Black Bullet:Volume7

by <unknown>

  "Other countries getting involved in the war between two Areas of Japan? How did it come to this?"

  Sumire looked at Rentaro with eyes of pity.

  "The superficial reason is that using prioritized access to varanium supplies as a condition, the Tokyo Area sought assistance from the semi-allies of Russia, England and France. In order to resist, the Sendai Area also requested help from America, Australia and China. However, that is not the real objective."

  "What is it?"

  "Underground resources are never distributed evenly. For example, there are gold and diamonds in Africa, crude oil in the Middle East, while varanium's primary exporter is Japan. The Tokyo Area's production of varanium makes up 31% of the world supply whereas the Sendai Area also has 16%. If the Sendai Area collapses, the Tokyo Area's expanded territory will obtain mining rights to roughly half the world's supply of varanium; and vice versa if the Tokyo Area falls. If the Sendai Area starts a war before Libra's virus sacs are released and manages to defeat the Tokyo Area which has been exhausted by the battles against the Scorpion and Aldebaran, they stand to monopolize 47% of the world's varanium supply. Do you understand what that implies?"

  "No..."

  Despite clearly not understanding, Rentaro's voice still trembled.

  "Naturally, varanium is currently the material for Monoliths and is also indispensable for manufacturing weapons and ammunition. If one nation monopolized half the world supply of varanium, they would be free to set prices as they wish."

  Rentaro could not help but exclaim "ah."

  Sumire nodded silently.

  "You figured out what foreign powers are thinking, right? For example, suppose the Tokyo Area's food is 100% dependent on the other Areas, then once the other Areas place a total ban on exporting food to the Tokyo Area, the Tokyo Area would have no choice but to obey them, coughing up the cash regardless how high they raise prices, right? This is the same principle. Regarding this war between two Areas in the Far East, the result could lead to the rise and fall of many other nations. From a foreign perspective, this is something that must be prevented. Currently, American and Russian hands probably have their fingers on the nuclear launch buttons. This kind of situation where an argument between children requires the intervention of adults, it's all because the Tokyo Area shoulders the 'resource curse'."

  "What about the principle of non-intervention in domestic affairs?"

  "Japan's five Areas have essentially been recognized as independent states, so this has nothing to do with domestic affairs."

  Rentaro rapidly searched his mind for a rebuttal, trying his hardest to think in any case.

  "So! —By the way, now that things have come to this, won't the United Nations intervene in a conflict between two Areas?"

  Sumire shrugged, unimpressed by Rentaro's question.

  "That whatever United Nations has stopped serving any function a long time ago ever since the Gastrea War. Even if it still had an effect, there is past precedent in their failure to stop the arms race between America and the USSR during the Cold War. What mankind has learned from the great lesson is that when the situation get too serious, no one can stop things from happening."

  Rentaro looked at the television to see the news host seemed helpless and kept repeating how he had no idea about Japan's future.

  Sumire then spoke in a much gentler tone than before.

  "Young Satomi, do you know why the First World War broke out as recorded in history books?"

  Rentaro shook his head blankly.

  "June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, a young man belonging to a secret Serbian terrorist organization chanced upon the Austrian crown prince's car that had lost its way. Seizing the excellent chance granted by providence, he killed the prince. This led to a decisive deterioration in relationships between the nations of Europe, Turkey and Russia, which weren't particularly amicable to begin with, thus resulting in a great war killing ten million people. Also another example, on April 19, 1775, the Battle of Lexington in the Boston countryside. At the time, the colonies still had not resolved to declare war on Britain. Seeing British troops appear, the local commander gave orders to disperse. However, someone shot the first bullet, thereby igniting the fires of war. Ultimately, the British army's elite troops were defeated soundly and the American War of Independence thus began. And that bullet fired by some unknown person was called the 'shot heard round the world.' Including that shot fired in Sarajevo and the bullet at Lexington, both were cases where a single bullet changed the course of history."

  "What are you trying to say?"

  "My point is that when pressure reaches critical, all it takes is a single bullet to spark a war. Furthermore, once the fires of war are lit, war does not stop until a massive number of people are dead. Right now, the Tokyo and Sendai Areas have locked down airports and each other's embassy. These back and forth measures of retaliation are precisely the best evidence of pressures between the two Areas reaching critical point. All it takes is the addition of a single bullet. This situation is far more serious than you thought."

  Elbows on the table, Sumire interlocked her hands together and rested her chin on them.

  "Young Satomi, you must hurry to negotiate with Andrei Litvintsev. You are the only one capable of cleaning up the situation. Don't let the bullet of world revolution be fired."

  Thinking this was the greatest joke in the world, Sumire grinned:

  "Perhaps the world's fate is in your hands."

  Part 2

  The instant the last of the provisional Monoliths was set up in the Tokyo Area during the Gastrea War ten years ago, thereby blocking the Gastrea invasion, rather than a sense of salvation arising in people's hearts, it would be better to describe it as a feeling of endless exhaustion, wondering in doubt if everything was finally over.

