Volume 3, 1: A Scab Torn Away – City_Warfare.(1/4)
Part 1
Hamazura Shiage did not know much about the Coin of Nicholas.
On Christmas morning, he had woken up to find it in his hand. That was strange, but he had seen several similar accounts on message boards and social media. Some had even claimed to have taken it to a pawn shop and learned it was real gold.
That meant this was not just a surprise from Mugino Shizuri or Takitsubo Rikou.
After that, a detailed user’s guide had appeared on R&C Occultics’ official site and that had quickly spread across the internet. It happened fast enough that it took him a bit to realize it came from that side of the world.
As a resident of a city of science, he had been skeptical, but the coin had in fact opened that rusted-shut door. Whether years of rust had filled the gap or the door had itself had been warped, there had to have been some physical reason why the door would not budge, yet all of that had been ignored to grant him his wish.
Yes, he had been skeptical, but he had also tested it out before that.
While holding the coin in his hand and praying, his roommate Mugino Shizuri’s bra hook had come undone. As a result, he had been nearly killed by his girlfriend Takitsubo Rikou instead of Mugino.
The same method had failed to undo the hook on his other roommate Kinuhata Saiai’s bra. Not even the mysterious coin could unhook a bra that did not exist. He had nearly been killed by Kinuhata herself for that one, but he had learned that the coin could not do the impossible.
These were the rules as far as he knew:
The Coin of Nicholas fixes an action’s success rate at 100%.
After a use, it requires an hour to recharge. That time limit is fixed regardless of the quantity or quality of the action performed.
Those rules were straight from the R&C Occultics manual and he had confirmed them himself.
And he could add another rule to the list since he was from Academy City, even if he was a Level 0.
Espers can use the coin without any penalty or side effects.
(I am curious why such a useful item was given out for free. Was this just a Christmas present from those magic people? Come to think of it, that weird kid I met during the day mentioned R&C too.)
“!?”
A loud siren blared and the brown-haired delinquent boy cut off that line of thought. He hid behind a car parked on the road. Even he was disgusted with himself. He was outside during the midwinter, yet the paper bag containing the medicine seemed soaked with his sweat.
(It isn’t just a localized thing.)
Hamazura looked inside the Anti-Skill vehicle passing by. He saw a distinctive device in the back seat.
(An NB20 close-range arresting gun. Wasn’t that net rifle recalled for causing so many accidents? Shoot a kid with a handgun and it’s a big deal, but kill them with the weight used to spread out the net and they call it an accident. Anti-Skill is serious about this. They plan to tear down the dark side even if it means slaughtering us all!!)
“Hey, that’s Anti-Skill, Etzali!”
“That is not a problem thanks to our borrowed faces. Or it wouldn’t be if you would stop panicking, Xochitl. We need to get to the hospital to collect Tochtli.”
Hamazura waited until a boy and a girl walked past.
(One hour.)
He pulled the Coin of Nicholas from his pocket. The brightness at the edge seemed thicker than it had been before. It looked a lot like a donut-shaped pie graph filling in clockwise, but it was not even a quarter of the way full yet.
It would take a while before it was fully charged.
(I can’t rely on its power for another hour. I’ll have to survive on my own. Wait, isn’t this first hour the most dangerous time!? Damn, maybe I shouldn’t have used it right off the bat like that!)
At any rate, he worked his panicked mind to try and think. He felt frustrated and angry, but he could not protect anyone by challenging Anti-Skill or Judgment head on. That would change nothing even if he could cheat with the Coin of Nicholas. He knew that much.
He did not have time to explain to them that he was no longer part of the dark side.
It was all or nothing.
How could he stand in front of them and talk when a single mistake would mean taking a bullet to the head? He had to pessimistically assume he would be taken out along with the others. That was the only way he would survive this.
His goal was to escape to safety. And that meant crossing Academy City’s borders to leave the city.
There was not a moment to lose, but running around blindly would also put his life at risk. He had already seen all too well what would happen to him if he did the wrong thing. He could not survive if he stayed in Academy City where so many cameras were watching everything that happened in the city’s limited space. He would be cornered before he could recover from even a single mistake.
He needed to meet up with the track suit girl named Takitsubo Rikou.
Then they could really get started.
He reflexively pulled out his cheap phone, but then he froze.
His fingers had moved on autopilot, but for some reason an error appeared on the lock screen.
“Aneri?”
