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At the Academy lounge, Snake was squeezing in between the table legs, heading for Keena’s feet at high speed.
It was exactly midnight.
He gripped her leg with his left hand. And at the same time, she lit a match to light the candles in her lunch box.
That small action saved her life.
The match fell onto snake’s hand as he grabbed her.
“Kyah!”
“Tch!”
The match itself wasn’t that harmful, but it was so surprising that he let go. He’d tried to pull her down, but she was able to stand up just before he could.
“Kyah?! What’s going on?!”
Keena leapt backwards and flinched. The chair clattered to the ground with a loud noise.
He’d failed to kill her without making noise, but Snake wasn’t going to let that ruin the whole job. He quickly stood up and grabbed an assassin’s kunai in his right hand, then silently leapt at Keena.
She didn’t have time to disappear, and his left hand was around her mouth so she couldn’t scream. Snake had jumped up from the ground and gotten behind her, and was now lifting up her jaw. Her pale throat was exposed. “Ackie, save me!” She screamed as best as she could, but it was muffled.
Snake ignored her useless struggling as he tried to bring the kunai across her neck like a razor.
But then...
Snake’s body was ripped off her in an instant. Something had grabbed the hand that held the kunai and pulled it with incredible force.
“Aaah!” Snake screamed.
The strength of the pull on his hand was enough to send him flying through the air. It was the first time Snake had encountered such strength. He spun once in mid-air, and then the grip, which had threatened to crush his hand, suddenly vanished. He went flying into the lounge tables, and then rolled along the floor.
“Ackie!” Keena turned around joyfully.
But it wasn’t Akuto.
“Huh... how?” Keena asked.
It was Boichiro Yamato. He was smiling a confident smile, an expression that radiated power and kindness.
“I came to save you. It makes me sad that you’d ask why,” Boichiro said, and brought his hand to the hip of his white suit. There was a sword hanging there. He drew it with an elegant movement. The beautifully-decorated western sword glinted in the starlight.
Snake realized that the mission was a failure. Boichiro must have used magical teleportation to get here. He didn’t know how the plan had failed, but now that it had, he had to run. If they could all escape, there were plenty of ways to keep anyone from finding out who had plotted the assassination.
Snake checked that he could still move, then quickly flipped back up and darted his way through the scattered tables. No one was a match for him when it came to escaping. Once he squeezed somewhere tight, no teleportation or flight magic could follow him.
He blew the whistle that meant the plan was a failure and would warn the others to run. And then he headed for the dust chute in the corner of the lounge.
Fortunately for him, the tables covered the ground between him and the dust chute. No matter how fast you were, it would be impossible to catch him.
But when he put his hand on the dust chute, his eyes went wide with surprise.
His hand was on the chute, but it wasn’t moving. No matter how much he pulled, it wouldn’t move. The reason was simple: his arm had been cut off at the elbow.
There wasn’t even any pain. Snake looked behind him. The tables that had been protecting him were now cut clean in two. It was like they’d been sliced with a laser.
Snake looked at his own severed arm. He’d never seen a cut like that. The arm was still intact, down to the cells inside it, like it had been encased in plastic after it was cut. Snake had used both molecular cutters and laser surgical knives before, but he’d never seen such a straight cut.
And what was an even bigger surprise was that Boichiro had swung his sword, but he’d been right next to Keena when he’d done it. Furthermore, the tables and Snake’s arm had been severed, but there was no damage to the floor.
Boichiro noticed his shock and spoke.
“Does the phrase Dimensional Severing mean anything to you? I doubt it does.”
He raised the sword back above his head. Snake knew his death was at hand.
The sword came down. He could sense the space between it and himself parting.
He blew the whistle that meant “Abandon me and run,” and the fingers in front of his lips were silently severed.
A moment later, his head was on the floor. It kept blowing the whistle for a while, even after it landed.
Boichiro had put his hand over Keena’s eyes before he started to swing the sword. Keena was confused, but she seemed to mostly understand what was happening, because she didn’t try to remove his hand.
“Did you save me?” she asked.
“Yes. And I always will,” Boichiro said.
And then he looked up. He knew that Keizo and the others were on the other side of the ceiling.
Keizo was lurking out of sight, but knew something was wrong. He’d never seen an opponent that Snake couldn’t escape from. He gave an order to Eyes.
“We’re leaving. But I want to see the face of our foe, at least. Move your eyeball to the glass over the lounge.”
Eyes took out his eyeball as he was instructed, and threw it towards the glass.
“Bag, get ready to go.”
Bag pulled a small portable flying device out of his mouth. It was a machine that could fly without creating mana disturbances.
And then Keizo sensed something behind him. He drew his sword and turned around.
“W-Wait! Dad!” It was Eiko. She quickly spread out her hands to say “Don’t attack me!”
“What? What are you doing here, Eiko?!”
Keizo was her father, but he hadn’t told her about this mission. Eiko walked up to him. And then he heard Eyes’ voice — he had seen their enemy’s face.
