Side Story: The Judge
In the depths of the mountains, there was a village not marked on any map. A certain group was responsible for keeping the area under surveillance. They didn’t know why; all they had been told was to stop anyone who tried to cross the boundary.
The village itself had generated a level of curiosity, so from time to time, people would try to sneak in. When they were discovered, they would politely be informed that the area was strictly off limits and sent back the way they came. Every once in a while someone would manage to make it through the blockade, in which case the guards were instructed not to pursue them past the border. What happened to those who made it to the village, though? Up until now, not a single one of them had ever returned.
Of course, those who were born and lived there weren’t prevented from coming and going. Though somewhat anachronistic, the village itself had a checkpoint barring entry and exit. Only those who lived within were permitted to pass through it.
The people of the village always used that one entrance, so the security detail only had to patrol their normal route, looking for people trying to sneak in from the outside. A number of sensors had been placed outside the patrol’s route as well, to detect potential trespassers. In effect, the interior of the security perimeter was not under surveillance.
So when the guard first heard a noise, he merely wrote it off as the sound of an animal moving through the undergrowth. It wasn’t a particularly rare occurrence. That being said, something like a wild boar was still plenty dangerous, so he turned to take a look.
He was immediately surprised by what he saw. The source of the noise was a young boy in a white robe, covered in blood. His first instinct was to call out to the boy, but the child’s expression made him pause.
The young stranger walked forward aimlessly, hollow eyes not focusing on anything. The guard soon remembered that there were no children in the village — not a single person under the age of twenty was on the list.
The man recovered quickly, calling out, “Hey, where did you come from? Are you hurt?”
He must have felt from the boy’s appearance that something had happened. And it was just a small boy; he couldn’t leave him out in the wilderness alone.
Suddenly, the guard collapsed. As far as the records indicated, he was the first victim.
“This is a video of the event. The guard had a camera on his helmet, which recorded the whole thing.”
The speaker was the researcher Shiraishi, as he showed the video to Asaka Takatou in a conference room at the facility. Thanks to the overgrown nature of the forest, it was hard to tell what time of day the video had been taken at, but the clock at the bottom right of the screen showed that it had been around noon. While it was a little dark, the quality of the camera was quite high, so even small details were visible.
“So, the video doesn’t actually show him? Well, not like I want to see any more, anyway.”
It was supposed to be a recording of Yogiri Takatou, codenamed ??, but the boy himself couldn’t be seen on the screen. Instead, a blurry mosaic had taken his place, making him barely distinguishable as a human being. Something had appeared from the brush, the camera had fallen over, then the figure had wandered away. That’s all the footage showed.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have the original anymore.”
“And that’s not about protecting his personal information, right? This is an evil research lab, after all.”
“Come on now, are you still on about that?”
“The amount of illegal activity here boggles the mind. I can’t tell my parents anything about this place, and the fact that I get paid in cash is pretty strange.”
Asaka primarily lived underground, and on the rare occasion she made it to the outside world, she had to worry about being abducted by other organizations. Her workplace was full of strange complications. The only upside was her relatively high salary, but even that was high enough to make her uneasy.
“That’s because we’re working hard to prevent the end of the world here. Anyway, of course information about him is top secret, but that’s not why the video was altered.”
For those who knew of Yogiri’s power, any information they could acquire about him was worth its weight in gold. They’d be willing to pay anything to obtain even the vaguest details.
“Then why?”
“Because anyone who watched it died.”
Asaka blinked dumbly. “What?”
“Just what I said. Everyone who watched the original video died, no exceptions.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m pretty sure I haven’t lied to you yet. It was quite a disaster, honestly. Well, given what happened afterwards, it kind of fell off the radar a bit.”
“Um, I don’t understand what you’re saying. I know he’s got an unbelievable ability, but like, this is just a picture, right?” Yogiri could kill anyone by thinking it, but that was a far cry from killing everyone who saw a video of him.
“The camera captured the moment his power activated. His mind was likely fairly hazy, so he was probably just targeting anyone looking at him. At least that’s our theory so far.”
“So, what, he can kill people even if it’s not in real time?!”
“We’re deep into the occult now, aren’t we? It’s like a cursed video,” Shiraishi said, apparently amused by the whole ordeal.
“Hey, don’t say it like you’re having so much fun.”
“I tried a bit of an experiment. Even when we copied it over to another disc or reduced the visual quality, it still worked.”
“And you wonder why I call this an evil organization.” Strictly for the sake of his experiment, he had shown the video to others, knowing the risk. And thanks to that, a considerable number of people had died. They didn’t put any value on human life here at all, Asaka knew.
“Regardless of your feelings, as I’ve said before, this facility was created to develop a weapon.”
Asaka recalled their conversation from her first day on the job, where she’d been told that they were developing a weapon to defend against the threat of nuclear arms.
“In this case, anyone who saw him activate his power was killed,” Shiraishi continued. “Even those who had no idea about ??’s existence were affected by it the moment they saw the video. We tried distorting it to differing degrees, but people only stopped dying once he became entirely unrecognizable.”
“But how did you even edit it in the first place? Wouldn’t anyone who looked at it to make those edits suffer the same fate?”
“Automatically altering a video to blur a human figure isn’t difficult. But the more you think about it, the more interesting it gets. Basically, what determines whether you live or die is whether you recognize what you’re seeing or not. Also fascinating is that animals with no ability to distinguish between individual humans were unharmed as well.”
“But how would such a thing kill you? Although, now that I say it, I don’t understand how he kills people with his thoughts, either.”
“The fact that his power relies on the recognition of the target means something is determining who has actually become aware of him. That means there’s something out there that can peek into the minds of humans, which is getting close to omniscience. So we wondered, rather than something purely mechanical like a computer program meant to alter the video, what about a higher level AI? Would that be killed as well?”
“Don’t tell me you kept up this ‘research’?”
“No, we were told to put a stop to it. The original video has been destroyed.”
“Well, good, it was a dangerous thing.”
“Yes, it was. If it were broadcast over the airwaves, it would be the end of Japan. If it were uploaded to the internet, it could well be the end of the world.”
