The lights were still on in the corridor he stepped into—recessed lights, illuminating the beige wallpaper. Towels, nightgowns, and other detritus lined the floors. Perhaps unnerved by the sudden alarms, most of the guests on this floor left their doors wide open, fleeing the scene with whatever they could grab. In other words, most of them were long gone. He couldn’t sense anyone nearby.
Keeping his guard up, Rentaro crept up to a twentieth-floor window and carefully looked down. The police had already arrived, and the flashing lights of their cars silently revealed the multilayered perimeter they built around the hotel, ringed by yellow police tape. Beyond that, a crowd of reporters and onlookers teemed. There wasn’t enough room for so much as an ant to slip through.
Suddenly hearing a rotor from afar, he squinted at the sky, spotting a helicopter restlessly spinning its searchlight around. Rentaro edged away from the window as the ray of light swept past it.
There was no way he could stay on this floor for long. The police already knew the elevator was stopped on floor twenty. But going down was out of the question…which meant his only option was to go up. Rentaro knew all too well that things were only getting worse for him.
Pushing open a metal door beneath a green emergency-exit sign with a little running man on it, he felt a chill wind against his face. In stark contrast to the magnificent interior décor, the rustic emergency stairway was lined with exposed pipes as it spiraled up and down.
Hearing subdued footsteps from below, Rentaro looked over the guardrail to find SAT troopers in riot gear, their faces covered by visors, about seven floors below him. He met eyes with one of them. In a panic, he pulled his face away from the guardrail, in tandem with the trooper pointing his gun upward and pulling the trigger.
With a blast muffled by a silencer, a hail of bullets clanged against the rail, making Rentaro snap his head back. Sweating, he crouched down low as he sped off. One way or the other, his only path was upward.
But, after a few floors, he heard a clatter of equally subdued footsteps from above. His spine froze in terror. They must have climbed out from the helicopter.
Realizing he was the victim of a pincer attack and feeling the desperation settle in, Rentaro looked at the metal plate in the stairwell. Floor 26. Opening the metal door, he rolled into the hallway, fairly wide and lined with beige wallpaper, recessed lighting, and familiar-looking doors on both sides. The same as the twentieth floor. Several doors were open, left unattended by panicking evacuees, some leaving their shoes and even their wallets on the floor as they stumbled away.
He had to stand his ground here.
Rentaro thought about barricading himself in an empty room, but the voice of reason stopped him. He was dealing with professionals at resolving standoffs and disarming terrorist groups. What chance would he have?
He ducked into the nearest room, went up to the bathroom mirror, and took an elbow to it. With a dry cracking sound, it shattered. He chose a suitable piece, left the room, dove left at a T intersection, plastered himself against the wall, and pointed the mirror fragment at the hallway he had just left, pulling his wrist back as he adjusted the angle.
As he guessed, he heard the faint creak of the emergency-exit door, stirring up the otherwise-stagnant air of the empty hotel.
Here they come. Six of them, with riot shields, in the mirror-image world. Surprisingly, even though they were in heavy headgear, protectors, and combat boots, he could no longer hear them move. Their intense wariness indicated that they were sure of his position.
Quietly, Rentaro wiped a sweaty palm on his pants.
The troopers’ headgear protected their eyes from things like flash grenades. Their submachine guns were a half-and-half mix of Heckler & Koch and Shiba Heavy Weapons, both deadly accurate. Luckily, they hadn’t noticed him yet.
Since he was still in the clothes he wore to the Seitenshi’s palace, Rentaro had neither his wallet nor any sort of gun. He’d have to tackle them empty-handed. An all-or-nothing bull rush at them might allow him time to finish off one or two, but no more than that before someone shot him. But if he stayed still, they’d spot his position, roll a Flash Bang down the hall, and that’d be it. Those things were serious business—between the sound, the light, and the pressure wave from the explosion, they were the perfect weapon for indoor combat zones.
The shockwave, in particular, was powerful enough to break cell phones, wristwatches, and other precision devices. Having one blow up at point-blank range could even cause bone fractures and ruptured eardrums—nothing you could avoid just by closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears.
Rentaro’s pulse quickened, the hairs on his nape sticking out.
What do I do? What do I do? Even as he thought about that, the SAT were following what they learned in training, tackling each doorway in pairs to eliminate blind spots before entering and clearing out the hotel rooms. It was shocking how silent they were.
Something bounced off Rentaro’s foot as he began to walk. Looking down, he realized it was a Magata Plaza Hotel–branded box of matches. A guest must have dropped it in the frenzied confusion earlier.
A flash of intuition struck Rentaro’s mind, and looking straight up, he found exactly what he was looking for. Resolved to his plan, he nodded to himself and performed a move he never thought he’d do in his life.
Suddenly, one of the hallway doors opened, revealing a confused-looking woman wandering out. He thought she might’ve been a straggler who missed the evaluation, but one look, and he knew it. Those empty eyes told Rentaro she was struggling under some sort of illness.
A surprised SAT trooper pulled his gun on her.
