He couldn’t shake the frustration that bubbled up. He was supposed to be the brightest star of the New World Creation Project. So how did an obsolete pre-war model leave him in the dust like that?
What part of me could possibly be inferior to him?
“Well, someone just got put through the wringer.”
“Who—?”
He was in the central courtyard of the Shiba Heavy Weapons building when a figure emerged from under one of the poplar trees that dotted the well-kept lawn. Jugo winced in disbelief once the moonlight fully exposed the boy.
“Dark Stalker?!”
He wanted to know what the kid was doing there, but he resisted the urge to ask. This was too good an opportunity to let pass.
“Perfect. Report to Hitsuma through Nest for me. I landed a lethal blow on Hotaru Kouro, but she came back to life. Whatever her Gastrea element is, it gives her an incredible amount of vitality.”
“Yeah? Thanks for the report.”
The carefree, inattentive tone of voice made Jugo wonder if he even realized how vital this was. He swung an arm out, frustrated.
“What’re you doing?! The enemy’s coming! Let me go!”
“Afraid I can’t agree to that.”
“What?”
“I know it’s kind of a summary judgment, but I need to execute you right here. You screw up, you die.”
For a moment, Jugo stared blankly, unsure what Dark Stalker had just said.
“What kind of joke is that?”
“Sorry, but it’s not any kind of joke at all. You lost, and as a result, the group told me they don’t want anything to do with you.”
“I haven’t lost at all yet!”
“You’re the only one who thinks that, you know.”
Hold on… Is he really going to…?
“W-wait a minute. Just give me another chance.”
“Don’t need to.” Yuga brushed his hair back, the spite practically radiating from his face. “Is it that hard to believe? That you might wind up being the executed instead of the executioner sometime?”
There was no way he could. Jugo had given everything to the group. Why would they treat him like this? “…And you think I’m just gonna let myself get killed?” he demanded.
Yuga shrugged. “Well, that’s what I’m here for, anyway.”
Swordtail lowered his body into a battle stance. “That’s insane! You’re the one who deserves to die. Go ahead. Ask Mr. Hitsuma anytime you want. The group isn’t gonna just dump me like that!”
The pain from before was gone now. All the adrenaline his body generated had pushed his ability to sense discomfort deep into his subconscious. He checked his legs, and other parts, too. His organs and respiratory system were damaged, but less than half of Jugo’s body was organic, anyway. Everything else was the fruit of modern bioelectronics, a far cry from anything in nature’s creation.
He lowered his breathing—and with it, his body temperature. Glaring into his adversary’s eyes, he took off, activating his optical camo to make his body a mirage in the wind.
He had heard about Yuga’s cybernetic eyes. But this was exactly the kind of match he wanted—a fighter given a skill so advanced that he couldn’t help but be bound by it in his tactics.
Jugo made no sound as he sidled around his foe, attempting to get closer. Dark Stalker was still looking at Jugo’s position from a moment ago; taking out his auxiliary knife, Jugo approached from the right-hand side like a predator stalking its prey—and then slashed forward at full speed. To someone like him, a veteran of undercover assassination, this was his killer move. By the time his target realized he was under attack, his head would already have been separated from his torso.
Immediately afterward, Dark Stalker’s head would arc through the air. He could picture it already.
But what he didn’t anticipate was his foe’s right hand flying up, his head still pointed forward.
He saw the hand brush against the blade of his knife. Then he heard the crunch of crumpled steel. Jugo’s vision shook, as if he was being electrocuted, and his optical camo peeled right off.
He leapt back reflexively, struggling to regain equilibrium. When he did, Jugo saw his stainless-steel knife in his hand, crushed from the tip of the blade to the handle.
Jugo shuddered as the bladeless handle fell from his hands, unable to believe the sight.
“That’s…crazy…!”
“What is? The fact that you had no idea what you were getting into when you attacked me? Or the fact that lame optical camo of yours was neutralized at the single wave of a hand?”
