The Destruction of the World by Fire (11 page)

But it was too late. Next to him, Enju was frozen with both eyes open wide.

Damn it
. Rentaro leaned in all too quickly to check if the pair was breathing and find a pulse. Using his thumb and forefinger, he even forced their eyelids open to check their pupils.

Rentaro closed his eyes. Finally, he looked at Enju and shook his head. “It’s no use, they’re dead.”

As Rentaro stood and looked over the scene of the murder again, there was no way he could not be horrified. There was blood splattered everywhere. He could even see blood on the roof of a tent ten meters away.

The dead piled on top of each other were an Initiator and a Promoter. Rentaro and Enju had both seen the two victims before.

“Rentaro, are not these people…?” Enju started.

“Yeah, there’s no doubt,” said Rentaro. “They’re the heavily armored pair you were going to talk to first, Enju.” They seemed unused to fighting, but because they were wearing equipment that
emphasized defense, Rentaro had never thought that they would be killed in a scuffle with other civil officers. But—

The Promoter’s face was frozen in an expression more fearful than Rentaro could have imagined, and his eyes were wide open. The iron-filled stink of blood seemed to get stronger as it followed his nostrils around, and he had to shoo away the swarms of black flies that came at them.

Rentaro swallowed his feeling of not wanting to touch the dead body again and bent over to investigate once more. The Promoter’s ceramic plate armor—which looked to be the thickness of Type IIIA++ based on the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) standards for the ballistic resistance of body armor—was cut clean in two, and he had a long horizontal slash across his stomach. The Initiator lost her life from a single diagonal slash that started near her neck.

What sword was it that created this nightmare? Rentaro stood and looked around at his surroundings. “Is there anyone who saw what happened?”

“C-could you be Rentaro Satomi?” A small, skinny man stepped forward, trembling with fear.

Rentaro didn’t respond right away. “What if I am?”

“Uh… Y-you… Never mind, it was my mistake. Forget about it.”

“Huh? What do you want?”

“I said, forget about it!” the man said, sounding irritated, and then he turned and left before Rentaro could stop him.

Rentaro felt more and more like he didn’t know what was going on. What was with that reaction? Why was
his
name important?

“Heeeey, there’s a fight over here, too!” a loud voice yelled suddenly, and all the civil officers gathered around Rentaro turned in that direction. The civil officers moved forward as one.

“Rentaro!” Enju shouted.

“Yeah, let’s go, too. It could be the guy who did this.” Rentaro asked a nearby shop owner to take care of the aftermath of the incident and pushed down his impatient feelings as he went over to where the voice was.

There was a crowd gathered at a meadow a little ways away from the market street. The crowd was more spread out than the donut-shaped crowd from earlier, so he didn’t have to push through this time. He made his way easily to a spot where he could see what was transpiring.

The battle had not even begun yet. But seeing two pairs facing off, Rentaro gulped involuntarily.

What’s going
on
?

Slightly closer to Rentaro was a short and stout giant with a Mohawk. Next to him was an Initiator with old eyes who was accompanying him. The Promoter in the pair farther away from him was tall and slender, wearing a long coat with a visor above his eyes. The Initiator next to him was wearing a skirt with a long jacket and a pointed black hat with a wide brim. She seemed to be aware of the eyes on her and cowered, moving restlessly.

Looking at the red-faced man with the Mohawk, Rentaro frowned. It looked like there was alcohol in him. “Hey, you beanpole. Do you know who I am? I’ve robbed and murdered twelve people. I’ve been sentenced to death in three different countries. I’m the wanted man, Brick Nigel,” the man with the Mohawk shouted in a vulgar, thick voice and waved his Abakan assault rifle around.

Facing him, the man with the visor and coat shook his head calmly. “It’s not like I said you were weak. I’m sure you’re strong.”

“Then, why won’t you drink my liquor?!”

“I’m under no obligation to drink with you.”

Angrily, the Mohawk’s veins popped. He jerked his chin at the Initiator by his side, and the Initiator wordlessly twisted her body as she raised a spear. It was a throwing javelin.

Something tugged on Rentaro’s sleeve. It was Enju, looking uneasy. “Why has no one noticed, Rentaro?”

Rentaro realized what she was trying to say and looked at her in wonder. “You’ve noticed?”

“Of course I have. There is too big a difference in skill in this fight!”

In front of him, in the midst of a high tide of nervousness and wild enthusiasm, the man with the visor and coat narrowed his eyes. “Give it up. There is no glory or pride to be had in this fight. It’ll be boring whether you win or lose.”

