Black Bullet - Volume 7 - Chapter 1.02

2

To Enju Aihara, this new environment felt totally unique, nothing like Magata Elementary School or the open-air classroom. It was a higher-quality school, meant for gifted kids on a college track, so that had something to do with it—but that wasn’t all.

The Gastrea factor within her body gave her a keener sense of smell than most people, and walking down the hallway, she couldn’t help but notice the strong scent of adrenaline all around. Hallways full of fear and mental strain.

Meeting up with her new homeroom teacher in her office did little to change that impression. She was Ms. Yagara, a middle-aged woman, and her laugh lines were so deep that Enju thought she might be able to stick a finger in one of them. They went even deeper whenever she so much as smiled. But despite that (as well as her unusually enormous lips), her eyes were tiny little dots, giving her a coldhearted villain look. This wasn’t the type of teacher you would want to actively discuss personal issues with too much.

After some quick guidance, the homeroom bell rang and Enju was guided into the fourth-year Group Five classroom. It was time to introduce herself, and although her parental guardians often marveled at her utter lack of restraint, being planted in front of nearly forty pairs of eyes was enough to give even her pause.

“My name is Enju Aihara… I’m transferring into this school because of my parents. It’s good to meet you.”

She had a longer self-intro prepared but wound up toning it down for the big moment. The teacher motioned to a window-side seat in the far back row, apparently meant for her.

“Wow, transferring at a time like this,” she heard someone whisper. It was true. Having this overlap with that whole Libra crisis was a real bummer—in several ways, selfish and otherwise.

“All right, everyone,” Ms. Yagara said, demonstrating no particularly unusual interest in Enju, “I know people are all pretty nervous right now, but treat her well, all right?”

“Ms. Yagara! Hey, Ms. Yagara!” espoused a rather eager-looking boy in the front row, hand raised. “Why do we have to keep going to school if Funagasaki Elementary next door gave all the kids off?”

Nobody dared nod or show any other physical assent, but everyone in class gave him a silent agreement.

Ms. Yagara gave an ever-so-thin smile. “Well, all of your parents have sent you here so we can help you grow up and become fine young men and women. Besides, your parents wouldn’t want you to fall behind in your studies, now would they?”

It was odd. Her tone was prim, practiced, and calm, but it was clear from her voice that she would tolerate no further dissent.

But what made everyone in class tighten their expressions was what she did afterward, taking out her class student ledger without warning.

“Now, then, I know this is sudden…”

There it was. That awkward mental strain. The smell of adrenaline Enju detected before. And it was notably, overwhelmingly in fact, coming more strongly from the girls than the boys.

Turning her eyes toward the teacher’s desk, Enju saw the cold, curving smile on Ms. Yagara, an expression of pure sadistic joy.

“But I’ve got some special news for you all today! You probably know about Kamo over in Group Two, but all the teachers have decided to remove her from class. She’s already been turned over to the IISO, which is the perfect place for Gastrea-Virus carriers like her.”

Enju’s body froze. Sweat poured out of her body.

“This means that there are no more carriers in our school, and I hope all of you will continue to be the best students you can possibly be for me. That is all. Oh, yes! I apologize for springing this on our new student Aihara so quickly, but we’re all going on a field trip to an electrical plant in the Outer District two days from now, so I’d like everyone to form groups for me today, all right?”

Her heels clacked against the floor as she left the room.

Homeroom was over, and the students all chatted with one another during the short break that ensued. Enju, forgetting to wipe the sweat she was soaked in, kept her head down and clawed at her knees. She barely felt alive.

“Hey, I know Ms. Yagara’s pretty high-strung, but don’t let it bother you, okay?”

Surprised, Enju turned to her side. A girl was there, wearing a horizontal-striped skirt and a short jacket, making her look a bit like an actress from several decades ago. She must have been nervous, because she was twiddling her thumbs behind her like she was hiding something and rubbing her legs together, a self-effacing smile emerging from underneath her fluffy curls. The smile must have been what she employed to keep people from thinking she was some kind of freak, but Enju could tell she had a shy streak as well.

The girl fearfully pointed at Enju’s desk.

“Aihara, is that…?”

She followed her eyes down to the laptop PCs they used for class. Enju’s had a gaggle of Tenchu Girls stickers plastered on the back.

Drumming up all her resolve, the girl revealed what she was holding behind her back. It was a tablet, another classroom accessory, but the moment Enju’s eyes fell on the back panel behind the modular screen, she lit up.

“Wh-whoa! A Tenchu Red special-color panel! You had to write in to Girls’ Dream magazine to get that!”

Even the tablet’s stylus was fully Tenchu Girls–themed. It was the complete package. Who is this girl? she thought as she sized her up again. The girl waved the tablet around in the air, snickering the snicker of someone who’d just found a fellow comrade.

“Whoa, no way! So you’re commuting all the way from Magata, Enju?”

“Yeah,” Enju replied as she chewed on the bread roll that came with lunch. “It takes ninety minutes to get here. I have to switch trains and everything.”

The curly-haired girl, head down, was busy twirling yakisoba noodles with her fork.

“Huh. You said it was because of your parents, right? Man, that’s rough. This is kind of a gifted school, too, so we get a lot of homework sometimes.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Oh, and you better watch out for Ms. Katakura, the science teacher, okay? ’Cause she totally picks kids to answer questions when they have, like, no idea.”

Enju crossed her arms and nodded grimly. Every school had at least one teacher like that. The girl snickered in response.

By the time their lunch break came around, Enju and the curly-haired girl had firmly hit it off with each other. For Enju, it was reassuring—finding someone so quickly to show her around, teach her the ins and outs of school customs, and not mess around with her too much along the way. She said her name was Momoka Hieda, and already Enju and Momoka were ditching pretty much all formalities.