  When then-Prime Minister Zama declared the war ended over television, radio and the internet, all the people wept with hot tears without exception.

  Even the people themselves could not understand which emotion in particular was behind their own tears.

  It was grief for those who were killed, regret for defeat in war, as well as a sense of emptiness arising from incomprehension of what everything they had done meant.

  Worried about the population which had decreased to less than 10% of the original, Japan's last prime minister, Zama, had set a policy banning surgical abortion for all pregnancies. As a result, this led to his fall from power.

  Nicknamed the Abortion Ban, this policy led to an explosive increase in the births of Cursed Children who were gradually surfacing at the time. Due to loss of birth control and the fact that unwanted children kept being born (this was how unfounded ideas of unwanted children getting born as Cursed Children came into being), the social problems of abandoned babies and child abuse became exceptionally rampant.

  Ironically, in the year 2029, in other words, two years earlier, former Prime Minister Zama himself was pronounced dead at the hospital after getting his neck broken by a Cursed Child whose birth had come about thanks to his ban on abortions.

  Zama's fall from power led to the rise of the first Seitenshi who united Tokyo with the various neighboring prefectures that had fallen to pieces, thus establishing the Tokyo Area's current system of forty-three wards.

  After the war, the survivors had a whole ton of things to do.

  All kinds of destroyed public facilities had to be rebuilt. The shortage of electricity needed to be solved. The overwhelming scarcity of food required rationing. Finally, new land needed to be secured for the population that had reached a limit from all the many refugees flowing into Tokyo.

  The idea that was picked by the Seitenshi at the time was building Mega-Floats in Tokyo Bay.

  Although this type of construction project had been pursued proactively since the past, things were much different from before the war. Tokyo Bay had been invaded to the point that even its appearance on the map had changed.

  Hence, the building currently towering before
Rentaro's eyes was also one of the Mega-Floats.

  The ground was covered by dense shadows of birds. Rentaro looked up to see the sun's blinding light. Forced to narrow his eyes and shield them with his hand, he allowed the seabirds' cries to hammer his eardrums.

  Rentaro guessed that these birds gliding leisurely in the sky were black-tailed kittiwakes.

  Presumably because their cries resembled that of cats, they were named kittiwakes, but even after hearing them so many times, Rentaro still felt that it sounded like the crying of babies.

  The black-tailed kittiwake was very interesting. Like the herring gull, they would sometimes abduct chicks from other nests to tear apart and feed their own young, yet other times who would fail to distinguish the abducted chicks from their own, thus ending up raising them together. This clumsy behavior was especially amusing.

  While decompressing the knowledge of animals inside his skull, Rentaro tried to think back, but ultimately, he shook his head suddenly and stopped escaping from reality.

  Then he looked at the dark and sinister entrance directly in front of him.

  Probably to shoddy work and cutting corners after the war, the building's white outer wall was cracking and flaking off in many places despite being less than ten years old.

  This strange building combined a seaside sanitarium's sense of isolation as well as the flavor of endless evil.

  —the Marine Penitentiary for Special Criminals, located in the Tokyo Area's Ward 32.

  During the chaotic period after the war, the currency economy did collapse, even though only for a brief duration, and hyperinflation had happened with a single box of corn flakes costing close to ten thousand yen.

  Thousand and ten thousand yen notes were mere pieces of paper to begin with. It is only with the "credibility" guaranteed by the Japanese government that these pieces of paper were accepted as large denominations of currency.

  But because the Gastrea War caused all the currency circulating in the world to lose their liquidity, even the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed down as a result. No one knew who was "credible" anymore.

  In the end, it was no strange sight to see capitalists, who used to have enough money to burn, rendered overnight into hobos scavenging from trash cans.

  Naturally, there was rapid rise in the number of people turning to theft due to famine or lack of shelter.

  Although virtually all of these people were committing crimes because they had no other option, humans were beings embodying good and evil in the same body to begin with.

  Some people lost their sense of guilt after getting away from crimes scot-free, while others indulged themselves in the thrill of crime, unable to restrain themselves—

  This prison on the sea was built for the sake of isolating the people who had crossed the line.

  Rentaro looked back at the path he had walked just now. It was a trestle bridge, the sight of which whose length was dizzying already, on which a lonely guard house served as a security checkpoint.

  Even situated in this outskirt zone near Tokyo Bay, there was no debris in this area. It was completely rebuilt. Taking a quick look in all directions, Rentaro even saw a seaside park built on the crescent shaped shore.

  There were couples taking walks and mothers pushing strollers, as well as various club houses for the elderly scattered around. Probably a leisure venue for citizens.

  Except for this one place, deliberately forgotten and isolated.

  Taking out his CivSec license and giving his name at the reception, Rentaro asked for an urgent meeting with Litvintsev. The receptionist reacted with surprise.

  After being asked to wait for a while, Rentaro saw an elderly prison guard emerge to ask him to "Come this way, please" and led the way.

  Feeling like a battle was coming, Rentaro clenched his fist and followed.