But these words only served to fan Mohawk’s flames of wrath. “Shuuuuuuuttttt uuuuuppppp! Heeeeeyyyyy!” He sighted the Abakan and set it to full auto, ready to gouge holes in the grass and turn the other pair into Swiss cheese.

But just before he could, his two opponents disappeared.

Mohawk looked up. Rentaro followed his gaze and was taken aback. The Initiator had lent the Promoter a shoulder, and the two were flying high in the sky. Just then, the Initiator cut her partner loose, and the man in the coat fell ten meters in front of the enemy girl.

Rentaro was astonished. The Promoter was going to face off against the Initiator? No way. “Look—”

—out!
Before he could finish, a number of things happened.

The girl with the javelin saw her chance and started to run up, allowing her body to turn with centrifugal force as she readied her throw. But before the thrust, her cells expanded with a popping sound. By the time Rentaro realized that she was an Initiator with specialized muscle strength, it was too late. She took one last step, breaking the ground apart and throwing her javelin at great speed.

The javelin chasing the speed of sound spiraled with a roaring wind, heading straight for its target to turn the man in the coat into smithereens. There was no reason to doubt that, so when the man did the unthinkable and stretched an arm out in front of him to parry, Rentaro’s eyes widened.

Immediately afterward, the sound of an explosion rang out, and the tip of the javelin clashed with the man’s arm. There, Rentaro saw something he found hard to believe: The javelin that had been going as fast as a cannonball changed its course slightly, and the next instant, it flew in a completely different direction. It had been deflected successfully.

Rentaro wondered how the girl felt when she saw that, but he lost his chance to ask her. Between the girl who fell forward after throwing the javelin and the man in the coat who used as little movement as possible to deflect it, there was way too big a difference in how long their moves put them out of commission.

In no time, the man had closed in on the girl, the hem of his long coat fluttering in the air as he filled the girl’s line of sight. The next instant, there was a heavy thud as he slammed the heel of his hand into her chin.

The threatening regenerative abilities of Initiators had just two weak points. This meant that of the two, the heart and the brain, he had shaken up the brain, giving her a concussion in the blink of an eye—and making her pass out.

There was no time to sigh in admiration of his amazing skill, though. The other fight was also nearing its end. The girl in the hat moved to draw the gunfire of Mohawk, who was firing blindly as he swung his rifle back and forth. The instant the gun ran out of bullets, the girl kicked off the ground and engaged with the man. Instantly, the man’s rifle was cut to pieces and dropped to the ground. Mohawk was dumbfounded and fell to his knees, looking up with froth spewing from his mouth as he too passed out.

It was so spellbinding that for a second the entire place was silent. The Initiator looked shyly at the ground, and as she gave an extremely polite bow to the audience, cheers exploded.

It was like a fight between a child and an adult. In contrast to the Mohawk man and his partner, who had been going for the man in the coat as a kill from the start, the man in the coat and his Initiator aimed for the much more difficult result of putting their opponents out of commission, and on top of that, they succeeded. In addition, the girl in the hat was obviously an Initiator of the same type as Enju with specialized speed.

“Enju, that girl in the hat. What did she do when she defeated the Mohawk?” It had happened too fast for Rentaro to catch with his kinetic vision.

“It was probably her nails,” said Enju.

“Nails?”

“Yes. Her nails grew extremely long in an instant and then shrunk again.”

Which also narrowed down which Gastrea factor she had. Rentaro’s eyes were both staring at the man receiving applause from the middle of the circle. There was no doubt about what he was seeing anymore.

Rentaro walked into the middle of the ring and called out, “Hey!” to the team’s back. When the man turned and saw who it was, his expression turned grim. He walked over to Rentaro silently.

“R-Rentaro!” Enju’s panicked voice made a commotion behind him, but he didn’t halt his advance.

The instant they were close enough for their fists to touch, Rentaro’s right hand and the man in the coat’s right arm were brought up at the same time. The people around them expected tragedy and gulped, but the next instant, Rentaro and the man’s arms locked in joy at their reunion.

“Huh?” Enju and the Initiator in the hat both lifted their voices at the same.

Rentaro looked over his fellow Promoter. There was no strength in the man’s eyes, and it seemed like he was going to start laughing awkwardly. “The move that made the Initiator with the throwing javelin faint was Sanda Tama Kirin, wasn’t it? You haven’t gotten weaker at all, have you, Shoma, bro?”

