The Destruction of the World by Fire

by Shiden Kanzaki

  “Shoma was…” Rentaro put his hand on his chin, thinking.

  A reserved voice interrupted from next to him. “Big Brother, who is this Shoma person?”

  “Hmm? Oh, that’s right. There’s no way you’d know. Tina, have you heard from Kisara about the Tendo techniques I use?”

  “The Tendo Style, wasn’t it? About how President Tendo is a master of its sword-drawing techniques, and that you have a shodan, the introductory level black belt ranking?”

  Rentaro nodded once. “His name is Shoma Nagisawa. He’s my senior, a disciple who made it to eighth dan in the Tendo Martial Arts, and the leading disciple of the Tendo Style. Honestly, it’s kind of nostalgic…”

  “Do you respect him?”

  Rentaro looked at Tina, surprised. Putting his hand on his chin again, he put the pieces of his memory back together and tried putting it into words.

  “I guess…you could call it that. He was so strong that I simply couldn’t beat him. Sukekiyo Tendo had his eye on Shoma for an assistant instructor, but one day, Shoma just quit the dojo out of the blue without saying why. I was really sad. More like, I felt betrayed… Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I probably did respect him.”

  The conversation died with that, and in order to cover the silence, Rentaro sipped the strong, bitter coffee. What in the world did Shoma come looking for him for?

  Tina looked apologetically at Sumire. “I have a favor to ask, Doctor.”

  “What is it?”

  “In regards to the maintenance of Shenfield—”

  Sumire seemed to understand everything with that, and waved her hand in front of her face, looking annoyed. “Well, if Ain could do it, there’s no reason why I can’t. I have to do maintenance on Rentaro’s artificial arm, anyway. Adding one more person isn’t a problem.”

  Tina gave a courteous bow, but she still seemed to have something to say. Sneaking a look at her profile, Rentaro tried his best to act calm as he said, “Tina, say everything you want to say. If you plan on staying at the Tendo Civil Security Agency from now on, then don’t hide anything from us.”

  That seemed to do the trick, and Tina straightened and lifted her chin, looking at Rentaro and then Sumire one at a time. “I will have a pursuer coming after me soon.”

  The atmosphere in the basement lab tensed.

  Sumire crossed her arms and sat back deep in her chair, which creaked. “Ain?”

  “Yes, Doc,” said Tina.

  “But Tina, there doesn’t seem to be any movement from that Rand guy at all,” interjected Rentaro.

  Tina shook her head. “I’m sure he’s just in a hurry. The Professor probably never thought that I would not commit suicide but would surrender to the enemy instead… But after he finishes getting ready, it’ll be a different story. The Professor likes loyalty and hates betrayal. Once the Professor hears that I am living peacefully in Tokyo Area, he will definitely come to eliminate me.”

  “Wait a minute. If Rand were to try to eliminate you, how would he do it?”

  Tina was one of the Cursed Children and a mechanized soldier of the American version of the New Humanity Creation Project, known as NEXT—an Initiator with unlimited potential. Her skill was real, and even Rentaro had been brought to his knees by its pressure once. To readily think of coming after someone like this would make this Rand guy an idiot who acted without thinking of the consequences. Unless…

  “What if there are other Initiators who were made into NEXT soldiers?”

  “Are there?!” At this, even Sumire paled, but Tina just nodded gravely.

  “As far as I know, there are five. They are all a generation after me. I am the first Hybrid the Professor created…”

  “Hybrid?”

  “An Initiator who is one of the Cursed Children but has the abilities of a mechanized soldier at the same time. The Professor used family records he got illegally to form contracts with all the girls. And all the girls have combat abilities at least as good as mine, if not better.”

  Tina paused then, looking Rentaro straight in the eye. “Rank 100, also known as ‘Giga Hedgehog,’ Ashley Springsteen. Rank 95, ‘Meteorfall’ Irene Spencer. Rank 88, ‘Fer-de-Lance’ Faye Kronmiller. Rank 70, ‘Blood Creek’ Louise Zelazny. And Rank 21, ‘Pluto’ Rita Salisbury. Among them, the leader, Rita, surpasses me in every way.”

