“I-I did not! It was all our older brothers. I did not say that!”
Kisara glanced at him coldly. “I don’t care about that. Well, why did you attack me and Satomi, too?”
“You two were only six and seven back then. Even if we explained our ideals to you, you would not have been able to understand. That’s why—”
“That’s why rather than have us suffer the loss of our parents, you thought you’d send us with them? That was kind of you.” Kisara smiled broadly. Because Rentaro knew the hatred chilled to absolute zero beneath that smile, Rentaro felt chilled, too.
“Th-that’s all of it. My information was useful, wasn’t it? So please, spare me.”
“That’s true.” Kisara put her index finger underneath her chin and nodded cutely. “That’s fine.”
“Huh?”
“I said, that’s fine. The information you brought me was extremely useful. Thanks to that, my revenge has been considerably narrowed down.”
Kazumitsu looked dazed for a while, and then hugged Kisara’s legs. “Th-thank you! Thank you! I-I will mend my ways from now on. Really, I will!”
For a second, Kisara looked at Kazumitsu like he was a bug, and then she nodded at Rentaro. “Satomi, Enju, Tina, let’s go.”
After watching Kisara walk briskly out of the dojo, Rentaro and the girls also followed her out of the dojo, looking back and forth between Kisara and Kazumitsu.
The moment they stepped outside, they were met with orange rays of light that blinded their eyes, and the chorus of cicadas sounded an octave higher. The cirrocumulus clouds in the sky were dyed red.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Kazumitsu’s grateful voice continued. Rentaro wasn’t sure if it was a reaction to being freed from the terror of Kisara or what, but Kazumitsu’s voice seemed to be on repeat like a broken record and showed no sign of stopping.
Walking in front of them, Kisara stopped suddenly and said without turning around, “Satomi, it’s too noisy. Can you close the door?”
After Kisara said that to him, Rentaro hurried back and slid the sliding door of the dojo shut. Even so, he could still hear the slight sound of a voice shouting “Thank you!”
“Kisara, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but you did a good job holding back,” said Rentaro.
“Satomi, there is no move in my Sword Drawing Style that stops bleeding.”
“Huh?”
Kisara kept her back to him as she stretched out her left hand levelly and snapped her fingers.
“Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing Style Zero, Number 1:
Rasen Manzanka
, Open. I will have my revenge.”
Suddenly, the sound of an explosion roared inside the dojo, and the windows and sliding doors were splattered with something bright red.
For an instant, the world became still, and the cicadas stopped their chirping.
The next moment, a high-pitched scream could be heard coming from inside the dojo.
Enju, Tina, and Rentaro all seemed to be caught in a spell and were unable to move.
Rentaro’s body started shaking wildly on its own.
Don’t tell me, don’t tell me
—
He had to check. Rentaro slowly put his hand to the bloody sliding door and pulled it open. The stifling smell of blood rushed into his nostrils. The strength left the lower half of his body, and the next thing he knew, he was on his knees, his eyes still open wide.
Inside, what had once been Kazumitsu was now scattered all over the place. The woman who had once been his secretary continued screaming as she desperately tried to gather pieces of what used to be her boss.
Her scream, which made the hair of those listening stand on end, was the scream of someone who had lost their senses. The mental state of the secretary named Shiina would probably not be able to return to the world of reason and sanity.
Rentaro closed the sliding door again and turned around.
Kisara was holding her stomach with both arms as she laughed. She seemed unable to hold it in any longer and threw her head back to look up at the sky, laughing loudly.
“Rentaro, open your eyes. She’s tricking you. That woman is a monster!”
Kisara spread her arms and turned back to look at him. She was smiling happily from the bottom of her heart. “Hey, look, Satomi. Look, Satomi! I did it. I finally defeated one of the people I needed to defeat to avenge Father and Mother. Isn’t it amazing! Come on, look!”
Even when the excited Kisara rushed into Rentaro’s chest, Rentaro wasn’t sure if this was reality or not. Of course, one of the reasons he was surprised was that Kisara, who blushed when she just held hands with a boy, had suddenly rushed into his chest, but besides that, what was with Kisara’s attitude?