Dark Stalker smirked and shrugged his shoulders at his adversary, now shocked into submission. “I like that Marriott injection and all the other stuff you use for that invisibility trick of yours,” he said, arms open wide, “but none of that mattered after I got you in my sight. The processors in both of my eyes spotted the way you flexed your muscles and calculated your strategic approach—even the position you’d show up at. It’s almost like they predict the future for me. All I have to do is keep myself from yawning while you telegraph your punches from a mile away.”
“But… But how did you pulverize my knife just by touching it?!” Jugo yelled, looking down at the cracked, shattered pieces of metal on the ground. Come to think of it, he did hear about Dark Stalker being equipped with some kind of experimental armament. “S-some kind of ultrasonic wave device?”
As Jugo finished shouting the question, Yuga was upon him, a lethal palm placed upon his heart.
“Well done. I think you should taste it for yourself, though. Isn’t modern technology amazing? It takes the concepts of physical strength, the idealism of martial arts, and turns it all on its head.”
Then, without any time to curse his regrets, Jugo experienced the vibrating waves from Yuga’s death-dealing palm destroy the very connections between his skin and muscle cells.
“This is my second power. It’s called Vairo-orchestration.”
The pain was intense for Jugo—like his organs were being put through a blender. His heart was quickly pulverized, no time provided to even conceptualize any last words as his consciousness faded into darkness.
There was a splurt, something no simple palm strike could ever produce, as Swordtail coughed up enough blood to form a puddle around his feet. He tottered dangerously, eyes staring in disbelief at Rentaro—before he fell like a tree to the ground. There was no getting back up this time.
Rentaro had made his way out of the Shiba Heavy Weapons building just in time to witness a sight he never expected—two New World Creation Project veterans attempting to kill each other. He couldn’t imagine what brought this chain of events about, but either way, Swordtail had just fallen with a single hit.
Yuga’s victory couldn’t have been more complete. It was barely even a match. A scar in the shape of his hand remained on Swordtail’s chest as the man lay dead on his back. The strike must’ve had the effect of necrotizing the local tissue. Even the palm’s prints were clearly discernible.
It was the same skill that Rentaro had luckily escaped at the Plaza Hotel. If there was an ace up Yuga’s sleeve, that had to be it. Rentaro felt a cold twinge, like someone had slipped an ice cube down the back of his shirt. He steeled himself, fists balled up tight, and began to walk up to Yuga. They were face-to-face again, not ten meters away from each other in the Shiba courtyard.
“Yuga…Mitsugi…” came the resentful, whispered words from Rentaro’s mouth. Ever since they’d first met—ever since Mitsugi had shot him out of the skies above the hotel—he could never forget that name. Nor could he forget the fact that both were doomed to fight each other again someday.
“We finally meet,” came the joyful reply as Yuga put his arms out wide in a gesture of welcome. “Not quite when I was expecting it, though. I didn’t think Swordtail would do that bad of a number on you.”
“This doesn’t hurt at all.”
Rentaro was wobbly, his vision bleary at best. But a
t least the blood coming out of his mouth was close enough to the color of his uniform that it didn’t stand out too much.
Yuga’s lips loosened into a piteous smile. “Well, if you’ve gotten to see Swordtail in battle for yourself, I guess you realize who you’re dealing with in New World now, don’t you?”
“The New World Creation Project is a second-generation team of mechanized soldiers, in the style of the New Humanity Creation Project program,” Rentaro stated. “The eyes you use to fight with were copied from plans developed by Dr. Sumire Muroto, one of the Four Sages. Hummingbird’s thought-activation interface was borrowed from research conducted by Ain Rand. Swordtail’s skills were copied from Arthur Zanuck. Dr. Muroto told me that developing artificial eyes or limbs required knowledge across so many different fields that most researchers can’t even understand the basic concepts that drive them. And if you think about it, it must take one hell of a genius to not only copy that stuff, but to upgrade it, too. In fact, I can think of only one person.”
Yuga arched his eyebrows in curiosity.
“Let’s hear it.”
