DDD

[Enhance]

All right, I just went through the original scans, and yes, there's no image there.

Russian doc included some fanart/concept art/cover art as well between chapters. Image fixed.

[Desuclocker]

Oh hey, you're alive. Update the OP, please.

[Desuclocker]

At last, here is the final part of S.VS.S.

Here we go. The climactic part is awaiting.

9/Sinker VS Slugger.

■

This summer was hot.
Noon. The air temperature went over 36C, the city became a natural sauna, and mirages appeared above asphalt.
In contrast to this frying pan of a ground the sky is an endless blue, the columns of clouds proclaiming summer's triumph up high.
The eighteenth of August.
The weather is extremely hot, perfect for baseball. An area marked for construction on Nozu's edge became their final playing field.

"You can't beat the two-stage sinker. And even if you can, how do you stop the trajectory's change after the first time?"

This is Ishizue Arika's conclusion on fighting Sinker.
Kirisu knew it already, too. The point is that stopping the second change is impossible.
"Right, no defending against the second swerve. So let's get it at the first one".
After that and five minutes of negotiations Ishizue Arika led Kirisu Yaichro. Not near the construction site - inside it. Into a very long corridor around the open area, about thirty meters in diameter.
"Are… you for real?"
It's understandable that Kirisu was at a loss for words.
A corridor bent like the letter L. A large three-meter mirror is installed in the corner. It's positioned so that part of the corridor beyond the corner is visible, and the pitcher's mound is there. This is the place Ishizue Arika prepared for the game. The batter and pitcher are separated by a turn, a 'knight-style' baseball.
"As you can see, there's about six meters of corridor between the mound and the corner. Past it and down this corridor are we. There are about ten meters to the batter box. A right turn, yes, but it's still a pretty decent field. This way we automatically cancel out the first turn, you agree?"
If the second change is unblockable, just block the first.
This essentially means limiting the screw ball.
On this field will always have to pitch the screw ball so that the first turn is to the right.
We're not talking about a strike, shoot or bean ball, but about a 'shoot' with a right turn at the correct moment just for the ball to reach the batter box.
Of course, this isn't baseball. The batter must see the pitcher and compete with them - that's baseball. This flaw was overcome by Ishizue Arika with a mirror. 'Left' and 'right' didn't merely swap, even judging the distance is difficult, but apparently the idea is that players get used to it after a few pitches.
The batter and pitcher are weirdly connected by a mirror in order to see each other and battle from beyond the wall.
A nonsensical rhombus only allowed to Sinker, whose weapon is a double turn using blood for a second acceleration.
This is the field for the decisive duel between an ordinary man and a possessed prepared by Ishizue Arika…
"No, no need to hold back. You're not just 'not for real', you're crazy."
But it's interesting! Kirisu Yaichiro swings his bat.
Putting on a glove, straightening his back, he concentrates to make this simple corridor his territory.
The pass is wide enough. The outer wall has large windows with more than enough light to see the ball. This is a ridiculous playfield, but the minimum, bare requirements are met.
The site is empty, with absolutely no one nearby.
The city is far, and there are no distracting noises.
Blammm! - only the echo of metallic strikes from a nearby construction site sometimes reports the happenings outside.

■

"I'll bring you the strongest, Fourth."
With these words the voice in the speaker reached 'it'.
Doesn't run, doesn't hide. Offered the match himself. Just agree to a few conditions - what a nonsensical diplomacy. If it can pitch, it'll agree to any terms. It doesn't have the mind to judge them in the first place.
Bending its entire body, like a ghost, it goes towards the designated place.
An empty construction site.
An unfinished rectangular building bathed in white sunlight.
A landscape taken from an apocalypse movie, molded from just the tall walls and the sun.
It entered that; and even it froze, stunned, upon seeing the site of the arranged game.
"You're here. You see the mound, right? It's yours, Sinker".
The voice comes from the cellphone.
A mirror in the corner of the L-shaped corridor, reflects the invisible otherwise space beyond the corner.
There is a sportsman, cell in hand, there.
The distance, though not in a straight line, really is a bit over sixteen meters. This seems to be the 'unusual field shape' mentioned by the sportsman on the phone.
"You can reach me well enough, right? Inconvenient? It is for me, too. Because I'll have to adjust to a ball flying down a corridor".
If the pitcher can't send the ball behind the corner, it won't reach the home base.
The batter must react in the 0.3 seconds the ball suddenly appearing from behind the corner takes to reach him. From a realistic viewpoint the game's unwinnable for the pitcher. From a real, though impossible, one it is for the batter.
Seeing this nonsensical game it smiled: interesting!
In a reckless state it felt that such additions are fitting for a game with lives on the line.
"Need some warmup?"
It shakes its head: no.
The side of the plate is treated with resin to avoid slip-ups, and - what do they expect from this match? - over twenty balls are prepared.
"Haa…"
He exhaled, mind still cloudy, smiled. Will the game require that many? - he snickered towards his opponent, and…
…the fog in his mind is compleltely gone.
"So let's begin, Sinker. As agreed, the strongest, number four, is facing you."
The man with the phone left the corridor after saying that.
Was the second out of the mirror's coverage? - he who earned the name Slugger enters the batter box.
Raising the bat like he's piercing the sky, with a slow motion he lowers it to his left shoulder's level.
The pressure and firmness of the tall figure remind one of a crag.
This pose, unmoving at first glance, is faintly swerving, reading the pitcher's breath, all to return.
He knew the figure well.
Doesn't know the opponent's name, nor his style as a batter, but he's very familiar with the man himself. The memory is at a loss, but his right arm remembers.
Unlike the previous, talkative, man, this batter was silent. 'Nothing to talk about'. The eagle-like stare sees through the pitcher in the mirror.
A stare more telling than any words.
A feeling of elation that heats up the frozed atmosphere.
"Haa…"
A snicker comes out.
The headache is like a white noise.
This opponent is special, the scattered shreds of recognition flutter.
Delight and fear.
The happiness of standing before an exceptional batter and the danger of standing before a hero bringing ruin stimulate Sinker's mind.
"This works… I'll play with you, Slugger!.."
The right arm soars.
Covered in red makeup on white, the first ball is released.

