Apparently heedless of Mikawa’s gaze, she looked thoughtfully into her glass for a while, then finally brought it to her lips and took a long swig, swallowing the dark liquid down her slim throat. Then she gave a long, contented sigh.
“Delicious. Really, nothing else compares to the ice you make for me, boy. Maybe the shape of the spheres prevents bubbles from forming?”
“I wouldn’t know the first thing about what makes alcohol good or not,” Mikawa answered with a shrug, turning his back toward her. “More importantly, you’ll help me out now, right?”
“Don’t be such a wet blanket. This is thirty-year-old Dalmore Scotch, you know.”
Liquidizer huffed, but as promised, she walked over to the bed and began to wrap his bandages around for him. Each time her soft, cold fingertips touched his bare skin, a shiver went up Trancer’s spine. But it wasn’t a shiver of desire by any means. It was his instincts—or perhaps his Third Eye—warning him how dangerous she was.
Hypothetically, if I had to fight Liquidizer right now, how would I do it?
The thought came to him unbidden as he lay with his back exposed to her.
Mikawa’s weapon of choice, water, was readily available in the form of the plastic bottles of mineral water that sat in cardboard boxes in the corner of the kitchen. First, he would convert all of it to steam and disperse it through the room. Then, if he froze the vapor that was touching her, he could encase her in a solid shell of ice…
He had thought it through only this far before Liquidizer reached the end of the roll of bandages, tucking it in lightly at the center of his chest. Then, with one smooth stroke, the end of the bandage vanished, perfectly fused into the bandages below at a molecular level by her liquefaction ability.
“There, all done.”
As she pulled away, Mikawa watched her retreating back with a grim smile.
I would lose. At this range, she would surely manage to lay a hand on him before he could finish sealing her into a block of ice. In that instant, Mikawa’s body would be liquefied, a level of damage that would make Divider’s near-fatal cut seem like a scratch in comparison.
What was truly frightening about Liquidizer’s ability was that it worked on everything—even the human body.
Although Mikawa’s ability was manipulating the phases of water, he couldn’t use it on the liquid content inside a human body, since that did not exist as its own separate entity. He had to be able to recognize the individual water molecules in order to be able to influence them. By the same token, he couldn’t use the moisture in soil or anything along those lines. Most likely, these same restrictions had applied to Igniter’s manipulation of oxygen as well, since he hadn’t been able to use the dissolved oxygen that exists in people’s blood.
But Liquidizer was different. With a single touch, she could liquefy any solid object, whether the target was inanimate or a living thing. In other words, she could turn any part of a human body into protein soup just by touching it. If it was an arm or a leg that she touched, the target might be able to survive, but if she were able to melt even part of their head or torso, it would mean instant death.
Thus, in order to stand a chance in battle against her, one would have to maintain a safe distance at all times so as to avoid being touched. In this small room, victory would be impossible. The ideal battlefield would be a large, open space with plenty of water around. Like a beach, for instance…
“Would it kill you to at least thank me, boy?” Liquidizer smiled as she returned to her chair. Immediately putting aside that line of thought, Mikawa returned the smile and bowed his head.
“My apologies. Thank you very much for your help.”
“It’ll take more than a glass of Scotch on the rocks next time, understand?”
“I guess I’ll have to learn some new tricks, then… Anyway, I’ve been wondering, what’s in the bag?” Mikawa pointed at the second paper bag that Liquidizer had with her, hoping that perhaps she’d brought him a get-well gift of pastries from a famous bakery or the like.
“Oh, this?” Instead, what she produced from the brown bag was a large, battered old video camera.
Mikawa frowned. “What do you have that for? Do you have a secret filmmaking hobby or something?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. As a matter of fact, I made a quick stop at the hospital before I came here today.”
“The hospital…?”
“That’s right. I was paying a visit to that old man who sadly missed his chance to join our ranks not long ago.”