Rentaro looked down at Yuga, jaw still jutted forward.
“The person beating the war drum for your dirty project is the last of the Four Sages—Albrecht Grünewald.”
Yuga, in apparent agreement, lifted his hands high into the air. “Well done! And the name of our group is the Five Wings Syndicate! Happy to make your acquaintance!”
“The Five Wings…?”
“Take a look at this.”
Yuga rolled up the right sleeve of his school uniform, showing off his triceps. What Rentaro saw tattooed there made him gasp.
“The pentagram…and the wings…”
He had seen it several times by then, but Yuga’s star mark had four ornately designed wings drawn around it. Two wings, however, appeared to have been erased in some fashion. Apparently doing so wasn’t easy, since they had been crudely scratched out, like a kindergartener’s scribble-scrabble with a crayon over a coloring-book page.
Yuga smiled as Rentaro looked on. “Yeah, I kinda had two wings plucked off me. Now I can’t fly anymore. I fell back to earth.”
“…I’ve seen that in a few places now. All on things associated with the Five Wings Syndicate, I guess. Is the number of wings some kind of ranking system?”
“Well, if you know that much, I can cut right to the chase, I guess. You’re right. Five wings indicate one of the group’s core leaders. It goes down to four, three, and two wings after that. One wing marks you as either a follower or a slave—or maybe house pet, I guess. If you feel like frisking Swordtail’s body over there, there’s probably a two-wing mark on him somewhere.”
Rentaro could feel the fog lift from his mind little by little. He decided to prod their discussion just a bit further along.
“When I visited Dr. Ayame Surumi’s apartment, I got a call from someone disguising his voice and warning me about Hummingbird. That was you, right?”
A gust of wind flew around them, lifting Rentaro’s, Yuga’s, and a watching Hotaru’s hair up. There was a rustle as the surrounding trees swayed gently.
“That wasn’t me, no.”
“The hell it wasn’t. Why? Why did you take action to help me?”
Yuga responded with silence for a few moments before sighing, apparently opting to give up the charade.
“Satomi, has the beauty of the world around you ever made you want to cry?”
“What?”
“I was born blind in both eyes.”
Rentaro was thrown by this. He was starting to lose track of the subject.
“My mother fell ill while she was pregnant with me, and that’s kind of what happened. One hundred percent blind. It never particularly bothered me at the time. You can’t miss what you never had in the first place, and stuff. But you know how cruel other kids can be. By the time I made it to elementary school, they picked on me all the time. It really made me angry. But it was Professor Grünewald who saved me, along with his second-generation mechanized-soldier plan. That was already under development in secret by the time I showed up. And as you’ve probably noticed, my ‘21-Form’ allows me to see even when I don’t have it activated, unlike your eye.”
Yuga shook his head a little, then turned directly toward Rentaro. The color of his eyes was gone, replaced with a dangerous-looking glare that felt sharp enough to cut with.
“Once I joined their ranks, the beauty of a springtime day honestly made me cry. So did the summer sun, beating down on my eyes. The colors of autumn did it to me all over again, and so did the whiteness of winter. I felt like I couldn’t possibly ask for anything else, and that I needed to give the Professor everything that I possibly could in return. That’s why I built myself up. I mean, I was absorbed heart and soul in the training they gave me. That’s what earned me four wings in the end. I was the Professor’s prodigal son. He gave me VIP treatment. And then…”
All the tension Yuga had built up fell off a self-chiding cliff with the and then.
“I messed it up just once, and that cost me two wings. The Professor branded me a failure, and now I’m up to my neck in this dirty assassin business. You wanted to know why I’d do anything to help you, yeah? Don’t make me laugh. I didn’t do that for your sake or anything. I just couldn’t stand the concept of some tin soldier like Hummingbird or Swordtail doing you in. That’s all.”
He steeled his resentful eyes at Rentaro, denying him the chance to offer any semblance of compassion.
“The Professor promised me that if I beat you, he’d give me my wings back. Once I do, I can go back to serving him again.”