■

The batter figures out the ball type based on the pitcher's 'form'.
The opposite is also true. The pitcher reads the batter's mind and sends the ball to the spot hardest to hit, on a course deviating from the guess. Both of them, seeing each other in a mirror, were already forced to begin an unconventional battle at that point.
Their figures switched 'right' and 'left' The opponent was behind a corner. Who's it harder for? You could say for the pitcher.
Determining the strike zone is overly hard, and anyway - will it even reach the middle? Depending only on the visage in the mirror, to turn the ball at the corner and then to get through the strike zone.
In normal terms that's way too hard. Just succesfully rounding the corner and sending the ball towards the batter is already a miracle. But the pitcher is Sinker. And the first warmup ball was already threatening the batter's breast.
"Hhh!.."
The ball, moving at 130 kph, entering the upper part of the inner corner. The ball appeared, making an arc around the corner, and in miniscule time passed in front of Kirisu's nose.
Not turning away, not moving the bat. You could say the pitcher was just ten meters away. The mirror match gives few chances to the batter.
But.
"Uh huh. Swing the arm like this - just barely a ball…"
Does Sinker realize that it's not that the batter couldn't react to the crazy pitch, but that he didn't feel the need?
The score is one ball.
Seemingly working out the countermeasures to the rule after the first pitch, from the second one onwards Slugger devoted himself to planning a winning combination.

◇

"What was… that…"
Did he let it through on purpose?
Sinker discards the nonsensical thought.
He missed on purpse. To test the physical distance and the batter's abilities. In Sinker's imagination the batter would react and twitch in response to the duel's unfairness.
"Come on. He knows my form?.."
That form was for an 80% output pitch. A preparatory ball to read the batter, referee, the air's humidity. And all that… was figured out by the batter at the form stage, is that it?
The one in the mirror easily shrugged and radically altered his pose. A pose without bending arms, letting the elbows play freely. A batting form openly aiming for the outer angle.
"You little…"
Just on the second ball he's already been challenged. No, he's absorbed in reading each other. This stance. Like a samurai ready to slice. He who brings a ball… Often both pitcher and batter could clearly see the outcome after a few seconds. All the training and experience result in a simulation of clear difference between the opponents' strength. Not a perfect foreknowledge, but still a very precise prediction of death.
…This was the feeling from the seocnd pitch. A normal pitcher would resign honorably or be left with no choice but to go for the inner angle. A pose that lets even him know that if he falls for the taunt, the ball will be hit. The imagination depicts him losing control, missing and sending it right into the outer angle where in one hit his neck… no, his head is smashed.
"Think too much of yourself…"
Irritation that was silent before. Sinker suppresses the dim nervousness and grabs the second ball.
A corridor with no outside noises. A silent space. A hill that's designed for concentration, cold to him.
No losing control.
He has no reason to be bound by some 'have to make a right angle turn'.
He left the first ball at one stage.
But the second… No mercy to the batter who read his thoughts.
And besides, this stare is driving him mad.
Eyes seeing straight through him, reading his abilities as a pitcher, seem to see something else at the same time. To say something else.
What: "In (…)".
This stare mixes white noise into Sinker's killing intent. 'Those eyes!..'
That 'stop it'.
The white ball becomes spotty.
Turning his right arm crimson, desiring to shake his target this time around, the demonic ball master raises his foot.

◇

After he let the first ball by, the batter silently accepted this playing field's pros and cons.
'Oh well. Even though the second turn seems to be blocked, still…'
Essentially, he lost the option of reading the ball by the pitcher's form. All you can grasp from it is the ball before it round the corner. After the turn the ball becomes a different kind than the one set by the form.
A feeling close to an invisible pitcher swapping in for the first one during the first change.
The batter starts batting after adjusting for the pitcher's movements and not since the moment the ball starts flying. The movements adjust the moment the pitcher raises his foot. At that point it's time to stop reading the ball type, but in this battle this reading is simply immaterial. All that remains is guessing the ball type from tactics in the pitcher's head. The form can tell you the speed, at most.
So, the time for calculating the ball type from the second trajectory change stage on, starting at the moment of the first stage, shortened from the usual 0.5 seconds to 0.3 seconds.
This is a duck hunt.
Have to change the batting from swinging by read to swinging by eye. And in the compressed time of 0.3 seconds, at that. Can't do the impossible. It's in the category of miracles. Kirisu can't do that.
This means…
'Only way left is to force a course myself'.
If the only thing to go by is gut feeling, then the batter's duty is planning everything so that it's correct.
Kirisu abandons the inner angle and changes his grip to an outer-oriented one. A complete switch to the outer angle. A careful pitcher will throw into the inner, and one feeling his victory will accept the challenge.
Sinker… is the latter after all. From the form not seen for so long the second ball speeds out.
The demonic ball makes a right angle turn and goes for the batter at 140 km/h. Kirisu moves his bat to meet it with no hesitation. The read is correct, and the swing speed is good. But he doesn't hit. Because the ball that slipped and fell into the lower part of the outer angle of the strike zone flew up right before the batter.

'So that's what you're like, second stage… That's some distance when you follow it with your eyes'.

One strike, one ball.
Kirisu touches his forehead with hands holding the bat. Like a breaking gesture. The concentration is too quiet. Still six centimetres off?

◇

"Hey, batter…"
The second ball was his complete victory.
Perhaps they wanted to force the inner angle, and the course was limited somehow, but psychological tricks won't work on Sinker.
Usually the two-stage sinker changes direction at ten and fourteen meters, but the corridor necessitated a right turn at seven meters, and then the only thing left is lighting up the blood at some point of approaching the batter.
Thus, one change is left, and there still are no batters who can react to the second stage at this distance.
The pitch just now demonstrated that.
But still.
"What, baiting the outer angle again?.."
A headache.
The stare from the other side of the mirror is not afraid of Sinker in the least. The batter's eyes see through him, causing an awful headache. Must be the cold. The frost must be causing the migraine.
Curbing his irritation, he reaches for the third ball. The white mist of breath. Disregarding the newly-surfaced pain in his right elbow, Sinker prepares a swing, as though skipping stones on water.
Funny, is that confidence natural? With this light anticipation he sends the demonic ball into the outer angle again.
But this time it's a slider. For a left-handed batter it'll fly from the outer angle to the inner; a hellish pitch that's hard to hit from that stance.

◇

'Let's consider it an outer'.
No point foreseeing the ball form.
Kirisu Yaichiro carefully looks at one thing - the only ability Sinker has left.
With such a corridor there can be no pitch forms. The pitcher will just try to go for some part of the strike zone. Only on this he focuses his intuition and insight.
The form of the ball on that side of the mirror.
A strong, perfectly smooth motion of the entire body. But not up to its former beauty. This movement happening within a second from takeback is recorded to his retinas as tens of frames. and the trajectory of the ball turning the corner is analyzed in real time.
The spin suggests a 'shoot' along the outer corner.
But the pitcher's will-form denies that.
A tense will-bat returning within 0.3 seconds.
The ball touched the bat's top, bounced past the batter and disappeared.
A total correction of six centimetres. A natural effect of a completed swing. And, after a throw a normal preson wouldn't manage to react to…
"Odd how it's not clear… Changes from out to in are beyond me at the moment…"
Exhaling so as not to let the body heat escape, Kirisu Yaichiro turned towards the batter again.
In high school he said that a batter burned a hundred of training days in one instant. That is true. This Slugger is putting his entire soul into each ball.
As though mimicking the pitcher's curse: get hit and die. Because he'd been evoking the concentration that burns an entire life in one ball for three years straight like it's normal.

