Murder Machine and the Catastrophic Athletic Festival

by Mizuki Mizushiro

  The chaos of the frenzied Final Showdown: All-Out Knock-Down Brawl was over. It was time for the closing ceremony.

  Finally, after fierce fighting through all sixteen events, the class that occupied the top spot in the Nineteenth Purgatorium Remedial Academy Athletic Festival was Kyousuke’s first-year Class A.

  Due to his serious injuries, Kyousuke could not attend the closing ceremony, but apparently, during the proceedings, Mizuchi revealed the true nature of the academy to the first-year students—that this was not an institution dedicated to the rehabilitation of young murderers but rather a school for training those murderers to be professional killers. They were told that the true killer curriculum would commence at the start of their second year and that thanks to the turmoil caused by Reiko, it had been decided that there was no longer any reason to keep it a secret.

  Furthermore, the academy offered a brief explanation of Renko’s and Renji’s conditions as “half-human creatures designed from the ground up to be killers” and of Reiko’s status as their creator.

  With those two serious announcements, the year’s athletic festival came to a close. Afterward……

  “Wowww, what a surprise! I thought there were a lot of strange things about her, but I never thought it could be something like that…heh-heh. Finally the mysteries have been solved.”

  “Yeah, I’m totally shocked! Becoming assassins, that’s so cool! It’s like a manga, right?! Kya-ha-ha! Oh-em-gee, I can’t wait. Do you think we’ll get to shoot guns and stuff?”

  “I had my doubts about this academy, but it seems like Renko and her brother are the real problem. Being created just to kill people, isn’t that too horrible? And Kamiya, who fought against them, is just as bad.”

  “Hee, hee-hee-hee… Welcome to the underground, knocking on heaven’s door…”

  ““GMK! GMK! Mur-der-ers! Mur-der-ers!””

  And so on, as first-year Class A raucously celebrated their remarkable victory. Their classroom was a cauldron of bubbling excitement.

  In place of Kyousuke, their absent leader, the person who had accepted the championship pennant at the closing ceremony was—

  “Oh no. L-let’s calm down, everyone… Oh gosh.”

  —Maina Igarashi, now cowering in her seat.

  In light of her tenacity in the Thousand-Meter Slaughter Footrace and the Eight-Hundred-Meter Pandemonium Relay, she had been chosen as their class’s distinguished representative.

  Coming over from her own seat, Tomomi said, “Clumsy giiirl!” and put her arms around Maina’s neck. “Don’t say things like ‘Let’s calm down’—you’ll totally ruin the mood! We should be getting PSYCHED!” She grinned, showing off her white teeth.

  “Ehh?!” Maina yelped in surprise.

  Tomomi let go of her and continued, pressing a finger to her cheek. “Well, how should I say…um, sorry? Sorry I called you a bother and a burden and worthless and all. I mean, honestly, I’m the one who didn’t make the cut, seriously!”

  “Huh—”

  Maina had certainly not expected to hear such words being spoken by someone who had only ever showered her with abuse.

  “That’s right!” Shinji chimed in, trailing after Tomomi. “…Uh, Tomomi was…there, I guess? What I mean to say is she didn’t really do much. Considering how full of bloodlust she was, who would have thought she wouldn’t kill even a single person! On the other hand, Maina, you—”

  “Huhh?! Why are you dissing me, Shinji?! …Ahhh, you’re low. Shinji, your rank’s gone down again! It’s seriously a major drop.”

  “No waaayyy?!”

  Shinji looked shocked as Tomomi turned her back on him once again.

  Oonogi and Usami guffawed at the pair’s antics.

  Maina also gave a strained laugh. “Ah-ha-ha… Shinji, you never learn, do you?”

  It seemed that through her great efforts in the athletic festival, Maina had closed the gap separating her from her classmates.

  If she gained even a little bit of self-confidence thanks to this victory, Maina would probably cause fewer and fewer deaths with her chaotic clumsiness in the coming days. That was probably a distant dream, but it was said that in the bottom of Pandora’s box, which spread calamity and sorrow throughout all creation, hope remained last. One could not help but pray that that was the case for Maina—for Black Pandora—too.