“It’s been too long, Satomi. I’ve heard rumors about what you’ve been doing. Have you been working hard?” This man had never been one to show his emotions, but even his lips relaxed slightly at this.

Enju, who had come up alongside Rentaro, had her mouth gaping open and her eyes open wide.

Rentaro put his arm around the man’s shoulders and looked at Enju. “Let me introduce you, Enju. This is the eighth
dan
of the Tendo Martial Arts, Shoma Nagisawa. He’s my senior in the Tendo Style.”

In a squad tent wide enough for ten people to sleep, one that had tent flaps on four sides and a roof, it was spacious enough to give a slight sense of freedom. It was a world of difference from the old tent they had brought with them. Rentaro stood in the middle of the space and gave a big stretch. He was finally recognized as an adjuvant; there was no way he wasn’t happy. He had just gone back to the registration booth again and told them that he had the minimum six officers required and officially completed the adjuvant registration.

Shoma had also wanted to team up with Rentaro, and happened to be looking for him to do so; Rentaro was moved by the coincidence. However, at the same time, someone as strong as Shoma would have been in great demand, so Rentaro had asked him, “Why did you want to join my team?”

“Ever since I heard rumors that you had defeated the Scorpion, I was thinking that I wanted to fight by your side someday. I might be unworthy, but I thought at least the strength of an eighth
dan
Tendo Martial Artist had to be of use in some way. Let’s work together again like we did in the dojo in the past. Let me in on your conspiracy, too.” It was inevitable after this was said to him.

The girl in the pointy hat had also introduced herself. Her name was Midori Fuse, and she was a Model Cat Initiator. She was a conspicuous speed specialist and also had the ability to retract her nails. It was pretty much as Rentaro had expected.

“Oh, this is pretty nice!
Viva
freedom!”

Turning around toward the voice, Rentaro saw Tamaki coming in late, followed by a slightly shy Yuzuki, who was looking down. Beyond them was Shoma, with Midori hiding behind him, followed by Enju.

“It’s like a secret hideout!” announced Enju excitedly. Rentaro chided her to sit down, and everyone followed suit, making a loose circle.

Tamaki came to sit cross-legged and cheerfully slapped his knee. “All right! Now that we’ve got six people in our adjuvant, let’s go around and do some simple introductions—”

“Wait, before we do that, there’s something I’d like to ask,” Shoma interrupted. Shoma looked at Rentaro with enigmatic eyes. It was the sort of thing that someone who had not known him for very long might have misunderstood, thinking Shoma had contempt for them based on not being able to see his emotions or hear the intonation in his voice.

“Of course, you’re the one who gathered the members, so you should be the leader of our squad, Satomi. It’s based on that that I want to ask—are you planning on fighting with the six of us? Or do you still intend to gather more?”

Rentaro’s eyes met Enju’s, and then he conferred to Shoma his earlier plan to have five teams with ten people total.

Tamaki put his chin on his elbow and said indifferently, “Oh? Two more pairs, huh?”

“No, one more pair.”

Suddenly, a dignified female voice rang out through the tent, and everyone looked in its direction. Rentaro was taken aback and rose to his feet reflexively. He did not expect the people standing there at all.

Standing in the red light of the setting sun at the entrance of the tent were Kisara in her black sailor school uniform and Tina with her blond hair tied up, sparkling in the evening sunlight. Kisara suddenly flipped her black hair and quickly stepped inside, and before Rentaro could open his mouth, she quietly went to the middle of the circle and knelt formally. The sweet fragrance of Kisara’s hair spread gently throughout the tent.

Kisara quickly raised the black scabbard of the murderous blade Yukikage and prepared to draw it with a clear ringing sound. “Tendo Style swordswoman, Promoter Kisara Tendo, and NEXT-enhanced sniper, Initiator Tina Sprout. The two abovementioned persons have come to pay a visit to join Rentaro Satomi’s adjuvant.”

“Huh?” Rentaro raised his voice hysterically. Sticking out one hand and saying, “Hold on, time out,” he put his other hand to his temple and desperately fought against a headache. “Wait! W-wait a minute. What do you mean, Promoter and Initiator?! N-no, more important, isn’t Tina’s rank still revoked because of her punishment?”

“I talked over Tina’s rank revocation directly with the Lady Seitenshi to have her retract the punishment. Right now, we’re at a critical moment that will determine if Tokyo Area survives or not, so honestly, they’re in a situation where they’ll take any help they can get, you know? I thought if we negotiated well, we’d be able to get Tina’s punishment taken away, and it went just as I expected.”