  There was no way to listen to this without shivering. Ain Rand’s passion in creating the ultimate warrior and his total insanity probably surpassed Sumire’s.

  “I’m sure you know this already, but Initiators and Promoters ranked in the top 100 get nicknames out of respect and awe. I was also known as ‘Silent Killer’ in the past,” said Tina.

  “‘Silent…Killer’…,” murmured Rentaro. If those girls were to band together and come at them, it was possible that Tokyo Area would sustain enough damage to be completely destroyed. And the leader had an IP Rank of 21… The current Rentaro didn’t stand a chance against her.

  Looking sideways at Tina, he suddenly felt a pang in his heart. Tina may have been friends with those five girls. Rentaro suspected as much, looking at her melancholy profile.

  Sumire’s eyes, which were half-covered by her bangs, narrowed sharply. “Tina, what are you thinking?”

  “Shouldn’t I leave the Tendo Civil Security Agency after all? If I stay, I will just cause trouble for everyone.” Tina shook her head hard. “Tina Sprout died once already. I couldn’t stand to cause trouble to those who allowed me to live a second life—President Tendo, Enju, and Big Brother.”

  After a brief moment, Rentaro’s and Sumire’s eyes met.

  “Idiot,” said Rentaro.

  “You’re not very smart, are you?” said Sumire at the same time.

  “Huh?” Tina froze with her mouth open.

  Going toward her, Rentaro put his hand on her head and tousled it hard. “Kisara, Enju, and I aren’t so weak that you need to worry about us! You’re just a kid. Don’t hold back.”

  Sumire also pointed at Rentaro, grinning broadly.

  “Tina, to give you a liberal translation of what Rentaro just said, it’s ‘You’re an important part of my plan to create a harem of little girls, so I won’t let you get away. Also little girls’ sides are delicious, lick, lick,’ so yeah, that’s what he meant.”

  Tina gave Rentaro a pitying look. “Just what is the root of your attachment to ten-year-old girls?”

  “Isn’t it obvious that they’re all lies Doc made up?!” Rentaro shouted.

  Sumire held her stomach, laughing.

  Rentaro glared at the woman. “Ah…damn it,” he sighed, scratching his head vigorously. “Hey, Tina. I have one question. You don’t hate the Tendo Civil Security Agency, do you?”

  Tina shook her head so hard it looked like it would fall off.

  “And it’s not that you don’t want to stay with us?”

  She shook her head again.

  Rentaro closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. “Then, there’s no problem. Kisara and I will figure out the hard stuff, so you should just go do your homework or something.”

  Rentaro opened one eye to see how Tina was taking this. She still looked like she was about to object halfheartedly, squirming.

  Rentaro put his hands on the girl’s shoulders and enunciated each syllable clearly: “Don’t worry. I will become stronger, too.”

  That seemed to do the trick. Tina smiled, looking a little embarrassed, and then nodded obediently. After a moment, she bowed deeply, too. “If you would be so kind. Thank you for taking care of me.”

  Rentaro exchanged a quick look with Sumire. It looked like they could relax for now. Jeez, she was a handful in a different way from Enju. Although that was part of what Rentaro loved about her.

  Sumire spread her arms calmly. “Tina, sorry, but I need to talk about some grown-up stuff with Rentaro right now. Will you give us a minute?”

  Seeing Tina’s eyes waver uneasily, Rentaro gave her a small nod. “Can you get back to Kisara’s place by
yourself?” he asked her.

  “I’ll be fine,” she replied. After exchanging a few more words, Tina bowed deeply once more at the door and then left the basement room without another look.

  Rentaro watched her leave for a long time.

  “She’s a good kid,” said Sumire.

  “Yeah. Kisara took her in, and she has a good eye for people,” said Rentaro.

  Sumire put her elbows on the desk and her chin in her hands, grinning. “You’re doing a good job of increasing the number of young girls around you.”

  She had to make it sound so bad.

  Sumire tapped the top of the desk with her index finger. “How’s it going, Rentaro, really? Do you feel any sexual charm from Enju or Tina?”