  Looking around the classroom as it bubbled with excitement over the surprise victory, Kurumiya gave a throaty chuckle. “Heh-heh-heh!”

  On the blackboard, she wrote the schedule for the agenda from then on—including the after-party being held in the big auditorium in the new school building from late at night until nearly dawn.

  “You really worked hard, you bastards! This time, and only this time, I’ll give you a little recognition. I can see that you’re not interested in listening to me talk, but I’ll overlook your rudeness! The iron pipe is out of action, at least until the after-party is over—”

  “Hyah-haaaaaa! My sweet, beloved Kurumiiiyyyaaa! We won, right? I did my best, right? As you promised, my extraordinary reward…”

  “…Hmm? Ah, right. Come and get it.”

  “Gyah-haaaaaa!!”

  Mohawk approached Kurumiya, who brandished her pipe and proceeded to shower him with blows. With the sound of the strikes—wham! wham!—sprays of blood spattered everywhere, and low, melodic screams filled the air.

  Gazing absently at the situation from her seat, Eiri let out a yawn. “…Fwah.” It seemed the sleeping toxin administered to her by Busujima had not yet entirely worn off. “…So sleepy. Damn that old man—the next time I run into him I’m gonna kick him in the crotch.”

  “Now, now, don’t get that upset. You’re not hurt, so everything turned out okay in the end, right?”

  “It’s not okay at all!” Eiri glared at Kyousuke. Her rust-red eyes were blurry. “……I thought you were going to die. I said ‘I’ll protect you’ so passionately, but in the end Renko was the one who saved you. Nothing could be more shameful…” She spit out the words and bit her lip.

  “Eiri—”

  Kyousuke held complicated feelings for Eiri. Ever since visiting her family home, he vaguely understood that Eiri cared about him much more than she let on. He was grateful and happy for her feelings.

  However, even so, Kyousuke was—

  “Big brother, you’re really amazing, huh?! You really got the crap beat out of you, but you’re already good as new! You give Mohawk a run for his money!” Perhaps trying to dispel the dark atmosphere that hung over them, Ayaka spoke in an extremely cheerful voice.

  “No, no…” Kyousuke frowned. “…Honestly, it was all fake courage, you know? And I’m far from good as new…”

  In truth, even walking was still somewhat difficult. In addition to a number of broken ribs where Renji had kicked his right side, Kyousuke had suffered damage to his internal organs, and he would require considerable bed rest. It was probably the worst injury he had suffered since two years ago, when a biker gang ran him over more than thirty times and then spent almost an hour thrashing him with metal bats. Or maybe since that time when he had been severely beaten by his father…

  “Even so, you’re plenty amazing! If you were a normal person, you probably would have died right then. Even Renko is still resting, you know,” Maina said.

  “N—”

  Kyousuke held his tongue.

  Renko had collapsed after defeating Renji, as if she had used up every last ounce of her strength. She still had not regained consciousness and had been put to bed in the infirmary. It would have been one thing if her collapse had been caused by fatigue and injury sustained during the athletic festival and the battle with Renji. In time, she would have recovered from her injuries, and knowing Renko’s resilience, she probably would have been back on her feet pretty quickly.

  But—

  “……Um, Miss Kurumiya? Excuse me.”

  “Hmm? What is it, Kamiya?”

  Their teacher paused her beating
and turned to face Kyousuke. She was spattered with her victim’s blood, and a sea of red pooled around her feet—and around Mohawk, who had been beaten until the iron pipe was bent out of shape…

  “Well, uhh… Could I go to the infirmary for a little while? I’ll come back when the after-party starts.” Kyousuke scratched the back of his head and averted his eyes from the grisly scene, which demanded a mental mosaic.

  Noticing his distress, Oonogi looked concerned and called out to him in a worried voice. “…Huh? Wha’ssat, Kamiya, does it hurt? You gonna be okay?”

  “Whaaa—” Shinji pouted his lips and groaned in displeasure. “It won’t be very exciting if our leader is absent, will it…? Your health or our high spirits, which is more important?!”

  “Huh? Of course it’s the former. Use your brain! You must be joking!” Tomomi pulled out the harisen fan and—whack!—beat Shinji over the head.