◇

"Touch… ed…"
Sinker saw it through the mirror.
His spine shakes.
It's not the frost torturing his body. He was shaking from fierce, burning delirium.
"Hey you… It's just the third ball, right?"
The corners of his mouth twist upwards.
He laughs. An indescribable irritation and confusion, the stare piercing him from beyond the mirror, and the disgusting nausea attacks. What's this? What's with this guy? Is this cheating allowed? In these conditions - and he hit it? Just the third ball. No, only the second 'two-stage sinker'. And with this alone he already reacted? Does such nonsense happen? How illogical. How genius. Irritatingly unreal, a 'feeling of being hit' at an animal level.
"You…"

Monster. Not even two lifetimes would be enough to meet one!..
"Ha… H-h-ha-a-ah! Ah! Ah!"
The storm of emotions makes him tremble.
His body temperature rises.
The migraine grows by an order of magnitude.
Weird. Hearing a dim noise in this silent world, Sinker reaches for the fourth ball.
The score is two strikes, one ball. An overwhelming advantage for the pitcher. But this ball won't be decisive. It was he that underestimated the opponent. This monster was analyzing the third ball, and the rest of the balls will reveal him to the monster completely.
"H… ha-ah…"
Inhales deeply. At the edge of his vision is a box with twenty balls.
The duel really will be long.
As he concluded before, the elbow wouldn't last for a single match, but whatever.
He can't lose, he must pitch and pitch, whatever happens. The demon said that a duel's tension is his life force. That is true. His body is complaining, but its temperature is slowly rising.
…He grips the fourth ball. The hacking pain from his right elbow is crushing his brain's neurons again.
Storing not a drop of happiness, only suffering, in his right elbow, Sinker turned to the batter reflected in the mirror.

…The duel repeats.
The noise increases, making a path for itself.
Sixth ball. Seventh ball. Eighth ball… Tenth already.
'Chipping' every ball flying on the edge of the outer angle, stands the still unbroken, unshakable number four.
The stare in the mirror keeps asking the same thing.
My breathing is coming closer and closer to normal.
I wipe the sweat with my blood-soaked tight arm.
I notice that my feet have been drenched in blood for a while.
The color red refreshes my confused mind.
…A park at sunset.
…A baseball field under the fiery sky.
…A training ground at winter's end.
…Hanging from the ceiling…
Suddenly I saw a string of images that weren't in my memory.

I think the wrath was always in me.
I could only go on paying baseball that was torture to me only because there wasn't long left.
But the more anger, the less pleasure; and I became afraid that I'll sincerely hate this game.
"Fu…"
I inhale with my whole body.
He, too, puts his entire soul into every ball. Only ten serve, but get a bit distracted, and it seems like many more.
An angry stare into the mirror - it sucks that the opponent is the same!
The batter's breathing became a bit off. The fingers gripping the bat show fatigue. I can do it… This ball will force the bat to make an empty swing. But he didn't die. The batter's eyes haven't changed at all since the very first ball.
The ceaseless stare asks more eloquently than any words.
For what.
For what do you keep pitching?
"…ck off!"
The score is full. The ball's trajectory doesn't forgive mistakes.
With each swing the batter barely touches the demonic ball turning from below to the top of the outer angle.
"You hit it again!.."
A feeling as though the batter is pettily mocking him, flaring up his anger.
Apparently realizing that a clean hit was impossible, the batter satisfies himself with simple touches.
He didn't want to hit from the start. Touching with the bat, accumulating the score with foul-chips, waiting for the pitcher's fatigue to build up and force a miss. This is his strategy.
Seriously, fuck off. The demonic balls were meant to deny such simple hits, and this guy doesn't miss a single one, keeps 'cutting'!..
"I'll kill…"
The flaring murderous intent seems to burn his entire body.
Head hurts. Elbow hurts. Somewhere after the sixth ball the elbow couldn't keep up the regeneration. Therefore, few pitches are left. No, the next pitch might cross the line. Yes. Enough already, just have to end at this. A right-angle turn and a 'shoot' past the batter's outer angle. Chip again. Decidedly. Only two millimeters of error, but he's closer to a clean hit than before. I grit my teeth. If it was a normal battleground instead of this corridor he'd have slipped up long ago…
"No. Just the same. Both he and I are in the same conditions…"
Dangerous to give him more balls. Dangerous to get stuck in the outer angle. So, an inner. If you throw an inner into these games on the outer edge, the outcome is clear. But will it be enough? Logically, his eye isn't used to the inner yet. Can do it. Can't. For an inner hit this batter just bends his arms and turns his hips. Even from the current stance he'll make it.
I know. It's his banal method, after all. The hearts of batters who fix the winning pitch on the inner and disliking the outer are shattered. So I can't. I can't pitch into the inner. Because I feel that he'll return it. Ahh, but… how do I know that?
"Who is he?.."
Irritation clouds my eyes. What a cheap mirror. The batter's face seems to be covered in fog, can't see. When you can't see the face, it's not really possible to channel murderous intent.
But - how long it's been! More than wrath, more than killing intent, my heart is strained by the tension. I want to scream aloud, how much easier that'd be, but I endure, hide it. It's too early to throw up a victorious fist, not until I beat this magnificent batter - hmm. Since when did this feeling fade from my memory?
"Fine. If you want to hit an outer shoot so much…"
The thirteenth, devil's dozen.
Sinker bends his feet even further. Changing his stance from side to low, he feels a dissipated sharp pain.
"Ugh… H-hah."
Again something's lacking. From just one, long familiar, change to the center of mass the entire body seems to crack.
"Ghh… ugh, crap, py."
The tendons and muscles gone haywire cause killing pain.
Let them. To hell with the elbow's issues. Delaying the serve counts as stalling. No big deal, I'll get a breath and start. Show him why "sinker" means "one who sinks others".
As though responding to this readiness, the batter's breathing became faster. The piercing stare intensified. Odd: I can't see his face, so why do I feel his stare?
Seems like he's one of those who responds to killing intent with the same. I hate him so much. The target still displays the intent to hit an outer angle pitch and throws the same question at me.
For what.
For what do you.
Keep up this base-hurt?
…The two eye arrows assure me.
That it ending wasn't my fault.
But it ended. The curtain of that dream was irrevocanly lowered. Don't crouch under it, there is nothing on the screen anyway.
"Hhhaaah, grrrr!"
I don't want to hear it.
It was so quiet, why do I hear this annoying sound.
…Once in a cinema the lowered curtain was raised.
A wall with nothing on it. Credits having rolled past. The face of an old friend, disappointed and regretful at the same time, and that was…
"What do you…"
Elbow hurts. As though following it, heat rises. I hear white noise. Memory dashed to pieces, one I didn't really want anyway, returns me to myself.
"…know!"
My left leg rises. I step right towards the batter in the mirror, twisting the right half of my body like a fan.
An instant - and…
I'm enveloped by destructive, neuron-burning pain.

