempt at escape ended in an instant. Something thumped against the back of his head. He could tell by instinct that it was the barrel of a gun.

An array of happy memories began to flicker across Suibara’s brain. Tears fell in a waterfall. His breathing pitched; he reached out into the air to grab at the greatest memory of all—the memory of a certain girl.

“Hotaru…!”

There was a gunshot, and the building was bathed in light for an instant. The sound of the empty cartridge clinking against the floor, and the seemingly incessant echo of the explosion, stayed in the attacker’s ears for a long time to come.

A warm wind blew through, shaking the nearby rows of trees.

The moment he arrived at the Magata City Hall construction site, Rentaro stopped, sensing something was wrong as he looked up at the building. There was a crisp, clear August moon above the unadorned walls. He still had around twenty minutes until the meet-up time, and as he ascended the stairs, he wondered if he had shown up too early.

He shook his head and continued climbing to the fourth floor, remembering Sumire’s parting words. They’d agreed to meet here, but it was still dark, vast, and empty. He turned on his smartphone’s flashlight and called out to the void.

“Hey, Sui—”

He didn’t make it to the bara part before the smell of blood wafted into his nostrils. He swallowed nervously, motionless for a moment until his brain could catch up, then brought his smartphone above his head to light up the darkness.

It took only a few moments for him to notice the man in a pool of blood, collapsed behind a column.

“Suibara!”

Rentaro flew like an arrow to the site, desperation already consuming him. Suibara was lying facedown, having been shot four times: in the side, the thigh, his right breast, and the back of the head, which must have been the killing blow. He was dead—this man who, just yesterday, was breathing, smiling, talking assorted random nonsense with him.

Then Rentaro spotted something that put him in even more disquieting spirits.

“What the hell…?”

On Suibara’s exposed back was a gun, presumably the murder weapon. Hesitantly, Rentaro reached out to it. A voice in his heart was urging him to stop: This is a crime scene now. You’re about to tamper with a crime scene.

The warm night air brushed past his skin, and a cold bead of sweat ran down his cheek. Driving the appeals to reason out of his mind, he picked up the gun.

The slide was four inches, the left side engraved with a notice that it was a .40-caliber weapon. It all looked too familiar to him.

In fact, it was clearly a Springfield XD pistol. The slide was the same length as the one he used. It was the same-caliber model. And there was no doubt at all this gun was just used to commit a murder. A closer look at the nicks and scratches on the frame and slide, the results of years of heavy use, confirmed it for good—this was the gun that saw Rentaro through his battles against Kagetane Hiruko, Tina Sprout, and Aldebaran.

The gun he thought he lost was right here all along. At the scene of Suibara’s murder. Why?

Then, right at that moment, two beams of light flooded the room. Rentaro covered his face against the brightness.

“Police! Don’t move!”

Squinting, Rentaro could open his eyes just enough to spot the police uniforms. A cold shiver ran up his spine.

“No! Wait a minute!”

“Drop the gun now!”

With a loud boom, a warning shot gouged its way through the floor beneath him. It made Rentaro realize he had a steely death grip on the gun that just killed Suibara. He let go of it at once.

One of the light beams approached, and before Rentaro knew it, he was tackled, his arm screaming in pain as it was twisted behind his back. The concrete floor advanced upon him, and he groaned as the impact hit him face-first.

There was the sound of metal against metal, and then he felt something uncomfortable around his wrists. Gritting his teeth, he turned himself around, only to find his hands connected together by a pair of dully shining handcuffs.

“Secured!”

Rentaro shut his eyes tight.

This was a trap!