Vengeance Is Mine (3 page)

The Gastrea realized they had been exposed by the flares, and so, no longer needing to hide, they looked toward the sky en masse and gave a loud howl. The air rumbled, sending Rentaro’s skin prickling. Finally, a conspicuously large Gastrea at the front rushed toward them, and the rest followed, one after another, making a number of rhombus-shaped battle formations. The front line drove toward the civil officers in a straight line, tips of their swords aimed forward.

The invaders let out a rumbling war cry, one that sent a crack through the ground and clouds of dirt alike, to the point where it was hard to tell if it was the ground shaking or the entire earth. Sweat poured from Rentaro’s frame, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

What was with these Gastrea that could follow orders? They didn’t look like a troop of Gastrea, they looked like a school of fish that had gathered together, resembling one giant organism. Even humans who had trained for years would have had a hard time moving together like this.

Just then, a piercing pain stabbed into Rentaro’s head. He felt like he had noticed something important, but the thought had dispersed before becoming clear.

Enju came close to him with an uneasy expression on her face and squeezed Rentaro’s palm tightly.

The Gastrea were less than two kilometers away.

The civil officer troops were also experiencing a precipitous drop in morale. Even battle-hardened veterans were struck with fear.

“E-everyone, prepare for battle!” Hidehiko instructed his subordinate adjuvants, but his voice shook, and the hand he raised into the air was weak.

“Everyone, prepare for battle!” Rentaro repeated the order. Realizing that his own voice also sounded slightly nervous, he made an effort to stop his teeth’s chattering. He drew his XD gun from his hip and pulled the slide so it would be ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

The Gastrea were one kilometer away.

As the Gastrea slowly closed in on them, every single one of the civil officer troops seemed racked with nerves.

Five hundred meters away.

Reinforcing the front lines were the crustacean- and beetle-type Gastrea. Their forewings and bodies hardened with keratin and chitin were made into even harder armor by the Gastrea factor, and they glittered as they reflected the flares they were being hit with one after another.

An adjuvant line that was equipped with rifles took a step forward and fired them at the commander’s signal. There was the dry sound of bullets firing while muzzle flashes dazzled their eyes. The NATO-standard, high-speed Varanium rifle cartridges rushed into the first line of Gastrea. They were bullets optimized for destroying the insides of Gastrea, and would change into a mushroom shape to expand the wounds. The Gastrea’s flesh would be ripped apart in the display of attack power. That was what was supposed to happen.

Rentaro let out an involuntary shout.

The Gastrea did not fall. Surprisingly, the beetle Gastrea in the front row did not stop even after receiving wounds that would have incapacitated normal Gastrea long ago. The rifle squad faltered, but they soon fired again continuously. Over the sound of blood splattering and flesh ripping apart was the strange sound of the Gastrea roaring with all their might.

They finally brought down a few Gastrea after blowing their heads
off, but those were soon trampled and detoured around, and a hopeless number of Gastrea gushed forth. The number that had been taken down was a lot smaller. It was as if they could not feel pain.

Rentaro didn’t really understand what had happened, but instinctively, he understood one of the ways they had broken through the SDF.

Three hundred meters away.

“Big Brother, over there!” Tina shouted.

Rentaro put his face next to Tina’s. She was pointing at something in the air. At first, it was too dark to see anything, but then a flare exploded close by. A squad of flying Gastrea appeared in the area where the veil of darkness had been lifted. There were a little less than fifty of them.

The problem was the round objects they were carrying between their front and back legs: other Gastrea. In other words, paratroopers. When that realization struck, chills shot down Rentaro’s spine.

The flying Gastrea seemed uncomfortable at having light shined on them and tilted their bodies to move away from it, taking a large detour around the air above the civil officer troops and going behind even the area where they had set up tents, landing in the forest behind the backs of the civil officer troops. They released the Gastrea they were holding and then returned to the front lines.

Rentaro looked at Tina. “Did you see that, Tina?”

Tina paused. “Yes,” she said. Seeming to understand the seriousness of the situation, Tina gave a quiet nod. That was probably a detached force sent to attack the civil officer troops in a pincer attack.

