“It bothered me before that their defenses over there were paper-thin. This’d never have happened if they just let Mogwai and me manage it… Aw, darn it!”
Asagi’s temple was twitching as she shouted in irritation. The fact that her very own PC had been nailed by a virus had apparently wounded her pride.
“Meaning that, in the end, we can’t look for Nagisa, either?”
“Tough to pull off. After all, the island’s anti-crime surveillance cameras are under the Island Guard’s jurisdiction. There’re ways to override the hacking and take back control, but with my computer in its current state…”
A smile of self-mockery came over Asagi as she gazed at the wreckage—wreckage that had been called a laptop a few scant minutes earlier. Even if she’d done it to prevent the virus from extracting personal information, the cost paid for it was by no means small.
“Aww, crap. Where the hell did Nagisa go at a time like this…?!”
Though success seemed remote, Kojou took out his cell phone and dialed Nagisa’s number.
3
The girl wearing a letterman jacket was sitting on a bench at a public park along the coast.
She was standing beside a parked scooter colored white to match her clothing. A girl in a middle school student uniform was sleeping with her head on the other’s lap.
Thin white smoke was climbing from a building visible on the opposite coast. Everything around it seemed in upheaval.
The girl gazed absentmindedly at that, not focused on anything in particular, when—without warning—a single man approached and called out to her.
“So this is where you were, December?”
“Mm?”
December, still wearing a half cap–style helmet, lifted her face.
Looking down at her was a middle-aged man wearing a drab gray jacket. His physique was unexpectedly muscular, but thanks to his long, unkempt hair, he had an air more like that of an artist. A sculptor or an art instructor, perhaps—somehow, that was the impression he gave off.
“Ah? Takehito?”
December spoke the man’s name—Takehito Senga of Tartarus Lapse. Once, he had been known as the Pride of the Orient, the genius feng shui practitioner who had taken Europe’s magical societies by storm.
It was this Takehito who gave December a fond smile as he commented, “Should you be out on a stroll? I would have thought you’d be waiting at the safe house.”
“You were slow in contacting us, so Raan was getting worried.”
“Oh, she was worried about me… That’s our Raan for you. So adorable.” December grinned, relaxing as she spoke.
“Goodness.” Senga shook his head.
Senga was forty years old, or thereabouts. In contrast, December was fourteen or fifteen at most. Their apparent ages were off by more than two decades. In spite of this, Senga treated December as an equal. Indeed, the impression December gave off was that of someone gazing at a cheeky younger brother.
“You’ve involved an unrelated civilian?”
It was then that Senga gave December a reproachful glare as he inquired.
“Mm? Ah, you mean Nagisa?”
December smiled with visible delight, gazing down at the side of the face of the girl sleeping upon her lap. Her hand gently stroked Nagisa Akatsuki’s hair.
“Don’t worry about her; she was surprised by the explosion and fainted. I couldn’t just leave a cute girl like this, now, could I? A bad person might abduct her.”
“You speak as if we are not bad people ourselves,” he said bitterly, voice dripping with sarcasm.
December raised her voice in a laugh. “Besides, this girl does have something to do with me.”
“Oh, really, now?”
“Yep.”
“Understood. I’ll let Raan and the others know,” he murmured.
December nodded once more. Then, as if out of consideration for Senga, she quietly asked him, “Takehito, you’re really okay with this?”
“With what?”
“You have a history with this island, don’t you?”
December’s nonchalant words made Senga sink into silence. With a pained expression, as if she’d touched on wounds that remained fresh, he shook his head.
“It is because I have this history that I cannot forgive them.”
“Ah. I suppose not…”
Narrowing her goggled eyes, December smiled, albeit a lonely one.
Without a word, Senga proceeded to turn on his heels and walk away. It was only several paces before all signs of his presence vanished. He had employed feng shui to melt the sight of him into the very landscape.
A moment later, Nagisa Akatsuki, clinging to December’s knees, began to stir as if her sleep had been disturbed.