  Rentaro said angrily, “Stop it. They’re only ten.”

  “You’re just saying that for appearance’s sake.” Sumire was looking at him without moving. Apparently, it was a serious question.

  Rentaro shifted his gaze brusquely and scratched the back of his head. “They’re cute. I do think that. And sometimes they’ll do something that makes my heart skip. Is that good enough for you?”

  “I’m glad you’re being honest. By the way, Rentaro, do you know this fairy tale?”

  Fairy tale?

  Sumire recrossed her legs and tilted her head, staring at the ceiling with a faraway look in her eyes. “There once was a whale whose body was so big that he was alienated from his friends. After wandering around by himself for a while, he finally saw something he thought was another whale—a submarine—and fell in love.”

  “A submarine?”

  “That’s right. The submarine tried to chase the whale away, but the whale became completely attached to it and wouldn’t leave. The whale earnestly tried various approaches on the submarine.”

  Rentaro didn’t say anything.

  “And then finally, during the war, an enemy destroyer ship was seen. When the submarine tried to submerge, the whale protected the submarine from a depth charge with his life and died. The whole surface of the ocean was dyed red with the whale’s blood, but even so, the whale was happy that he could protect the one he loved.”

  Rentaro paused. “Doc, what are you trying to say?”

  “Rentaro, whales and submarines are different things. When they come together, there can’t be a happy ending.”

  “Enju is human. She’s human, no different from you and me.”

  “I know what you’re trying to say. But you should also understand that people who feel that way are in the minority. And maybe you shouldn’t support it so much.”

  Rentaro shook his head slowly. “That’s impossible, Doc. I can’t think of a life without Enju and Tina anymore.”

  “But they will fall like leaves one day. Rentaro, don’t chase after falling leaves. The lifespan of Cursed Children is bound by the shackles of the corrosion rate of their body, which they cannot be freed from.”

  Rentaro gritted his teeth and looked away from Sumire. “Doc, it’s not that I’m running away. I will definitely talk to Enju about this. But please don’t pursue it right now. It’s not like I know how to bring it up with her, either.”

  “It’s really the doctor’s job to tell them, though…”

  “Please don’t. When she finds out, I will definitely be the one who told her.”

  Sumire shrugged her shoulders. “Well, if that’s what you’ve decided, I won’t interfere. By the way, did you know, Rentaro, that Cursed Children can breed with normal humans?”

  “Theoretically speaking, right?”

  “No, it’s happened.”

  “What…do you mean?”

  “Do you know about the custom of child marriage? There are actually a lot of countries where girls get married when they’re still children.”

  “No, but the law……” One way or another, all civilized nations should have had some sort of law forbidding the marriage of girls until their bodies were matured.

  “What are you going on about? In the Middle East, in countries where rape crimes are rampant, girls lose their virginity just by walking outside. And generally, in those countries, no one will take a girl who’s damaged goods as a bride, so in order to prevent that from happening, parents will secretly marry their daughters off before they even understand what’s going on around them. And the Guinness World Record for youngest person to give birth is five years old. It’s not strange for one of the Cursed Children somewhere around the world to have already experienced giving birth.”

  “But wouldn’t the Cursed Children fight back? No one would want that, right? To be married off to some weird guy before you know it?” Besides, the girls were part of the New Humanity, with powers that far surpassed those of regular humans. If they faced a situation they didn’t want to be in, they should have the power to break out of it with their own hands.

  Sumire recrossed her legs in her chair. “Rentaro, do you know how elephants are trained?”

  “Elephants? No…”

  “When the elephants are still young, their legs are wrapped with a strong chain with the other end of the chain fixed to a stake. The young elephant will cry and go wild, but it won’t be able to break free. Eventually, that elephant gives up. And once it learns that it can’t get away, it’s all over. Even if it grows up to become an adult and gets stronger, if it has a thin hemp rope tied to its leg, it won’t try to move one step from that place.”

  Rentaro suddenly looked at himself in the full-length mirror at one end of the basement room. A scary Rentaro, eyes narrowed, stared back at him. “Doc, what’re you trying to say…?”

