Black Bullet - Volume 7 - Chapter 2.05

5

The ocean wind running between the iron bars set off the wind chime again.

From within the eternal darkness surrounding the moon, the sound of the waves continued incessantly, and the sharp scent in the air seemed to attach itself to everything that it found.

It was past lights-out time, and Andrei Litvintsev’s eyes were closed as he sat on his bed and counted the number of wave crashes. In the single cell across from his, a large man with an eerily porcine body lay sound asleep. He had the sleeves on his prison outfit rolled up and he unconsciously scratched his stomach as he snored. Other people, in other cells, could be heard either weeping or muttering to themselves.

It made Litvintsev feel like he was traversing the space between dreams and reality. There was no telling how much time he spent in this state.

Suddenly, he heard a single word—Captain—in the air. Slowly, he opened his eyes, only to find another pair illuminated in the darkness on the other side of the bars. And it wasn’t alone—there were others behind it, although they were trying to hide themselves.

“You’re right on time.”

He stood up and walked to the iron-bar door. The electronic lock was disengaged, as if by magic, and with quiet footsteps Litvintsev’s late-night visitors crammed into the cramped cell. Among them were five men and two young women.

“Great to see you again, Captain,” a man in a balaclava and full tactical gear said, almost overcome with emotion. Litvintsev knew him. The other men followed his lead, removing their masks and saluting.

Litvintsev nodded and sized up each one individually.

“Max, Misha…and Sonia, too, eh? Great to see all of you. Where’s Yulia?”

“Right here.”

Another girl entered the dark cell. Her silvery hair and ice-blue eyes reflected the moonlight as she stood bolt upright and gave a brisk salute. After she put her hand down, her face twisted, grimacing, and she hugged Litvintsev’s midsection, burying her face in his side.

“I’ve wanted to see you for so long, Captain.”

“Everything going well?”

“Exactly as you commanded.” Remembering her role in the current mission, Yulia took a step back and kneeled. “I’m off to support our people occupying the monitor control room.”

She stood back up, turned around, and soundlessly disappeared. In her place, the man Litvintsev had identified as Max stepped forward and saluted.

“We need you to prepare to leave in twenty seconds, sir. Your escape ship is waiting out back. We’ll be detected any moment now.”

As if on cue, a shrill alarm cut through the night. The sleeping prisoners jumped to their feet, yelling confusedly at one another.

“Speak of the devil,” observed Max as he replaced his balaclava and removed the safety on his rifle. “Please hurry, sir. We’re here to guide you out of here. We have the Neck and the Ring for you, too. You’ll have a front-row seat for the final events.”

Another member of the team provided Litvintsev with his favorite coat to wear over his uniform. He sized them all up one more time.

“Okay. We’ve been wanting this long enough. Let’s do it.”

They moved out in perfect sync—Litvintsev’s people taking the lead with rifles slung over their shoulders, the rescued prisoner coursing through the wind behind them.

The prison, forced awake by the alarm, was transformed into a whirlwind of chaos. The bars that should have slapped upward from the floor to prevent escapes never deployed. No contact was made with authorities outside the prison. And the guards who headed for the monitor control room after the alarm went off were more than a bit surprised by the hail of bullets that greeted them there.

The gunshots thundered across the whole facility, sparking off the steel desks used as impromptu barriers.

“Get back!” one of the guards shouted over the furor. “That’s a professional team that’s taken over the control room! We can’t beat ’em with our equipment!”

One of his coworkers found a free moment to jump over the barricade and fire a volley with his shotgun. He immediately threw himself back down after a swarm of bullets was sent his way. “Damn it,” he growled.

It went without saying that the prison guards were not professionally trained soldiers. They had a modicum of firepower, mostly meant for riot suppression, but asking them to take on a clearly sophisticated squadron of well-supplied fighters was beyond their abilities.

Just as they were trying to figure out what to do, they realized the gunfire had stopped. One of them looked up to scope out the room.

