The Igniter

by Reki Kawahara

  “One hundred forty-eight horsepower,” she replied.

  “What’s its top speed?!”

  “Mach 0.7,” she replied.

  “No way!” all of the kids shouted at once.

  It was at that moment that the light turned green, and after waving to the kids, Yumiko slowly set the motorcycle in motion.

  After Yumiko took a right turn under the highway bridge and started speeding off down the lane, Minoru felt his shoulders drop as he relaxed and said, “So even you make jokes sometimes, huh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What? I mean with the kids just a second ago…,” responded Minoru.

  “I was being completely serious when I answered them. Also, isn’t there something else that you should have asked me already?” asked Yumiko.

  “Huh? …Oh, you mean that,” said Minoru—perhaps because his feelings had finally caught up with the current state of things, a doubt he had left in the back of his mind resurfaced.

  “Um… Why did you come to pick me up?” he asked.

  “Igniter has made a move,” Yumiko replied.

  “What?!”

  “Right now, DD and Oli-V are trailing him in a car. We’re supposed to head him off.”

  Minoru felt his hands that were wrapped around Yumiko go sweaty, and he asked in a hoarse voice, “Does that mean we’re…heading into battle?”

  “Yes,” Yumiko replied immediately with force in her voice, and Minoru flashed back to that room at SFD Headquarters where Sanae Ikoma lay sleeping.

  “…Understood,” Minoru replied. But getting just that one word out of his mouth took an enormous amount of effort.

  Of course, this was not the first time Minoru would be fighting a red Third Eye host, also known as a Ruby Eye. Minoru had fought twice against Biter, who had attacked Tomomi Minowa and kidnapped his adoptive sister, Norie. However, both of those incidents were when he was passively caught up in a battle.

  This time, though, as a member of the SFD, a black Third Eye host, and a Jet Eye, he was going to proactively attack a Ruby Eye and disable him. That is what Minoru now was going to do of his own volition. He was going to fight in a real life-and-death battle, with someone whose face and real name he did not know.

  Just then, as if in an effort to cut off Minoru’s cowardice, Yumiko flipped the turn signal on the large motorcycle. She drove the motorcycle through the entrance to the expressway headed for Tokyo, through the underground ETC gate, accelerating to eighty kilometers an hour through the tunnel.

  I suppose, given that we are technically an organization under the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, Yumiko really does carefully obey the speed limit, huh, Minoru thought, even as his heart was racing given that this was the first time he had ever ridden at such speeds on a big sport bike.

  But suddenly after, from above the trunk compartment on the back of the bike, right behind Minoru, rang a high-pitched siren sound. As Minoru jerked his head behind himself, he saw red flashing lights on both sides of the trunk compartment case.

  “Wh-what is that?!” yelled Minoru.

  “It’s a siren and red emergency lights,” Yumiko replied.

  “D-did you just stick one on the motorcycle?” asked Minoru.

  “Of course not. This is a proper siren obtained with the permission of the Public Safety Committee, according to Article 13 of the Enforcement Ordinance of the Road Traffic Act.”

  “And what do you plan on doing with this?!” Minoru yelled back.

  “What do you think? This is dangerous, so make sure you hold on tight,” she shot back, unperturbed, as she twisted the throttle in her right hand.

  The engine gave a roar and the big bike shot forward into the passing lane as if it had been kicked. From over Yumiko’s shoulder, Minoru could see the digital speedometer leap above one hundred kilometers an hour, closing in on 120.

  After clearing a gentle left curve in the tunnel with a deep tilt of the motorcycle, they raced up an incline and onto a highway bridge. After another left following the road, they came upon a long straightaway on the Omiya section of the Tokyo-Saitama Expressway.

  “It looks nice and clear, doesn’t it?” said Yumiko, and just like she said, there were very few cars on the weekday evening section of the expressway headed for Tokyo.

  Spurred on by a bad feeling about what was about to happen next, Minoru shouted, “I mean, since we’re two people riding together, I think we should drive safely…!”

