Vengeance Is Mine (21 page)

What was amazing was their number. The thousands upon thousands of balloons that filled the sky danced in the air like down feathers as they bumped into each other on their ascent. As they did so, even more were added to their number, and the light grew two or three times brighter.

Rentaro’s heart was stolen by the otherworldly light, and his mouth gaped open. “It’s the Genan Festival. It was today, huh…?”

Involuntarily, he recalled the conversation he once had with his students.

“The balloons are supposed to be filled with thanks to the people who died fighting in the Gastrea War, and the festival started after the Second Kanto Battle.”

“Mr. Rentaro… Are we going to die? Will we be able to live…to see the next Genan Festival…?”

But the Genan Festival that took place every year was supposed to be a modest affair that was held near the Flame of Return monument. There had never been such a large-scale festival held in the past ten years. And for it to become this bright, there had to have been an enormous number of people and balloons… Who in the world did something this big?

Just then, Rentaro’s cell phone vibrated.

“Satomi, it’s me.”

Rentaro gave a start and readjusted his hold on his phone. “Lady Seitenshi…I see, it was you…!”

The Seitenshi seemed to straighten herself on the other end of the phone as she said, “Satomi, each and every one of those balloons carries the hopes, prayers, and will to survive of the citizens of Tokyo Area. Can you see them? If you win this battle, the Gastrea will fall. If you lose,
we
will fall. I entrust Tokyo Area’s future to you. Now go, with the courage to continue fighting no matter what.”

Rentaro closed his eyes and then opened them slowly. “Don’t worry, Lady Seitenshi. I will definitely win.” Hanging up, Rentaro took Enju’s hand quietly, and they watched the world of light together from the best seats in the house.

The warm light made the balloons translucent, like paper lanterns, and the mass of orange nestled close and touched, sometimes crashing together as the enormous number of them slowly floated up.

Rentaro felt a hard squeeze through their connected hands. Looking next to him, he saw the tears readily flowing down Enju’s face as she looked up at the sky.

“Enju, it’s true that people from the Stolen Generation killed your classmates. But it was also somehow the Stolen Generation that created this light. People probably have two faces—light and darkness. This is the face of light. If even you can see the prayers and hope in each and every one of those balloons, then—let’s fight.”

Enju quickly wiped her tears with her sleeve and regarded him solemnly. She gave a firm nod. “Of course! We have to save everyone.”

He felt like his and Enju’s feelings were one. It was an indescribable sensation of unity.

It was strange. It wasn’t as if the situation had suddenly turned in their favor. In fact, they were overwhelmingly and hopelessly at a disadvantage. Even so, what was this feeling that was filling his heart? Why was he so at peace right now?

The stiff nervousness dissipated, and he felt renewed. Until just now, he had been worried about whether or not they could win, but now that feeling was gone.

No, he was now certain they
could
win. There was no way they would lose.

Rentaro turned back with a determined look.

And then, he froze in surprise.

He could see. He could see perfectly. The countless lights that lit up all of Tokyo Area drove away the night sky in place of the searchlights, showing the troops of darkness as clear as day. He spotted Aldebaran easily. In the middle of the enemy toward the back—
Hallelujah.

Enju stepped forward firmly, and her usually black eyes burned red.

Rentaro reached his right arm straight out and started his artificial limbs. Geometric patterns emerged on the inside of his eye as the graphene transistor nano-core processor activated. He felt a shock of electricity spread through his mouth as the iris of his artificial eye spun. He had only been able to see out of one eye, but now he could see out of both, and his field of vision expanded. He was able to see in 3-D.

Rentaro put the radio to his mouth and took a deep breath. “We will now begin Operation Rapier Thrust. I repeat, we will now begin Operation Rapier Thrust. Tina, do it now.”

As he spoke, there was the sound of an explosion that made him duck involuntarily. Of the seven buildings that surrounded the monument, the six buildings other than the one Rentaro and Enju were standing on exploded at the same time—or so it seemed.

The 20-mm Vulcan gun, 30-mm chain gun, 127-mm cannon, 155-mm howitzer, and other antiair guns fired at once from the roofs of those buildings. To Rentaro, the detonation and vibration seemed like a volcanic eruption, and it left his ears ringing.