He gasped in realization after seeing the cold error message.
That support AI had no real physical form. She had temporarily joined with the massive Bank database, but she was generally creating a connection back to her friend in England and moving freely between the devices around Hamazura. But now she had clearly rejected him.
(Oh, right. I can’t use this thing!!)
As soon as he realized how careless he had been, he held down the switch on the side. The few seconds it took to shut off stretched on for what felt like an eternity. Even loan sharks these days would steal a phone’s location data or social media’s facial recognition to track down a target who had skipped town. And he was up against Anti-Skill and Judgment who preserved order in Academy City. They would have full use of the city’s data infrastructure, including the unknown millions of security cameras, the cleaning and security robots, and the massive Bank database.
He breathed a sigh of relief once the thin screen finally went dark, but then a different sort of pressure hit him. He was cut off and overwhelmingly alone. Not even a child separated from their parents at a crowded amusement park would feel quite so much crushing pressure.
How could he let that girl know about the threat without his phone? Plus, he had no idea where she was and had no way of giving her a rendezvous point.
Aneri was not telling him anything. Which made sense since she had urged him to turn off the phone.
(Dammit, I didn’t realize how dependent on this phone I was.)
He cursed his own weakness. He started by thinking over what he could do. He could return to their apartment. If his girlfriend had not been caught in any similar trouble, she would be lazily waiting for him there.
He was unsure if that was a good thing or not.
He had to be swift and certain. If he could catch up to her before tragedy struck, she would not be harmed. He would make sure of it. He kept repeating that to himself like he was willing it to be true as he stepped out from behind the car.
He heard an odd sound from overhead.
Someone fell from the building and squashed the parked car to half its original height.
“Ahh, ahhh!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”
He only now realized the odd sound had been someone screaming. He screamed himself and fell on his ass because all of the car’s windows had shattered. The person embedded in the steel roof did not seem to have it in him to get up, so he turned just his head toward Hamazura while lying on his back.
He could not open one of his eyes due to the blood flowing from a head wound.
“..Ha..”
He was a young man older than Hamazura.
He wore a thick coat and fancy slacks. What he wore below the coat was unclear, but the practical sneakers on his feet clashed with the classical outfit. He also wore a synthetic fabric sling bag over the coat. The mismatched look made it look like he was skipping town.
Who was that weak and cynical smile meant for?
“I might not look it..but I used to boss the likes of you around over the phone.”
(Wait..)
Still down on his butt, Hamazura gulped. He had never met this man before, but he had seen someone similar when he was working as a dark side underling. Well, seen was the wrong word. The woman who had bossed Item around had ensured her own safety by only ever calling them over the phone. She had gone to great lengths to keep her appearance and real name a secret.
So..
“The voice on the phone? This is reaching people on that level!?”
That meant there were no exceptions. The young man crushed on the car roof did not nod or shake his head. He may not have had the strength left.
“The..charm.”
“What?”
“She lives..outside the city. Return it to..my little sister.”
“Wait, don’t say that. I have my hands full already!! Don’t give me another burden! I mean it!!”
The young man was no longer listening. After an especially large convulsion, he stopped moving altogether. He did not even shut his eyes like they did in dramas and movies. He simply stopped blinking and blood oozed from his unfocused eyes.
Hamazura sensed someone inside the building.
A charm.
A little sister living outside the city.
“Dammit!!” he spat as he reached for the young man despite the risk.
He unhooked the sling bag that was too small to fit much more than a wallet and phone and he pulled it toward himself. Then he rushed into a narrow alley between buildings with the extra baggage.
The road was growing busy now, but he had to check something before blindly running away.
He checked through the small sling bag and found a few tools inside. A passport as a form of ID, a smartphone, some paper money carelessly balled up with some rubber bands, a Shinto shrine’s charm that felt out of place with everything else, and a handgun seemingly made out of plastic. Almost all of it was sketchy as could be. He started by powering off the phone and opening the passport. School Boy. That was very obviously a fake name. In fact, it was one that showed up on a lot of example documents in banks and government offices here in Academy City.
There was no Coin of Nicholas in the sling bag.
Maybe they had been handed out randomly so not everyone had one and maybe the young man had not believed it worked and left it behind. Hamazura had kind of been hoping for another one so he could shorten the lag between uses, similar to Nobunaga’s rotating three-line formation.
(So is this the charm?)