Asaka was at a loss for words. The world seemed an awful lot more fragile than she’d imagined. It would take barely anything at all from this boy to put an end to it.
“Ultimately, the higher-ups decided it was too dangerous to use even as a weapon, so they shut it down.”
“Yeah, anyone sane would come to that conclusion. Or...well, I guess that’s not really true.” The Agency, which had previously kidnapped Asaka, must have been unaware of the true threat that Yogiri posed. If they had known, they wouldn’t have been nearly so reckless.
“That’s right. We don’t know how much external groups like the Agency know about him, but at the very least, they seem to think they can keep him contained and make use of him. Either that, or they believe he’s too dangerous to leave it up to Japan to handle.”
“Why don’t you just share information about him? If the public knew, they’d panic, but you could at least tell the relevant agencies of other countries.”
“Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work. It’s hard enough to believe it when it’s happening right in front of you, let alone from a written report. Either they wouldn’t believe us, or they’d interpret it in whatever way suited them best.”
“And that whole incident with the guard is why no video or sound recordings are allowed now, I guess.”
The staff were strictly forbidden from making any type of recording, and the underground facility didn’t have any internet or telephone lines. The entrance had a camera, but that had been disabled now as well. It had previously functioned by altering the recordings in real time, but even then it had offered a pathway for Yogiri to escape to the surface, and therefore had to be disposed of.
“So, what? Did you call me here just to show me this video?” Every month, Asaka went up to the surface to make her report, but she had done her monthly check-in just the other day.
“Ah, yes, about that. We were worried that, since you have grown so used to your job here, you may have started taking the threat ?? poses too lightly. We wanted to give you a bit of a warning.”
“I don’t think I’m taking him lightly. But there’s nothing to be gained by treating him like a time bomb, either.”
“Well, in that regard, you’re certainly doing well. We have no complaints, so please continue operating just as you have been.”
Of course Yogiri’s ability was terrifying, but being scared of him accomplished nothing. It wasn’t like he had asked for his power, so she felt bad about seeing him treated that way.
“Then, on to the main topic.”
“Wait, hold on. What happened after Yogiri left the village in that video?”
“Ah, that’s kind of a long story, so let’s save it for next time.”
“Oh, come on!” Why was he covered in blood? Why did he leave in the first place? Where did he go? And how did they get a boy who killed everyone who looked at him back underground? Asaka couldn’t help being curious, but Shiraishi’s apologetic smile made it clear that he wasn’t planning on saying more. “Fine. So, what is it, then?”
“Actually, we’re going to have a visitor to the underground facility.”
“A visitor? You mean someone who isn’t staff?”
While Asaka wasn’t aware of how the underground part of the facility was dealt with on the outside, its primary purpose was to isolate Yogiri. There was no way having visitors was a normal, acceptable occurrence, so she couldn’t help but feel that any such visitors should be rejected with maximum force.
“You don’t plan on doing anything to Yogiri, do you?”
“No, no, no! Not at all! We have no plan to do anything to him, and even if we did, it would probably mean the end of the world. Even if we were given such orders, we would likely hole up inside the facility and protect him instead.”
He spoke as if he were joking, but it felt like he was telling the truth. Even if disobeying orders threatened their jobs or their lives, it didn’t mean much if obeying them meant the human race would be wiped out. In that scenario, being on Yogiri’s side was the best chance they had.
“The guest has nothing at all to do with ??.”
“Then why not send them somewhere else? I don’t like to say it, but you could just tell them the underground is too dangerous, couldn’t you?”
“Well, the thing is, this isn’t a request we can deny.”
“What are you talking about? This is a government organization, isn’t it? This place is super important, right?”
“Well, how do I put it? It’s a request from someone who’s basically the current ruler of Japan.”
“You mean the Prime Minister?” His roundabout wording made it hard to understand. As a democratic state, there wasn’t really someone you would refer to as a “ruler” of the country.
“There’s an organization that has considerable control over Japan from behind the scenes, and the request is from their leader.”
“I’m not sure you could possibly make it sound shadier!”
“Yes, well...strange as it is, as long as we operate in Japan, we can’t stand against them. But please relax. Like I said, this has nothing to do with ?? himself. They just wanted a place where they could be sure that no one would interfere.”
“And they couldn’t find somewhere else to go?”
“This is the most carefully guarded place in the nation, after all.”
“Do they understand how dangerous he is?”
“They’ve been given the information, at least. But the fact that they are so insistent on using this facility means they probably don’t take it seriously. In any case, we’ve been saddled with the job, so we’ll just have to deal with it.”
“So, what should I do?”
“Oh, there’s nothing in particular for you to do. They’ll just be staying at the facility for a while. I figured you’d be shocked if they showed up out of nowhere, so I thought it was best to warn you beforehand. We’ve told them explicitly to stay away from anyone they meet underground.”
“Aren’t you worried someone might use it as a chance to slip in? Something followed me when I went down there the first time, remember?”
If someone was targeting Yogiri, a new group’s arrival would be the perfect opportunity for them to attempt to infiltrate the underground region. Some sort of mysterious creature had hidden in Asaka’s shadow the first time she’d been admitted.
“This is their specialty, so it should be fine. If they were that susceptible to infiltration, they wouldn’t need such an isolated location in the first place. I’m sure the lord will have taken plenty of precautions beforehand.”
“The lord...? Someone with a name like that in present-day Japan is even more concerning...”
Was this really going to work out? Asaka wasn’t so sure.
When Asaka made her way back to the underground mansion, she found Yogiri playing fetch outside with Nikori, their Shetland Sheepdog. Nikori was a very smart dog, so she had picked up the game right away. As Asaka entered the yard, she called out to them, prompting the two to run towards her.
“Welcome home, Asaka!” Recently, Yogiri had begun wearing a T-shirt and shorts instead of his usual outfit. Asaka had thought it best that he get used to wearing more ordinary clothing.
“I’m home. I assume everything’s about the same?”
“Yeah.” Her meeting hadn’t been all that long, but it was about an hour’s travel time between the surface and their home. If it wasn’t for anything important, she would rather they didn’t call her up there at all. “No souvenirs?”