  “Hee-hee-hee…” Usami gave a vulgar laugh. “He’s probably not going for his injuries but for boobies… He’s planning to sneak in and molest Renko while she sleeps in the infirmary, hee-hee… I might take advantage, too—gyuah?!” Before Usami could stand up, a pencil case, thrown by Ayaka, smashed his face in.

  “Hmph.” Kurumiya snorted and turned back. “…Go on then. I’m guessing you want to be by your precious Renko’s side—hya !”

  “Whoo-hyoooooo!”

  “Th-thank you…”

  Kyousuke left the classroom, putting the death agonies of Mohawk, who was already consumed by masochistic pleasure, behind him.

  He went down the hall and descended to the first floor, headed for the infirmary. As he passed by the room for first-year Class B, he could hear Busujima’s voice through the walls of the classroom, praising them for their second-place finish.

  “…………”

  Eventually, and after some difficulty, Kyousuke placed his hand on the infirmary door and took a deep breath. Preparing himself mentally, Kyousuke slowly stepped into the infirmary.

  Just as he expected—

  “Heya.”

  A woman in a white lab coat, with silver hair and blue eyes, raised a hand in greeting. Reiko was seated next to her daughter, who was sleeping on the farthest right of four beds with her gas mask on. She smiled stiffly. “Welcome back.”

  “H-here I am…”

  After this strange exchange, they fell into an awkward silence.

  The only other person in the infirmary was Renji, who had been put in a bed next to Renko and was wearing his gas mask, too. The remaining beds were empty. The school nurse was also absent.

  Due to the great number of casualties caused by the athletic festival, an entirely separate temporary infirmary had been opened in the spacious gymnasium. That was where most of the injured were being treated.

  In the silence, Reiko mumbled in a vanishingly small voice.

  “—I was jealous.”

  Stroking Renko’s hair as she slept, Reiko narrowed her eyes. She had taken off her glasses. A faint smile passed over her lips as she gazed at her child, but her eyes were red from crying, and the obvious streaks left behind by tears told what was really in her heart.

  “As you know, if my daughter does not have her limiter equipped, every single one of her emotions is tied to the act of killing… You can never see her with a serene expression. That’s true even for me, Renko’s mother, and it’s something I have to keep in mind whenever I remove her limiter, especially because my feelings for her are so strong. Unlike Hijiri and the others, my body is very weak, so…unless we’re separated by iron bars or a solid barrier, or she’s immobilized, it is impossible for me to face Renko when she gets like that. To be honest, she’s nearly killed me several times, you know.”

  Reiko smiled bitterly and took a flat silver flask out of the inside pocket of her white jacket. She opened the lid and swallowed greedily.

  Wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her coat, she let out an alcohol-tinged sigh. “…You probably don’t understand. You don’t know my frustration, unable to embrace my darling daughter and rub our cheeks together, no matter how much I want to. But I get it… Even though you care for Renko, even though you love her…when this girl responded to your feelings and earnestly tried to kill you, you felt neither love nor joy…only fear and terror. I’m telling you, I get it. I really do understand how you feel, caring for Renko even as you tried to deceive her and hide your feelings. I understand…but…aaahhh…”

  Tears poured from Reiko’s eyes. Gritting her teeth, she tightened her grip on the flask. “Even so, it’s so annoyiiinggg! In just one moment, the very thing that I’ve spent so long agonizing over…was accomplished by an outsider who’s only been with Renko a short while! Isn’t that too cruel…? Until now, Renko couldn’t help but surrender herself to her murderous impulses, but after meeting you she learned to endure it, grew more and more rich with emotion, began to show feelings that until now we had never seen… I couldn’t change Renko, but you did so easily…aaah… And she was such a good girl… She listened to everything I said, she always thought of me first, she loved me… In Renko’s mind, I was number one…her number one favorite persoooooon! Aaah…waaaaaah!”