“Oh, hey, I live on the way to the train station. You think maybe we could walk together?”

“Sure. No problem at all.”

The girl brought both hands together and smiled. “That’s really great!”

Pretty cute of her, the analytical part of Enju’s mind said, until she realized something else: Was this the kind of girl Rentaro liked?

That contrast made her think about exactly how much the parts of her mind differed.

“Hey, um, Momoka? What was with that…thing in the morning?”

The question had been filed in the back of Enju’s mind for a little while now. Enju figured the time had come to ask.

“Thing? What thing?”

“Y’know, the news about that girl leaving school.”

Momoka grinned, finally picking up on the topic. “Oh, yeah, that was super awkward, wasn’t it? I hate it when it’s like that. But a lot of people are totally in this ‘expose the virus’ kick here in school, and Ms. Yagara’s pretty much their leader and stuff.”

“So, that Kamo girl who got kicked out… Was she one of those, uh, Cursed Children or whatever they call them?”

The girl shook her head, a bit bewildered.

“I dunno.”

Enju’s eyes opened wide. “You don’t?”

“No, I…I mean, our school’s kind of different, you know? Like, I don’t think it really matters if they’re actually Cursed or not. If people start suspecting you, you get taken to the IISO. And even if the IISO tests you and you’re not a carrier after all, like… It’s kinda hard to be around here, once you’re back. A lot of kids quit school after that. I heard a rumor that the school accuses kids they don’t like too much of being carriers so the IISO can take them away from the place.”

Aha. That explains why everyone in class—especially the girls—were so on edge back there. Rentaro told her once about how schools could be pretty closed-off, cliquish spaces at times, leading to situations you’d never expect to see anywhere else. This must be what he was talking about.

The girl in front of Enju flashed a broad smile, perhaps trying to cheer up her suddenly silent new friend.

“Like, as if any of us could even be Red-Eyes anyway, y’know?”

Enju offered a vague smile in response.

“Dahh! Okay, how about this: In episode thirteen of Tenchu Girls, ‘Rage of the Sprawling Weeds,’ you know how they fished up Carpatron from the lake? That’s not, like, for real, is it?”

“I think they had one of the staff actually go over to the lake to fish there first so it’d be more realistic in story form.”

“Oh. So what about ‘Waiting for Godot,’ episode twenty-one of the second season? Like, Tenchu Red spent the whole thirty minutes sitting in this chair waiting for Godot and talking about God and stuff. I read on the net that it was an homage to this guy named Samuel Beckett, but…”

“Yeah, I heard this overworked screenwriter had a mental breakdown and wrote that script, and the crew did it as kind of a joke. Like, make it all artsy and fancy, you know?”

“……”

“Oh, but did you know—? The final episode of the second season? Where they go into Kozuke-nosuke Kira’s house to take him down? Well, it actually turns out Kira used clone tech to create seven copies of himself!”

“Whoa, whoa! Spoilers! I haven’t seen that one yet!” Enju shouted, putting her hands on her ears. Momoka laughed.

The two were on their way home after what wound up being a pretty breezy curriculum for the day. It was a clear, warm summerlike day in September, the unrelenting sun tormenting their skin, but Enju’s legs couldn’t have felt any lighter. The sunflowers that infested the edges of school grounds were practically falling over themselves to smile at her, the cicadas summoning up their last reserves of energy to serenade the two in song.

“Boy, am I glad I went to school today.”

Momoka lifted up her straw hat to take in the full sun on her face. She raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

“’Cause I got to meet you, Momoka.”

The brim of the hat went back down as Momoka hid her face. She must not have been used to people expressing themselves so frankly like that. “Me too,” she replied, her voice almost lost among the insect cries.

Then Momoka found her body being hugged tightly, as if someone had just rammed into her.

“Mom!” Momoka exclaimed, still a little bewildered at the woman who suddenly appeared. The confusion cleared up once she looked at her mother’s face.

“Oh, thank heavens… Are you all right?” the woman said. She had on bronze-framed glasses, along with a lamé-finished black pantsuit, making her look like a career-track businesswoman and a helicopter parent in the making. An expensive-looking car was parked a couple steps away; she must have leaped out of it when she spotted Momoka.

“I heard there was a Red-Eyes at your school, and oh, I was just beside myself… Did she touch you or anything? She might’ve given you the virus.”

“Oh, Mom, you don’t have to worry so much! Oh, uh, lemme introduce you, Enju. This is my mother.”

Momoka seemed glad to show off her mom. The woman gave a polite nod.

“Oh, thanks for making good friends with our little Momoka! I know she can be a little shy, but play nice with her, all right?”

Momoka gave her mother a playful knee. “Oh, Mommmm! Stop doing that all the time!”

“You have to wonder what those kids are thinking, though, always sneaking into school like that. Ugh, it makes me sick just thinking about it! And, you know, one of my neighbors told me that you’re more likely to give birth to a Red-Eyes if you didn’t want the child in the first place.”

“Oh, really? ’Cause this kid in school said you could get one if you had something called an orgy.”

“Momoka! Don’t use that word! You’re still too young for that.”

“That’s not true.”

“Huh? What’d you say, Enju?”

Momoka turned an ear to her, eyes large and round. “Oh, hey, Enju, why don’t you come over to my place? We could watch the second-season finale together!”

Enju lifted up her gloomy face and practically gritted her teeth, such was the effort required to force out a smile.

“Sorry, I got some stuff to do this afternoon.”

Then she turned around and ran off to the station.