Black Bullet, Vol. 1: Those Who Would Be Gods (7 page)

But now, Rentaro loved her smiles and even how she sometimes seemed too mature for her age. Of course, he loved her as a much-younger sister—or even, if he were bragging, as his own daughter.

“All done, Enju,” he said gently.

The girl’s wet eyes opened slowly, and her rosy, glossy lips opened slowly as if cramped. For some reason, Rentaro felt guilty and looked down in a hurry.

“What’s wrong, Rentaro?” she asked.

“I-it’s nothing!” He would never say it out loud, but Enju had grown very pretty recently. If Kisara were a beauty with a dark side, then Enju was her complete opposite.

“All right. We’re done with our work for the day. We’re done with dinner. Now that we’re full, there’s only one thing left to do.”

Enju looked embarrassed for a second and looked downward, spreading her arms and smiling as if she would accept anything that was done to her.

“Yup, good night.” Rentaro pulled the string of the light twice, pulled the blanket over himself, and lay down. After a while, he suffered a blow to the crown of his head that made his skull ring.

“Owwwww!” he groaned.

“Why are you ignoring me?!” shouted Enju. “When a lady makes a demand, it is a gentleman’s duty to quietly go along with what she wants.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What lady are you talking about? You’re a ten-year-old child! Save the sleep talking for when you’re actually asleep!”

“Then let me ask you this: What part of me is
not
a lady?” Enju stuck her chest out as far as she could.

“Hah, first of all, a lady is modest and prudent,” said Rentaro. “And your chest is completely flat.”

“What?!” She turned red as she balled up her fists, shaking. “Th-they will keep growing!”

“Enju, it’s important for a person to know when to give up.”

“It’s Kisara’s fault. She stole the part of my boobs that were still getting ready to grow!”

“Kisara has no such weird, goblinlike ability. I can guarantee that from when we used to bathe together as kids.” When he said that, he was surprised at his own perverted statement.

“Argh! I shouldn’t have bought a computer! I should’ve saved up to pay for breast implants in the future.”

Rentaro didn’t like the idea of an elementary school girl thinking about breast implants.

Enju pushed herself up. “However! There are unfortunate men like Rentaro in this world who are unable to love adult women. ‘Big brother, pwease give me a shot of love!’ That’s the kind of stuff you like, isn’t it? Sumire told me, you pervert.”

His head started to hurt, and he pressed his temples. “Please, don’t tempt me with your hellish sorcery. Anyway, where do you keep learning all those words?”

Enju puffed out her chest haughtily. “I learned them from my friend, Gookle.”

“That person’s evil! How many times do I have to tell you not to hang around with Gookle?!”

“Who cares? Let’s just get married. Let’s get married today! I will accept all of your perverted desires!”

On top of making him out to have a Lolita complex, she’d decided that he had perverted desires, and thumped around repeatedly, jumping so that it echoed into the apartment below them. Their downstairs neighbor, woken up by the noise, started to bang angrily on the ceiling with a bamboo stick, and the situation became extremely confused.

Rentaro held his head. If it weren’t for this, she’d be cute. Tilting his head to look at the clock, he sighed and wondered what time he would get to sleep tonight.

Enju blushed as she turned her head sharply in his direction. “That’s enough. I will take off my clothes.”

“Leave. Them. On!”

Shrinking away from the noisily chirping sparrows outside, Rentaro looked in the mirror at the face of a young man who looked like he didn’t want to do anything. There were circles under his half-closed, twitching eyes from lack of sleep, and more than an unfortunate face, it looked like the face of a villain. Fixing the collar on the black suit that was his uniform, he tied his necktie. For some reason, his neck felt itchy.

I don’t want to go to school
, he thought from the bottom of his heart.

The TV had been left on and was showing the day’s horoscope. Taurus had the worst luck with money, as usual. To make matters worse, Taurus had bad health today, too. Hopefully the horoscope was wrong.

Turning off the shrilly whistling kettle, he poured hot water into his cup of instant coffee and let himself be enveloped in the aromatic fragrance of morning, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.

Just then, the door to the entrance opened with a violent force. “Rentaro, the landlady said she’d lend us a bike!” said Enju, who flew in, her spirits high despite the early hour.