There was no sign of the shooter. They were all unmanned, controlled instead by Tina’s remote control modules and, thereby, the neurochip in her brain. Rentaro knew firsthand just how scary their precision was, after being fired on by six antitank rifles from different places at the same time.

The line of fire rushed into the Gastrea’s flying troops, and the next instant, they exploded. Pushed back by the superheated shock waves, Rentaro couldn’t even open his eyes.

In the blink of an eye, hellfire materialized in the air and filled the sky. Flying Gastrea had their wings torn off, were burned up, and had their brains blown apart as they fell from the sky, one after another. It was an attack as precise as if they were all individually manned fort cannons. With a line of fire of certain destruction more accurate than that of an advanced computer, Tina exploded timed fuses in enemy vital spots to give the most efficient blows to the swarm.

Rentaro gulped. This was the real strength of the former Rank 98, Tina Sprout. As long as she could hack the suitable weapons with her neurochip to integrate and control them, it was possible that she could even by herself create as much firepower as an aircraft carrier.

Tina might even be able to defeat all the flying Gastrea by herself.

Rentaro took another deep breath. “All troops, charge!”

He heard war cries from downstairs. The civil officers burst forth in a desperate attack with their adjuvants.

“All right, Enju. We should go, too.”

He and Enju nodded at each other and ran down the stairs.

Just then, he heard a scream from the radio. “There’s a giant Gastrea rushing straight toward us!”

Stopping his feet running down the stairs, he ran through the floor and rushed up against the window glass. “What is that…?!”

A giant Gastrea was wriggling on the ground. It was long and thin, and bigger than any snake or worm could ever be. The diameter of its torso was about as big as a subway tunnel, and it was about as long as a small building.

Jormungand
—The name of the giant snake from Norse mythology, created by the wicked god Loki, ran through Rentaro’s head.

It was probably a Stage Three. The enemy still had that ace up its sleeve? The giant snake writhed on the ground, cutting away large swaths of trees and upturning scrap cars as it rushed straight at the building where they were positioned.

By the time they realized the giant snake was after them, it was too late. It stretched up and twined around the building and, shockingly, it started to constrict the building from its base. The metal frame twisted, and the glass windows passed their critical temperature to shatter with a crack.

Hey, this isn’t funny…!
Gulping involuntarily, Rentaro’s vision tilted, and he stumbled. It was already too late by the time he realized that the floor had become slanted. With an unpleasant and nauseating sound of collapse, the top part of the building bent over, and the floor became so slanted that Rentaro couldn’t remain standing. Falling and rolling on the floor along with rusted steel desks and chairs, Rentaro landed back first on the floor—which had been a wall just a moment ago. The air was squeezed from his lungs with a sharp pain, like a hole had opened up in his back.

Suddenly, his hips floated up with a different kind of vibration. Opening one eye, he found the building bowing, as if it were leaning against another building rather than fully crashing to the ground.

In the bizarre world where vertical had become horizontal, he had no time to catch his breath. Enju tumbled toward him with pieces of glass; he froze when he spotted where she was going to fall.

At that rate, she would go through the windows and smash into the ground.

“Ennnnjuuuuuuuuu!” He stretched out his arm immediately. The girl stretched out her hand back.

With a screech, Enju’s body went through the glass window.

“Gah!” A heavy impact ripped through Rentaro, nearly dislocating his right shoulder. Opening his eyes as much as he could, he saw that Enju had just barely managed to grab his arm in time and was hanging in midair.

“Rentaro!” Enju called out in a pained voice.

He felt throbbing pain along his spine. He didn’t have time to pull out a mirror and check, but he knew he had been stabbed by the countless shards of glass that had tumbled down with the girl.

Enju’s wondrous jumping ability could manifest itself only with a hard floor to jump off of, so she couldn’t step on air to jump. He had to make sure she didn’t fall from this height. “Hang on, Enju. I’ll pull
you up.” Holding the excruciating pain at bay, he gritted his teeth and put all of his strength into his arm.

