Black Bullet - Volume 6 - Chapter 3.02

2

Rentaro Satomi, together with Hotaru Kouro, passed through the curtain together. “Thank you!” a voice shouted.

Back at the public bathhouse, all the lights were out. It was dark, shockingly so if your eyes were used to the light, but the stars in the sky helped to light the pathway ahead. His entire body felt comfortably warm as he noticed Hotaru looking at him, cheeks flushed red after the bath.

“That wasn’t bad,” she said. “I was wondering why you wanted to visit the bathhouse out of nowhere.”

“Yeah,” he breathlessly replied. “I’m glad it was up to your standards, Princess.”

To him, as long as he didn’t think about his current circumstances too much, walking under the stars down this path devoid of people was almost…fun. Refreshing.

He checked the time. Two a.m. His shirt had shrunk a bit after he washed it at the laundromat next to the bathhouse, and he tugged at it uncomfortably as he stretched out his torso.

Hotaru’s ripped tank top had been stitched back together with a sewing kit. There were still bloodstains on it, but the wash had faded them to the point where you wouldn’t notice unless it was pointed out.

It had only been about seven hours since the intense confrontation they’d had with Hummingbird in the apartment. Rentaro couldn’t exactly settle down for a nice bath with all the raw wounds on his body, so he had to wait until no other customers were around and be satisfied with rubbing a wet towel against himself to get the sweat and dead skin off.

But he was still in decent enough shape. The gunshot wound in his left leg, caused by a ricocheting bullet during the Hummingbird battle, had been fully taken care of, and the bullet removed. Walking, at least, wouldn’t make it any worse. Normally he’d rush right over to a hospital instead of jerry-rigging his own treatment like this, but as a fugitive from the law, the health system had little to offer him right now.

“You never took a bath with Suibara or anything?”

Hotaru flashed a resentful look. “Why do you care? Are you…? Rentaro, did you actually share the bathtub with your own Initiator?”

Rentaro, bewildered, scratched his head awkwardly. “She kept pestering me about it until I said yes… Damn it, I knew other civsec pairs didn’t do that. She tricked me!”

Hotaru sighed and gave Rentaro a commiserating nod. “Rentaro, you should really watch how you act in public. You’re pretty well-known for stuff like needing a ten-year-old girl to get off, and walking around town at night with a pair of panties on your head, and things like that.”

“Things like… Wait, what?”

Hotaru turned aside.

“Hey, why’re you averting your eyes like that?”

She remained silent, her countenance uneasy. Rentaro was about to ask another question, a particular and unfathomable fear dawning on him, when someone walked past them.

He had a feeling the person was watching them. Before he knew it, his heart froze over.

Rentaro took out a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and put them on, then slipped a glove over his Super-Varanium artificial hand, shining a dull black in the starlight. He’d purchased a pair of gloves after conferring with Hotaru and deciding he should at least hide his face and hands in public.

Yesterday, Rentaro took the girl along with him to Shidao University Hospital, where Dr. Kakujo pointed them to the apartment of Gastrea pathologist Dr. Surumi. That was where Hummingbird decided to strike at them. He still had no idea how Hummingbird had picked up on their movements, but one plausible theory was that someone had spotted him out on the street and reported it to the authorities.

Another possibility: security cameras. Whenever one of the countless surveillance cams scoping out Tokyo Area spotted a Gastrea, an embedded algorithm would use cues like heat-radiation patterns to identify the type and send alerts to all civsec officers in the vicinity. A few modifications to the software code behind that system, and it’d be entirely possible to have the cameras search for specific faces—or eyeball patterns, for that matter—to identify a person.

In both of those cases, sunglasses would have an immediate defensive effect. But—

“Dahh! I can’t take this!”

Rentaro ripped the glasses off. Wearing sunglasses at night wasn’t much different from putting on a blindfold. He’d bump into things, making him seem even more suspicious to passing strangers than if the glasses were off. Hotaru didn’t care much about this, however: “Being dressed in all black like that makes you suspicious-looking enough already,” she’d said curtly when Rentaro had brought it up.

