Black Bullet - Volume 5 - Chapter 1.10

10

Touji Watagasa put his hands on the Elgrand minivan’s steering wheel, placed his foot on the accelerator, and turned his eyes toward the windshield, even though his mind was still focused on the eerie silence unfolding behind him.

It was night. The unpaved private road lit by his headlights made for a bumpy, uncomfortable ride, the car lurching to and fro whenever it ran over an odd tree root sticking out. The tall trees jutting out from both sides depressed him, and—unusually for him—he began to regret trying to take a shortcut.

Touji’s main work for today involved picking up the prisoner Rentaro Satomi from lockup and driving him to the Seitenshi’s palace. Now he was making the return trip, taking him back to jail. He was on standby inside the van while they spoke, and thus had no idea what had transpired in the palace, but judging by how much gloomier the atmosphere was in the car leaving than going, it must’ve been something bad.

He looked behind him in the rearview mirror. Rentaro Satomi, slumped down between his two guard escorts, looked like he just had the life sucked out of him. He already looked pretty rough when he picked him up, but now he was even worse—a gruesome sight to see, even. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

Touji would readily admit that he had a visceral disgust for the Cursed Children, these Gastrea Virus carriers strutting around like there was nothing wrong with them. But he also understood well enough that he was still alive right now thanks to their efforts in the Third Kanto Battle. It was complicated—and it didn’t help that he lost the lottery for a shelter spot during that fight, forced to stay with his family and curse his bad luck.

The joy he felt when Aldebaran fell was difficult to put into words. Seeing this Promoter in such a miserable state right now made Touji wish he could do something to help. But what, though, exactly?

The question made his mind hit a wall. Even if he did something as reckless as help him escape, the sense of satisfaction that would give him wouldn’t be worth the lengthy prison term he’d receive afterward. He had a family to support.

Touji chided himself. No, he didn’t have what it took to be a hero. All he could keep safe was a small sphere of people around him. And that was good enough for him. Sometimes it was better to listen to the timid little voice of his conscience.

This was the kind of hero who could stand up and devote all his courage to the preservation of Tokyo Area. Now, though, he was yesterday’s news. The rules of the world could change with just a snap of the fingers, it seemed.

Thinking about all this caused Touji to lose his concentration. It made him notice just a moment too late that something was jumping in front of the minivan.

He didn’t see what it was at first, but once the headlights thrust their way through the darkness, a girl with chestnut hair cut in a bob danced between the beams.

There she stood, in the middle of the road, arms open wide—it was already too late by the time Touji realized this. An instant later, no doubt, the bumper would be smashing into the small figure’s body. A chill ran down his spine, and before he could think about it, his foot had slammed the brake to the floor as he pulled the wheel to one side.

There was a screamlike screech as the wheel locked itself. The car veered into the woods. They had just barely dodged the girl, but the tires fell into a rut on the side of the road, and the van was lifted into the air like someone had tipped it up.

Just when Touji realized he’d made a poor decision, the bloodcurdling feeling of weightlessness struck his body as his vision slanted to the side. Only a few seconds ago, he’d been picturing himself pulling into the jail’s parking lot, just like he had done a million times before. There was no way he could have predicted the intense pain that would invite itself into his life a moment later.

The results were similarly disastrous for Rentaro in the backseat. He felt his rear end rise up, then he yelped in pain as his vision lurched and his body was battered around the interior. The noise of the crash drowned out all his shouting.

The next thing he knew, Rentaro was lying facedown, his face buried in something soft. The droning sound of the car’s stuck horn just barely kept him conscious. He heard something dripping, and a disquieting scent sickened him. He felt something pricking under his eyelids. Something must have struck his throat, because even groaning was painful for him. It was hard to breathe in whatever confined space he was in.

His consciousness still hazy, he opened his heavy eyes, only to find one of his escorts right in front of him, blood dripping from his head. He was approaching his golden years, loose wrinkles on his cheeks.