Yesterday, he had abandoned his bike near the scene of the incident, so even though it was regrettable, he probably would have been excused for being late. But now his excuse to rest longer was going away. He had a contract with the student council president and couldn’t skip school without a good reason.

He finished off his coffee and took the remote to look for a better channel. Just as he was about to turn off the TV, a reporter shouted, “Look at this!” and Rentaro and Enju turned their attention to the screen without thinking.

The young reporter gripped the microphone firmly in excitement, standing in front of the grand palace of Tokyo’s First District. Anyone would have immediately recognized the distinctive paved road and beautifully pruned trees.

Just then, the camera cut to a girl dressed in white on a balcony. Wearing layer upon layer of pure white fabric as thin as Japanese paper, her head was covered with a veil of the same material, making it seem like a wedding dress. Her clothes looked like a deep covering of heavy snowfall.

Her skin, and even the hair on her head, was white.

“Lady Seitenshi…”

His own voice shook as if his soul were leaving his body with the words.

Ten years ago, Japan had split into five areas. She was the ruler of one of those: Tokyo Area. She was the third Seitenshi, and had been installed in the position after the death of the previous Seitenshi. With her otherworldly beauty and shrewdness that was not just for show, this girl had far more support than the first and second famously bold and heroic Seitenshi.

“Rentaro, look.” Enju was pointing at the stern-faced seventy-year-old man standing next to the smiling girl. With his tall, dignified body dressed in formal Japanese
hakama
, from his build, he could have been part of the Secret Service.

“Damn, it’s the old man, huh?” said Rentaro.

Kikunojo Tendo, the Seitenshi’s aide, managed all of her support. Because Seitenshi was a hereditary position, in Tokyo Area, after they lost the war, that aide position became the political post with the greatest authority. That old man had made the Tendo family what it was.

Not really paying attention to what the reporter was so excitedly saying, Rentaro muttered absentmindedly, “No one has ever implemented a government where there’s no ruling class, huh?”

“Oh, really? By the way, won’t you be late?”

“Hmm? Oh!” When he looked at the clock on the top right-hand corner of the screen, the time it displayed gave him a start.

As an ordinary student and regular civil security agency employee, he had nothing to do with the government types, and he didn’t like the guys in positions of power, anyway. He turned off the TV and urged Enju outside.

“Let’s go!” he said to her.

She grabbed onto Rentaro’s waist, stuck her legs out from the luggage seat and shouted energetically. It was the pose she called the “Roman Holiday seat.”

The bike the landlady lent them was in pretty bad shape. The brakes hadn’t been oiled, and let out an ear-piercing sound every time he used them, and the spokes were so rusted that pieces of oxidation fell off as he pedaled. He wondered how many years this antique had been left unused in the shed.

But those things were soon forgotten once he started pedaling. As he strained to put strength into his feet on the pedals, he pushed comfortably through the fresh morning air. Enju gave a cheerful greeting to the students and men in business suits they occasionally passed. If he looked hard enough, he could see the Monoliths in the distance, brightly reflecting the sun’s rays. Underneath the trees lining the street that were sparkling with morning dew, the sunlight filtering through the trees changed shape and blinked like a kaleidoscope.

He felt strange.

Ten years ago, material civilization was at the brink of being destroyed due to the invasion of the Gastrea, and a vast number of people were killed or turned into monsters. At that time, the only expressions on people’s faces had been despair and loathing that had no outlet. It had only been ten years. Even so, it had been ten years.

Rentaro closed his eyes and breathed the scent of spring deeply into his lungs. Hearing the bell of a departing streetcar in the distance, emotions welled up from the bottom of his heart.

Just as Enju was clumsily shouting, “Rome! By all means, Rome” as Princess Ann, Enju’s school, Magata Elementary School, came into view. “All right,” she said. “I will now be zealous in my studies. We must part for a while, but don’t cry while I’m gone.” Enju made her parting farewell with her hand stretched out gallantly.

Looking at Magata High School two buildings down, Rentaro sighed in exasperation. “C’mon, Enju. We’re only going to be separated for a few hours. Don’t you think that’s a little too dramatic?”