Then, what Kisara had just said was neither a joke nor a misunderstanding…

Kisara chuckled. “That’s how it is. I just finished registering with the International Initiator Supervision Organization. Tina and I will start at an IP Rank of 9200. Tina’s in a new pair, so she’ll temporarily have a huge drop in rank, but I’m sure her actual ability is a little higher.”

It wasn’t just “a little.” The sniper with the ingenious plan who once fought Rentaro had achieved an IP Rank of 98 on her own without taking into account the combat ability of her partner, Ain Rand. Adding a devilish swordswoman who was a Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing initiate as a Promoter would mean their actual combat ability was…

Realizing that he was getting overwhelmed, Rentaro quickly regained his senses and said, “Come here for a sec,” and pulled Kisara into a corner of the tent. In an irritated voice, Rentaro said, “Kisara, you can’t do this. You should think about yourself a little. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten why you were relegated to doing office work?”

Kisara sulked and pouted, saying, “If you’re talking about my dialysis treatment, I already went today. And even while we’re fighting, I’ll go when I get a chance.” Kisara stopped talking for a moment and put both hands on her hips, glaring determinedly
at Rentaro. “So, Satomi, let me join your adjuvant, too. This is an order from your boss.”

“Of course I can’t do that! What if something were to happen to you? Do you know how I would feel—”

She cut him off. “Why can’t you realize that I feel the same way?”

“Huh?”

“When you’re in danger, all I can do is pray. I don’t want that.”

Rentaro was dumbfounded, taken completely off guard.

Kisara straightened and bore her gaze into him. “Please, Satomi. If I start to drag you down, you can abandon me.”

He couldn’t win. Rentaro closed his eyes, exhaled from his nose, and put both hands on Kisara’s shoulders. “I won’t let that happen. I’ll protect you, Kisara. So don’t worry.”

“S-Satomi…?” Kisara’s cheeks turned bright red, and she suddenly bent forward and slumped her shoulders. “Jeez, what are you saying such embarrassing things for, idiot…… Hey…shoulders…they hurt… Don’t…push me…into the…tent… Jeez, you idiot.”

Rentaro’s heart pounded at the rare sight of an innocent Kisara. “K-K-Kisara! I, a-actually, I have always… Huh?”

Just then, there was a discreet cough from next to them, and when Rentaro slid his gaze to it, he saw Tina looking sullen, narrowing her eyes ill-humoredly, saying, “Excuse me,” and looking pointedly toward the center of the tent.

Feeling eyes on him, Rentaro suddenly came back to his senses and realized that there were five pairs of eyes staring at them. Rentaro and Kisara separated hurriedly, both of their cheeks turning red as they cleared their throats and went back to the circle in the middle of the tent.

“Um… So, well, uh… Anyway, we have some new teammates, Kisara Tendo and Tina Sprout.” Rentaro pushed the two of them forward softly.

“My name is Tina Sprout. I look forward to working with you,” said Tina.

“I’m Kisara Tendo. By the way, I’m also Satomi here’s boss. I’m counting on you all,” added Kisara.

“It’s been a while, Kisara,” finished Shoma.

At first, Kisara narrowed her eyes at his gentle voice, but her suspicion soon turned to surprise. “No way. Shoma?!”

“Anyway, you’re my disciple senior, so is it bad that I addressed you casually by your first name?”

Kisara waved her hand in front of her face. “It’s fine, we’ve known each other for a long time. Wow, this takes me back.” However, then Kisara shifted her gaze and lowered her tone of voice. “Hey, Shoma, why did you quit the dojo suddenly? We were really worried, you know. Now that I think about it, why are you suddenly a civil officer now…?”

Rentaro felt bad but casually backed up Kisara, adding, “I was surprised, too.” Shoma didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about the past, but it had been a shock when Shoma, who the master had his eye on, suddenly quit the dojo, and Rentaro would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about how Shoma ended up becoming a civil officer.

“I wasn’t cut out for it,” Shoma said. “That’s all it was.”

Rentaro’s and Kisara’s eyes met. “Sorry, Shoma, bro,” said Rentaro.

“It’s fine.” Shoma said only that, resolutely, forcing the conversation to a close.

Rentaro deeply regretted probing. Within the extraordinary prodigy that Rentaro and Kisara had once been jealous of spread a dark despair. However, there was one more thing Rentaro had to ask him. “The pair that was cut down on the street—was that your doing, Shoma?”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

Rentaro sighed with relief and rubbed his chest, shaking his head. “Never mind, don’t worry about it.” Then, suddenly shifting his gaze toward Tamaki, he saw that Tamaki was staring at Kisara, his mouth gaping open.