Vermilion fabric had the shrine’s name and the charm’s effect stitched in gold: wish fulfillment. He was surprised to see that category existed. If that would fulfill whatever wish you had, it felt like an almighty joker that rendered the academic achievement and prosperous business ones unnecessary.
Maybe he was sensitive to such things after seeing the Coin of Nicholas work so well, but he still doubted the charm had any special effects. It was only a local souvenir, no different from a keychain or phone strap.
(Are these mass-produced in a factory, or are they handmade? If they’re different for each shrine, I might be able to work out the general area where his sister lives and search for more personal information from there.)
At any rate, he was glad this had not fallen into Anti-Skill’s hands.
His own life came first, of course. He could not determine how much he would be able to do about the charm, but he still felt an obligation to search for that sister outside of Academy City now that he had taken it.
The handgun was only meant for self-defense, so it only had two spare magazines despite being full-auto. Hold the trigger down and it would last less than 10 seconds. Carrying that around would probably give the Anti-Skill officers flooding the streets an excuse to kill him, but he would be operating in the middle of the dark side from here on. Just like vitamin supplements and silver ion anti-bacterial spray, he felt like letting go of it would only make things worse.
Especially today.
Anti-Skill was supposed to stand for justice, but they were out of control. It was more frightening than a zombie outbreak.
(He doesn’t have a security buzzer, a mobile router, or anything else that could be used to track me. Good.)
There were no sirens this time.
He only heard the scraping of tires against the road. Those were probably electric cars, but right now they felt like assassination weapons that could silently sneak up on him.
“Another one. The suspect died at 4:10 PM. Send the paperwork to the prosecutor.”
“It’s just one surprise after another. I guess that’s the dark side for you. Our usual methods just aren’t working.”
Hamazura pressed his back against the filthy concrete wall and held his breath.
He could not believe what he was hearing. Based on their tone of voice, they were not being sarcastic.
(Does Anti-Skill not realize what they’re doing? But they’re hunting us down and killing us!)
What about what happened in that abandoned building?
He had not seen exactly what the man had done to kill Aoumi Karei when she should have been protected by the repellent..but what if he had not done anything?
But that did nothing to put his mind at ease. This was frightening in a way other than a serial killer wielding an axe or chainsaw with intentional malice. This was like a necessary gear was missing or like an automated process was running while malfunctioning. He imagined a bedridden old person being mercilessly folded up in a defective nursing bed while a faux music box melody played. If the people doing this did not realize their mistake, they would keep doing it. It was like a murder factory where Anti-Skill loaded the people up on the conveyer belt that carried them off to be folded up and stuffed in boxes.
The usual rules did not apply in Academy City today.
Anti-Skill would not protect them.
Both Item and the voice on the phone would die when the time came.
He put the sling bag diagonally across his chest, turned his back on the road full of adults, and continued further into the alleyway.
He had to reach Takitsubo Rikou.
He could not let her be swallowed up into this hell again. No matter what.
Part 2
“What is the meaning of this!?” Shouted Shirai Kuroko after returning to the logistics vehicle the size of a large bus. “You’re just going to continue with the operation!? I requested an internal investigation to determine if my own actions there were inappropriate!! Whoever they might have been, a life was lost on the scene. If you refuse to thoroughly investigate that, you might as well be admitting we are doing something wrong here!!”
“Sh-Shirai-saaan.”
The combover and glasses man nervously called out to her from behind, but the cowardly and obedient teacher did not have the guts to grab a middle school girl’s shoulder.
The operators in front of the large computers spoke with voices colder than the machines they operated.
No one was even looking in Shirai Kuroko’s direction.
“For Phase 1, we have completed 1700 surprise attacks made on the targets’ hideouts and everyday spheres of activity. The neutralized dark side targets make up about 40% of the total in Outrank – less than initially hoped. We will now use Response B. Please correct the flowchart to make up for this delay.”
“Prepare for Phase 2. The targets will be on the run after abandoning their hideouts, so target their predicted destinations. While Phase 1 went after individual targets, Phase 2 will likely allow them to gather into groups as they rush toward the same few safe spots, but the dark side is not a monolith.”
“With more of them around, they might fight each other for the one plank. They will not attack with their apparent numbers, so show off the power of our high-level organization to bring us back on schedule.”
The same thing was happening all across Academy City.
The deadly operation was continuing without delay to cover all of Academy City with something like a giant invisible spider web.