“Sorry, all I did was go upstairs this time. Oh, I do have some chocolate I picked up on the way. It’s about three now, so do you feel like a snack?”
As she spoke, Asaka pulled out the chocolate she had in her bag. The bag was a Birkin by Hermès. It had been left behind when she’d been kidnapped from her hotel, but she had managed to get it back safe and sound in the end.
“Okay!”
“You can’t give any to Nikori, though.”
“Why?”
“I’m pretty sure dogs can’t eat chocolate. It’s probably in the book we have on raising dogs, so go take a look.”
“Okay.”
Yogiri took the chocolate and ran off into the mansion without complaint. Asaka followed him at a more leisurely pace. When she made her way into the living room, Yogiri was sitting politely at the table, chocolate covering his face. She took a seat across from him.
“I have something to talk about, is that okay?”
“What is it?”
“Tomorrow, some people will be coming down here. There are those empty houses in the village, you know? They’ll be using those, so I doubt we’ll even run into them, but please be careful.” She paused suddenly, thinking about it. “Or...well, what are we actually being careful of?”
Although they were underground, the area was supposed to be a recreation of an actual village somewhere. The house they lived in was in the middle of a forest on the outskirts of that village. The houses within the village were all empty, so any guests who visited would stay there. As long as they remained in the mansion, they wouldn’t have any contact with those who were visiting the village.
“Is someone moving in?”
“They’re just staying for a little while. About one week, I think. So try to stay away from the village while they’re there...although, should we even bother?”
Asaka began to doubt whether she should really be going out of her way to make accommodations for them. She had no idea why they were coming in the first place, so she didn’t know what to be careful of.
“Well, whatever. You can just do what you usually do. You don’t normally go that far anyway, right? I don’t think they’ll come all the way here, either.”
“Yeah, okay.” Yogiri seemed curious, but if she told him not to, he wouldn’t go out of his way to visit them. He almost always did exactly as she asked.
After finishing their snack, she had him begin his studies. Having finished the elementary school curriculum, she had started him on materials aimed at middle-schoolers. Asaka had plenty of doubts about her ability to teach at that level, so she was studying right alongside him.
After a while, they began their preparations for dinner. Yogiri had recently begun helping her as well.
“Am I doing enough here?” she murmured to herself while they cooked.
“What?”
“I figured I don’t do all that much work down here, so I was wondering if it’s really acceptable for me to be paid so much.”
She had always assumed that “work” would be more complicated and annoying. And although she had certainly been confused by her job at the start, once she had gotten used to it, her routine was basically just living out an ordinary daily life. At this rate, even her part-time job in college had been harder work.
“What do you mean, work?” Yogiri gave her a blank look.
“Hmm, well, work is work, but it’s also kind of not.”
Not sure how to describe it, she decided not to bother. And really, considering her job required her to be locked underground twenty-four hours a day, and always had the threat of her own death hanging overhead, maybe the salary wasn’t unreasonable.
Asaka brought the completed meal out to the dining table. Unlike her predecessor, she always ate with Yogiri.
“It’s delicious,” the boy commented as they began digging in.
“Well, I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better, but I’m not sure this is good enough yet.” All she had done was cut up the meat and vegetables and cook them in a dipping sauce, so it wasn’t an especially impressive meal. If it tasted good, that was fine, but she felt like relying entirely on the sauce to add flavor to the meal was a form of defeat. “We can get any ingredients we want down here, so I feel like there’s something more I should be able to do.”
“I like your cooking, though,” Yogiri said as Asaka aired her doubts. He seemed to be trying to make her feel better.
Once they finished eating and cleaned everything up, they started getting ready for bed. Letting Nikori inside, they began closing up the mansion for the night. It was important to have the entire building totally sealed off. Moving the dining table out of the way, they set their futons out in the living room. Though there were plenty of rooms in the house, that was where they spent most of their time.
Once their preparations were done, Yogiri got into his futon right away. As Nikori lay down beside him, Asaka took a seat nearby. After exchanging goodnights, the boy fell asleep almost instantly.
While Yogiri could drift off incredibly fast, Asaka had a much more difficult time going to sleep this early, so she typically stayed up a while longer.
As the sun set, apparitions began wandering around outside.
“I wonder what they’re going to do about those things outside at night?”
As strange as it was, despite being underground, they still experienced weather and even had a sun that rose and set. Every night, shadows that looked like people appeared. She didn’t know what would happen if a person was caught by them, but she had a feeling it would be nothing good.
“Maybe I’ll pay them a visit tomorrow,” she mused.
Asaka had grown accustomed to the shadowy figures by now, but if you didn’t know to expect them, it would be a disconcerting discovery that could well put the lives of the newcomers in danger. She had been told not to interact with them, but it was probably best to at least let them know that much.
She decided to go over and speak to them when they arrived the next day.
After breakfast, Asaka had Yogiri begin studying on his own before she left the house. Putting the forest behind her, she walked through the rice fields towards the empty village, but the only people she found there were the androids. They were all doing miscellaneous work, from tending the fields to maintaining the empty houses.
“We’ve got some visitors coming,” Asaka called out to a nearby robot. “Do you know when?”
“We have not heard any such thing.”
“Oh, really?”
The robots spoke fairly well, so communicating normally with them was easy. Their speech was a bit stilted due to their lack of consciousness, but they were clearly built with high-level technology.
“I am told they are to arrive before noon,” another robot interjected.
The androids weren’t connected to any kind of network, nor did they have any general-purpose interface. The only way to give them information was to tell them directly, so sometimes there was a delay in that information being spread. This was yet another measure to keep information about ?? from leaking out.
“I see. Maybe I should take a look at the entrance, then.”
“They will likely be using the freight entrance.”
“Wait, we have one of those?”
“Yes. It is a little off from the staff road.”
“I guess I’ll go take a look.”
But before she had the chance to leave, a number of large trucks came into view. The vehicles drove single file into the village, stopping in front of Asaka. In short order, people hopped out and began unloading large amounts of luggage.