Mikawa’s eyes widened. “Igniter…?! B-but why now? He’s lost his Third Eye and all his memories of being Igniter, hasn’t he…?”
“Really, it’s cruel of them, those Jet Eyes. Turning our people back into helpless, purposeless humans… It would be far more merciful just to kill them.”
“…Don’t tell me you…killed him…?”
Liquidizer gave an uncharacteristic laugh in response to Mikawa’s nervous question. “Ha! Of course not. Why would I do something so utterly pointless? No, I went with Empathizer to see if there were any traces of his memories left in some corner of his mind.”
Upon hearing that name, Mikawa instinctively grimaced.
“That Peeping Tom? Sounds pointless to me. There’s never been a case of a former Ruby Eye retaining their memories after undergoing the black ones’ treatment, right?”
The ends of Liquidizer’s red lips turned upward in a mysterious smile, and she tossed the video camera over to Mikawa, who barely managed to catch it in midair. Surprised by its heaviness, he checked the logo and realized that, far from being a digital camera, it was a long-outdated Hi8 camcorder, which used an analog tape.
“Play it and have a look.”
Mikawa cocked his head doubtfully as he opened up the LCD video panel and pushed the playback button. At first, all that appeared was a sandstorm of gray. Occasionally, the grains would clump together as if about to form a shape, but then they would turn back into noise.
“I don’t see anything…,” Mikawa began, but at that moment, a noise rang through the tinny speakers and a faded image came into view on the screen.
The light swayed unsteadily. It was a body of water. Reflected in its surface, a sandy beach and a few somewhat shoddy palm trees could be seen. But this wasn’t a tropical island. Judging by the metal beams and glass barriers in the background, it was a pool meant to look like a beach.
On closer inspection, about half the palm trees were broken in the middle, and most of the glass was in pieces as well. It looked like the aftermath of a huge explosion.
Suddenly, a man’s voice cried out hoarsely, “UNFORGIVABLE!!” A cut and bleeding left hand came into the frame. Its clawed fingers were outstretched toward two hazy figures standing huddled together some distance away.
The owner of the hand was most likely Igniter. And the two he was aiming his finger at must have been the black hunters.
A red light surged out from the center of his outstretched hand. The steam that surrounded the two figures was pulled away in an instant. This was Igniter’s ability to manipulate oxygen; he had taken away all of the oxygen molecules from the air surrounding the two black hunters. In seconds, they would collapse to the floor, suffering in agony.
However…
“…Why?” Igniter growled, speaking the same question that was on Mikawa’s mind.
Surrounded by the shallow water, the two black agents were still standing, undisturbed. There should have been no breathable air around them, yet they didn’t show the slightest sign of discomfort.
“WHYYY?!” Igniter’s voice rose to a scream of rage. He clenched his outstretched hand, fresh blood spurting from countless wounds.
At that moment, one of the two black hunters took a single step forward.
It was just one motion, and yet it sent both of the black agents, now holding on to each other, flying straight toward the screen at a terrible speed, as if propelled by boosters in their shoes. The pool water was scat
tered to their left and right, forming a tall column of water. Despite the fact that he was watching this on a tiny screen, Mikawa instinctively leaned away.
The image was too blurry to distinguish facial features, but the pair of hunters appeared to be a young man and woman. Approaching at breakneck speed, their shoulders slammed into Igniter, and the video immediately cut to black.
“…Is this video…?” After a long silence, Mikawa finally spoke. “Is this what they call ‘psychic photography’? Empathizer can not only see people’s memories, but he can do this…?”
“That’s right. Although it doesn’t work with digital cameras, for whatever reason. You wouldn’t believe what a pain it was to track down this ancient thing.”
Mikawa nodded slowly, looking at the Hi8 in his hands. Then he rewound the tape to watch Igniter’s memories again from the beginning. One-sided though it may have been, Mikawa had felt kinship and respect toward him because of their similar abilities, and so hearing Igniter’s bloody scream made his own heart ache with pain.