“Was that really an accident?” quietly asked Shirai.
“?”
The man only tilted his head and wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. The large baby birds printed on it seemed unusually cutesy for a middle-aged man, so it may have been bought for him by a family member.
“The dark side supposedly has a beneficial side and a harmful side. The beneficial side is relatively pleasant and acts as a necessary evil for society to exist. The harmful side is rotten to the core and is filled with unmanageable villains.”
Rakuoka Houfu began to explain something she had not asked about.
It may have been more for his benefit than hers.
“But I believe that way of thinking is a trap laid by the dark side. We can worry about whether our targets are from the beneficial side or the harmful side after they have been arrested. Worry about that now and they will stab us in the back. What happened back there was unfortunate, but we were doing the right thing. Lose sight of that and you will never recover.”
(This would be so much easier if I had Uiharu with me.)
“Rakuoka-sensei, I have requested an internal investigation into myself. If you will do the same for yourself, I will continue to work with you.”
That thought was cut off by a shaking.
The logistics vehicle had started to move. The Pet Breeder case was closed thanks to the suspect’s death, so there was no point in staying here any longer.
“Where are we headed?”
None of the operators answered her.
When she looked to their cold faces illuminated by the glow of the flat screen monitors, she could practically see the message of “Your voice command was not recognized. Please speak more clearly.”
“W-we are probably on our way to a large Anti-Skill station,” said the nervous middle-aged man. “Because that will have a heliport on the roof. We will likely wait until Phase 1 ends at 17:00 and then rush wherever we are needed during Phase 2.”
“..”
The girl could tell a large gear was turning, but what lay at the center of that gear? Was it spinning fruitlessly because a neighboring gear was missing, or had it been linked with a malicious gear?
Did she simply need to blame the middle-aged man who had rushed in to save her?
Could she change this by hating the operators who felt they were in charge and scoffed at everything she said?
(Where are you, Onee-sama?)
historical
“We have a report from Bizen in District 8. His suspect has died, so he is asking us to send the relevant paperwork to the prosecutor. We have accepted his request and HQ will send the paperwork over in short order.”
That cold report told of another life lost.
If she made her attack in the wrong direction, she would only waste her time while many more lives followed.
Part 3
Hamazura Shiage had returned to the apartment building he normally stayed at.
It barely felt like home because he felt so out of place there. He shared it with his girlfriend Takitsubo Rikou, Level 4 Kinuhata Saiai, and Level 5 Mugino Shizuri, so they had ended up in a fairly fancy apartment. The new Item had gathered there. He could never have paid that rent himself. In fact, 80-90% of it was paid by the girls with money they had gotten from who knows where.
In other words..
(Anti-Skill will see this as just another loathsome hideout bought with dirty money.)
He entered through the main entrance’s auto-locking door and walked to the elevator hall like usual, but he stopped just before hitting the elevator button. After some thought, he used the emergency stairs instead. The floor he wanted was a long way up. He would normally take the elevator unless he had a very solid reason to think that was a bad idea, but he chose the stairs this time.
He suppressed his impatient heart as he climbed the stairs one at a time. It felt more like mountain climbing than sprinting. He did not want his legs to be too worn out to move by the time he reached the top.
Why?
Because he had no idea what he might find there.
“..”
He arrived at the floor he wanted.
He slowly took a breath and pulled the gold coin from his pocket to check. The previously dull outer edge had regained its shine all the way around. The Coin of Nicholas was fully charged. That also meant an hour had passed since he used it. This would help him tell the passage of time with his phone off.
A lot could happen in an hour.
He walked down the long hallway to reach his apartment’s door. He started to grab the knob but thought better of it. He instead picked up a vase sitting on a table in the public space and poured out its water.
As soon as the metal door grew wet, bluish-white sparks scattered.
Then the door flew open from within.
A muscular man dressed all in black and equipped with a helmet and steel toe boots burst out. He must have realized his surprise attack had failed.
Even Hamazura found it strange how little he hesitated. He slammed the vase down on the Anti-Skill officer’s head and while the man let his guard down due to his helmet aimed the handgun from close range.
The man must have assumed a vase was this best an amateur delinquent boy could manage, but then Hamazura repeatedly pulled the trigger while aiming at the center of his chest. With a deafening noise, the fully-equipped Anti-Skill officer was blown backwards. He must have gone limp because his bizarrely-shaped submachinegun fell to the floor.