“Mm…”
Letting out a frail breath, Nagisa gently opened her eyes. December’s eyes narrowed as she noticed the faint chill hovering about the girl.
“Hiya. You awake?”
“Ah…”
With unnatural movements that seemingly defied gravity, Nagisa’s state slowly changed. The irises of her hollow eyes stared at December, dumbfounded. Her long, unbound hair gently coursed downward.
“Thou art…”
“It’s all right, it’s all right. You don’t need to worry. This is my war, after all.”
December gently embraced the startled Nagisa. She whispered into the girl’s ear as if soothing a little child.
The cold swirling around Nagisa increased in force. A thin frost came over December’s entire body.
“…Why am…I…? At a time like this…”
“Go ahead and nod off again. After all, that is what we desire, too.”
Nagisa’s entire body was drained of strength even before December finished speaking.
Simultaneously, the powerful cold enveloping the pair vanished. December sighed in visible relief as she wiped off her chilly, foggy goggles.
By the time she brushed off the ice spread over her stadium jumper, Nagisa awoke—crisply this time.
“Ah… Er? Why am I in a place like…? Wha—?!”
Noticing that December was hugging her and holding her up, Nagisa nervously pulled away from her. She hastily surveyed the area, visibly gawking as her eyes came to rest on the opposite coast.
“Keystone Gate’s…!”
“Yeah. Some kind of accident, apparently.”
“Accident…?”
Nagisa’s memory before her collapse was vague. The intermittent sounds of emergency responder vehicle sirens passing to and from the area around the explosion were a relief to her.
“Um, by any chance, did I cause trouble for you at all?” she asked timidly.
December shook her head. “Of course not; it was no trouble at all. I had fun.”
“But…”
“Phone.”
“Huh?”
“It’s ringing. Your phone.”
December pointed at Nagisa’s bag as she spoke. Nagisa could hear the faint sound of the cell phone’s vibrator trickling out. A little surprised, she reached toward the bag at her feet.
“Wow, it really is. Eh, Kojou? Why…?”
Did I get busted for slipping out of school? she wondered as she grabbed her phone, conflicted.
As she did, December gave Nagisa a secret smile.
4
“And because the weather was nice, you nodded off before you knew it—yeah, right!!”
Kojou was indignant as he walked through the schoolyard illuminated by the evening sun. With Kojou stubbornly continuing to call, it was only a short time before that Nagisa had responded. Though relieved, Kojou could not contain his irritation at the innocent excuse Nagisa had provided.
“Dammit, don’t work people up like that. Geez…”
“Worked up or not, you two jumped on the worry train all by yourselves, sheesh.” Asagi shot a look of muted scorn Kojou’s way. It wasn’t as if this was a recent thing, but Kojou’s supposed sister complex exasperated her nonetheless.
Yukina worked to somehow put the best spin on it, probably feeling somewhat responsible for unnerving Kojou to begin with.
“Well, yeah,” he said bluntly, hiding a blush. “So, Asagi, you’re gonna head straight to the Gigafloat Management Corporation, right?”
“Pile of trouble, but no choice, really. It’s not like we can leave the Island Guard servers hacked like that. I need to get a new PC, too.”
Asagi’s shoulders sank in dejection as she spoke. Time and again, she’d been the recipient of urgent calls when the Gigafloat Management Corporation was under heavy attack and pushed into a corner.
“The Corporation said it’d send a car to pick me up, so how about I give you a lift to the station?”
“Nah, it’s fine, we’re supposed to wait for Nagisa here anyway.”
Kojou thought a bit before shaking his head at Nagisa’s invitation.
Even if he nominally knew she was safe, he’d made Nagisa promise to meet up with him ASAP just to make sure. The rendezvous point was a supermarket along the street halfway to school.
“More importantly, find out where that Senga guy is and tell Natsuki as soon as you can, ’kay?”
“Mm, leave it to me.”