If only I had been there…
With that much water at his disposal, Mikawa could have taken on any number of black agents.
But the same should have been true of Igniter. It was clear that the explosion at the indoor pool at Ariake Heaven’s Shore had been the work of his oxygen-manipulating powers. How had those two black hunters survived such a powerful explosion?
“We won’t be able to say much until we’ve analyzed that footage at the hideout…,” Liquidizer commented in a somewhat sultry voice, as if sensing Mikawa’s misgivings. “But what do you think? There was something awfully strange about the way the water moved when those two were charging, don’t you think?”
“Ah…really?” Knitting his brow, Mikawa squinted at the blurry images. Now that he looked again, the water at the black agents’ feet during their high-speed approach did seem to be spraying out far higher than it should. Yet their feet, which should be splashing through the water, didn’t seem to be making contact with it at all.
“…It’s wind pressure, right? Like a hovercraft…”
“That’s right. Or possibly some kind of barrier…”
“Barrier…?” Mikawa tilted his head uncertainly, trying to grasp her meaning.
In response, Liquidizer swirled her now-drained glass, the still-solid ice clinking against the sides. “An invisible wall, like this. It could be made of something transparent, like glass or ice…”
“It’s probably not either of those, if this barrier protected those black hunters from Igniter’s explosion.”
“Well, like diamond or orichalcum, then.”
Liquidizer spoke as she poured herself another glass of whiskey.
“But whatever the case may be, let’s assume the male hunter is the one who made this barrier that was strong enough to withstand the explosion at the pool.”
Mikawa raised his hand slightly. “The male? Why him?”
“The girl with the long hair most likely has a movement-related ability. The Jet Eye who stabbed Mr. Igniter with a knife fairly fit her description. And if it was her ability that launched them forward with a single step, the barrier must be his ability… At any rate, Trancer, how do you suppose you would fight a Jet Eye with the ability to create a barrier as strong as diamond?”
Mikawa thought for a moment, then gestured with his left hand dismissively. “I wouldn’t. If he can make diamond out of the carbon in the air whenever he likes, I’d join forces with him and make a killing in the diamond industry.”
“Oh my. You’d come up against the De Beers company, then.”
“Sounds like fun to me… All jokes aside, well…assuming we’re in a place with plenty of water around, I suppose I’d bury him under ice, barrier and all, and wait for him to run out of oxygen?”
“Hmm. And what if he had a high-capacity oxygen cylinder with him?”
“I’d wait for that to run out, then. Or for him to die of thirst or starvation.”
Liquidizer raised her glass wryly. “A toast to your remarkable patience, then, boy. But I suppose burying him in ice does sound like it would work…”
“You know, master, I can’t help but detect a note of reluctance in your voice,” Mikawa commented with an equally wry smile. “I mean, if it was you fighting him, it’d be over once you touched the barrier whether it’s diamond or anything else, right?”
“As long as it’s a solid material…yes.” Liquidizer’s eyes narrowed, and she brought her glass to her lips, downing the rest of the amber liquid in one go. Then she carelessly held it away from her body.
Splish. With a little noise, the glass melted into a transparent liquid and dripped down onto the floor. Mikawa watched with a shudder as the pool of liquid immediately solidified back into a pane of glass.
Afraid Liquidizer would sense the fear oozing from his heart, Mikawa quickly snapped the camcorder’s screen into place. “This thing is a pain to close,” he complained. Liquidizer only smirked in response, so he attempted to change the subject. “So, in order to get this footage, you and Empathizer must have used your abilities in Igniter’s hospital, correct? Is that going to be all right? They might sense you were there and use that to come after us…”
“The information we gained was worth the risk. Besides, I left some bait for those Jet Eyes elsewhere. I’m sure those little dogs are sniffing around in the wrong place even as we speak.”
Yumiko had informed him that she would catch up after washing her face, so Minoru left room 404 on his own.