  "Wow, I never expected you to be so young, Mr. CivSec... You were the one who originally apprehended Litvintsev?"

  Soon after passing through the second door, the prison guard leading the way finally spoke.

  "Yeah, but it was only luck."

  "Perhaps you may know already, but this place doesn't not incarcerate ordinary convicts. Only criminals who have been judged as impossible to rehabilitate are transferred here."

  "I think so."

  While saying that, Rentaro looked around.

  There was no artificial lighting at all. The footsteps sounded exceptionally loud and clear in the dry air.

  Spaced regularly, barred windows for providing natural light were very small, allowing sunlight to stream in diagonally.

  There was an intense smell of the sea as well as the sounds of seagulls every now and then.

  But if one were to examine the four corners of the ceiling carefully, one would notice the glint of security camera lenses. With numerous holes on the empty floor underfoot, perhaps metal fences could be raised in emergency situations.

  What surprised Rentaro was that there was a young girl mixed among the prison guards. She was sitting in a chair, hugging one leg with her knee drawn up, swaying her other leg impatiently.

  A black spade was painted under her right eye in punk rocker style. Rentaro got a sense that her personality was not particularly good.

  "So the security here even uses Initiators?"

  "Sent by the IISO, even though we said we didn't need too many security staff."

  Instantly turning his gaze towards the place occupied by darkness, Rentaro saw pairs of powerful eyes silently tracking their movements from a dark cage.

  Rentaro did not know why these people were imprisoned and had no interest either. However, these people were certainly criminals without a doubt.

  The silence felt even more terrifying.

  "Mr. CivSec, please come this way."

  Despite feeling creeped out by the gazes chasing him, Rentaro still passed through a small checkpoint with prison guards on watch at the end of the corridor.

  With that, he had passed through three doors now. From the way things looked, the deeper they went, the more vile and serious the criminals locked away.

  After walking out from the checkpoint, Rentaro suddenly noticed that the earlier security guard had disappeared. He looked back to see the guy standing at the entrance to the checkpoint without continuing forward.

  "This is as far as I'll accompany you, so be careful, Mr. CivSec. The day that guy was admitted here, he choked me by the neck using his handcuffs while I was distracted. If help had arrived any later, I would've been killed."

  "...Got it, thanks."

  Turning his back to the prison guard who had his head bowed in fear, Rentaro stepped over the massive words of "C Block" spray painted on the floor, taking a step into the darkness.

  To be honest, he was a bit afraid, but now that he had come this far, it was not like he could ask the prison guard to come over.

  Rentaro wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.

  The basic layout here was the same as the earlier blocks he had passed through but the gazes sticking to him were even worse than before, to the point that he could feel a suspension of killing intent, even the air felt especially heavy.

  Just at this moment, a sound similar to bells ringing could be heard somewhere. Guided by the sound, Rentaro knew that his target was in the deepest part without needing to search deliberately.

  As soon as he reached his destination, his first impression was how bright it was.

  This was a single jail cell a size larger than all the other ones. The lighting window was relatively wide, almost illuminating the entire jail cell's walls of mortar.

  A crude metal-framed bed. Simple shelves. The heavy hardcover books piled up on the shelves were titled in Cyrillic script.

  Rentaro found the wind chimes tied to the prison bars. An occasional sea breeze caused the metal tongue of the bell to jump, producing lively sounds inside its glass vessel.

  Naturally, this was the source of the bell sounds.

  Then the guy sitting in a pipe chair, re
ading a book was—

  Rentaro felt his blood vessels contract and could not help but clench his fist.

  "It's been a while, Andrei Litvintsev."

  Putting a bookmark into the book, the man closed it and returned it to the shelves next to him, then looked up.

  "Long time no see, Rentaro Satomi."

  His tenor voice only brought painful memories to Rentaro.

  The guy's face looked out of place in relation to the black prison outfit, with his deep-set features and cleft chin. Under the sunlight, his blond hair was shining brightly.

  The tracking anklet worn above his right foot faithfully conveyed the fear that the prison guards felt towards him.

  "Why ask for me?"

  "After what happened, I investigated many things about you."

  Litvintsev moved his head, motioning for Rentaro to take a seat.

  Keeping his gaze on the guy, Rentaro carefully pulled out one of the pipe chairs that were piled up against the wall of the passage and sat down. Just to be on the safe side, he deliberately kept himself three steps away from the prison bars.

  Amidst the tense atmosphere, only the sound of wind chimes were sounding crisply and tactlessly.

  "After defeating the Scorpion then Aldebaran and arresting me, you've truly made a name for yourself."

  "A VIP like you, served three meals a day with free shelter, wouldn't have summoned me here just to taunt me, right?"

  "Then how about we swap places?"

  "I'm saying that you should count your lucky stars that you weren't sentenced to death."

  Litvintsev grinned.

  "There's no need to be so afraid. I'm not going to eat you suddenly."

  "Looks like your eyes have gone bad after living in prison for too long."