Then Rentaro realized the van had flipped over, and he was staring at the ceiling. Why was that? It was too dark to figure out how the car had fared, but all of the guards in the car were completely silent. The thought that they were possibly dead made him anxious.

I gotta get outside, first of all.

But— Oh, wait, I’m still cuffed. Groaning in frustration, he started kicking at the side door. It took about three good kicks before the door blew open. He crawled his way out, experiencing the crisp, warm night air of summer.

Just as he’d thought, the minivan had flipped on its roof, an impressive layer of burned tire rubber on the road behind them. He had no idea what led to this.

Then he noticed a black liquid seeping out of the car. It jogged his memory. The smell that caught his attention in the vehicle was gasoline. The engine was still sparking. The whole thing could blow soon.

Even with his hands cuffed, Rentaro managed to pull the two guards in the rear out to safety. It was just when he was trying to pull out the unconscious driver that a spark finally lit up the fuel. A wave of heat and flame pushed upon him, making him shut his eyes. He just barely got him out in time.

Rentaro sized up his body. Miraculously, apart from a few scratches and bruises, he was not seriously hurt. He turned back toward the minivan, now engulfed in flames.

Really, though, why—?

“Are you Rentaro Satomi?”

A startled Rentaro turned toward the voice, only to find a girl dancing on the other side of the undulating curtain of flame. She was short, child-size, and while he couldn’t discern her face, the legs jutting out from her hot pants indicated she was definitely female. Did she just stand by idly while he was trying to rescue the guards?

“Why did you help them?” she asked.

“Who’re you?”

“That doesn’t matter to you.”

“Did you make this van flip over?” he demanded.

“You’re the one who killed Kihachi, right?”

“Kihachi? You mean Suibara? No. It wasn’t me.”

The moment he denied it, he felt a wave of rage emanate from the figure. She took a step forward, trampling the earth with her foot.

“So why were you arrested for it?”

“I…”

For a moment, Rentaro flashed back to an image of himself at the crime scene, XD gun in his hand.

The girl picked up on his lack of an immediate response. She pointed her arms forward toward Rentaro. There was a small-size revolver in her hands.

“Don’t think bad of me for this. I’m never going to be at peace with myself if I don’t.”

Her trigger finger moved without hesitation, setting off the percussion hammer and slowly spinning the magazine around with a metallic sound. Rentaro’s body froze at the expected blast to come.

But, for whatever reason, the shot didn’t arrive. The contradiction taking place before the girl—this guy who killed Suibara rescuing three guards from a burning vehicle—perplexed her. And just before she could pull the trigger that little bit more, the sound of a wailing police siren plunged between the two of them. There was no doubting it.

The girl groaned to herself and quickly executed a flip that propelled her into the woods. The leap sent her form flying all the way up to the top of the tree canopy. Her jumping skill was clearly something beyond any ordinary human’s ability.

Oh, great, she’s an Initiator, Rentaro thought to himself as he watched her bound away. The voice didn’t sound familiar to him, and he couldn’t make out her face. But if this was an Initiator on a first-name basis with “Kihachi,” who was also out for revenge, that narrowed it down pretty quickly.

Rentaro scoped out his surroundings. There were three unconscious guards and one burning minivan. It wouldn’t be easy to explain this, but his only choice, he supposed, was to be honest.

Suddenly, he noticed a small key that fell out from one of the guards’ pockets.

It was for a pair of handcuffs.

His heart thudded loudly in his ears. As if on cue, the police siren began to grow louder as it approached.

Right now, right at this minute, he could get away. But if he fled now, in the worst case, he might wind up copping the blame for this accident. As of right now, he was merely indicted for murder, not condemned. It’d take time to plead his case in court. If he wasn’t going to scream his innocence to the high hills to the end, why did he go through all this up to now?

But, he asked himself, is that really the case? A trial was all about sizing up the available evidence and using it to decide between guilty or not guilty. Had they discovered any sort of evidence so far that’d clear his name? Judging by the highly loaded questioning he had been subjected to so far, it seemed beyond a reasonable doubt that the “presumed innocent” clause would be worth about as much as the paper it was printed on.