Just as he did, a masked man tossed something out from behind his barricade. The guard froze as he observed the circular object—a fragmentation grenade. He drew his head back, anticipating the intense pain about to greet him.

There was the sound of something hitting against metal, followed by an explosion. A shockwave struck any body parts not hidden behind the barricade. Dust filled the air as bits of plaster blew off the walls.

“Get out of here! You’re too weak!”

Am I alive? The man honestly wasn’t sure when he opened his eyes. There he saw the back of a compactly framed young girl. She stood there wielding a pair of Varanium cutlasses, each one about sixty centimeters long.

She whirled around at the stunned guard, earrings spinning in the air. There was a spade mark painted under her right eye.

“Oh! The Initiator!”

The girl grunted sullenly at him. “Ritsu Urabe, Initiator Rank 550. You—get out of here and call for backup. I’ll take care of these guys.”

Few of the guards appreciated the presence of an Initiator among their ranks before, but—as they discovered now—she had just kicked the grenade away from them. It put the guards in a daze.

“Uh, okay. Be careful. There’s two of them stationed in front of the control room.”

The guard gave Ritsu a pat on the shoulder before running off. She watched him go, then turned toward the door. She grinned at the barricade, teeth grinding, as she spotted something moving behind it. The next moment, a barrage of muzzle flashes was quickly followed by a mass of bullets.

Ritsu, reading it perfectly, jumped away. Amid the insane rush of gunfire, she dashed to and fro, slashing right through the barricade once she reached it. The look of sheer shock on the face of the enemy soldier behind it was exactly the kind of thing she savored in life. She gave him no time to regroup, burying her fist in his collar. He screamed and dropped his rifle.

Then her animal instincts told her to jump. She did so, and a rifle bolt pierced through the air she had occupied a second earlier, sending concrete pieces flying as it embedded itself in the wall.

“You picked the wrong girl to mess with!”

She flipped her body and kicked off the ceiling, falling toward the armed enemy and slashing diagonally with both swords when she landed. The Varanium blades easily sliced through the body armor, neatly placing the soldier out of the picture.

“Gr…ahh…”

The skirmish was over. The masked man fell to his knees, gushing blood as he looked up, mortified, at his attacker.

Ritsu licked her lips in excited anticipation. There was nothing she liked more than seeing this—taking those who underestimated her and making them crawl away in pain.

“I’m not gonna kill you yet,” she said. “I got a ton of things I wanna ask you.”

She turned around to visit the control room. Then, sensing another threat, she turned around again. From the other end of the corridor, a girl appeared.

She had silver hair, ice-blue eyes, and a khaki military uniform. In another place and time, one might think she was just a tiny little girl who had gotten separated from her parents.

However, this was neither that place nor that time. The enemy terrorists must have had an Initiator on their side, too.

The silver-haired newcomer eyed her downed comrades, then nodded in understanding. She knew what needed to be done. It was Initiator against Initiator; no need to exchange words. Both knew this wouldn’t end until blood was spilled.

But as the girl stalked her prey, Ritsu couldn’t help but speak up.

“What’s up with that? You’re actually gonna fight with those things?”

She had on a pair of knuckle guards, a metal pole attached to each arm with four long claws per hand and rings to put her thumb through. It was a pair of bagh naka, tiger claws, made for assassins to give their victim deep stab and claw wounds, as if they were attacked by a vicious animal.

Ritsu was dubious. They were Varanium, yes, and lightweight enough to keep the user agile, but they had essentially no reach. They were a relic from a past era.

“Ritsu Urabe, Initiator Rank 550. Model Shark.”

The girl bowed respectfully in reply.

A moment later:

“…What?”

The girl raised an eyebrow, wondering if Ritsu didn’t hear her. Then she lowered herself, ready for combat. Her eyes looked straight ahead.

“I said, Yulia Kochenkova, Model Cheetah. Initiator Rank 77. This is over.”