He had thought that he wanted to hold this beautiful woman in his arms forever. He had thought that he wanted her for himself. So then
why was his body shaking right now? Why did Rentaro feel chills from Kisara’s arms wrapping around him?
Her lips were a glossy red. Her eyes shone brightly with excitement. She was so beautiful it gave him goose bumps. “I can win, Satomi. Right now, I can kill all the Tendos!”
And then, Kisara looked at him suspiciously. “What’s wrong? You’re not happy, Satomi? I was finally able to get my revenge on one person. I defeated one of the people who stole your arm and leg. Isn’t this
our
revenge?”
“It’s
your
execution!” Rentaro put both his hands on Kisara’s shoulders and shook her hard. “Why did you kill our brother, Kazumitsu?! I didn’t think there would be that much of a difference in power between two master initiates. But you knew before you started, didn’t you?! Why did you kill him?!”
Kisara tilted her head slightly. She looked like she didn’t understand what Rentaro was saying.
“Kisara, this is no good. Right now, you’re crazy! You’re wrong. Kisara. You always tell me to carry out justice, don’t you? Where’s the justice in what you just did?!”
Kisara slipped out of Rentaro’s arms and clasped her hands behind her back, moving backward a step. “Satomi, I just realized. You couldn’t punish the mastermind behind the Kagetane Hiruko Terrorist Incident, Kikunojo Tendo. You couldn’t punish the mastermind behind the Seitenshi Sniping Incident, Sougen Saitake. But I was able to punish the person responsible for the Third Kanto Battle, Kazumitsu Tendo. Do you know why?”
The ends of Kisara’s mouth turned upward.
“That’s because I’m evil. Your fist of justice could not reach Kikunojo Tendo or Sougen Saitake. Don’t you understand? Justice isn’t good enough. Justice can’t oppose evil. Absolute evil that goes beyond evil can. I have that power. I am convinced of that now! With my absolute evil that gathers hatred, I can kill everyone. I have that power!”
“Please be careful, Leader. She smells strongly of destruction. She seems to be easily drawn to darkness.”
Midori’s voice echoed in his head.
Rentaro slowly shook his head from side to side. He gasped as he squeezed out his words. “No, Kisara. Don’t go to that side… No… You won’t be able to come back.”
Kisara tilted her head. “What are you saying?”
Then, she realized that she was even looking reproachfully at Enju and Tina, and looked a little embarrassed.
“I’m going home.” Saying that, she turned around and walked away.
The setting sun the color of blood sent Kisara’s long shadow onto the ground.
“That’s…not Kisara,” said Enju, shaking.
“Big Brother, that’s…” Tina paled as she looked at Rentaro.
“That’s right, Tina. That’s the real Kisara Tendo, the Tendo Killer… No, she’s gotten worse since before.”
Rentaro’s heart sank.
Kisara, you haven’t changed at all since a year ago, have you?
He remembered the conversation they had, lying in the grass before the Monolith collapsed, but it felt like a distant memory. Kisara had told Rentaro that she had recently been having nightmares.
“I realized that I was crying because I understood that this happiness had to end some day.”
“I killed them. I killed everyone in the world.”
Rentaro lowered his eyelids slowly.
The end that she knew would come someday.
The days she knew were lies.
But this was…
He opened his eyes resolutely.
As he watched Kisara’s back disappear beyond the setting sun, he said, “Tina, Enju. I will tell you two this, at least. I might have to become Kisara’s enemy.”
“I’m back.”
Kisara didn’t expect an answer as she spoke into the empty office at the agency. She closed the door with her hand behind her and walked around the work desk to sit in the executive chair.
She suddenly felt tired, like she could fall asleep just sitting there. But then she remembered something and opened the drawer of the work desk and pulled out a framed picture. Inside the frame was the image of the family she had lost.
It was a picture from right after Rentaro had come to live with them:
Kisara was in the middle, and she held hands with her mother and father. Six-year-old Kisara was all smiles sandwiched between her parents. She had no way of knowing the misfortune that would befall her after this…
Rentaro was looking around shiftily, as he stood, bored, at the edge of the picture.
Satomi was cute back then
, she thought, petting the surface of the picture softly.