He and Hotaru were on speaking terms again, at least, but Rentaro still had some lingering discomfort about their clash during the Hummingbird battle.

—“I told you. The only reason I’m working with you is so I could hunt down the enemies after your blood. You’ve been the best decoy I could ever have hoped for. If you think we’ve got some kind of partnership going on, let me assure you, it’s all in your head. I always hated you, anyway.”

—“If you’re so hell-bent on saving people’s lives, why didn’t you save Kihachi’s?”

She must have picked up on the current awkwardness between them, too. Whenever she talked, she kept it short. Every time, it seemed to end in an awkward silence. And when that happened, all they heard as they walked down the shuttered shopping area was the sound of their own footsteps. It was hard to say how long the most recent silence lasted before she finally opened her mouth once more.

“You know,” she began, “when I brushed you off and went upstairs, everybody up there was already dead. They must’ve all had parents, and families, and brothers and sisters, too.” She shook her head. “I had no idea there are people out there who can…do that. Without a second thought.”

The events in that building must have given her something to think about.

“Yeah, so you see, then?” Rentaro said. “Those are the types of guys we’re fighting against.”

As he thought about whether saying any more would be prudent, he heard the sound of a faraway siren ripping through the silence. The pair immediately looked at each other. Hotaru, at least, responded instantly, looking into the night sky as she focused her hearing to discern where the siren came from.

Gradually, they could hear it echoing closer and closer: the now-familiar sound of a police cruiser.

Rentaro and Hotaru slipped into a narrow alleyway behind a nearby building, breathing silently as they kept themselves hidden. It smelled like oxidized oil.

Before long, two of the dreaded police cars whizzed by the alley. Taking a moment to crane their heads around the corner, checking to make sure the police didn’t make a U-turn, the two then stepped back onto the street.

The cars were gone, it seemed. They didn’t seem like the typical patrol—they were going too fast for that. Maybe it was some other crime in progress.

“My hideout’s in that direction.”

Rentaro gulped.

“No way.”

The denial seemed to ring hollow as the portent of Hotaru’s observation wriggled its way into his brain. If her suggestion was correct, coming directly home after this would be a singularly bad idea. It might just be his current guilt complex writ large, but right now, they couldn’t afford to take any chances. All that awaited on the other side of that risk was their arrest, followed by an inescapable guilty verdict.

“Are there any tall buildings around here?”

“No, but… Here, let me go look.”

Before Rentaro could say anything, Hotaru’s eyes turned a crimson red. The next moment, there was a blast of wind—and she was gone. Looking upward, he spotted her atop one of the arched streetlights that lined the asphalt at regular intervals.

This flustered him. Even if this was a deserted avenue in the middle of the night, there were still cars sporadically passing by. If one of the Cursed Children was spotted in a town like this, there’d be at least one or two people screaming in a panic before long. That would drive more people to come out, and after that, there’d be no more defusing the situation.

Hotaru, whether aware of that or not, pointed forward. “I don’t see them yet,” she intoned. “Let’s get a little closer.” Then, with another dartlike leap, she was atop the next streetlight. Rentaro opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again, resigning himself to his fate as he followed along.

This tense march down the street continued for a few moments—until Hotaru suddenly stopped. Rentaro realized what it was immediately. The glass-lined building in front of them was awash in dull, red, flashing lights. Reflections from police cars, no doubt. Not just one or two, either.

Hotaru came back down to Rentaro, heels clicking softly against the pavement.

“I saw them.”

“No dice, huh?”

She shook her head. “We better abandon that hideout. It’s dangerous here.”

Rentaro shivered. He was the one who suggested visiting the bathhouse, growing increasingly sick of the dingy, cramped bathroom at home. It wasn’t a decision he brooded over for particularly long before making it. But, by sheer coincidence, that decision had a profound effect on their fates. If they had been at home, they’d absolutely be subject to soul-withering police interrogation right now.