/

…Phew! - and my conciousness suddenly returns.
I'm walking up a long road on a hill.
A heavily loaded cart. Dragged by a lone woman. A memory of an overly evil summer.
…I had to watch this so many times. The cart will stop halfway, refuse to budge, and no one will help us.
Only the cries of cicadas - a chain connecting us and the world of humans. Just this - we weren't allowed to share anything else with society.
Our poor home didn't have wrath. Only miserable existence, grief, that's all. As a child I just wanted to let my feelings run amok, cry that I don't want it to be that way.
But before that my eyes saw something too sad.
The woman was quietly, voicelessly, crying before me.
A useless son. The worthless I. An unfulfillable desire to not let the eight year old child feel the unhappiness of that life. The powerlessness of a mother capable of nothing. All this oppressed the woman, and she didn't even drop a spiteful word.
Not cursing her misfortune, not lashing out on the difference to the outside world.
Just thinking about why her life became so…
Knowing firsthand that no one will help her, the woman threw away the hope on relying on someone else and, as though seeking salvation, quietly broke alone.
To be honest, I thought - oh well, she did it first. If it so happened that I see her like that, I have no time to cry.

And so. So I will… will.

Why do I keep playing baseball, huh? No need to even say it. I don't think anyone will understand. I won't 'borrow' anyone's help, I won't bother anyone. So leave me alone, okay? I'm so tired of you messing with my life just because I'm weak. So tired of those classifyng others only by their wallet. If I don't reach out, you won't either, right? Great. Broke my elbow - I'll consider that a good lesson. I hold no grudge. No time to obsess over that. If I have time to mope, I'll spend it better healing my elbow…

'Wrong, wrong, wrong! Don't you understand that you can't be a pitcher any longer?'

I'm used to laughs. Righteous work shall be rewarded. I know a friend who dragged himself into the ranks of first-class pitchers that way.

'That's peanuts, his mother actually…'

Fed up. Fed up. Fed up. Why do they care so much about things that don't concern them; why would those lucky enough to be able to put their noses into others' business, be envious of others? Doesn't compute. The hunger of the full. You're way too greedy, and -

'Sempai has no friends, right? So we'll have some fun with him'.

…Like that. Since that day I haven't been home for so long.
Yes, every day I was exhausted, but before the corridor to the entrance I changed my mood. I kept quiet about my elbow being broken. It's hopeless now, but someday I'll definitely make it work. So for now I'll keep quiet. With these thoughts I couldn't make her sad even for a few months, opened the front door and shouted 'hello'.
Over the tea table was an unusual decoration.
Like a spinning wind chime.
In the morning, looking at me waving my arm, the woman -

with an apologetic face - spin - spin - spin.

I close the door. Speak to the neightbour. She's a kindly woman with an unfitting deceptively careless voice.

'Oh, the boys are gone? You have friends over so rarely. All with baseball things! Your clubmates?'

It wasn't because of the underclassmen. Those really just came to have fun. They just laughed over the woman's life, bullied her a bit, helpfully informed her of her son's condition in the end, and that's it.
It's clear as day. She was at the limit as it is. So, tired of life, feeling guilty before her son, she went to rest. As though saying, sorry that even your dream is over.
I think it was in December.
The current I doesn't really understand anything.
It doesn't seem to concern me.

/

"Khh, hahh…"
In that instant.
The devastating pain burning neurons makes Sinker's will come back.
"Khh, grraaa!"
The causeless wrath let the demon into the right arm.
Forcefully supporting the body cracking from bloodthirst.
Wrath. Wrath. Wrath. Formless wrath. A rage not directed at anyone in particular is his stimulus.
This time the screwball at 140 kph will certainly miss the bat.
In the outer angle, rising upwards, the "sinker" dives. A difference in height incomparable to the previous balls grazing the outer angle.
A quiet sound of a 'chip'.
Indeed with the very edge, but - this batter still touched the ball.
"HEY!.. Stop it, Slugger!"
Wrath and gladness dimming the mind!
The two emotions exploded and flew apart.
Epic. This batter is epic. Certainly a slugger. He's definitely of a different make than the mound of murdered small fries. Irritating. So irritating. Why didn't one like that show up before? Didn't do the kindness? Damn. Damn. Damn. Now it's even more irritating, I want to swear. Agh, really, why… couldn't he appear before I became this shameful pitcher? I don't understand. Whatever. Now there are just wrath and joy. Hostility to the batter who touched my best pitch, and infectious delight at his talent.
On the other hand, I'm already a living corpse. That I didn't manage a strike just now is equal to death.
This further confirms - the victory is his…
"Ready…"
Saw it with my own eyes. With this swing the batter hurt his right elbow. Now it's a dead end. The next demonic ball will be a strike-out. I'll hear the sound of the magnificent Slugger's skull being crushed.
"Hhh, aaah…"
The bloody right arm reaches for the now final ball.
"Eh… huh? Damn, what's with you?"
Can't grab the ball. No, not that can't grab it, rather the box with balls is foggy, can't see it.
One more ball. One more ball will settle this, but why can't I see anything? Ah, the sun is in my eyes. Should've worn a cap. The hood doesn't defend against light. Although I couldn't afford a cap when alive.
"Ughhhhhh… there."
Nearly falling into the box himself, he grabs the ball.
Overexpenditure of blood. A decrease in blood pressure accompanied by loss of sight passes by his attention. Now he can't even breathe without straining his entire body. The various bodily functions are off.
It's a dead end - he understood.
And this is plain truth. His ruined mind already doesn't understand who it was that stepped over the limit.
Headache with white noise mixed in.
The arm's meat torn here and there. Now formless right shoulder… The elbow bone is already cracked and will fall apart with the next pitch.
"I know… But I'll manage."
His body's burning.
A high-pitched sound of a strike on metal wakes the dying consciousness.
Crappy? It's always crappy. He endured his entired life for the dream that had to come true.
But for what now?
Unclear. Losing sight and reason, Sinker began setting up for the last ball.