The curious feeling that had been born in the depths of Minoru’s heart shortly before they’d received DD’s communication had vanished, leaving only the faintest echoes behind. As he walked toward the elevator, Minoru struggled to remember that moment.
She’s not a stranger.
Those few simple words seemed to reverberate through his mind. But the more he tried to grasp their meaning, the further away he seemed to get from the revelation he’d had just a few minutes ago.
A person who’s not a stranger.
Certainly, he now knew about Accelerator Yumiko Azu’s secret pain, which she’d kept locked away in her heart all this time. In that respect, Yumiko was far from being someone unfamiliar. But what did that make her, then? A friend? A partner? A comrade?
None of those words seemed to capture the feeling he was looking for. Perhaps he would have been able to explain it at that moment, but right now he couldn’t put it into words at all.
However, there was one thing he knew. The key to his ability to take someone into his protective shell lay in Minoru’s perception of that person. It could be that the moment his emotions were synchronized with the other person’s, they would stop being a foreign substance that the shell inherently rejected.
“My emotions…”
Minoru murmured while pressing the elevator’s up button. In other words, taking something into his heart and reacting to it…which would also mean the creation of new memories. Ever since his family had died eight years ago, he had stubbornly avoided making any new memories with others, keeping his distance from everyone and refusing to even look people in the face when speaking with them.
The reason for this was that he was afraid of the thoughts of him that would be created in others’ minds and the memories of others being created in his own. Just imagining feeling strong negative feelings toward others, or being scorned, ostracized, or hated by them, was enough to make his limbs go cold and his chest tighten. Some adults might say that this was just human nature and it was best not to worry about it, but Minoru knew there was no limit to the malice that can be born in a human heart.
As the elevator doors slid shut and it began its ascent, Minoru clenched his sweating hands. Other people were terrifying. It was impossible to know when they might turn on you.
And he was afraid of himself, too.
At any moment, his human heart could give in to those same malicious impulses.
Therefore, Minoru fundamentall
y wanted to avoid having any feelings at all toward other people. He didn’t want to know anything about them. He didn’t even want to be in the same room as them. That private desire may very well have been the source of his protective shell ability. Not fear or rejection of others, but the desire to be separated from them.
But if that was the case, what was the feeling that arose when he was able to bring another person inside the shell?
Minoru was still wrapped up in his anxious thoughts as he arrived at the fifth floor, changed into slippers, and walked toward the west side of the room. Passing by the TV area and the bookshelves, he walked into the research area where Professor Riri Isa was waiting.
“…Yumiko will be here shortly,” he said to the Professor, who was staring at the monitor. Walking over to the eight folding chairs lined up in the room, he sat on the only one that had a pink cushion on the seat.
“…?”
Something felt strange. For a cushion, the surface was strangely elastic; the back of the chair was extremely soft. On top of all that, the chair was giving off a faint, sweet scent. One that he felt like he’d smelled somewhere recently…
“Hello, Minoru.”
A voice spoke from directly behind him.
Minoru sprang out of the chair with an unbecoming shriek, stumbling as he turned to stare at it. At the same time, a faint whooshing noise came from that direction. As if materializing from thin air, Refractor Suu Komura suddenly appeared in the chair that Minoru had plunked himself onto just moments ago. A startled Minoru toppled backward and landed on his rump on the floor, where he sat staring.
Suu was again dressed in a one-piece and leggings, similar to her outfit from the other day, but with her hair tied up in a dainty ribbon. Her face, as lovely and elfin as ever, showed the faintest smile for just a moment as she spoke. “This cushion is meant to indicate where I’m sitting. Please keep that in mind in the future.”
“R-right.” Minoru nodded automatically, then finally realized what had just happened: He’d sat down with all his weight on Suu’s lap. His nodding immediately switched to a rapid shake of the head, his hands flailing frantically. “S-s-s-s-sorry, I’m so sorry! I should have noticed… Um, please forgive me!” He apologized profusely, his voice shrill, but Suu simply shrugged noncommittally.
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