Rentaro looked around, but it did not look like anyone else had noticed. Rentaro made up his mind and ran, going for the front line where Hidehiko Gado was commanding the rifle squad. When he got there, he put his hand on the man’s shoulder and whirled him around. “There’s a detached force behind us. We’re going to be caught in a pincer attack. Let us go fight it.”

“Don’t you understand that this is no time for that?!” shouted Hidehiko.

“If they get through from behind, then it really will be over. We’ll be completely wiped out!”

Hidehiko waved his arm in front of him with bloodshot eyes. “Right now, we have to deal with the Gastrea in front of us. Get back in line, Satomi!”

Rentaro wanted to object more, but he controlled himself. Turning around, he went back to his adjuvant, where everyone on his team was waiting for him with uneasy expressions.

“Satomi, what is it?” Kisara asked on behalf of the group, meeting his eyes. He hesitated for a second but then explained the developments as briefly as possible.

“That’s serious!” said Tamaki, taken aback.

Shoma watched Rentaro silently as he listened. “Satomi, what do you want to do?”

“I want to go fight the enemy on our own.”

Enju looked uneasy. “Rentaro, but that means…”

Rentaro nodded silently. That would mean disobeying orders from his superior officer, Hidehiko Gado. During the civil officer training they had undergone these past few days, Rentaro and the others had been given detailed instructions about the severe punishment that awaited them if they disobeyed orders.

Yuzuki contemplated for a while, and then looked to Rentaro. “You decide, Rentaro Satomi. I’ll do as you say, Leader.”

The adjuvant members all looked upon him as well, waiting expectantly for his decision.

“I…” he started.

Just then, a thunderous shout reached their ears. “Cease fire!”

When Rentaro turned to look, he saw that the rifle squad was moving back under Hidehiko’s instructions, passing the baton to the civil officers who had close-combat weapons. Rentaro’s adjuvant had more close-combat fighters, so they were supposedly part of that group. Rentaro and the others moved forward, as if being pushed by the rifle squad and their paranoid gazes.

The Gastrea were a hundred meters away.

The rumbling of treaded ground combined with war cries to bring about the thunderous roar of the Gastrea. There was no sign of the enemy decreasing. What was going on?

Rentaro’s sense of crisis increased. No matter how he thought about it, he was far from being able to take an optimistic view of the situation. Looking left and right, he saw that the other adjuvants shared his anxiety.

A young man to his right with hair sticking up like a rockhopper
penguin was coincidentally the leader of the adjuvant next to them at camp, as well. Even though Rentaro was often hated by other civil officers for being an upstart, when the young man found out Rentaro was ranked 300, he put his hand on Rentaro’s shoulder and said with an affable smile, “I’m proud to be fighting next to you.”

Rentaro ground his clenched teeth together. If he left right now, there was a possibility that the space left by his absence would cause the death of Hidehiko Gado or the neighboring leader. They were getting close to the time limit. A little longer and Rentaro would be saved by the easy ending that they had run out of time. In that sense, the choice of not choosing anything was undeniably an option.

However, if the surprise Gastrea attack squad reached them without being noticed and they were completely overtaken from behind, they would lose more than ten or a hundred people. The last breakwater would burst, and Gastrea would flow into Tokyo Area.

Rentaro took deep breath after deep breath and looked forward. This was no time to hesitate. It was time to move. “Let’s go.” He turned as he said this, and everyone nodded gravely.

Watching each Promoter put arms around his or her Initiator, Rentaro also stood next to Enju and put an arm around her waist; she put her strong arm around his. His eyes met Enju’s; her black ones turned a deep crimson. The next instant, he was hit with pressure pushing down on his body. It had been a while since he had last felt the acceleration that seemed like it would blow him away. Enju had awakened her Rabbit Factor.

They flew over the sky above the columns of civil officers in large parabolas, heading for the back. Rentaro’s uniform flapped in the gale, and it was hard to open his eyes in the wall of air pressing in on him. When Rentaro’s feet touched the ground again, he gasped as he pulled air into his lungs.