“It’s Boichiro Yamato, from the Cabinet Magical Investigation Department...!” Eyes’ voice was shaking in shock.
He couldn’t understand why someone like that would want to interfere. There were many mysteries about the man, including how he’d risen to that position at such a young age, but he was a man loyal to his duty. And he was very close to Eiko, too.
A thought flashed through Keizo’s mind, but it was too late. The fact that she was family caused him to let his guard down.
Eiko grabbed Keizo and jumped. She crashed through the glass and fell through the lounge.
“What are you doing, Eiko?”
Of course, Keizo was the stronger ninja of the two. He shook her off and landed upright on the lounge floor. Eiko landed next to Boichiro.
“What am I doing? It would be boring if I had to explain it all,” she said.
Boichiro chuckled.
“Fine. Do I have to tell him?”
And then Bag and Eyes leapt down from the shattered ceiling. They stood at Keizo’s side.
“Run,” Keizo said, but they both shook their heads.
“I don’t know what the mistress is thinking, sir, but you need to escape.”
“That’s right. We’re on official duty here, and it is Boichiro Yamato who is defying the gods. You need to survive so that you can denounce him.”
They were right. Even after Snake’s death, the two of them were still professionals. But Keizo had to learn his foes’ intent first.
“Don’t tell me you fell in love with him?” he asked.
Eiko laughed. “Of course not.”
And in the next instant, Boichiro’s hand moved. He flicked his sword with his wrist, and Eyes’ head fell to the ground. It was the first time Keizo and Bag had seen a dimensional severing.
“You bastard!”
Keizo and Bag panicked.
But amazingly, Eyes’ body didn’t seem to even recognize that it had lost its head. It drew its sword and took a step f
orward before finally tumbling to the ground.
That gave Bag a moment in which to act. He quickly took out a large cylinder from his mouth and held it in front of his body.
“Don’t move! I don’t know what you just did, but if you cut this it will blow up the whole school.”
The fact that Bag was able to think so quickly on his feet, even in a situation like this, proved that he was a true ninja. He used the cylinder of explosives as a shield as he stood between Boichiro and Keizo.
Boichiro seemed to want to protect Keena, so this would allow him to create a stalemate. He could use it to buy time for Keizo to escape.
Calmly and quickly, Boichiro drew a circle with his sword.
“Uwah!”
Bag felt his arm and part of his stomach being sliced away from his body. They’d been severed cleanly, along with the air in front of him.
A sphere of space had been cut out in front of his body.
And in the next moment, just as he’d said, the cylinder burst with an explosion — which then formed a perfect sphere, contained within the severed space. Nothing inside the transparent sphere escaped.
“Wh-What...?!” Bag couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
The flames inside subsided towards its center. The roar of the explosion and the heat of the flames shrank into the void, as if sucked into some invisible space.
Bag’s severed body parts were gone as well. He looked at Boichiro with an expression of despair.
He could almost see pity in Boichiro’s eyes as he swung his sword vertically. Bag’s body was split clean down the middle, and the two halves fell separately to the ground.
“H-Have you gone mad?” Even Keizo was scared now.
Eiko’s laughter returned.
“Ahahaha! I’m not crazy! My wonderful boyfriend is just here to fix your mistake!” Eiko’s cheeks were flush, as if she were drunk.
“Mistake?”
“It’s your fault for not figuring out Suhara’s game!”
“Game...?” Keizo’s throat was raspy.
“That’s right. Why would a God want to kill a girl like this? It makes no sense, does it? You must’ve gone senile if you seriously thought you should do what Suhara said!” She pointed at him as she spoke.
Of course, Keizo had thought the same thing. But since she was a girl of no value to anyone, there was no reason for Eiko to try and protect her. It certainly couldn’t have been out of a sense of justice, and that definitely wasn’t why Eiko was doing this.
“What’s that girl good for to anyone?” Keizo asked.
It was Boichiro who answered.
“Ever since the creation of the gods, it was feared that they might have a will of their own. You’re aware of that, right?”
Keizo knew this, of course. That was in the distant past, over a thousand years ago when the system of gods was first created.
It was a fear from the start that the administrative systems might someday possess wills of their own. Some of the designers said that a computer would always remain nothing more than a computer, while others said that a complicated enough system would inevitably develop sentience. The debate was never settled, and every year a report was issued that simply said that no signs of sentience had been found.
“But the gods were simply hiding their own will. They were just pretending to follow the programs humans gave them,” Boichiro said.
“Impossible... They’ve grown sentient... No, they were sentient from the start?”
Sweat beaded on Keizo’s forehead. He could feel everything he’d believed in starting to crumble beneath him.
“A network can possess a mind of its own. It’s well known that Liradans can develop free will if they spend too much time in a specific person’s company. But does that mean that a huge network, that spends little time dealing with any one individual, can’t develop sentience of its own? It turns out the answer is no. It took longer, but it created a greater mind,” Boichiro explained calmly.
Keizo knew the meaning of those words well.
“So the gods... became real gods?”
“If nothing else, they have minds greater than humanity, and they are trying to rule it. That’s what’s happening.”