The two backtracked on their previous path. There was no destination in mind. They just had to get out of there.

But both had made the mistake of focusing on the police force behind their backs. Now they could see another police car—reinforcements, maybe—coming toward them. It didn’t have its siren on, so by the time they noticed it, it was already disturbingly close.

Ducking into an alley would be all but telling the cops they were suspicious. Rentaro took Hotaru’s hand. Hotaru gave a surprised look, but she quickly picked up on his intentions. She gripped his hand tightly.

“Just keep it as natural as you can.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Hotaru nod. The police car in front of them, its exhaust pipe making a soft sound, was no more than twenty meters away. He found himself turning his eyes downward.

The headlights illuminated their bodies from the chest down. The sound of tires scratching against the pavement as the car moved on sounded unnaturally loud to their ears. For some reason, the car was on the shoulder of the road, slowing down as it drove by. Rentaro lowered his head farther down as the car finally passed them.

Is it going?

As the two continued walking, they could hear the sound of the tires stopping on the pavement behind them, followed by a door opening and closing.

Rentaro closed his eyes. God help me.

Taking a lightning-fast look behind him, he could see two police officers walking their way, flashlights in hand.

“Excuse me! Couple over there.”

Rentaro pretended not to hear, trying his hardest to keep his pace naturally slow and his legs from shaking. Using a finger, he suggested turning into a nearby alley. They hadn’t discussed this at all yet, but their movements were still the picture of elegant efficiency.

“Hotaru!” Rentaro said, the moment they were in the alley and out of police sight. She gave a nod in response, then brought her hands around his shoulders.

“Hang on.”

The next moment, he felt an explosive shock wave across his entire body, the g-forces that lifted him up making him feel like his organs were being twisted apart. With Rentaro’s body in tow, Hotaru unleashed her full force, leaping against the sides of looming buildings to ascend. Rentaro’s eyesight lurched from one direction to another, almost causing him to bite his tongue.

He didn’t immediately faint on the spot once they reached the roof because of the supersonic speeds he had already experienced at the hands of his usual Initiator.

Looking down, they spotted the two officers walking around the alley, dismayed at not finding them there. He pulled back, trying not to make a sound, and gauged the situation as a lukewarm wind hit his face. Before long, the cops would radio in this potential sighting of Rentaro Satomi and Hotaru Kouro, and the entire block would be crawling with police. They needed to head out ASAP.

“That taxi driver must’ve blabbed about where we were,” Hotaru whined in an uncharacteristically gloomy tone. The thought occurred to Rentaro the moment he realized their hideout was discovered. He had deliberately put it out of mind.

“Even if he did, that’s our fault.”

If they’d wanted to, they could have either threatened or bribed the driver to keep quiet. But they hadn’t. Rentaro trusted him, and so did Hotaru. No matter what happened or didn’t happen to them, the responsibility for it all came down upon themselves.

“It’s sad, though.”

“Yeah.”

Their eyes met. Hotaru emitted a lonely smile, eyes sparkling. Rentaro could feel his pulse grow heavy. This was an Initiator, a person who walked the fine line between little girl and grown woman, between human and Gastrea. How could she show off such a…threatening smile?

Rentaro averted his eyes, just to make sure her face didn’t enthrall him any more than it already did.

Turning the knob, Rentaro opened the metal door. It creaked loudly in protest.

The cheap flashlight they purchased from a convenience store was proving to be worth even less than the pittance Rentaro paid for it. It took the combination of its feeble beam and Hotaru’s phone backlight to fully illuminate the area around them.

The walls were white in the otherwise featureless room, as were the two columns in the middle of the large chamber. The floor, made of marble and feldspar, was even whiter. Rentaro attempted to move a pile of unused stone to sit on, only to be rewarded with a choking fog of white dust. He regretted forgetting to buy an anti-dust mask when he was at the store.