◇

They were screaming speedballs.
Fifth ball. Sixth ball. Seventh ball.
With each time Sinker's pitches gain sharpness and hurt the pitcher himself at the same time.
'Khh, haah…'
To the pitcher he looked like the unshakable number four.
But Kirisu himself was walking on thin ice.
Turning ten meters away from him, at 140 kph, demonic balls barely grazing the strike zone.
Just reacting to that costs not one, but ten years of life.
Forty per cent of attention are directed towards the outer angle, forty - to the baited inner. The other twenty are to catch the balls dangerous due to loss of control.
This pitcher doesn't use the killer ball until strike-out. This is clear, but wild pitches due to loss of control are inevitable. Once his hand will slip, and a wild one will come.
'Tch… Bullshit in my head.'
Those are about running or not.
If it comes for his head, that'll be death at the spot. Dodging the turning speedball at ten meters' distance won't work. The bat entering the swing doesn't matter, the body won't react to orders to move with enough speed.
This is a batter box on the edge of death.
If it's a strike-out, Sinker'll release the killing ball.
If it's a wild ball - there'll be no dodging and death.
Sinker is walking towards the grave with every pitch, but Kirisu's losing chances with each one as well.
End. End faster, madness.
If I could stop them. If I could end those throws right now.
The hidden fear interferes with deep breathing.
…The entire consciousness must be split between sight and other senses, else those balls are uncatchable.
Hearing is especially close to sight, and for those with a brain these senses complement each other. Data from sight and hearing isn't separate, it comes in together. Spatial awareness, logical thinking are heightened. The brain links the left ear and the consciousness, and the right hemisphere which governs shapes receives information directly.
Kirisu isn't planning to tire Sinker by chipping his balls. All the swings are aimed to hit. He simply misses. The man who never missed a ball if he could see it is trying and failing to catch the seventh pitch already.
…Even if Sinker is anxious, Kirisu is even more so.
The two who aren't allowed a strike-out nor a hit. Both have never had opponents who couldn't be beaten according to imagination before.
'Uh-huh, this, well…'
Scary. Slugger finally understands how tense the batter box is.
I want to end this. End it within the smallest number of pitches.
The mood of hitting it and getting it over with is gone. Let it be a foul ball. He won't bother chipping a ball or a wild ball. He'll let it pass and leave Ishizue Arika to do his thing.
The eighth ball. A bit sharp. A shoot into the outer angle, the judge would've counted it as a strike. Realizing that, he begins swining the bat at full speed.
Batting uses the body from ankles to wrists, being the longest consecutive movement for the body. A spiral where the links spin one after another. But the full turn doesn't begin with the initial kick. Every movement contributes to the speed. From foot to hip, from hip to back, from back to shoulders. And every time the speed increases, and the bat, at the end of the spiral, instantly accelerates to 140 km/h.
"Kh, you!.."
He misses the hit. Sees these few centimeters but doesn't make it. This is the limit of human reaction… If it's a dangerous or inner one, the consciousness will split, and if he focuses on only the outer trajectories, he'll be barely on time.
But he can't. The radical change of the stance was to bait the ball into the inner angle to begin with. If it gets there, the touch may be incomplete, but he still has to allow for inner ones.
Batting begins with limiting the pitcher's thinking. Taking a neutral stance will make preparation pointless. The match is lost by slightly increasing the opponent's freedom of choice.
The pitcher is holding the next ball.
No time to think. Concentrating his mind, he assesses the pitch form.
And every time…
'Iguruma…'
…this pitcher's rage reaches him through the mirror.
Why did it end up like this? We just wanted to play baseball. I'm not guilty. It's the society that didn't even let him freely play with the ball. The weakling rose up, you felt insulted and tripped him up for fun when you had a free moment…
This is what the pitcher's right shoulder is screaming.
The form coming apart with each pitch. But the liveliness is rising, and the balls are miraculously becoming sharper.
Among this are, despising the batter as a traitor, forever changed eyes of a child.

'I'll try pitching a side ball. The speed might depend on body size, but screwballs only rely on training…'

…Although there's no time for sentiments.
The irrevocably distorted figure keeps overlaying the old friend's image.
Childhood, when it was all different.
The only thing in common is love for baseball.
No… Even this changed.
They looked in the same direction, but saw such different things.
Kirisu most of all, not noticing this difference, cornered his friend more brutally than anyone else.
The ninth ball.
The ball spreading sparks comes in at a very sharp angle, as though berating Kirisu - 'traitor'.
Sinker's suffering right arm. Anyone can see this is the limit. The man is pitching, suppressing unimaginable pain. Iguruma Kazumi has been doing this for six years straight. This king in the desert never saw happiness in baseball for a moment.
His visage was too bright for Kirisu.
The pitcher screams.
You traitor who left baseball so easily.
You're so talented, yet you didn't give baseball your all, you half-ass.
That's true. Of course, Sinker is mad at Kirisu Yaichiro. But if you ask which is right, even now Kirisu will proudly answer:
'Uh huh. But I did I devote my youth to baseball.
I'm not you, though, I wouldn't trade my life for it.'
That's why he didn't go mad.
He couldn't become an unhealthy hero who would throw his life away for things he loves, anyway.

'You know, lately mom's been smiling. She's happy everyone's praising me…'

The tenth ball.
A fastball, cutter, sent from a form that seemed to breathe fire.
Whose fear of death is greater?
The batter's from an empty swing or death in an instant from a wild ball?
The pitcher's from falling after pitching at the limit of human knowledge?
Kirisu's fear is greater…
The incredible wrath of this pitcher suppresses his fear.
…That which already ended. He doesn't even notice that he's been coughing blood for a while, that he covered the entire hill in blood.
'Ghh…'
An unbearable spectacle. But he isn't allowed to avert his eyes.
What he can do now is bring an end to this.
Quickly, end this game, whatever the result. Ready for that, Kirisu can't deal the blow.
The timing is already matched. This pitcher doesn't like inner angle serves. Now that only one ball is left, he has to tie the pitcher's mind to the outer angle at the moment of the ball's release, and the match is decided, that's clear, but Slugger still keeps up the duel.
…Fear makes you think poorly. And so Kirisu is distracted from his own thoughts, and - the thirteenth ball.
Sinker brought the duel to its conclusion first.

Instead of a side - a low, even more straining. Pathetic, like an injured swan's agonized thrashing, but bewitching and fresh movement of the serve.
If the previous straights were screwballs spitting fire, this one is a sinker scattering lightning.
"Kh, ooh!.."
The entire 900 grams of the bat, heavy as life, rise. The atmosphere is exploded by a chip's sound.
"Dhrhh!.."
The reward is dull pain. He only caught up with the height difference incomparable to previous balls because he already saw that ball several times and took in the experience that resulted in a simple grounder. Too crazy a vertical correction. After barely hitting the ball, Kirisu's right elbow is stung by with an ominous pain.
'Did I pull it?.. Shit…'
Did I tear something inside?
Both batting and pitching are precise work, and small errors easily break the body. This is a race of a ball moving at 140 kph and a swing in 0.3 seconds. Shoulders, elbows, fingertips receive an instant load of hundreds of kilograms.
'Missed. So I touched it, and only one swing is left…'
And the situation with the inner angle is desperate. Judging by the elbow pain, a swing with bent arms is bound to fail. But it's hard to believe he'll hit such an outer angle pitch again.
Therefore - defeat.
The next ball will kill Kirisu Yaichiro.
'Is this the end?.. Come on, this duel won't end like this…'
Slugger turns to the pitcher to end the duel differently… But the pitcher in the mirror was worse off than Kirisu.
Finds the ball by touch.
Without even catching his breath he does the setup.
'Idiot, like that you'll…'
Throw a deadball.
The scales of defeat instantly swung back.
A complete wild ball. Even turning at a right angle after the corner, without a second trick it'll fly right between the batter's legs. And that's a victory. It's clear from the pitcher's condition that the ball can be dodged.
Kirisu just has to jump back and let it past.
The score will be four balls. By the rule of base taking the victory is batter's.
And this ball flying in an ugly trajectory was deliberately hit by the batter.
The ball flies into a wall. An unnecessary foul ball.
Seeing this, he finally realized in amazement. His regret over what didn't happen. Whose dream this match was.