“If I had my way, we would be together twenty-four hours a day. Rentaro, won’t you transfer to my class? I mean, you are not that intelligent, right? You could take the opportunity to start over from elementary school.”

“You say the craziest things out of the blue. Be kind to my pride.”

“Hmph,” she sulked. “Then be held back and wait for me for six years until I become a second-year in high school. That is my final compromise. Take it or leave it.”

“Being a twenty-three-year-old high school student is wrong in a lot of ways.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

“I do. Anyway, if I get held back that much, they’d kick me out.”

“How dare they?! I want to be in the same class as Rentaro…!”

Seeing the female students around giggling as they passed, Rentaro felt the heat go to his cheeks as he shrugged his shoulders.

“F-fine, I get it. By the way, Enju, inside the school—”

As if knowing what he was going to say next, Enju shook her head slightly and finished his sentence for him. “I know already. In order to hide the fact that I’m one of the Cursed Children, I must act with the utmost consideration inside the classroom.”

Only when she was saying things like this did Enju show her dead, cold eyes. Rentaro uncomfortably shifted his gaze. “All right… That’s fine, then… Sorry.”

“Oh, good morning, Enju!” A cheerful voice interrupted from the side. Rentaro saw a girl about Enju’s age with frizzy hair.

“Good day to you, Mai. I’m glad you look in good health.”

“You’re talking funny, as usual,” said the girl. “By the way, did you watch
Tenchu Girls
yesterday?”

“Of course. Tenchu Black’s nihilism where one could not tell if she was friend or foe was excellent, as expected.”

She was probably a classmate. Once the girls started talking about the cartoon, they didn’t spare another glance for Rentaro. Even though Enju’s attention was taken away from him in a second, and he was relegated to outside the mosquito net, watching the two talk, his face broke into an easy smile. He felt dumb for worrying even for a moment about her school life. “Well, I’m going now, Enju.”

Before she could say anything, he turned his back and straddled the bike. He kept going until he reached the bike stand of Magata High School two buildings over. The bell signaling the start of school rang as he parked the bike and put on the U-shaped lock.

Rentaro clicked his tongue. He was late. Looking up at the school with an unambitious expression on his face, he half-seriously considered going home. Instead, he hooked his bag on his back and rounded his shoulders, walking slowly into the school. It was the beginning of another boring day.

He slept through Japanese class, and during math class, he was called on three times, but the teacher gave up after being ignored all three times. During break time, the rodentlike girl who was the class president approached him nervously trying to get a survey that had been completed by everyone but him, but he ignored her, too, and she left, looking like she was about to cry.

Some meddlesome girl who looked like her protector came to say, “Hey, don’t you think you were a little mean?” but he ignored her, too. “Fine, do what you want, idiot!” she said, and went back to the circle of girls.

Rentaro could hear someone saying, “Is that guy even trying? Why is he even here?”

Rentaro looked out the window at the faraway Monoliths with a yawn.

Right around when fourth period ended, the phone in his breast pocket started to vibrate.
Who’s calling me at this time of day?
he thought as he rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked at the screen. Looking wearily at the caller’s name, he waited another ten rings for the caller to hang up, but lost to the persistent ringing of the phone and
pushed the
TALK
button. “What do you want at this time of day…President?”

“Don’t call me President when we’re not working. Well, I’m calling you about work, though.” From the phone’s speaker, he could hear Kisara’s voice as clear as a bell.

“Is it about the case from yesterday?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you more details in the car. Anyway, just come with me to the Ministry of Defense for now.”

“Huh?” He thought he heard wrong. Wasn’t the Ministry of Defense responsible for Japan’s national defense? Huh? “H-hey, what’re you talking about…?”

“Look out the window.”

Hunching, he did as he was told and went over by the window. When he did, he saw a jet-black limousine parked in front of the school gates and his breath caught. “Damn it, all right, I’m going.”

“Idiot. You’re late. I’m behind you.”

“Huh…? Woah!” Taken aback, he let out a pathetic shout without thinking. Behind him was someone so beautiful it was bad for the heart when she appeared suddenly. He could tell that the other people in his class were also confused at the sudden appearance of someone from another school.