“Koff-koff… Well, this ought to work.”

They had checked to make sure this sculpture studio was abandoned before going in. Rentaro closed the rusty shutter of the window, cutting off the moonlight. The room grew even darker, adding to its horror-film atmosphere. The eeriness unnerved him a little, but he resolved to put up with it. If any light from the flashlight made its way outside and someone reported it, they’d have to find yet another place to take shelter for the night.

Rentaro sat down, resting against a column as he propped the flashlight on the floor. Hotaru, seated next to him, gave a frustrated scowl.

“I can’t sleep like this. There aren’t even any pillows.”

“Just be glad we got a roof over us, okay?”

They had naturally considered checking into a hotel, but—after extensive debate—decided against it. The police weren’t that stupid. Once they realized Rentaro wouldn’t be coming back to their hideout, they’d send people to hit up all the hotels in the region. They might already be disseminating wanted posters to all the front desks in a ten-minute radius. They couldn’t just waltz into that flytrap.

“So what’re we gonna do now?”

“Well…” Rentaro strung the words together as he stared at the floor. “I’m wondering about that Gastrea corpse with the star marking on it. I know defeated Gastrea get processed after a certain waiting period, so it’s got to be in storage somewhere or another. I was thinking we could start there.”

Hotaru nodded.

“Um, also…about that assassin we faced, Hummingbird…”

“Yeah, I was thinking about her, too,” Rentaro said. “She had the same five-pointed star at the base of her thigh. That, and she had two wings around it, not just one.”

Hotaru opened her eyes wide. “She did?”

“Yeah.”

“What does that mean, though?”

“I have no idea.”

With that being the only hint to go on, they clearly had a need for more intel.

The pair spent a little more time discussing their future activities before their voices trailed off. In the silence, evening cicadas chittered here and there.

Suddenly, Rentaro felt something warm and soft on top of his left hand, which was planted on the floor. Surprised, he looked down to find Hotaru’s palm above his.

“I…I killed someone.”

Hotaru was small, balled up on the floor, using her left arm to hold her knees tight against her body. Rentaro watched her for a few moments. “Hotaru,” he offered softly. “If you were scared to kill someone, that’s your sanity giving you a heads-up. You have to make sure you don’t forget how that feels. Once you pass that point, you won’t be able to hold out against it any longer.”

“What happens if I don’t get scared anymore?”

“You won’t be a person anymore. You’ll just be a murderer, a barbarian seeking the thrill of carnage… I dunno. Call it what you will. But it’s nothing good.”

“All right. Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

Behind the words, Hotaru looked depressed, clearly left at a loss to break out of this line of thinking. Suddenly, Rentaro realized he was mentally overlapping Hotaru’s face with that of another girl he knew. Part of the Satomi family. A ball of energy.

He shook his head, wondering what was wrong with him as he tried to keep his voice cheerful. “Hey, Hotaru, you mind if I ask you a stupid question?”

“What?”

“You called it…‘enhanced regenerative skills,’ didn’t you?—your ability? If someone shot you in the head or whatever, you’d be dead for at least a little while, right?”

“If by ‘dead’ you mean my pulse would stop, my pupils would dilate, and my heart would stop beating…then sure.”

“Um…so is there a heaven, or whatever?”

Hotaru’s eyes were as big as saucers for a moment. Then she heaved a weighty sigh and turned her back to him. Rentaro winced.

“Wh-what?”

“Wow. That really was a stupid question. Nobody’s ever asked me that one before.”

That was the last thing Rentaro expected from her. But after a moment, Hotaru looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Are you religious at all?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you, then. There’s not. It’s just like passing out. It goes all black and you lose consciousness.”

“Why’d you ask if I was religious?”

“Well,” Hotaru said with a self-effacing grin, “I figured you’d be disappointed if I said there wasn’t any heaven. Besides, even if there was one, I’m sure not getting in. Heaven’s for humans, right? That counts me out right there.”