“Takitsubo!!”
Even after all that, the masked Anti-Skill officer only fell on his ass and coughed. Not that Hamazura wanted to have killed him. He kicked the man’s helmeted jaw from the side and then left the entranceway to reach the rest of the apartment.
This was his territory – a sort of sanctuary.
There was no more assumption of safety here now that he had seen a fully-equipped Anti-Skill officer inside.
The shoe box in the entranceway, the cabinets in the living room, the square trapdoor in the floor leading to who knows what, and everything else had all been opened. How could they call themselves the heroes? They were acting like burglars. He checked each room with the gun still at the ready, but he did not find anyone else inside.
Not even any of the girls who should have been here.
“Dammit!!” he spat while stomping his feet in frustration.
Demanding himself to calm down only made it worse.
(Anti-Skill works as a group, so I doubt that bastard would have come here alone. He must have been the last one left behind to check over things after the attack. They ransacked the place because they wanted information. That means they don’t know where their targets are.)
He looked around the disastrous state of the room. He tried to find any information he could. He and his roommates had established a way to leave messages in case of emergencies. Those techniques were part of the reason the stench of the darkness continued to cling to them, but he still checked above the bathroom ceiling and behind the sink’s mirror.
He found a few folded up notes.
“I’ll get some help from a makeup specialist. The plastic surgery route super scares me. -Kinuhata.”
“I’m getting out of here. Try to follow me and you’re dead meat. -Mugino.”
Nothing got those two down.
He was confident they were fine. The problem was the name he had not seen.
His girlfriend’s name.
(Mugino and Kinuhata weren’t here when Anti-Skill arrived. Whether they would have won in the end or not, the walls and ceiling would not be intact if they had fought here. That’s just how it is with a Level 4 and a Level 5. So nothing has happened yet. Anti-Skill broke into our apartment and found nothing, so they started opening all the drawers and gathering what data they could to make up for the delay. It’s fine. Everything is fine. Nothing’s happened ye-)
That was when he heard some static. He looked over to see the Anti-Skill officer lying unconscious in the entranceway. The static had come from the radio attached to his shoulder.
“We’re pushing the schedule up. Hatsuoka, forget that apartment. End your search early and rejoin the main unit. Meltdowner and Offense Armor are big names, but that means they’ll have stricter information management. I doubt you’ll find any data on their hideouts or escape methods just lying around.”
Hamazura breathed a sigh of relief. Big names like the new Item really were on another level. They would not be captured so easily. This told him Mugino and Kinuhata were okay.
Anti-Skill must not have imagined one of their targets was listening in because the voice on the radio continued.
“So we should consider this a success for arresting even one of the residents listed on Outrank: AIM Stalker Takitsubo Rikou. Let’s take her back to the station and get what information we can out of her. Head on back, Hatsuoka.”
“Dammit.”
His vision grew dark. He had not been shot or zapped, but he felt like he would pass out from no more than words.
“Goddammit!!!!!!”
But it was no use. He still had to face the reality before him.
If Takitsubo Rikou really had been captured by Anti-Skill, he had to find some way of rescuing her. After everything they had done in broad daylight, he hated to think what they would do in the privacy of their station. He had a feeling they would have a record number of “accidents” and “suicides” while questioning suspects tonight.
Especially because Anti-Skill did not seem aware how frightening they were. Almost like a small child that did not know how easy a captured bug was to squish. He was not going to let them look at a bloodied Takitsubo and wonder how that had happened.
(But what can I do?)
He looked down at the unconscious Anti-Skill officer.
Takitsubo was apparently in their truck, but he could not just run out and try to chase them down. Nor could he save his girlfriend by attacking a station filled with hundreds of fully-equipped Anti-Skill officers. Could he steal this guy’s equipment and pretend to be an officer himself? No, that would never work. They were bound to use facial recognition, a fingerprint scan, or some other biometric system when entering and exiting the station.
He checked through the officer’s belongings.
(A 9mm submachinegun, a .45-caliber handgun..why don’t they use the same caliber for both? Anyway, a bulletproof jacket, a radio, a drone..is this tablet to control the drone? And lastly, a first aid kit.)
He had no time. He had repeatedly fired a handgun without a suppressor during the fight in the entranceway and the other residents would have heard the gunshots. It would also rouse suspicions when this Hatsuoka man failed to return, so it was only a matter of time before more Anti-Skill came running.
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