“Father, Mother, I did it. I finally defeated one. I will definitely send the other four to join him.”
No voice answered her. The stillness of the agency had never felt as painful as it felt today.
Kisara stood and went to the window, looking at the world with clouds lit by afterglow. And then, she thought of her four sworn enemies who were somewhere outside of that window. Each one was a master initiate of the Tendo Style. She did not expect to survive her fights with them.
But gaining something meant giving up something else.
She had given up everything. She had long given as an offering the happiness of falling in love with a boy, having a child, and creating a warm family.
God would not manifest himself. But neither would the devil.
In this world with no god, the only thing she could believe in and rely on was her sword. Her demon sword that slurped up mud and was polished with blood. The heretical sword. The sword of revenge. She would definitely make the remaining four rust on her blade.
And then, once she successfully had a bloodbath with those four, she herself would be…
Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in her lower abdomen, and her face twisted in pain as she crouched down. “Ow……”
Her kidneys, which had given up on purifying their own body, were throbbing. As she felt the throbbing pain of toxins dirtying her body endlessly, she pounded the window with her fist. There was the sound of a crack as the glass broke radially, and Kisara spit out a curse at her enemies from the bottom of her stomach. “Hyuga Tendo, Gentaku Tendo, Terutoshi Tendo, Kikunojo Tendo—Everyone… I will kill you!”
First, there was darkness.
There was the strange feeling of floating around in space. The individual was stretched, up became down, down became left, and left was inverted, becoming something else.
He didn’t know who he was. Not even that was certain anymore. His own existence had probably disappeared. Who was he?
“Wake up.”
He heard that voice, and it felt as if he was being pulled out from the bottom of a body of water. Opening his eyes slightly, he was exposed to light many times brighter than the sun and groaned.
It took him some time to realize that it was the white light of a halogen lamp mounted above an operating table.
He had probably been made to lie faceup. He couldn’t feel his limbs. His body wasn’t free. His vision was trapped. What state was he in?
Suddenly, he saw an empty black dot in his vision where the halogen lamp had shined.
A fierce-looking man was looking down at him. The man’s hair and beard were connected like a lion’s mane. He felt like he had seen that man before—that face that was full to the brim with confidence.
“Who…are you?” He realized that he could talk.
“Huh. You came to without knowing who I was, huh? Oh well, can you remember your own name?”
“Name……” He was surprised. He remembered. “I’m…Shoma…Shoma Nagisawa…”
“Oh, you remembered? When we retrieved your body from the center of the explosion, they said you would have a hard time even regaining consciousness. You’re a very surprising man.”
His thoughts accelerated one after another. That’s right, he had been fighting to defeat Aldebaran, and he had accomplished that. And then—
“I did some research on you. Apparently, you were a master who studied those abominable Tendo techniques. It really is regrettable.”
“Regrettable? What…are you saying…? Where am I…? What happened…to me…?”
“Whoops, it would probably be wiser if you do not look at yourself. Right now, your arms and legs have all been blown away, one eye has been crushed, your hair has melted, and seventy percent of your body
is covered in burns. If you had not received the most advanced medical care the year 2031 could offer, you would have died.”
“Wha…?” Then the reason why he couldn’t move his body the way he wanted was not because he was restrained or anything like that…
Before he knew it, another four shadows appeared and surrounded Shoma, looking down at him. The halogen lamp made them backlit, and he could not make out their features. Including the first man, there were five of them, with a total of ten eyeballs appraising him.
“This man has won the favor of the venerable Mr. Grünewald? I cannot believe it,” said one of the shadows.
The lionlike man responded. “It’s not that hard to believe. I like him. I want this guy.”
Unable to stand the incomprehensible conversation around him, Shoma groaned. “…What are you? What in the world…are you people?”
The lion man coolly chanted, “We are the Five Wings Syndicate. There is no need for you to know more than that right now.”
“Five Wings…Syndicate?”
“If we leave you like this, you’ll die soon. However, there is just one way for you to be saved.”
The man grinned. “Wanna take me up on that one, kid?”
Rentaro had his elbow on the train car window and was looking absentmindedly outside. The scenery was flashing quickly by before his eyes. The city, the people, and the scenery were all the embodiment of peace.