“Huh? Hold on, is this really that big of a deal?”
The more luggage she saw come out of the trucks, the more Asaka’s surprise deepened. After a while, an expensive-looking black car arrived. The door swung open vigorously and a red flash flew out from inside.
“Ahh! Jeez! I don’t believe this! After such a cool sci-fi-like elevator, we end up in this place? It’s just a countryside village!”
The rambling came from a young girl in a red, frilled dress, wearing long gloves that went up past her elbows. The weather wasn’t that cold yet, so either they were meant to protect her from the sun or were strictly for fashion.
After her, three men in black suits stepped out of the vehicle. One was a young man wearing glasses, the second was a huge guy who looked like he could barely fit his muscles into the suit, and the third had an aura of being anything but an upstanding individual.
Asaka decided to talk to the guy in the glasses. It was entirely prejudiced on her part, but she felt he would be the easiest to speak with.
“Umm, hello.”
The moment they heard her voice, the three men surrounded her. “Don’t talk to us, bitch! Get any closer and we’ll kill you!”
Asaka went stiff at the unexpected threat.
“Sorry, lady,” the girl in red piped up. “Takaoka doesn’t really mean any harm.”
“Mistress, please don’t speak to strangers like that. She may well be an enemy!” At some point, “Takaoka” had pulled out a pistol, pointing it at Asaka, who immediately put her hands up, the realization that they were all Yakuza finally hitting her.
“She was down here before we were, right?”
“But after our week is done, we need to silence anyone suspicious —”
“Takaoka, could you stop being such a scaredy-cat? It’s annoying.”
“My apologies.” In spite of the man’s words, he didn’t lower his gun.
“Umm, well,” Asaka said, “I just wanted to say that it’s dangerous here at night, so make sure you shut the doors tight when it gets dark. That’s all, so can I go now? I have no intention of getting involved with you.”
“Good, get out of here.”
With her hands still in the air, Asaka backed away for a short while before turning around and running. Once she had gotten far enough that she couldn’t see them anymore, she stopped to catch her breath.
“I thought it was odd for them to go through the trouble of coming to a place like this, but this is too much...”
That must have been why they’d said not to get close to the outsiders. Asaka regretted going out of her way to give them the warning.
“Well, do what you want, then!” Recovering her nerve, she trudged back home.
Asaka, Yogiri, and Nikori were all at the freight entrance. Asaka had wanted to go and take a look at this entrance she hadn’t even known about, and since they usually took Nikori for a walk after lunch, they decided to all go together.
“It looks like a launching place for robots...” Asaka looked up, but she couldn’t see all the way up to the ceiling. There were lights here and there, but they only illuminated the immediate area, so most of the place was shrouded in darkness.
The entrance was a cylindrical tube reinforced by concrete, connecting to the spherical space the village resided in. Rails built into the walls made it clear that it was intended to be a lift of some sort, with the elevator currently being stopped at the bottom level. It was big enough to carry a number of large trucks all at once.
“It’s really big, isn’t it?” Yogiri was completely taken in by his first time seeing such a large structure.
“Well, without an elevator like this, you could hardly create a village down here, could you?”
But even knowing how they got their supplies, it only raised the question of how the elevator and the space for the village had been created in the first place. “Doesn’t this look a lot more convenient, though?”
The normal staff entrance required a lot of walking. If this entrance connected directly to the surface, it was probably much faster to use.
“I doubt it,” a voice called from behind them, prompting the two to turn around. “We had to change elevators a lot.”
Standing there was the girl Asaka had seen in the village. She looked to be about Yogiri’s age.
“Who are you?” he asked immediately.
“Shouldn’t you introduce yourself first in a situation like this?”
“I’m Yogiri Takatou. This is Asaka.”
“Hm, what a weird name. My name is Enju Sumeragi. I’ll only be here for a short while, but let’s get along.”
Asaka wanted to point out the oddness of the girl’s own name but figured that, as an adult, she should probably refrain from petty snipes.
Yogiri stepped up to Enju and held out a hand. He had recently been taught about shaking hands as a greeting, so he was no doubt trying to put it into practice.
“Ah, sorry. I know I’m so cute you want to touch me, but if you do, you’ll die,” Enju said, waving a gloved hand.
“Really?”
“Really. Even beautiful flowers have their thorns or poison. I’m like that. I wear gloves, so things are generally okay, but I try to avoid touching people as much as I can.” She may have been exaggerating, but Yogiri seemed to take her at her word.
“Hey, I wanted to ask you some things, is that okay?” Asaka asked.
“What’s up?”
“Wow, so casual considering we’ve just met. Well, that’s fine. You had some people with you earlier. Is it all right for you to be here on your own?”
“If those gross guys were hanging around me every minute of the day, I wouldn’t be able to breathe. So I shook them off for a bit. I was walking through the village, but there was nothing to do there. I saw you guys heading this way, so I decided to come and see what you were up to.”
“So, they’re probably desperately searching for you right now, aren’t they?”
“Probably.”
Asaka had a bad feeling about that. The problem was that she had Yogiri with her. If those guys showed up and gave off even the slightest bit of hostility, people would start dying.
“Umm, I kind of want to avoid meeting them.”
“Sorry if they scared you earlier, but don’t worry. They’ll do whatever I tell them.”
“Yogiri,” Asaka whispered.
“What is it?” Yogiri leaned in, excited, thinking she was going to tell him a secret.
“This girl’s friends might come find us at some point. Even if they do or say things that are really rude, try to be patient with them, okay?”
“I don’t get it, but okay.” His response was rather worrying, but that was the best she could do for now.
Asaka turned back to Enju. “So, we were told not to get involved with you at all. Did they not tell you the same thing?”
“They did, but that would be boring.”
“Boring, huh? I don’t know why you’re here, but you’re supposed to be hiding, aren’t you?”
“This is the safest place in the world, right? There’s no point trying to be sneaky down here.”
“Well...there aren’t many people who make it down here, but...” Enju was technically right. If whatever was threatening her was outside this place, she would be safe. The underground facility was completely cut off from the rest of the world.