'Hey, Kirisu, you remember how I blurted that nonsense back then?.. If you do, let's forget about it…'

'Aah… right.'
…Even afraid of death, he continued the match - that's what this means.
Thinking about it, how fun it was back then!
A dream of a lost summer. A promise he broke himself.
Thundering all over Shikura, granting the embarassing title of genius, his one-on-one duel with Iguruma Kazumi.
It happened just now. Of course it's fun. How easily it can be ended. 'I want more!' - he couldn't help thinking.
'But yeah. If I realized this, it's time to end it…'
And at the same time he was sad precisely because this was fun. This fantastic dream that bothered him for so long now has no one to watch it.
From a far - a sound of a hit on metal.
Bamm, bamm. A practically empty construction site. This high metallic sound is far inferior to fans' cries. And then - a naive and thoughtless commentary.

"Baseball is about whether or not the duel was good, right? Victory, loss, I wouldn't…"

…Disgusting. What a cruel excuse.
An egoistical genius' cruel desire.
A sincere dream of one not gifted.
Lived in decline, abandoned baseball and a simpleton even deep down - Kirisu exactly.
Igurumi Kazumi's dream wasn't a foolish one, but a man can be proud of it.
That's the whole story. The one most possessed by baseball was not Sinker, but he himself.

'…I'll be a pitcher who no one but you can hit. And you too become a batter who doesn't miss any balls but mine. And then one day let's…'

This cruel story will be no more.
He realized it all. Those gifted and deprived from the start can't understand each other. Parallel lines don't cross.
But… they saw the same thing. Wanted to reach the same goal. It's just that when they picked their targets, it didn't come to be. At the very outset - when they innocently played ball, for some reason Kirisu Yaichiro couldn't accept that his dream was long fulfilled. Why?

'Uh huh. You probably wanted to be number one with me. But honestly, I was dreaming of more.'

But Kirisu betrayed. Kirisu betrayed earlier. He slipped first. Not in the second year of high school. At the very moment when he pitied his friend's feelings, various chaotic factors shook his bat, made his friend sink. Who knows how much that hurt that friend.
…Maybe he'll make it on time now, at least?
A play with no spectators.
There is something left on the silver screen where the film is not projected.
Grabbing the bat with both hands, he straightens his arms out.
After a breath deep enough to let all the air out of his lungs Slugger returns into the batter box.
Sixteen meters away there is a maniac killer on the mound. However, Kirisu refers to him not like that, but with an old nickname.

"Yo… Sorry it took so long, Sinker."

Nostalgia. The sign of the game's start that hadn't left his lips for ten years.
He isn't worried about the inner angle.
The duel will be decided in one ball. Right into the outer angle - aiming at Iguruma Kazumi's trump card, the sinker, Slugger bets his life on the last batter box.

◇

He woke from the wave of sound assaulting his ears.
His consciousness and eyes are filled with white mist.
Who is he, what is he doing? Why does he pitch? Can't remember.
Like a ghost. That which is called Sinker became a simple machine that rather clumsily reached for the ball.
The duel isn't decided yet.
The batter is in a stance. Clearly, he can't return home without killing this batter, the obsession said, and it alone started his breathing. And then…
"Sorry it took so long, Sinker."
The first thing he heard in the silent world were the words of a friend he was most awed by in childhood.

/

…He remembered the reason.
High mountains of clouds. Cicadas' chirrs sending chills down the spine. The powerlessly crying woman.
That summer he saw something completely unbearable.
He saw inescapable grief quietly tearing her heart apart.
So he swore he'd become her salvation.
His poverty doesn't matter. His fun doesn't matter. He found something far more important, he understood what had to be done.
"Right, I…"
Endured everything for this.
He kept polishing his unseemly pitching trajectory.
The reason for the wish to become a professional baseball player. Because he loves her. Because he wanted to run from the poverty problems. Because he wanted to look people in the eye… No. That wasn't why he grabbed the baseball. Only because of what he saw that day. Only for the woman whose life was bitter, devoid of meaning.
He wanted to give her pride in being born…
…He finally remembered. This dream isn't Iguruma Kazumi's dream. It's a dream about his mother whose fate he wanted to change.
But his mother is no more.
The sole reason that made him swear to keep pitching.
A child's resolve to protect, even being exiled from Eden.
However…

"Right… this dream is already over."

His life without salvation, the curtains of which fell eight months ago, in December.

/

His consciousness comes back.
His vision clears itself from the fog.
His ears are assaulted by a metallic sound.
…Having trouble simply breathing, completely exhausted - his own body.

"Well, yeah… Full score."

Hit it mercilessly.
Once, long ago, he was ready to break and spoke to an old acquaintance. Because everything was bad. Just once he tries to escape his oath.
But there were fun times, too.
That's it. He probably didn't abandon it exactly because there were fun things, too. With a boy whose name he can't remember no matter how much he tries, he played until sunset so many times.
Whose memory is this?

"Aah…"

I hear a sound.
It's very bad here.
Like a hot frying pan.
In the water-coloured hell I now stand alone.
…Memories flood in.
I hear ringing metallic noises.
I hear distant, small, echo-like shouts of fans.
So - I have to pitch.
Can I do it?
Of course I can. Winter is over already. The summer is so hot it's hard to breathe. Burning my lungs. The baseball field is foggy… My heart is pounding. This maddening summer returned into my right arm once again.
In the mirror stands a lone batter.
Who is this batter?
Can't remember. But I have to pitch. For someone called Sinker, to fulfill an old promise, I'll pitch a fitting ball.
I wipe the hampering blood on my clothes with my right arm.
The near-broken arm is swaying in the wind.

The best screwball in my life.
And now… In the end he heard a sound signifying the finale.