Asagi spoke in a lighthearted tone.
It was just then that a black-painted sedan, the courtesy car sent by the Gigafloat Management Corporation for her, pulled up to the school gates. The driver got out of the courtesy car and opened the door for Asagi. It was fairly VIP treatment.
However, the instant Asagi saw the driver’s face, she froze, completely coming to a halt.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Asagi.”
Standing there, clad in a black suit, was a young-looking woman with no visible hint of makeup—Sumire Aiba.
“S-Sumire?! Why is Sumire driving the…?!”
Asagi’s voice came out shrill as she stared in astonishment at her own stepmother.
It absolutely wasn’t that they got along poorly, but mother and daughter were fairly close in age, which complicated the relationship between Asagi and Sumire. More to the point, it was Asagi who had a tough time dealing with Sumire.
Whether aware of her daughter’s feelings or not, Sumire replied with a carefree look on her face. “Mr. Sensai asked me to get youuu! I mean, there are horrible terror bombings going on, you know?”
“Ugh…”
“And the monorail has been stopped to conduct a safety inspection…”
“Ugh… Uuugh…”
“Come on, get in, get in. Kojou, if the two of you want to, I can—”
“W-we just finished speaking about that, so let’s get going, please?” Asagi cut her off brusquely and climbed into the back of the courtesy car.
Her cheeks were red in an apparent blush, perhaps embarrassed at the prospect of her mother conversing with her friends.
“My, my.” Sumire smiled wryly in the driver’s seat. She gave Kojou and Yukina a friendly wave as she smoothly set the car into motion.
“Now, then. Guess we should head home, too…”
When Kojou, somehow feeling drained, addressed her, Yukina nodded without a word.
Not prone to speaking in excess to begin with, Yukina was more silent than usual that day. Perhaps she had the barrier via feng shui and the bombing incident on her mind. Even so, like a faithful canine following its master, Yukina maintained the exact same distance as she followed Kojou like always.
After walking for a while, the billboard of the supermarket they were heading for came into view. The parking lot was their rendezvous point, but Kojou couldn’t locate any sign of Nagisa just yet.
“Right, Himeragi. Sorry, but could you come shopping with me? Nagisa asked me to buy milk, so…”
“Of course, I do not mind at all—” Yukina’s feet abruptly came to a stop. She looked up at Kojou, seemingly hardening her resolve, and said, “But are you fine with this, senpai?”
“Mm? Ah, well, it’s sort of of a pain in the butt, but I can handle a little shopping; I’ve been sticking Nagisa with all the cooking for a while now, and all.”
“No, not that. I mean Tartarus Lapse.”
“Huh?”
Kojou looked at Yukina, finding this surprising. She paid no heed and continued.
“Senpai, aren’t you actually thinking about them?”
“Well, I mean, it’s hard not to, with Yaze’s dad and stuff.” Kojou put a hand to his neck as he sighed.
“But that doesn’t mean I can do anything about it. Besides, Natsuki just finished telling me not to get involved where I don’t belong. We don’t even know where that Senga guy is.”
“I…suppose not…”
An easy-to-read despondent expression soured Yukina’s face. She must have been feeling pangs of guilt, knowing about Tartarus Lapse’s existence yet being unable to do anything about it. That was probably the cause of her being oddly quiet for the last little while, too. It was her fundamentally sober and serious personality at work.
“I mean, if we at least had a lead on Tartarus Lapse…” Kojou nonchalantly voiced the thought as it came into his head.
“Eh?”
“If we had some idea where they’d strike next, we could go ahead of ’em and ambush ’em, right?”
“Tartarus Lapse’s next move… Meaning that assassinating VIPs and locking out naval and air traffic is only the groundwork for the real terrorism?”
“Isn’t it? People calling themselves a Demon Sanctuary wrecking crew aren’t gonna stop at just blowing away a parking lot. There’s no way.”