  “Try changing elephant for Cursed Children. Unfortunately, the story you thought up of the Cursed Children fighting for their own freedom is like the pipe dream of a child who doesn’t know the realities of the world yet. In countries where women already have low status, women are treated as trophies taken by victors of war, not as humans. Then, add the additional factor of Cursed Children to the list of things to be discriminated against. Those girls aren’t human anymore. They’re livestock. And even if they’re raped while being cut up, they don’t die easily. They’re pretty fun toys for perverts to play with.”

  “Stop.”

  “No, I won’t stop. I haven’t said anything until now, but I hate people like you who don’t face reality. Have you ever seen one of the Cursed Children cut up by blades and hung with a rope, rotting, with flies swarming around her at eight years old? How about the heroic expression twisted by agony of a six-year-old who had ruptured organs after being forced into sexual relations with a piglike man? There’s still more—”

  Suddenly, the shrill sound of something shattering to pieces echoed around the basement room. There was a dull pain in Rentaro’s hand, and when he looked at it, he slowly realized that his left hand had moved on its own and broken the mirror he was looking at. Fragments were piercing his fist, and lines of blood dripped onto the tile that covered the ground.

  “Stop! It’s making me sick!” he shouted.

  “Rentaro, it’s not like you believe that the Children outside of Tokyo Area are living heavenly lives, right? Thinking that you can solve all their problems is arrogant. Even the strong acts of discrimination against the Children in Tokyo Area are happening because they’re supposed to happen. Everything has a reason and a consequence.”

  Rentaro finally understood where Sumire was going with her charade. “Are you saying that foreign Initiators have it much worse, so it can’t be helped if Enju and Tina get dirty words thrown at them or are stepped on?”

  “If you take the argument to the extreme, that’s exactly it. Since it’s you, you’re probably worrying about useless things and thinking about something stupid.”

  “Let me say this, Doc. I hate people like you, who act so cold.”

  “You are powerless, Rentaro. If you really want to change the world, then you shouldn’t have left the Tendo family, which controls the politics and economics of this country from behind the scenes.”

 
“I…” Was he wrong? The next words wouldn’t come out, and his breathing was quick and shallow. He shook his head once and closed his eyes, forcing his heart and breathing to calm, searching for Sumire’s meaning.

  “Then, I will drive off the Gastrea from this world as a civil officer in the place of those politicians,” he said finally. “There’s no way there’s only one way to change the world, right? Tokyo Area is small. Without the civil officer guards, aircraft can’t fly, and because of the dangers of marine Gastrea, we can’t really swim in the ocean, either. I want to give Enju the freedom to look around at a wide world. Doc, I will reform the world for Enju’s sake. That’s why I’ll defeat them. Even all of the Stage Five Gastrea.”

  Sumire was frozen, her mouth slightly open. But in a moment she looked up at the ceiling, slapped her forehead, and burst out laughing. “I see, so that’s how you took it. ‘All the Stage Five,’ huh? Well, I’ve lost. Leaving aside whether or not you can do it, that was well said, Rentaro.” Her laughing suddenly cut off and she sat back down in her chair, eyeing him with a smile on her face. “You’re different from me after all. You’re so bright, it’s blinding.”

  “That’s not true. Doc, you’re—”

  Sumire shook her head gently. “No, I’m no good. Once humans think they know something well, they start looking at only the useless stuff. I’m more suited to this dark basement, after all. I can’t walk under the light of the sun.”

  Rentaro didn’t speak.

  “Rentaro, do you know what the most beautiful thing in the universe is?”

  “No… What is it?”

  “From the Buddhist worldview, it’s said to be the flower of the sacred ren lotus. In other words, it’s you. Rentaro. Your soul is beautiful.”

  Rentaro felt a knot in his chest and looked at Sumire, at a loss for words. Coming from Sumire’s roundabout personality, this could be said to be the greatest praise.

  “Doc……”

  Sumire stood and spread both arms. “As you are right now, it’s probably okay if I showed you that.”

  There it is, he thought, and braced himself. In the first place, Rentaro did not come to Sumire’s lab today to watch Tina and the doctor meet each other.