Looking back at what they had left behind, he saw that most of the people were staring at them with their mouths open, not understanding what had just happened. However, one person—Hidehiko—grasped his fist tightly, shaking with anger.

Rentaro felt a second of guilt, but he soon shifted his concentration on what was in front of him. Checking to make sure his whole team had followed, he went through the frontline base where they had
camped for the last few days and into the forest that had been at their backs until now.

Rentaro squinted through the wall of air that came at him and instructed Enju and the others to gather in the forest. It was dark there, and full of sticky, humid summer air. Once together, he made sure everyone knew the rough position of where the Gastrea had been last spotted, and then set off. The group moved by holding on to the Initiators, borrowing their ability to move at high speeds. With the Owl and Cat in the lead with their night vision, the adjuvant members jumped through the tops of the trees like ninjas.

Leaves grazed Rentaro’s cheeks, and his gaze went left and right dizzyingly. Enju landed on a thin branch, and crouched to start another massive leap. This time, his chin was pulled down, and his vision rose and fell, practically giving him vertigo.

Kisara, who had just newly formed a pair with Tina, looked like she was having a hard time with the girl’s freely changing directions, but Rentaro couldn’t say anything because he was having a hard enough time trying not to be thrown off by Enju’s superfast acceleration.

Inside the still forest, four pairs forming a total of eight people were advancing, rustling the leaves as they jumped.

Rentaro’s heart had been beating hard for a while as he stared in front of him at the impending confrontation. Some time had already passed since the airdropped Gastrea had landed; they’d most likely started moving already. If they were planning a surprise attack on the back of the front lines, then they would soon come across each other.

Just then, there was a loud explosion behind them, followed by the sound of weapons firing. The main civil officer troops beyond the forest were finally fighting the Gastrea front lines head-on.

From between the treetops, Rentaro caught glimpses of explosions’ red flames painting the battlefield crimson.

“Leader, I’ve found them!” Midori shouted toward him. Looking in the direction she was pointing, Rentaro, who couldn’t see as well as she could in the dark, couldn’t immediately tell what she was talking about.

He signaled Enju by tapping on her shoulder three times, and she used her rabbit jumping power to leap even higher. Rentaro gritted his teeth against the invisible hand that seemed to push down on him
as they accelerated, until the pressure finally disappeared. With the sound of the wind in his ears, he opened his eyes narrowly and saw that they were already fifty meters in the air. Straining to look in the area where Midori had pointed earlier, he saw a pitch-black group, darker than the darkness, squirming in a clearing.

And a straight line from that was the main civil officer force led by Nagamasa Gado. There was no sign that the main force had noticed the impending danger of the Gastrea sneaking in from behind them.

“We’re going down, Rentaro!” After Enju spoke, they lost inertia and traced the trajectory of a free fall. The forest rushed toward them at a terrifying speed and the fundamental fear of falling engraved in his DNA ran through his whole body. However, Enju safely thrust her legs at a thick branch, and with exquisite timing, bent her legs perfectly to break their fall and jump toward the next branch. Before they had time to relax, Rentaro gave the hand signal to attack to those behind him.

Everyone leapt off their branches.

This time, he could see the enemy even more clearly. Their chests were made up of eight parts, and a pair of antennae extended from their heads like whiskers; each antenna had a pair of small compound eyes. The hard exoskeletons, like those of crustaceans, glittered like obsidian. And there were a lot of them.

The Gastrea were shaped exactly like pill bugs, but in order to infect humans with their bodily fluids, their mouthparts were stretched wide and had giant fangs peeking out. They came up to about Rentaro’s chest, but because they did not have crazy shapes, Rentaro concluded that they were all Stage One simple factors.

The Gastrea crowded together in a diamond formation, but because they were so vigilantly waiting for a chance to launch a surprise attack on the main force, they had, luckily, still not noticed Rentaro and the others.

After a while, one dropped suddenly from the sky and screeched to the others upon spotting Rentaro’s crew, but by then it was too late.