“Mistress!” As she was wondering what to do with this girl, a man in a suit came running over. It was the man with the glasses, who Enju had called Takaoka. He immediately flew into a rage upon seeing them. “You bitch! I told you to stay away from her!”
This time, however, Asaka could only feel angry at how quickly he flew off the handle. “She came to see us all on her own. If that’s a problem for you, then you deal with it. All right, Enju. I know it’s boring, but if you walk around like this, it’ll be an issue for us as well. So could you please try to behave?”
“Hey, you!”
“Takaoka!” Enju shouted, stopping the man as he reached for his gun again. “Yeah, hiding like that just doesn’t suit me. Let’s go, Takaoka.” Taking her bodyguard with her, Enju left the freight elevator behind.
“Seems like this is going to be a long week...” Asaka murmured.
Things had gotten exciting already, and it was only the first day.
The next morning, as Asaka watched Yogiri playing in the rice paddies, Enju came to visit again. Takaoka had come with her this time, but he kept his distance, staying at the edge of the water.
“What are you doing?” Enju asked, watching Yogiri sticking a bug net into the water over and over.
“I’m trying to catch those clear green things,” he answered.
As Yogiri chased the fairy shrimp around the paddy, Asaka sat there watching him idly.
“Is it fun? It looks totally boring,” Enju commented as she took a seat beside Asaka. She was wearing the same red dress and gloves as the day before, but she didn’t seem the least bit concerned about getting her clothes dirty. Asaka, on the other hand, was wearing a tracksuit specifically so that she didn’t have to worry about the mud.
“So, you two came to an agreement?” Asaka asked.
“Something like that. We’ve decided at least one of them will come with me everywhere, but they’ll stay a little farther away. I also told them not to mess with you two.”
“Well, there’s no one here but us, so there isn’t much to be on guard against. By the way, how was last night? Things seemed rather noisy.”
When darkness had fallen, Asaka had heard the sound of gunfire. The village was quiet otherwise, and sounds traveled quite far.
“I wanted to see what was going to pop up.”
“Really? Are you guys okay?”
“I guess. For hollow people like that, I can deal with them myself. With Takaoka and the others there, beating them was easy. No point in fighting for no reason, though, so tonight we’ll close up tight.”
Asaka had been terrified the first time she’d seen those black shadows appear, but Enju didn’t seem particularly bothered by them. Asaka’s first impression of her being a tough kid was an accurate one.
“Hey, isn’t there anything fun to do here?” Enju asked.
“Unfortunately, things are exactly what they seem here. If you want to have fun, you have to make it yourself.”
“What is this place, anyway? Grandfather said it was the safest place in the world, so is it some kind of shelter?”
“Now that you mention it, it does sort of seem like one, doesn’t it?”
Even if the surface was engulfed by nuclear war, the underground facility would likely remain safe. They would be entirely self-sufficient, and the space was large enough for them to spend an extended period of time cut off without feeling claustrophobic.
But in reality, it was the exact opposite of a shelter. Rather than a place to run to, it was a prison designed to keep someone from running away at all costs. Not that Yogiri would have considered the place a prison. As he had demonstrated, he could leave any time the mood struck him.
“So, why did you walk over here?” Asaka asked. “You knew we wouldn’t be doing anything interesting, right?”
“Just satisfying my curiosity. But who are you guys? Isn’t it kind of weird for you to be living down here?”
Asaka had no doubt that the answers to those questions would sate the girl’s curiosity. The truth would be so unexpectedly absurd that it would certainly keep her entertained.
“Uh, didn’t they tell you not to get involved with us?”
“Right, so you want me to explain my situation first?”
“Definitely not. It’ll only cause trouble for us if we know about you, so please spare me.” Asaka snuck a glance to the side. Takaoka was glaring at her with a terrifying expression.
“Hey, is Yogiri also an Adjudicator?”
Asaka could only tilt her head in confusion at the unfamiliar term. She had never heard Yogiri referred to that way.
“Guess not. I thought I’d surprise it out of you, but judging by your response, you don’t even know what that is.”
As if that was all she had to say, Enju stood up. Then she suddenly jumped into the water, splashing mud all over Yogiri.
“Ahahaha! Did I surprise you?”
“Yeah,” Yogiri replied, staring back at her in shock.
“It looks like you haven’t been able to catch anything. Here, let me try.”
“Okay.”
“Wait, don’t get any closer. Just throw it to me. I told you you can’t touch me, right?” Yogiri tossed her the bug net, which Enju immediately used to begin wreaking havoc across the rice paddy. “Hey, how old are you, Yogiri?”
“I don’t know.”
Enju stopped for a moment, taken aback by the unexpected answer. “Well, I’m ten, and I’m in Grade Five. It looks like there’s a small school here, so what grade are you in?”
“I don’t go there. Asaka teaches me.”
“Oh. Well, okay. You look about the same as me, or maybe younger, so I’ll make you one of my lackeys.”
“Really?!”
“Do you realize what that means? As my lackey, I’m your boss. You have to do everything I say.”
“Okay.”
“In that case, we’re done here. It was a little fun, but I’m bored of it!” As she said that, she dumped a number of aquatic creatures she had caught in the net into the bucket.
“So, what should we do now?” Yogiri asked.
“Don’t you have any ideas? Something that doesn’t make us look like country bumpkins?”
“Oh, how about video games? Asaka, can we?”
“Sure.” They had plenty of games in the mansion, but he wasn’t allowed to play them without permission.
“Video games? Grandfather always stopped me from playing them before...but I guess he can’t stop me all the way down here!”
With that, Yogiri and Enju ran off to the mansion. Standing up with a stretch, Asaka looked over to see how Takaoka would react.
He was sprinting after Enju like his life depended on it.
In what seemed like no time at all, a week had passed.
She had been told not to get involved with the people living underground, but just sitting around in an empty house all day was too much for Enju. After making Yogiri her lackey, she brought him around everywhere while she played, enjoying her time there to the fullest. And Yogiri did everything she said, just as he’d promised.
“This is a super big secret, but I’ll tell you, okay? Anything I touch dies. That includes you. So no matter how attractive I am, you can’t touch me, okay?”