  “Of course,” replied Yumiko. “But we need to get to Ikebukuro in five minutes.”

  “What?! Five minutes?! There’s no way!!” shouted Minoru.

  The distance from Saitama’s new urban center to Ikebukuro was more than twenty kilometers by road. Even if a person traveled at an average of one hundred kilometers an hour, it would take at least twelve minutes. If they wanted to reach Ikebukuro in five minutes, they would have to speed at 240 kilometers an hour. Even if they were treated as an emergency vehicle, there was no way they could go that speed on a public road and Minoru didn’t think that it was even physically possible.

  But Yumiko had apparently sensed Minoru’s thoughts, and he heard her voice again over the intercom. “Igniter last used his power thirty-seven minutes ago in Shinjuku. Even with DD’s power, there’s only about five more minutes he can track him based on his lingering scent. So we’ve only got five minutes. So I’m going to send us flying. Hold on tighter.”

  “R-roger…,” said Minoru, who took a deep breath and held on as tightly as he could around Yumiko’s hips with his knees and around her waist with his arms. Only three seconds later did he learn the true meaning of what Yumiko meant when she said “send us flying.”

  Yumiko dropped the motorcycle, which was cruising at 120 kilometers an hour, two gears and twisted the accelerator with her right hand all the way. The engine roared as the rotations per minute of the engine leaped up. As the front wheel rose slightly above the ground, the steel frame of the large motorcycle shot forward like a bullet.

  Acceleration.

  That was Yumiko’s power. Yumiko, who was given the code name Accelerator, amplified her own acceleration to charge forward almost instantaneously. If the bike’s engine power fell within the scope of “her own acceleration”…

  “You’ve got to be kidding me…,” muttered Minoru as an unnatural and overwhelming force sent the motorcycle flying forward a few centimeters above the ground at an incredible speed.

  The highway and sunset-filled sky melted into a radial blur around them. The air pressure came at them like a wall, and Minoru clung desperately to Yumiko’s body. If Minoru didn’t have the strength of a Jet Eye, he might have been thrown from the bike and tumbled onto the road.

  Minoru stared dazed as a large truck in the distance looked as small as a grain of rice, then came flying at them, as if he were watching a video sped up to twenty times its normal speed.

  By the time Minoru was able to scream, the motorcycle’s front wheel had come down, screeching as it contacted the road and retained its grip. The truck was right before their eyes in an instant.

  Reducing the speed to 120 kilometers an hour, Yumiko lightly tilted the motorcycle and passed the truck on the left.

  When they were all clear again, as Yumiko stared down the road, she said, “I said earlier, didn’t I? That this motorcycle’s top speed is Mach 0.7.” Then, before Minoru could say anything, she opened the throttle again.

  Unable to do anything else, Minoru let out another loud scream.

  9

  Making himself comfortable in the backseat of a taxi, Ayato Suka slowly exhaled. It was long ago that smoking had been banned in taxis throughout the Tokyo metropolitan area, but the inside of the vehicle gave off the odor of new smoke. Trying not to click his tongue, Suka opened the left passenger window all the way.

  Sending the unpleasant smell of the car heater along with the odor of the smoke out the window, Suka instead took a deep breath of the sharp, cold outside air. Of course,
the outside air was full of the exhaust from all of the cars passing by on Meiji Street, but it was at least better than the unbearable air inside the taxi.

  “Excuse me, sir. I do have the heater on, you know?” complained the forty-something-year-old taxi driver, but Suka quickly replied.

  “Then turn it off, it’s too hot in here,” he said, ignoring the taxi driver as he loudly clicked his tongue, and once again Suka took a deep breath—this time through his nose—and paid close attention to the scent.

  Mixed in with the exhaust very faintly was that one particular odor. It was a kind of chemical smell that prickled the scent-sensing cells of his nose.

  It was their scent. The scent of the black hunters.