  Reiko tossed the flask away and fell prostrate on the bed where her daughter was sleeping. Her muffled voice could still be heard leaking out from around the comforter. “I understand…and I understood it then, too—really, I did! This all goes back to my selfishness. Even though Renko was created as a tool, I wanted her to experience a little more human life…so I enrolled my daughter in this academy. As a result, Renko become more human-like, so I have to be happy…probably not a desirable quality in a killing machine, but it’s the very change that I’d been hoping for. I have to support her the best I can. Despite that, I—”

  Reiko’s outstretched arms grew tense. Her shoulders trembled as she clung to Renko’s sleeping form. “It—it’s just that I’m frustrated… I’m envious and jealous of you, Kyousuke, so I tried to trample on Renko’s feelings. I’m the worst… I really am just like a child. I’m the one who’s been acting childish… If only I was more of an adult. If only I was kinder. If only I was more levelheaded…something like this would never have happened! I’m sorry, Renko… I’m sorryyyyyy…”

  “U-um…Miss Reiko?” Kyousuke timidly interrupted Reiko, who continued apologizing in between sobs.

  “Hmm—” Reiko stopped apologizing and sat up. Rubbing her puffy eyes with the sleeve of her white lab coat, she turned her gaze toward him. “…What?”

  “Um, I’ve got something I want to ask you, but…”

  Kyousuke shifted his gaze from Reiko’s eyes to the bed—to the sleeping Renko—and spit out the question that had been bothering him the whole time since the athletic festival ended.

  “Why doesn’t Renko wake up?”

  “”

  Instantly, Reiko’s expression changed. “……Ah.” She cast her eyes downward. “About that… I haven’t told you yet, have I…?”

  Muttering to herself, Reiko put on her glasses. When she looked at Kyousuke again, a sharp light had returned to her eyes. “Kyousuke.”

  “……Yes?”

  Kyousuke prepared himself for the worst as Reiko got up from her chair.

  “—Let’s go somewhere else.”

  Reiko took him to the rooftop of the old school building.

  As she shut and locked the iron door, ultramarine twilight was closing in on the world from three hundred and sixty degrees. Reiko’s white lab coat fluttered in the wind, floating gently like a ghost.

  “Now then—” Leaning her back against the iron railing, Reiko turned around to face Kyousuke. There was no light, so he couldn’t make out her expression well. Her voice was hoarse and dry from the alcohol and tears. “Kyousuke. I’m asking you not to say a word of what I’m about to tell you to anyone, okay?”

  “……Understood.”

  “Excellent. Well then, first let me ask you a question. How much do you know about Renko? Her hobbies, or what
she likes, or her measurements—”

  “Huh? A-ah…for starters, her hobby is music, right? She’s always listening to something. And what she likes is…also music? Things like hardcore and death metal. As for her measurements, umm…”

  “—Not that stuff.”

  “Ah, okay.”

  “About her being a Murder Maid,” Reiko continued, “about being a custom-made killing machine, a natural murderer whose every emotion is tied to the act of killing if she doesn’t have her limiter equipped, with extraordinary learning abilities, superhuman physical capabilities, outlandish fighting skills, aberrant resilience… These are the kinds of things I’m asking about. Aside from what I’ve said, do you know anything else about her?”

  “…No. I think that’s about all I know.”

  Since he did not want any firsthand experience with Renko’s “killer” persona, Kyousuke had made a point not to talk about that side of her, and Renko herself had also not volunteered anything. Kyousuke felt that he knew at least something of Renko Hikawa but honestly knew almost nothing about Murder Maids.

  “Is that so…?” Reiko nodded at Kyousuke’s words and, for a short while, thought to herself in silence.

  Finally—

  “Say, Kyousuke. Why do you think that children like Renko and Renji were created?”

  “Huh? That’s, of course, to kill people…right?” Kyousuke answered quizzically.

  “That’s half-right.”

  “…Half?”

  “Yep. Come on, think about it—killing one person isn’t that hard, surely? If they have a special weapon or the right approach or even just the sheer resolve to make it happen, even a child can kill an adult. So despite that fact, why was it necessary for me to go out of my way to produce a custom-made Murder Maid?”

  “Mm…to kill more reliably, or something?”

  “That’s also partially correct…for professional killers, fighting strength is of secondary importance, you know. The ability to hide one’s special weapon and intent to kill as contact is made with the target, the skills to quickly and quietly finish the job unnoticed, the knowledge to complete the kill without leaving a trail… Those abilities are far more important. That’s why even at this academy for raising professional killers, it’s the serial killers who can kill many people without being caught who are especially prized.”