“Yeah, I understand.”
“Do you? You’ll die if you touch me.”
“Yeah, I get it. If I touch you, I’ll die.”
He didn’t doubt her, nor was he afraid, nor did he pity her. Yogiri just accepted the revelation as it was. He didn’t give the slightest impression of being cautious around her. It was the first time someone had treated her normally since her power had awakened. So she had asked why he was down here.
“Well, I was always here.”
He genuinely didn’t seem to know. But Enju was well aware of how strange it was for a child to be locked up in a place like this, cared for primarily by robots. Then again, she didn’t really care. For her, someone who would treat her like a friend after learning about her power was precious. She didn’t want to risk threatening that by overstepping her bounds with him.
Not that their friendship would continue, she supposed. Enju was now sitting in the house she had been staying in, surrounded by Takaoka and the rest of her bodyguards. It was only a few minutes from midnight. The deadline was getting close.
The tension of the guards around her was thick enough to be almost visible. If a harmless mouse had wandered into her room at that moment, it would have been instantly obliterated. Everything had led up to this day, this moment. That’s why she had been given relative freedom up until then.
A while back, a being that called itself the Judge had appeared around the world, giving its message to the people it met. “Humanity is unnecessary. I considered wiping it out but have decided to give you one last chance to save it.”
One year prior, Enju had met this being.
An ominous chiming came from the clock on the wall. The tension in the room spiked and everyone went on high alert as the distorted sound of the bell announced midnight.
Then, silence.
“We did it...” someone whispered. The tension didn’t dissipate, but the feeling of having weathered the peak of the storm began to set in.
Then a black line appeared. Passing between the guards, it went right by Enju’s side. As they watched, it grew into a circle.
Enju’s bodyguards immediately attacked. They had been ready for an assault, so they didn’t hesitate for an instant. Consecrated bullets and blessed blades rained down on the thing that tried to appear beside the girl, but they didn’t so much as slow it down. Bullets struck the arms and legs that appeared, but to no avail, passing through harmlessly.
Pulling Enju back, her bodyguards positioned themselves between her and the black ellipse as a person slowly rose up out of it. It was a boy wearing a robe made from a single piece of white cloth, styled as if he were some sort of holy person.
“Come on, stop wasting your time.” The being who had appeared a year ago, calling itself the Judge, now looked down on Enju with disappointment. “No matter how much you attack me, it won’t hurt, but it’ll be hard to talk with all that noise around us. I’m going to have to ask you to stop.”
The moment he said those words, Enju’s bodyguards froze in place, unable to move.
“It was quite difficult getting here. I never thought something could block my way like that. It was only for a few seconds, but it did manage to stop me. Whoever made this place must be quite impressive.”
Enju threw a fist at him, but her hand just passed through, with the sensation of having punched into a tub of lukewarm water.
“There’s no way a human’s power would work on me,” the boy said nonchalantly as she pulled her hand back forcefully enough to fall onto the floor. “Now then, everyone has quieted down, so why don’t we talk?”
Although he phrased it as a question, he didn’t wait for a response, launching immediately into the conversation.
“I asked you guys as Adjudicators whether humanity should be destroyed. I divided you into ‘preserve’ and ‘destroy’ teams, and figured I’d follow the decision of whichever group had the most members alive at the end. But come on, you must have known what I meant, right? Hiding yourselves away like this doesn’t count. You were supposed to think of a way to make humanity survive yourself.”
“But if both teams were alive at the end, it would be a draw, right?!”
For the past year, Enju had been running all over the world, trying to keep herself hidden. Her team simply needed to win in the meantime. At least, that’s what their plan had been, but shortly before the year was up, Enju had become the last surviving member of the “preserve” faction. From the beginning, the “destroy” faction had been much larger, so fighting them had been an almost impossible task. As the only one left, it was natural that she would be overwhelmed, so she had run away and planned to temporarily disappear.
“Did I say something like that? Maybe I did, but that would only apply if everything was somehow still undecided after a hellish battle. Did you really think I’d roll over so easily and give you the win if you tried to outsmart me and game the system? The ‘destroy’ team did everything they could to infiltrate this place. They pushed themselves to the breaking point, to the point where they were throwing up blood. Don’t you feel bad for them?”
Enju stayed silent. She was desperately trying to think of a way out of this, but there was no way a ten-year-old girl could stand up to such a monster.
“I suppose it’s partly my fault for not making myself clear at the start, so I guess I’ll give you one more chance.”
“A chance?”
“The same as before. I’ll split everyone here into ‘destroy’ and ‘preserve’ factions, and I’ll decide based on whoever wins.”
“What do you mean? There’s no one here who would want to destroy humanity!”
“Maybe, but we still need a way to handle this. So this is how we’re going to do it.”
As he spoke, the Judge gently stroked the head of one of her bodyguards. At his touch, the man’s head exploded, the rest of his body slumping to the floor. A dull light filtered out from his corpse, creating a red “X” in the air above him.
“This is the symbol of the ‘preserve’ team. It basically means ‘wrong.’ If a ‘destroy’ team member is killed, it’ll show a circle. There’s only one of them, so you’ll need to find and kill them. It’ll be a pain if it takes too long, so your time limit is one hour. If the ‘destroy’ team member is still alive by then, I’ll wipe out humanity.”
“W-Wait! I can’t do something like that!”
“Then feel free to relax for your last hour on Earth. Okay, starting now.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the guards finally found they could move again.
“You bastard!”
“I’ll kill you!”
They opened fire, but just as before, their bullets passed harmlessly through the Judge, leaving nothing but ripples in their wake.
“There’s no point, stop it!” Takaoka shouted.
The Judge didn’t move, apparently planning to stay and watch.
“Wh-What do we do, Takaoka?! This wasn’t how it was supposed to go!” Feeling crushed by the weight of her anxiety, Enju clung to her bodyguard.
“First, there’s something we have to test.”
There was a cold look in his eyes. Enju had a bad feeling about it, but there was nothing she could do.
Asaka awoke to the sound of gunfire filling the air. There seemed to be some sort of combat going on, and it was slowly drawing closer.