Many times now, Rentaro had been forced to put on that belly chain and shuffle between jail and courtroom. They’d be much quicker with Tina. She’d be found guilty before she walked in the room, and—with her role in the attempt on the Seitenshi’s life brought into consideration—she would be immediately condemned to death.

Thanks to the astonishing regenerative powers of an Initiator, the government was aware that the usual method of hanging would only serve to make execution a needlessly painful process. An injected cocktail of barbiturates and muscle relaxants wouldn’t work, either—the Gastrea Virus would immediately take action to neutralize the poison.

So, by process of elimination, Tina would be sentenced to death by firing squad. Her legs would shake as she was dragged to the execution stand, a sack placed over her head as she was tied to a pole. There was no way the fragile psyche of a ten-year-old could withstand the sheer terror of this situation, so she would sob, crying about how she didn’t want to die. But no one would be willing to listen.

Varanium bullets would be the ammunition of choice, naturally. The firing squad would line up in a row, waiting for their captain to give the signal to fire at once. As per tradition, one of the squad’s rifles was equipped with blanks, but none of the team knew which one. This gave the squad members plausible deniability for their actions, believing in the possibility that they hadn’t killed her as they went home and enjoyed a hearty meal with their families. But Tina would still be dead.

With her employee list now empty, Kisara would have little choice but to shut down the Tendo Civil Security Agency. She would marry Hitsuma, live her life, and—despite the handicaps her diabetes presented—successfully give birth to a child.

Over time, her memories would fade. Of Tina, whom she treated as her own sister; of Enju, whose boundless energy put her at her wit’s end on so many occasions; even of Rentaro—she would forget about them all, and never take another look back.

With the loss of her partner, Enju would be picked up by the IISO, which would then assign her another Promoter to work with. Her new partner would be far from ideal. He would refuse to give Enju so much as a decent meal, and he would regularly abuse her. The girls’ healing abilities were the result of a metabolism that worked several times as quickly as regular people’s, so being left to starve meant her wounds would stop healing correctly.

Without her corrosion-suppression drugs being administered, Enju’s internal corruption rate would surpass 50 percent, making her experience pain like her guts were being turned inside out, and eventually she’d transform into a Gastrea. The total cost of an Initiator with the overwhelming strength of Enju going Gastrea would be nightmarish, both monetarily and in terms of human lives.

And how ironic would it be, that the group charged with hunting her down would be other civsec officers—the only group that Enju took pride in ever belonging to…

Rentaro, his breathing shallow, returned to reality. Was the sick prediction of the future he just envisioned really nothing more than paranoia in action? What made him think the future would turn out any other way, once he was found guilty? He looked down upon his palms. His wrists, black and blue from the handcuffs, stung at him. He shook his fists.

I didn’t kill Suibara. Why do I have to put up with all this absurd insanity? Whoever framed me is probably cackling to himself right now, thinking everything’s gone to plan. He never got taken to court.

Rentaro’s vision grew hazy as the insides of his eyes became warm. It was frustrating, so frustrating that he couldn’t stand it. He wanted to get it back. Everything from his normal life. Everything that was taken from him. The same Tendo Civil Security Agency he once knew, with Tina and Kisara and Enju.

More than anything, he wanted to hunt down the real murderer and burn him with the brimstone of rage. His pride and his reputation, so cruelly ripped from him and trampled upon, demanded nothing less.

The siren grew stronger, bashing against his earlobes. It clearly wouldn’t be long before police officers would be swarming down the road. The time that remained forced Rentaro to make a decision.

After a moment, Rentaro’s body stopped shaking. He turned his face up and gave a cold stare to the dazzling neon city beyond the woods.

Several minutes later, once police arrived on the scene, they found a flipped and burning Elgrand, three unconscious but breathing guards, and an empty and abandoned pair of handcuffs.

Rentaro Satomi was nowhere to be found.