  Both the “reds,” like Suka, and the “blacks,” their enemies, could sniff out each other’s existence. Fundamentally that scent could only be detected when they were using their powers, but Suka’s sense of smell was a bit of a special case. Perhaps it was a beneficial side effect of being able to manipulate oxygen over a wide area, but he could detect when he was being chased by the enemy. However, the range of that detection was only two kilometers. In other words, right now, they were closing in on him.

  “Keep going on Meiji Street and then take a right on Kasuga Street,” said Suka to the taxi driver, as he leaned back into the seat.

  Even though Suka knew the danger of being chased, at the same time he felt a deep satisfaction rising from the pit of his stomach. Again today, he burned a fool who did not understand the preciousness of oxygen and sacrificed him for the sign he planned to draw in the city center. Furthermore, the time it took him to carbonize the body so that no bones were left behind was nearly a minute less than before. He really wanted to burn a second person, but he thought he should be satisfied with his results for the day.

  His power to manipulate oxygen was still improving. At this rate, the day he reached a new stage of his power was not far in the future. When that time came, in the pure shine of combustion, he would oxidize all of those annoying black hunters together.

  I am different from Liquidizer and the rest of her organization, those who have thrown away their righteous calling just to concentrate on staying alive, Suka thought.

  Suka’s calling was to take back the oxygen cycle on this planet. In that cycle, there was no place for the filthy combustion done by humans.

  “Ha-ha.” As Suka held back the desire to hum his oxygen song, he instead let out a short chuckle from deep inside his throat. The taxi driver gave him an unnerved look through the rearview mirror, but Suka didn’t care.

  Just as Yumiko had declared, they went a distance of twenty kilometers in just under five minutes. There were often times that its wheels were off the ground, but the large motorcycle finally turned off the expressway at the East Ikebukuro Interchange.

  As soon as the siren and beacon on the back of the motorcycle stopped, Minoru leaned forward against Yumiko, exhausted. But immediately after he did so, he heard her voice over the intercom.

  “It’s way too early for you to be tired,” she said. “Soon we’ll have caught up to Igniter. You have the air tank that Professor gave you with you, right?”

  “Y-yes…,” replied Minoru.

  “Then get it ready while we still have time,” Yumiko said.

  But just then Minoru remembered. He did have the compressed air tank with him, but while he was at school he didn’t have it in his pocket, but in his…

  “Ah… I’m sorry, it’s in my bag in the back…,” he said.

  “…All right. I’ll make a quick stop somewhere, so hurry up and…,” Yumiko started, but just then another voice Minoru recognized came in over the intercom.

  “This is Searcher. Accelerator, where are you right now?” There was a lot of noise on the channel, but there was no mistaking that it was DD.

  Yumiko answered quickly, “East Ikebukuro, right under Sunshine.”

  “We’re heading north on Meiji Street right now, but we’re losing the scent. Igniter should be right on top of you. Do whatever you can to find him somehow!”

  “Somehow… Just how many cars do you think I can see right now?” Yumiko replied.

  “Just do whatever you can!! We’ll meet up with you shortly. End of transmission!”

  Just then, Yumiko’s back, with Minoru still attached to her, sank dejectedly.

  “He says things like they’re so easy… Uts— I mean, Isolator, that’s the situation right now, so look around at all of the cars, and if something pops out at you, tell me!” she said.

  What am I even supposed to be looking for? Minoru thought, but he scanned what he could see, left and right.

  Given that the one photograph of Igniter he was shown at SFD Headquarters was unclear and shot from a long distance away, all he knew was that he was a thin man. Plus, most of the people driving by in cars fit that description.

  “Everyone kind of looks suspicious… Yu— I mean, Miss Accelerator, you’ve seen Igniter directly, right?” asked Minoru.

  “Drop the ‘Miss.’ The one time I did see him was for a split second, and he was wearing a knit cap, sunglasses, and a mask.”

  “I see… Thanks. That’ll come in handy,” said Minoru, expanding the scope of his search.

  Just above Minoru was the No. 5 Ikebukuro line Expressway bridge, from which they had just exited the expressway. The giant building with brick tiles to the right was probably Sunshine City. To the left, across a walkway, ran rows of fashionable shops, and all around were countless cars.