“Well, it must be those guys...” She couldn’t imagine it was anyone else, given they were the only ones in the village, but that didn’t exactly tell her what was going on. “Yogiri, wake up.”
Yogiri sat up immediately, rubbing his eyes. Both of them were still in their pajamas, half asleep. “What is it?”
“Something’s wrong. There are gunshots outside.”
“Oh, you’re right. Is that a machine gun?” Maybe it was bad for his development, but Yogiri had taken quite a liking to shooter games.
“I don’t want to get involved, but it might be our guests. It seems like they’re fighting the shadow people on their way here.”
“What should we do?”
“Is there somewhere we can hide?”
“Why?” Yogiri asked, as if running away was the strangest idea in the world.
“Well, if at all possible, I don’t want you to kill them. We don’t even know what’s happening yet.”
There was always the possibility the others had run into some sort of trouble and were heading to the estate for help. They had come to the underground village to hide from someone, after all. If whoever they were running from had followed them down here, she didn’t want to just leave them to their fate.
“Okay. But I don’t know where we’d go, either.”
“Maybe there was something in my handbook.”
Asaka retrieved her work manual, looking for instructions to follow in case of an emergency. There was no evacuation plan listed, but it did mention an emergency distress beacon under the kitchen floor.
After a brief search, she located the device in a section of the room she had previously written off as storage. Opening the lid, there was a red button enclosed by a glass cover.
“They actually have something like this? It looks like a self-destruct button.”
The instructions written beside it were to smash the glass and push. By pressing the button, it would send an emergency signal to the surface. At the same time, it would turn on the canopy lights, making it as bright as day outside.
With no other ideas, Asaka gave a shout as she smashed the glass and pressed the button.
The Emergency Distress Signal has been activated. As the surface is unaware of your current condition, please use your judgment to act as the situation dictates.
Just as the recorded message informed them that help would be some time in coming, the gunfire outside became accompanied by the loud sound of things being broken as bullets were fired into the mansion.
Asaka stood up, grabbing a pair of frying pans and handing one to Yogiri.
“Will this stop the bullets?”
“I saw this in a movie once,” Asaka said. She doubted it would work, but figured it was better than doing nothing at all, since they had nothing else that could potentially stop a bullet.
Slowly, they made their way out into the hall. Light was pouring in through numerous holes in the walls, showing that it had turned bright outside just like the emergency recording had said.
“If you’re there, come out!” a rough voice called to them. “You have ten seconds before we use the rocket launcher!”
“What should we do?” Yogiri asked.
“Well, let’s go outside for now.” She would wait to use Yogiri until the last possible moment. If they could talk things out, it was best to do so.
Making Nikori wait in the living room, Asaka and Yogiri stepped outside, using the frying pans to cover their faces.
In the front yard, men in black suits, armed to the teeth with a variety of weapons, were lined up facing them. They held guns ranging from pistols, shotguns, machine guns, and a rocket launcher to bladed weapons like swords and spears. They even had ritual clubs, prayer beads, and talismans that didn’t look like weapons at all.
“Who exactly were they planning on fighting here?” Asaka murmured.
“Enju!” Yogiri called as he saw her standing among the men.
“Do it,” one of the guards ordered. Apparently, they had no intention of talking anything out.
A number of the men aimed their weapons, but the moment they tried to pull the trigger, they fell dead to the ground.
“I can kill the ones that try to kill us, right?” Yogiri asked uneasily. He seemed worried that Asaka would get angry with him after having said she wanted to keep things peaceful.
“Yes, that’s fine,” she replied bluntly, resolving herself. There was no point in beating around the bush now. She turned back to the guards and shouted, “I’m sorry, please wait! Listen to me!” knowing full well it was probably pointless. “We’ve just killed those who tried to attack us. We have that kind of power, so please stop this!”
“So what?!”
The men in suits were quite resolved themselves. Unfazed by the mysterious deaths of their comrades, they moved to continue their attack. One by one, they raised their weapons, and subsequently collapsed.
Killing them all at once would have been easy for Yogiri, but out of consideration for Asaka’s wish to avoid unnecessary harm, he targeted only those who tried to hurt them first.
After a while, silence suddenly fell. It was more than she could count at a glance, but most of the men were now dead. The only ones left were Enju and her three attendants.
At first, they didn’t move. Asaka was trying to think of what to do next when the bodies all began to glow.
“Hey, that’s not your power, right?” Asaka asked.
“No, I wonder what’s going on,” Yogiri replied, clearly as curious as she was.
The lights coming from the bodies were making an “X” above each of them.
“Damn. There’s nothing we can do. We die the moment we try to attack...” Having figured out how it worked, Takaoka muttered in annoyance to himself as he raised a pistol at his companions.
“Stop!” Enju screamed, immediately recognizing his plan, but Takaoka didn’t hesitate. Pulling the trigger, he shot one of the remaining bodyguards. A glowing “X” appeared above the man as he fell. Seeing that, Takaoka promptly shot the other, producing yet another “X.”
“Why...”
“My lady, I’m sorry.” As he spoke, he lifted the gun to his own head, pulling the trigger without delay.
“What on earth?” Asaka was absolutely dumbfounded.
“Takaoka!” Enju screamed, grabbing her bodyguard’s lifeless body. Just like the others, a glowing “X” appeared above his corpse and she began to sob. “No...I’m sick of this...stop...stop it...”
As Asaka tried to figure out what to do, someone new appeared. A boy in a simple white robe strolled through the pile of bodies like they were nothing.
“Wow, what an amazing sense of self-sacrifice! Realizing he couldn’t kill those two, he decided to wipe out his own side in hopes that the target was among them, huh? The loyalty he showed up to the end, to do something like that without hesitation, is most impressive. Three left now. Who do you think is on the other team? Though really, don’t you think trying to kill those two in the first place, when they had nothing to do with any of it, was a mistake?”
“Who are you?” Asaka asked, her confusion growing. There had been no one like this boy among the guests in the village.