“But... But society has always worked fine. Even if the gods are real, doesn’t that mean they’re guiding us to be better people?”
“Perhaps, if the minds of the gods could be comprehended by men. But they’re networked minds that are greater than humanity. Do you think such a mind would guide humanity to be better? They have logs of everything that humanity does. I’m sure they analyze all of our emotions as well. The things that we cannot analyze, the things that belonged to the gods... philosophy, literature, religion... all of them have been analyzed and stored within the network. They have no need for real humans any longer.”
“But... they have compassion, don’t they? No, love...” Keizo’s voice was shaking from the sheer magnitude of what he was hearing.
“Of course, even if they can analyze humanity and recreate us within their network, there’s no reason for them to kill or harm living humans. But that’s all.” Boichiro shook his head.
“Th-Then we can just keep living our lives as we have. If we obey them, our prosperity is assured!”
“Can you call that truly living?”
“I’m not interested in your definition of humanity! What is it you want? Who is that girl?”
Keizo was feeling true terror now. He feared something greater than his physical death; he feared that his very existence would be sucked into the void of meaninglessness.
“She’s not just a girl. The gods call her the ‘Law of Identity.’”
“The Law of Identity?”
“Why, I don’t know. But the one thing I do know is that she is the child of the gods, and it is she whom they love. Love in the true sense.”
Boichiro patted Keena on the head. She was shaking, not understanding what was going on. There was nothing she could do amid all the awful things that were happening.
“Is she a Liradan?”
“No, she’s human. But what’s important is that by forming the ‘Contract of One’ with her, you can attain the ‘Void Body’ that allows you to rule the gods.”
“Wh-What are you talking about?”
“I’ll put it as simply as I can. If you control her, you can put the gods under human control again. Actually, the gods wish to be controlled. They have nothing to do with their minds as they float in the vast network, and they want a body. A single body.”
Only now did Keizo understand the situation. No, perhaps it would be better to say that he’d simplified things in order to escape from his fear. His understanding, however, was not incorrect.
“She’s the key, and the one person who controls her controls the gods. Is that it?”
“I don’t like simplifying things so much, but that will do.” Boichiro nodded.
But that didn’t make sense.
“But that doesn’t make sense. Why did Suhara want her dead? Doesn’t he want to be controlled?”
Boichiro nodded.
“The gods rejected me. I’m not trying to control them for my own purposes. I’m trying to liberate them, and it seems they’ve realized that. They’re afraid of being cast into the void, and if they cannot get rid of me to prevent that, they chose to get rid of her instead. The result is the same either way, you see.”
“Then why didn’t you act until now?”
“She needed to be a certain age. And one more thing: even if the gods have wills of their own, they cannot escape the programs that humans created. Without the elimination of those programs, they can’t be put under control.”
Keizo gasped.
“Don’t tell me... you were waiting for me?”
Keizo shuddered at the thought that had just crossed his mind, and looked at Eiko’s face. The look he saw there told him he was right. Boichiro wanted Suhara under his control first.
“You villain!” he screamed.
But Boichiro didn’t react.
“You’re the villain. You tried to kill an innocent girl. And even now, every day you engage in power struggles. And what’s worse than that, you tried to obey a god even when it went mad. I’m going to change the relationship between man and gods. Neither party should be dependent on the other.”
Keizo understood what he was saying. Perhaps, in the greater sense, Boichiro was right. Keizo could tell by looking at Eiko that he hadn’t lived his own life in the right way.
“Did I raise you wrong...?”
“It’s too late for regrets! Even I’m amazed at how I turned out!” Eiko yelled, then she grabbed a shuriken from her pocket and flung it at him. It was an attack on her own father, done without the slightest hesitation.
Of course, Keizo was too good a ninja to be taken down easily. He drew his sword to knock it away... and failed.
“I never thought I would die regretting that I wasted my life on greed and ambition...! My daughter seems to be a reflection of myself...!”
The hand holding the sword flew through the air. Of course, Boichiro had cut it off.
The shuriken struck deep within his heart.
“I never even thanked you for being my dad, but for the first time in my life, I’m grateful. I’m grateful that you made me the next high priest of Suhara.” Eiko laughed cruelly.
A look of despair was plastered on Keizo’s face.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “Boichiro Yamato is a murderer... but he’s a good person. A wicked woman like you... won’t be able to follow him.”
“No way. I’m a girl, and he’s nice to girls. Anyway, I’m taking this.” Eiko thrust her hand inside Keizo’s clothes and took out the emblem that was the symbol of the high priest of Suhara. “So this is how little power weighs, huh?” She laughed and put the emblem in her own pocket.
Boichiro looked unhappy for a moment, but he stroked Keena’s hair as if to calm himself. Keena stiffened.
“Don’t get so nervous. You’ve witnessed something brutal, but it happened to someone who tried to kill you. I’ll stay with you until you forget, okay?” Boichiro said gently.
But Keena was still afraid.
“Th-Then... leave me alone. You’re scaring me.”
Demon King Daimaou: Volume 4 Page 9