  “…For the time being, I’ll turn at the intersection and make a stop up ahead, so when I do, prepare your air tank,” said Yumiko.

  “All right,” replied Minoru, just as his eyes reflexively settled on a single taxi.

  I don’t believe it, thought Suka, aghast, as he stared at the taxi driver.

  Even though he was in the middle of driving a customer, he had taken up a pack of cigarettes and pulled one out with his mouth. Tossing the pack to the side, he then took out a lighter and lit up without a second thought. After breathing out a large puff of smoke, as if he were shoving it in Suka’s face, only then did he open up the driver’s window.

  When their eyes met in the mirror, after letting out a long, thin stream of smoke from his mouth, the driver smirked. “Ah, sorry about that. This is a personal taxi, so we’re free to smoke. Feel free to take a smoke yourself.”

  The Tokyo Society of Personal Taxis banned smoking eleven years ago in 2008. Even disregarding that, what was he thinking smoking while he had a passenger? Was he really so childish that this was his way of getting back at Suka for not closing the window?

  Suka was on the verge of saying, “I’m getting off. Stop the car now,” but he swallowed his words at the last moment.

  His shock and disbelief coupled with oxygen in the core of his brain, which quickly turned to murderous intent.

  I’ll burn him. I’ll turn that head of his along with his cigarette to ash, he thought, but just as he raised his right hand, his reason slammed on the brakes.

  Now was not the time. He was being chased. Using his power right now was like calling out to the black hunters and asking them to find him.

  But still…, he thought, unable to bear it.

  The oxygen in the car was being eaten away by a filthy form of combustion. The carbon dioxide and harmful substances entered his lungs with every breath, polluting his blood.

  Even if he were to resist burning the driver and just exited the car, he would be tracked down by the black hunters before he found another taxi.

  …I have no other choice, he thought and pulled something out of his favorite bag that he always had prepared for just such an occasion. It was an oxygen canister, the kind that could be picked up at any sports department store.

  With a clear mask, he covered his nose and mouth and pressed the button on the small canister. With the small sound of rushing air, a sweet, thick gas came flowing out. As he closed the window with a small grin, the taxi driver opened
his eyes wide.

  …What was that? thought Minoru as something crossed his line of sight and drew his attention.

  It was a white taxi, and the driver was—outrageously in this day and age—smoking inside the car. But that was not what caught Minoru’s attention. The passenger in the backseat of the taxi had something strange held to his mouth.

  “…I’m sorry, could you make a U-turn?” said Minoru to Yumiko over the intercom.

  “Did you find him?!” shouted Yumiko.

  “N-no, I can’t be sure yet, but something caught my eye…,” started Minoru.

  “What did you see?!” shouted Yumiko again.

  Even as she was throwing questions at Minoru, she quickly put her turn signal on and made a turn into the oncoming lane, as soon as it was clear. The taxi was about ten cars ahead.

  “Do you think you can catch up with that white taxi?” asked Minoru.

  “Of course.”

  Yumiko opened the throttle in the left lane and accelerated between the right lane and the stopped cars on the left. They were getting closer and closer to the taxi.

  As they pulled up alongside the taxi, Minoru looked into the passenger’s seat through the window. The passenger still had something placed against his mouth. It was an O2 can, the kind that one might use when climbing a mountain.

  In other words, it was oxygen.

  Gulping, Minoru stared at the man’s face. But then his shoulders relaxed and he whispered into the intercom,“I’m sorry, this isn’t him.”

  It couldn’t be. After all, the passenger, a man in a suit, was an elderly man who couldn’t possibly be less than sixty. His half-white hair was carefully combed back, and his dry skin had deep wrinkles. He had an intellectual air about him that made him look like a teacher and not at all like a serial murderer. He probably had some disease that made it necessary to use an oxygen canister to breathe.

  If you could make another U-turn, Minoru started to say to Yumiko but stopped. “Um… I’m going to activate my shell for a second.”

  “What?! Why?!”