“Yes. Certainly…”
Yukina’s expression grew grave. At times like these, it was easy to understand what she was thinking.
“Have to say, it’s rare to hear this stuff coming from your end, Himeragi.” Kojou smiled weakly.
“Is… Is that so?”
“If I stuck my neck into a terror incident, I figured you’d be first in line to complain, Himeragi.”
“That is natural. I am the observer of the Fourth Primogenitor, after all. I have a duty to see that you do not do anything rash, senpai.” Yukina clenched a fist, speaking as if the words were for her sake. “However, if I do not do it in senpai’s place—”
“Ah, no, that logic’s messed up. That’s not what observing means, y’know.”
When Yukina, for some reason, became exceedingly invigorated, Kojou unwittingly made light of the matter.
However, Yukina shook her head with a firm look as she said:
“That will not do. The Lion King Agency exists to prevent large-scale sorcerous terrorism from coming to fruition.”
“If that’s so, other people are already on the move, right? Like that Paper Noise chick from a few days ago. No one like you needs to do anything, Himeragi.”
“No one…like me…? I suppose not…” Her expression appeared wounded. She tapered her lips like a pouting child. “After all, I couldn’t lay hand or foot upon her…”
“Er. Well, yeah…”
This conversation’s become a lot of trouble, Kojou thought, gazing up at the heavens.
When they’d sought to escape Itogami Island, Yukina fought Paper Noise, one of the Three Saints at the head of the Lion King Agency. To be more accurate, the actual situation wasn’t as much a straight fight as it was a huge loss without any idea of what was happening. Yukina still harbored a grudge about that.
“Anyway, let’s leave it to them for now.”
“Please do not say that and then run off somewhere without telling me, okay?”
When Kojou sank his shoulders, seemingly ready to walk off without forewarning, Yukina immediately caught his arm. To anyone watching, they looked like a close couple holding hands.
“It’s all right, sheesh. I wouldn’t do something troublesome like that even if you begged me.”
“I wonder.”
Kojou and Yukina were arguing while holding hands in the middle of the sidewalk wh
en the driver of a light truck who just happened to be driving nearby looked at them, the truck making a cold whoosh as it passed. Yukina’s cheeks reddened, yet, she did not move away from Kojou’s side.
To avoid standing out any further on a city street, Kojou headed into the supermarket in apparent flight.
Instead of the usual, fairly catchy background music, the inside of the store was playing a news channel on the radio. Unsurprisingly, everyone probably had the shipping incidents and the parking lot bombing on their minds.
However, they could not read any particular worry or visible sadness on the shoppers’ faces.
“Everyone is surprisingly calm about this,” Yukina noted, mystified.
“I suppose so,” Kojou agreed with a nod. “Well, residents of a Demon Sanctuary are used to this level of ruckus. I suppose being too relaxed might be a problem in itself…”
In the first place, Demon Sanctuary cities easily became terror targets. Furthermore, Itogami Island suffered damage from typhoons and coastal flooding with particular frequency. The public-order and disaster-management countermeasures were thus well-developed. Stores of food and fuel were also quite sufficient, things that the residents of Itogami Island were well aware of.
“No, that is far more reassuring than falling into a panic. After all, it is said that one of a normal terrorist’s objectives is to instill fear in the populace and fan the flames of social instability.”
“Fear, huh…?” he murmured.
Picking a place that stood out, like Keystone Gate, as the site of a terror bombing to fan people’s anxieties was something he could comprehend.
So far as he could tell from the state inside the supermarket, the residents of Itogami Island were just managing to hold it together against the terrorists’ attacks, at least as things stood that moment.
Having finished the intended shopping, Kojou carried a plastic bag as he headed out to the front of the store.
“Come to think of it, the lady said the monorail had stopped, so how does Nagisa plan to get home?” he wondered out loud, suddenly gripped by a rather basic doubt.
Who knows? Yukina seemed to say with a tilt of her head.
The Roses of Tartarus Page 7