Rentaro had never met Grünewald. But if he was the type of academic to personally brand Yuga a failure, and then dangle the chance of rehabilitation in front of him if he killed Rentaro…then he hadn’t seen much to respect about the man yet. Ain Rand, Tina’s mentor, was the same way. Something told him the three other Sages didn’t care much about virtue or common decency, unlike Sumire.
“And you think Grünewald’s justified in this? In forcing you to commit first-degree murder?”
“It’s not a matter of whether the Professor’s justified or not. All that matters is whether I believe in him or not.”
Yuga turned his back then, only to shoot him a sidelong glance.
“I will await you at the site of the final battle. We can conclude it there.”
With that, without taking another look back, Yuga left the scene. Soon, he was gone from Shiba Heavy Weapons property. Rentaro stared intently at him the whole time, convinced he’d turn around at any moment. But after a while, when he’d disappeared and hadn’t returned, Rentaro let out a deep sigh.
In the process, he realized his vision was lurching sideways a little. Hotaru stopped him before it went fully vertical, but the damage was done. Yuga must have realized, Rentaro thought ruefully, the state of total exhaustion I’m in.
“We better head back to the hideout, Rentaro.”
From some indistinct corner of the city, the familiar sound of sirens blared. It sounded like it was headed straight for them.
Hotaru scowled. “That’s a lot of ’em, judging by the sound.”
“Ah, the Knights of the Round Table. Just a little too late, once again.”
Hotaru flashed him a look. “If you got enough energy to spout stupid crap like that, you’ll be okay if I’m a little rough getting us out, right?”
“A little rough?”
Hotaru turned her head almost straight up. Rentaro followed her eyes. They were pointed at the roof of the main building.
“They’ll track us down if we keep running. I wanna jump away from there.”
The door opened with a crisp electronic beep. Rentaro braced a shaky arm against the elevator wall as he exited, Hotaru propping him up. They were greeted by a howl and a gust of surging wind. Turning his head, he could see the red, yellow, and blue neon flash down below, just past the helipad. The lights from the swarm of police cars at
the bottom. Another familiar sight.
The hand around Rentaro’s shoulder was warm. Worth his trust. Far more than usual, at least.
“Let’s go. Grab on to me.”
He tried to thank her. He couldn’t quite manage it, his pallid, zombielike lips and semifrozen skin no longer listening to his instructions.
But—
“Freeze! Do anything funny, and I’ll shoot!”
Rentaro and Hotaru stopped at the sound of a handgun’s cylinder rotating behind them.
“Lemme see your hands. Walk slowly back toward my voice. Slowly!”
Rentaro raised his hands, not wanting to rile the gunman, and turned around. There he saw a police detective, a stern look on his face as he readied his pistol in both hands.
“Inspector Tadashima…”
Hotaru lowered her stance, readying for battle. Rentaro raised a hand to stop her, then took a step forward.
The humid night wind blew fiercely across the space between Rentaro and Shigetoku Tadashima, making their clothes flap violently in the air.
“Are you people half-bird or something? Every damn time I see you, you’re on the roof of some high-rise. You gotta be nuts.”
Rentaro tried moving his jaw. It seemed to work well enough to speak.
“Let us go, Inspector.”
“No! I’m here in the name of the law. And it’s my duty to uphold it. The law is the only beacon of order this world has. We’d be in total darkness without it. What would we call a world without order? It wouldn’t be a civilization. It’d be chaos.”
“So you’re gonna just neglect justice?”
“Oh, you think you’re in the right here? Look, what’s going on behind the scenes with you? What do you know?”
“I told you a hundred times in the interrogation room.”
“Oh, so all the delusional bullshit you gave me in extreme detail in your testimony is true? Don’t give me that crap!”
“The group I’m fighting is spreading chaos. They’re destroying that order you were talking about. And now you’re helping it grow. Saying ‘I didn’t know’ isn’t gonna help you. It’s your fault you’re so clueless. I’m outta here.”
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