“Ah, I guess you were kind of forced into this, so you never heard the rules. I’m the Judge, a program designed to determine whether humanity should be wiped out or not.”
Asaka could only stare wordlessly at his declaration. The words made it sound like he was being intentionally nonsensical, but she couldn’t overlook what he was saying. After all, she knew full well that destroying humanity was possible for someone like Yogiri.
“Enju was part of that judgment program, but she ran here to hide until the time was up instead of taking a stand. I didn’t think that was fair, so I had the trial continue down here.”
“So, what? You’re the reason all this happened?”
“That’s right. I just made a smaller-scale version of the conflict down here, to continue what we were doing up on the surface. Now, Enju. You’re almost out of time. What will it be?”
At the boy’s words, Enju pulled the gun from Takaoka’s hands and pointed it at Yogiri and Asaka.
“Enju, stop it!” Yogiri shouted, on the verge of tears.
Enju wasn’t like the men in suits. As far as Asaka knew, she was the first friend Yogiri had ever had. It was possible he wouldn’t kill her even if she tried to shoot them. Realizing that, Asaka jumped in front of Yogiri to protect him.
Enju’s hands trembled as she held the gun. It wasn’t hard to believe she had never fired one before, and it didn’t look like she’d be able to hit her target with the way she was shaking.
“No...no, no, no...Yogiri’s my friend...I can’t kill him...” she cried, breaking down into sobs again as she dropped the weapon.
“I mean, that’s fine with me. But it means you’ll run out of time and humanity will be destroyed,” the Judge observed, clearly disappointed by her decision. “All right, maybe I’ll give you a hint, then. I didn’t even know those two were here in the first place. I was a bit confused when these guys all grabbed their weapons and ran outside.”
If that was true, it meant that Enju herself was the sole member of the “destroy” team. It really was a sick joke — from the start, there’d been no saving her.
Enju lifted the gun again. Seeing what she was about to do, Asaka leaped towards her. Enju’s words flashed in the back of her mind, and she remembered that touching her would mean her own death, but even that couldn’t slow her down. At least Enju was wearing gloves...they would probably keep her power at bay.
Asaka reached the girl’s side and pushed her over, hurriedly picking up the gun she had knocked from her hands. Jumping recklessly into action without any regard for the future was becoming her modus operandi.
“You!” she yelled at the Judge, enraged. “What the hell are you trying to do here?! What the hell kind of judgment is this?!”
“I honestly don’t care how the judgment is carried out, you know,” the boy said casually. “My intention was to destroy humanity from the start. I just thought I’d give you guys one last chance to change my mind. Of course it was going to be difficult.”
Yogiri stepped forward. “Hey. Give up on this judgment or whatever and go somewhere else.”
Asaka was surprised by his voice. At some point, he had walked up beside her. Though he spoke in a quiet, restrained tone, Asaka could hear a rare emotion lacing those words.
Yogiri was angry.
“Hm? And why should I do anything you tell me to?”
“Okay, then die.”
At Yogiri’s command, the Judge collapsed. The moment he did, something strange started to happen — countless black lines appeared in the air. The lines slowly widened, forming ovals above them. From each, a person with wings and a halo emerged, immediately striking fear into Asaka’s heart.
We are the executors. In accordance with the will of the Final Judgment Program, we shall now begin the erasure of humanity, their words echoed from within her own head.
“All of you, die.”
And with that, the beings calling themselves the executors fell to the ground, never to rise again.
Shortly after the death of the executors, someone calling herself the Arbiter appeared, immediately throwing herself to her hands and knees before them. She must have thought she would die the moment she appeared.
Luckily for her, Yogiri wouldn’t kill someone who was trying so hard to show they were harmless. Aside from the ordinary business suit she was wearing, the woman seemed fairly cordial. She must have chosen her physical form to dispel any sense of hostility.
“If you have something you want to talk about, can you do it with the research staff?” Asaka said, waving her off. The facility’s emergency responders had finally made it down to respond to their distress call, so she passed it all on to them. Things like the destruction of humanity or some Final Judgment Program were above her pay grade.
After spacing out in the corner of the yard for some time, Head Researcher Shiraishi came up to her. “Well, seems things got pretty rough down here.”
“How did it go?”
“We managed to come to an agreement. They’ve decided to repeal their decision to wipe out humanity, and they’ve agreed to erase Enju’s power as well as those of the other Adjudicators.”
“What were they, actually?”
“Disciples of the creator of humanity, or so they say.”
“Are you serious?”
“I have no idea if they’re telling the truth. That’s just what they told us.”
“If we’re talking about the creator of humanity, that would make us like their children, right? Just because you’re the parent doesn’t mean you can kill your kids.”
Regardless of whether this being was responsible for creating the world, thinking it had the right to decide whether they lived or died was just plain arrogance.
“In exchange, they’ve asked Yogiri to stop killing them. Is that okay?” Shiraishi asked, turning to the boy. Normally, he referred to him as ??, but he was hesitant to use that code name in front of Yogiri himself.
“Yeah, I won’t kill them anymore.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure what you’d call it, but Heaven, I guess? Anyway, all of the executors waiting there died. When they saw that, they started to panic.”
“That still sounds bizarre...”
“I wouldn’t take their claims at face value either, but they are clearly some sort of supernatural life form.”
As their conversation came to an end, Asaka looked out across the yard. The bodies were all being removed, and repairs to the mansion were now underway.
“It really isn’t a good idea to let people come down here,” she said.
“But don’t you think humanity’s been saved only because they came down here?”
“Don’t you think if they tried to wipe out humanity for real, Yogiri would eventually get them anyway?”
“I guess we won’t know that until it happens. All right, I should get going.” With that, Shiraishi left them behind.
“Is Enju okay?” Yogiri murmured. After all that had happened, the girl had ended up passing out, so she had been taken to a hospital on the surface.
“She wasn’t injured, so I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Asaka replied lightly. Considering the day’s events, Enju’s mental health was a much greater concern, but there was no point in worrying him.
“Will she come back to play again?” His face showed a mixture of hope and anxiety.
“Maybe once she’s feeling better.” Asaka could only hope that such a thing would be possible.
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