“Whoa, wai—”
Before Rentaro could stop him, an empty-sounding blast ripped across the hall as an unfortunate shot bounded its way toward the woman. She fell to her knees, then to the floor. Rentaro sped out to get near her, only to be pushed back by a steel wave of bullets, pulverizing the wall behind him and creating a cloud of dust that got in his eyes.
They got my position, too.
He had no time to think. He dove into a nearby room, took a chair out of it, then stood on it as he struck a match against the flint. A warm flame kindled itself in his hands. He thrust it toward the edge of the ceiling.
It was aimed squarely at the fire alarm system. The heat-detection sensor picked up on the flame from the match, immediately ordering the adjacent sprinkler to activate.
An intense rain sprang up across the floor.
Listening to the SAT team fall into confusion and making sure their fire had stopped, Rentaro looked down the corridor. The scene was exactly what he envisioned. The SAT troopers, their sight robbed by the sprays of water, were a disorganized mess, trying their best to remove their helmets.
This was his chance.
Leaping out from the wall, Rentaro activated his gunpowder-activated artificial leg, firing off a single burst. Thrusters spat out exhaust from the back of his foot.
“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
His body zoomed at superspeed down the hall, so quickly that he felt like his body would fall apart. Then he smashed right into the SAT men in front of him. Even through their visors, he could tell he had the element of surprise on his side. Keeping the thrust going, he used his pivot leg to give himself rotational force, unleashing a roundhouse kick. It slammed into one of the polycarbonate shields, smashing it along with a trooper’s visor as he was sent flying through the air backward.
The point man—lagging behind because of the potential for friendly fire—along with two troopers desperately trying to rip their helmets off, were struck in the face by a pair of fists launched from Rentaro’s body. Without skipping a beat, he searched for his next target. The heel of his palm applied to another trooper’s chin rattled both the SAT member’s visor and his brain. He finished another with a chop to the throat before his opponent even knew what happened.
One could only guess what the final survivor was thinking, watching his comra
des get picked off in less than a second. After an instant of thought, he threw off his submachine gun and tried to take out his backup revolver. It goes without saying that this move was ill-advised. Handguns had little power when one was within closed-fist range of a target. After that point, it all came down to how gifted a martial artist one was.
Rentaro lunged at his chest, grappling at him as he placed a hand above his holster to keep him from drawing. His other hand was placed palm-down on the plating in his bulletproof vest.
“Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 12—”
A bolt of terror flashed across the man’s eyes. But it was all too late.
“—Senkuu Renen!”
With a heavy thump, the very air shook across the floor. The trooper’s body bounced off the floor, eyes lolling upward. The force applied to him at such tight quarters was enough to finish him, no matter how thick the plating on his vest was; that was an ironclad rule in close-quarters combat. This was the unchanging credo that gave Tendo Martial Arts such all-powerful strength.
Amid the torrential rain from the sprinkler, Rentaro quietly took the Infinite Stance, calming his heart just as the five SAT troopers he had faced fell to the floor all at once, flopping over the one Rentaro had defeated first with his roundhouse.
The fight was over. The rain falling around him was warm to the touch, weighing down his school uniform. Sensing the water droplets falling from his hair, his chin, his nose, Rentaro adjusted his breathing for a moment as he remained in his stance. Then, returning to reality, he crouched down next to the woman one of them shot.
“Hey. Hey, hang in there.”
She was shot once in the abdominal area with a 9-mm bullet. It was still lodged in her body.
The woman groggily opened her eyes. “I…I couldn’t sleep… I…I took some…pills…”
Rentaro heard that being forced awake after taking a strong relaxant resulted in intense feelings of anger and the inability to walk steadily. Whatever her illness was, her medicine knocked her out so cold that she couldn’t even respond to that alarm in time. He fetched a towel from a nearby room and pressed it against the open wound to stop the blood. It went bright red in the blink of an eye. The sprinkler water was chilling her body as well. This was nothing first aid could solve for her. And he had no time left to lose.
Giving himself a nod, Rentaro walked over to an SAT trooper—the one who fired the fateful shot at her. Kicking the submachine gun away, he grabbed his knife and gun, holster and all. Making sure he was wholly unarmed, Rentaro crouched down and slapped his cheek.
With a groan, he opened his eyes, trying to hazily focus on Rentaro in front of him. A professional to the core, he didn’t make a noise once he realized the situation, and instead glared at Rentaro.
“You’ve got nowhere to run. Stop filling up your rap sheet.”
Rentaro aimed his gun at him. “Shut up,” he threatened. “That ammo you fired hit an innocent woman. She needs surgery to remove the bullet right now. Can you carry her down to the lobby? Just nod if it’s yes.”
The man looked overwhelmed for a moment, but quickly returned to his usual grave countenance. Still pointing the gun at him, Rentaro made the man pick the woman up and saw him off to the stairwell. Before they left, he grabbed the woman’s hand.
“Stay calm, okay, lady? They’re gonna save you.”
The woman gave him an unfocused look. “You…,” she said, unsteadily. “You’re…a killer… Why’d you…help…?”
“……”
Then the woman extended a hand to him.
“I…ah… Thank—”
“Don’t talk. Just think about staying alive.” Rentaro gave the man a nudge. He looked back a couple times, clearly wanting to say something, before descending the stairwell. Carrying a person down from the twenty-sixth floor was hard work, but a trained SAT trooper could probably deal with it.