Just then, he felt overwhelming pressure and heat on his back. Turning his head, he found the giant snake Gastrea had stuck its head into the building and was flicking its red tongue in and out of its mouth.

The hot air it breathed out smelled like rotten eggs. With just the long and narrow snout and pair of horns visible, it looked just like a dragon.

If Rentaro didn’t release Enju’s hand, he wouldn’t be able to evade the giant snake’s attack. He paled with despair.

Suddenly, the giant snake opened its mouth wide.

“Satomi, I’m coming.” Unexpectedly, a graceful voice echoed from his radio.

Kisara, where are you coming from?
Turning his head, Rentaro yelped. “Ahh!”

Kisara was accessing their building from the roof of the one it was leaning on. She rushed down a steep slope with an angle of elevation no less than forty-five degrees, and at a speed close to falling.

She was being reckless. She didn’t even bring an Initiator with her.

The giant snake noticed something out of order and raised its head to meet Kisara directly.

Without warning, there was a sharp exhale. “Tendo Sword Drawing, First Style, Number 6—” With a clear tone that froze the air, Kisara drew the sword at her hip from its sheath as fast as a lightning strike. “—
Midaei Suiken
.”

Countless giant cutlines scattered into the air, and Kisara and the Gastrea crossed paths. They were so fast that Rentaro couldn’t tell what was going on. Kisara braked suddenly with the heel of her shoe and exhaled deeply as she slowly resheathed her sword. When the naked blade was sheathed all the way to its base, the head of the giant snake that was already stiffening with rigor mortis spurted blood, and pieces of flesh that had been cut off like dots of a die splattered down in chunks.

The body that had lost its head wriggled like a loose string, and then fell from the building. It fell with a creak of the ground and a thunderous roar, raising a thick cloud of dust.

The civil officers below them cheered as they saw the defeat of the enemy’s general-class Gastrea.

Rentaro watched the scene with his mouth slightly open. Someone
who wasn’t an Initiator or a mechanized soldier—a regular human—had defeated a Stage Three Gastrea with a single attack. A Stage Three. With one attack.

Kisara jumped down to where Rentaro was and flipped her hair. “Satomi, we’re going to pull Enju up.”

“R-right,” said Rentaro.

With Kisara’s help, they were finally able to pull Enju up. However, there was no time to pull out the pieces of glass stuck in his back before the world shook and he fell to his knees. Opening his eyes a little, he saw that the floor was getting even closer to horizontal. Cement dust fell and was blown away, and the entire building cracked.

Rentaro broke into a cold sweat. The edifice was leaning over even more. At this rate, it wouldn’t last more than a few minutes. If they stopped here, they would end up committing suicide with the building.

“Enju!”

She nodded once and put her right hand around Rentaro’s hips, and the other arm around Kisara’s waist.

“Let’s go.”

Enju bent her legs deeply and jumped. The next instant, Rentaro couldn’t even open his eyes under the pressure; it felt like a giant was pushing its palm against him. Next to him, even Kisara screamed a little.

Hearing the sound of clothes flapping, Rentaro forced his eyes open a little. The sky was crimson, lit up by the otherworldly glow of the hot air balloons within it, while the forest below held Gastrea in a dense formation. Civil officers, the size of grains of rice, attacked like the thrust of a rapier.

Rentaro tapped Enju’s shoulder twice and pointed at the middle of the vicious battle below them. His signal meant to land there.

Enju gave a nod, and, doing a triangle jump off the building, she kicked twice. He felt G’s hit his side so hard that it almost made him groan.

Cutting through the wind, they went up over a hundred meters before inertia and gravity canceled each other out. They fell into free fall the next instant, and the brown dirt of the ground grew bigger as he watched.

Just before they ran into the ground, Rentaro and Kisara curled up their bodies and rolled as they landed.

Even though his vision spun, Rentaro stood up quickly. The ground was muddy with rain, so Rentaro’s uniform was instantly covered in it. But he didn’t worry about the details as he checked his surroundings.

They were in the middle of the battlefield, surrounded by the sound of fighting, the rumble of the earth, and splashes of mud as ground was trampled.

“Run, Satomi!” Even Kisara shouting with all her might was hard to hear in the midst of the shouts and war cries around them.