■■■

A white ball is flying.
Not letting it be stained with blood, I throw it to the batter reflected in the mirror.
The wall meant for the demon waits ahead. Any ball will bounce away in a corridor turning at a right angle.
The ball that shouldn't turn. The last shot that shouldn't reach the goal… It's magnificent. Tracing a curve, like a rising swan, the greatest screwball manages the turn.
It won't turn at an angle any more.
And it's not fast enough to get there instantly.
That's precisely why my eyes are so covered in fog.
It's not what torments those possessed by a demon. A demon has its seed and its trick. This is just human genius. Performing miracles far beyond others was the role of gods since ages ago.
So, this ball is not demonic at all.
Only here, on a field without spectators, burns the heat of this summer when the promise is fulfilled.
Two strikes, three balls.
The last ball slides and falls into the outer angle; the batter raises his right foot a little, makes a swing matched to his breathing…

X/Present (2004, summer)

■

This was how my summer plans reverted to tabula rasa.
They resembled it to begin with, and when the terror of the crossings, serial killer's case came to a close at the last moment, boring commonness returned, as it should be.
The rumors about a maniac killer, Sinker, stayed mere rumors and disappeared. The police isolated Iguruma Kazumi without publicity; and in the end everything was filed as crimes caused by an addiction to a drug that was popular in June.
And so the case of the A disorder carrier's grotesque deeds was revealed and published in a later event.

"Huh, what a great jump. When you do it this perfectly, it's not so refreshing any more, no chills over the skin, don't you think?"

Half-turning, I ask the pair behind my back, who offer no reaction.
August is in its second half, there seems to be no end to the overheated days, we are on the Shikura High №1's sports grounds. When I moved and was unpacking my stuff, I found a key to the back gate and decided that, since I'd have to deliver it back anyway, I'd bring Kirisu and Tsuranui to air them out. It's past noon.
Kirisu didn't even crawl into the tree's shadow and sat down right under the sunny skin-burning microwave, crossing his feet.
Tsuranui is having fun splashing water on the deserted, well-stomped field.
"Hmm… It's so pastoral around here after our graduation, huh. I hope they're not going to close the baseball club next year, right?"
"Eh, who knows. I heard they want to split the team. Well, times change. Looks like baseball isn't as appreciated any longer."
"Aah, it's so scary to live…"
Bleak news that make me want to just drop flat on the ground. But I kinda grew out of that and didn't start rolling around. Such is the life after twenty.
"So, Kirisu, you're really going to move in with me?"
"Hmm? Nah, if it bothers you, I'll look somewhere else. But what, you gonna to be a miser about an empty room? Cheap, too. And convenient if something like that happens again."
'Something like that' is about Sinker.
I seem to have done my job smoothly, but the other side of the deal was unhappy with me saving the client and handing him over to the police, and so my payment was limited to the minimal sum.
Of course, it was still quite a big sum, but Kaie-san did only offer me half, and…
"What? Sinker was shushed by Kirisu-san, correct? And you, Arika, did nooothing at all, so I'll give you nooothing at all. Oh, and here's a special bonus for tabletop baseball. Shouldn't you at least buy a bat for the future? Or else what are you going to do when an unknown killer attacks?"
This was how my demonic employer shamelessly toyed with me. He should stop being a miser with his money. 'I'm rich because I'm a skinflint' is about small fries. His level is completely different, so he could at least give me a spoonful of the sea.
"Why so glum? Don't you forget what happened during the day?"
"The contents of my wallet don't reset, though. I haven't even received the initial payment yet, by the way."
"Don't have money - ask for more work. That pipsqueak did say there's a ton of jobs if you're willing."
"Drop it.. Like hell I'll tangle with possessed again."
Exactly. Yesterday's greatest moral was: don't get involved with exorcism.
…Luckily, Sinker's exorcism happened during the day and wasn't left in my memory. But what happened in the evening… I visited his house, and Iguruma Kazumi's neighbour told me things about his family that are hard to forget. Even the short notes in the notebook aren't too pleasant.
Yes… It's hard seeing things like that. I especially don't want to get involved with people like Iguruma. They must have something wrong in their heads if they merge their life's meaning and way together.
"Pfft… Arika, look. Tsuranui got bored of playing with water, so she's now kicking at the club door, the idiot. I think there are three minutes until she makes a hole in the center."
"Oh, youth! I wish she'd share the secret of her perpetual motion engine, seriously. It's thirty eight degrees, come on! Earthlings can't function at this temperature."
I mutter hopefully under my nose: might she perhaps be Shikura's strongest?
We shut up. I thought he'd giggle.
Contrary to Kirisu's prediction, in about a minute Tsuranui successfully opened the baseball club's door. Apparently she noticed it wasn't locked.
"By the way… It was you that forced that brown-haired guy to pitch in the same trajectory three times, right?"
"Hmm, so you noticed?"
"When it was already over. Normal people don't do it like that. It's obvious, you overmuscled dumbass."
"That's mean of you. I did learn to play tricks, even if it's hard to tell by my looks."
Even more surprising. When a man considers himself a villain, he's a lifelong good soul. The world is just divided into true villains, evil good people and good good people.
"Oh, she's out… daaamn, what a moron. Loves gossip, eh?"
Tsuranui borrowed a ball from the club and started playing ball with the wall. Like a pitcher.
And purposely something like side pitches, come on, don't salt the wound, will you?
For a few minutes we watch the girl.
"Aah, so that's how it is. Pitching can be done by one person", - Kirisu suddenly mutters in a powerless voice.
"Uh huh… What of it?"
"Nah, it's nothing. When I was a little boy, yeah. I already forgot why I offered to play together. Well, yeah. There weren't any other solitary games."
A distracted tone of voice.
At this the dialogue ends, and we observe Tsuranui's adorable pitching forms.
I take my words back. She wasn't pouring salt, she was being a great person.

"There's nothing to do at all."
"Uh huh…"

A somehow familiar summer noon.
Kirisu's sitting with legs crossed, I keep standing, and we watch the mountains of clouds…
"All right, so. Let's play baseball!"
I don't manage an answer to the sudden idea.
Kirisu lazily, theatrically stretches his arms.
"What's wrong, Arika? Why not, don't we have nothing to do? And that moron is impatient, too."
Well, yeah. Like that. That's what they've been leading up to. I smile wryly.
"If it's decided, then let's begin right away. Heeey, we're starting baseball, Tsuranui!" - I shout.
Tsuranui jumps up: finally! - and darts right into the club. Kirisu slowly stands up.
…At this moment I saw his unfitting expression out of a corner of my eye.
With such a face people look into the distance, saying goodbye to a train leaving forever, in short, it's not fitting.
"Let's go, Kirisu."
I'll pretend I didn't notice. As usual, he haughtily nods his old-looking face.
It's great that it's daytime now. This sadness, too, I'll be able to forget by night. And the feeling of happiness that resembles cheering too early, and out-of-place sadness have no meaning to me… And things that should definitely be remembered become memories only for the present.
"Sempaaai! Faster, today we'll definitely defeat this gorilla! And why are you living at his place, anyway? Spite? It's spite, right, sempai? Hey, I don't like you, if you come to me again, you can fight my brothers, the amount of which is somehow lacking!"
Tsuranui swings the bat and gloves and sends them flying to Kirisu.
At this I stop opening old wounds. The ramblings about water-colored memories are over. Baseball with only three begins - fun, without any pain.