Rentaro watched him go down, thinking to himself.
The HQ might be panicking about the lack of contact from their SAT group, but once they realized how it doesn’t affect their position all that much, they’d just send in another team. There was no guarantee he’d win next time. And there might be other stragglers like that woman. If he broke down a door or two, grabbed some quivering hotel guest, and took him hostage, that might prevent the cops from making the first move.
“…Don’t be stupid.”
Rentaro immediately shook his head. He made it this far because he wanted to prove his innocence and find the real killer. Committing more crimes for non-self-defense reasons would be putting the cart before the horse.
He took a glance at the floor above him. He knew this great escape had every chance of ending soon, but there was nothing else he could do. He just had to struggle for as long as he could.
Not bothering to stop at the top floor, he continued climbing the stairs, through an AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign and right up to the door leading to the roof. He shook the knob. It didn’t budge. Locked. Activating his artificial arm, he swung a fist right into the middle of it, sending it off its hinges and into the outdoor air.
Stepping onto the roof, he noticed the clouds zipping by at high speed in the night air. The sky was so much closer now; the wind lapping between the high-rise buildings made the sopping-wet Rentaro feel unpleasantly cold.
Running to the edge of the building, Rentaro observed the police lights flash on and off below him. The sound of the helicopter rotors was, thankfully, far away.
Spotting a building in front of him taller than the Plaza Hotel, Rentaro found himself seized by an odd sense of déjà vu. Then he remembered something. His battle against Tina Sprout, the Seitenshi sniper, amid the derelict buildings of the Outer Districts. In order to get under her position, he had used his leg thrusters to launch a series of rapid bursts to leap from building to building. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
Could that work here, too?
Rentaro took another glance down. The authorities had surrounded the hotel building, but nowhere else. The adjacent building was free. Eyeballing it, he estimated the distance between here and there to be around twenty meters. A wide river flowed between the two buildings. He had made it across a much larger distance, he figured, in the Tina battle. Just do it the same way as before, and it would be a shoo-in.
Can I do this? Can I?
Rentaro brought a palm up to his face. It was shaking slightly. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t scared, but knowing this wasn’t the first time he had faced a deadly leap like this pushed him over the brink.
Walking back from the guardrail, he went all the way to the other side, giving himself ample space to build up a head of steam. He pictured the successful traverse in his mind. One little error in his timing, and he’d be falling straight down to his death. The hotel, if his memory served him, was 147 meters tall—not exactly the duplex down the street. Mess this up, and not only would they have to peel him off the sidewalk; he’d have plenty of time to picture the whole scene on the way down, too.
He stretched out his fingers, forming them into fists and opening them up again to calm the nerves. The sweat came right back to his palms. He inhaled, then exhaled.
Staring at the space in front of him, he started running. Slowly at first, not more than a jog. Then gradually building up speed, then at full blast, making sure not to get his feet tangled.
The guardrail was in sight. He stepped over it, then flung himself into the air. After a moment spent gliding, he felt an odd type of weightlessness as the wind carried him into its current. Simultaneously, he set off a cartridge in his leg. With a bang, he felt acceleration hit him like a wall as it propelled him forward.
Barely managing to squint ahead, he saw thin air spread in front of him. The angle, and the timing of the thruster blast, were perfect. Now he just needed to maintain a steady rhythm of cartridge blasts to keep him—
Suddenly, he felt a shock rip through the side of his stomach.
“—Uh?”
> He’d been so sure of his success just moments ago, he couldn’t immediately identify the plume of blood fanning out from his side at first.
From that point forward, the world went into a bizarre sort of slow motion. Rentaro’s body flailed in the air, head pointed straight down. Then he saw it.
There was a gunshot wound on his side. A sniper hit him, in midair, at blazing speed.
The rangefinder almost reflexively activated in his eye, spotting a figure 200 meters off in the distance, on top of a roof with a gigantic light-up billboard on it.
“N…no…”
Feeling gravity do its work on his body, Rentaro was swallowed up in the perpetual darkness.
The smell of hot smoke wisped out from his gun, searing his nostrils.
“Checkmate.”
Yuga, assuming a kneeling posture on the roof, lifted his head up from the night scope mounted on top of his DSR sniper rifle. He turned the handle as he pulled it forward. An empty cartridge flew to the ground.
Standing up, Yuga watched Rentaro fall for a few moments as he took out his cell phone.
“Dark Stalker to Nest. Mission complete. Target silenced. Awaiting further orders.”
“You’re sure you got him?”
“He fell in the river, so I can’t be sure, but falling in water from the height he did is just like impacting concrete. He must’ve broken every bone in his body. My condolences to his family.”
14
“No…!”
The Seitenshi rose from her throne in horror, both hands covering her lips.
The police commissioner in the crew cut, hands clasped behind his back, sadly shook his head.
“They were apparently forced to neutralize him after he put up heavy resistance. There was nothing we could do.”
The shock was similar at the Tendo Civil Security Agency.
Rentaro Satomi, Fugitive Page 13