Yuzuki looked worried and poked Tamaki in the ribs. “What’s the matter, Tamaki?”

“……Yuzuki, it’s a goddess. My goddess is here,” he muttered.

His partner frowned. “Um, Tamaki…is your head feeling okay?”

Suddenly, Tamaki sprang up and went with amazing speed to kneel in front of Kisara. “So lovely, so dignified, so beautiful! On top of that, you’re the boss of the civil officer who defeated the Scorpion. Please, let me call you my angel!”

Kisara tossed her hair and put her hands on her hips, saying haughtily, “It would be problematic for you to call me that.”

“Then at least let me call you ‘ma’am’!”

“Well, I guess that would be okay…”

Tamaki smiled complacently and rubbed his hands together. “Ma’am, shall I massage your shoulders? Or would you like me to prepare a chair for you?”

“Well, I’m hungry, so go buy me some melon bread. Oh, I only like the ones with hard cookie crusts.”

“Gladly!” Tamaki looked like he was being repelled as he flew out of the tent at full speed, and his back looked small in no time.

Rentaro looked disgustedly at Kisara, but Kisara was beaming as she put her palms together in front of her chest. “Look, look, Satomi! I’ve found a new wallet!” Kisara said it with a smile, carefree.

Rentaro scratched his head vigorously, and then put his hands together and gathered everyone’s attention. “Since we have a lot of new faces, I think some introductions are in order.”

When Tamaki returned happily with a piece of melon bread in one hand, they quietly started the introductions. It probably came as a surprise to no one that Tamaki, who liked being the center of attention more than anyone, was most eager to go first.

The chain saws that were powered by small motors embedded in his gloves and shoes were received most unfavorably by their teammates.

Enju covered her ears and shouted, “They’re too loud!”

And Shoma spat, “These are illogical weapons,” and promptly lost interest.

Dejected, Tamaki drew the Mateba gun from his hip and shouted, “This is my
big Magnum
!” This time, the squad of female soldiers threw rocks at him. His little sister, Yuzuki, turned red with embarrassment and covered her face with both hands.

Next was Yuzuki. She went outside and found two ordinary beech trees, bridging the tops with invisible threads and crossing easily from one side to the other. With cheers and applause erupting around her, the simple-minded Yuzuki bragged, “Well, this is what you get when you mess with me,” and was soon displaying the peak of her ability.

“Hey, we can see your underwear from down here,” Rentaro pointed out. The next instant, there was a high-speed kick that passed through where his neck had just been, and it gave him goose bumps down his spine.

Yuzuki bared her teeth. “Die, you pervert! Die, you Lolita-complex bastard!” flared up at him. If Enju hadn’t practically pinned Yuzuki’s arms to her sides, Rentaro would have been honest to goodness killed.

Real spiders exuded silk from places called spinnerets, but it looked like Yuzuki could exude silk from the tips of her fingers on both hands. A spider’s spinneret was located around where the buttocks or urethra of a human were. As a biology maniac, he was tempted to ask, “Can you produce silk from your anus?” but he had to be prepared to lose his life for that privilege.

Next, it was his turn. He didn’t want to, but he could not hide his abilities from the teammates he would soon be fighting with side by side, so he gave a simple demonstration of what his artificial eye could do and finished quickly. Even with just that, Tamaki, Yuzuki, and Midori, who were seeing it for the first time, were all astounded.

Next was Enju, who stuck out her chest cheerfully and said,
“It is my turn at last.” They went outside, and Enju pointed at a single cedar tree standing about five hundred meters away and then released her power. She touched the cedar and came back in seconds.

“She’s even faster than me…” Midori sighed, looking crestfallen.

Enju and Yuzuki, who seemed to have similar personalities to begin with, hit it off almost immediately. Enju and Tina were also friends already, and so were Tina and Yuzuki, so the three of them became a trio in the blink of an eye.

The problem was the remaining Initiator. In short, Midori’s self-introduction was a fracas. Midori was nervous and stiff as she made her way to the front and bowed deeply. “M-m-my name is Midori Fuse. I-I am a Model Cat Initiator, and my special ability is scent divination!”

Scent divination?

“And my IP Rank with Shoma is 970.”

There were sighs of awe from those present. When they were able to overpower their combat opponents without killing them, Rentaro already kind of suspected a high rank, but it was amazing that they were ranked within the top thousand.