Of course - who entered the batter box doesn't need to be said.

/ S.VS.S.end





■■■

The game of Sinker vs. Slugger is over.
A distant echo of construction sounds passed over the empty site.

The mirror left in the corridor is shattered.
The batter collapsed, either from the aftermath of a careful swing, or from the highest degree of nervous tension. Just lost consciousness, nothing life-threatening.
The pitcher fell where he stood in the corridor. In his case the consciousness is there, but his life force is being lost at a high speed, and there is no guarantee of survival. To express it differently, it's not being lost; that which inhabits his right arm is draining his strength. Apparently it tries to give its existence a higher priority than the carrier organism's vital functions. This parasite is a true parent killer, but I accept that - a demon will be a demon.
So. Since my turning to the pitcher's side and waiting for the match to end twenty minutes have passed.
Seems short, yet long, and waiting this time out was accompanied by a dreadful tiredness.
I loudly walk down the corridor. The mirror is broken, I don't see myself in it. That's normal, of course. Constantly seeing yourself is tiring. I'm especially glad now.
"It's you…"
He reacted to the sound of footsteps, lying on the floor. Directed his fading sight into the corridor.
Maybe it's already evening, or maybe the windows were closed. The pass behind him was awfully dark.
"Now, now, don't lose yourself, Iguruma. If you go to sleep, you won't wake up, like in a horror movie. You have to get it together, have to go to the police and gallantly surrender to the law."
He doesn't reply. Doesn't have the strength or a reason to. The completely exhausted body already considers death the easier way.
"This wasn't the deal. If you lose, you surrender. That's the rule."
"Not worth it. I…"
"Definitely worth. I don't want you to just up and disappear, either. Say… well, Arishima Shougo was my buddy, an underclassman. You have to answer for him as best you can."
The darkness moves.
The footsteps come closer.
He dimly looks at the presence of something horrifying nearby.
"And those you avenged yourself on had their stories, too. You don't have to know them, but you should at least be aware that they exist."
Because you're not an eternal child.
The materialized hatred opens its grotesquely misshapen, huge maw.
What is hatred born of?
Here are those two, opposite each other, who knew for a long time.
Waves of emotions seethe in the corridor. It's too far for its splashes.
This is not directed at him, lying in the middle of the corridor. It's that feeling when you're feeling so much you can't describe exactly what it is.
Joy and wrath.
Sadness and anger.
This is the beginning - a small human, undefined, immaterial, sending electric signal incompatible with anything. He watched it dully, with dysfunctional sight.
"Thought so… It must be hard."
"What?.."
The footsteps stop. Shame… Completely, absolutely, one hundred percent incomprehensible muttering.
"What did you think so about?"
"I'm afraid of seeing you."
"Why are you afraid?"
"Because… you're the craziest."
I audibly take offense and throw the prosthetic off. Like someone opened the shutters - the corridor is painted by sun's white rays.
"Well, bon appetit, dogmeat. Don't eat everything, or there'll be trouble. Up to here, your favorite. I'll take it out now, hold on."
Missing left arm. Phantom sensations make a fruit-like tumor appear from his right arm. The black dog smells it loudly and enthusiastically consumes it.
The severing is not when the demon is inside the body, it's after extracting it to the outside. It not an exorcism rite that overwhelms and purges the demonic entity - this one takes it by force, an 'extorcism'. Nothing was solved. My disgusting role.



And this is the first extorcism.
Finally brought to an end, now missing from my memory, the first task.


/ S.VS.S.cut

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, also have at you!

[Rygah]

Well worth the wait, a really enjoyable finale to S.VS.S. I'll admit that at the beginning of S.VS.S I felt the baseball info dumps were a bit much, but once we got to the Sekura Yumiya stuff it got increasingly interesting. I grew to really like Kirisu and Kazumi, and Hinomori stole every moment he was in.

As always thank you for the translation Desu! I eagerly await the translations for the final parts of volume 2, and I equally loathe the day that the translation finishes. Volume 3 never

[Desuclocker]

So, hello there. After sorting out my life somewhat (boy, that took a while, didn't it) I finally have the time and drive to finish translating volume 2. With that, let's dive into the overlong Volume 3 teaser that begins with the Fomalhaut chapter. In this part, a certain cute girl makes a guest appearance.

An image of the fan favorite, Hinomori Shusei himself

Fomalhaut, part 1: Can you say ZA WARUDO?

Unstoppability is a sign of speed in its own right.

*

Not comparable to an animal, far beyond them.
Hunters with fundamentally different capabilities can't be measured against yourself.
Most importantly, our only advantage is lost.
Excessive meaninglessness. Endless multiformity. Unstable weak-willedness. We run away, scattering all sorts of disordered thoughts.
Inborn abilities are an insult to willpower?
So let acquired, insane willpower eradicate them.

No point in using time efficiently.
The very thought kills your chances of success.
You will achieve nothing by getting ahead.
You'll just get pushed from behind and fall back down.

The goal was a chicken race.
An unending escape into death's grasp.
Always accelerating, not slacking for an instant.
With all your honed abilities meet the endlessly growing beast, answer a strike with a return blow.

*

…You're boiling your isothermic blood.

You who mock immortality; burning speed - Fomalhaut.













------------------／FOMALHAUT.

1/
A short time previously (November 2004).

Hinomori Shusei, written "autumn's guardian sun shines", is a rebuilt man.
He doesn't have a name yet.
Long ashen hair. Black cape that catches an observer's eye. Mirror-lens sunglasses that hide his eyes. A sharp object in his hand, a beastly facial expression, a grin saying "come any closer and you die". Despite this distinctive appearance he still doesn't have a nickname; anyone could tell he's possessed, but a name has yet to stick.

"What the?.. Why are you still alive?!"
"Mhm..."

Shusei casually hems in response to the scream of a youth, 15 to 20 years old, who's completely coated in blood.
Quite a bit before that, in a bustling business and shopping district, past 9 PM. Hinomori Shusei bumped shoulders with a passerby, agreed to a fight before he knew it, took him to an alley no law-abiding citizen would venture near and, pondering on what to eat for dinner and such in the meantime, has just finished making the boy into Swiss cheese.

"You'd died two years ago!"
"Hmm, mhm."

To Hinomori Shusei the pathetic boy throwing around these bold statements was a perfect stranger.
The guy tries to flee, but as soon as he moves, the pipe in Hinomori Shusei's hand casually pierces his hip.
In martial arts they say "sen no sen"¹, and this is exactly it. With these skills he could easily be an assistant instructor in a town kendo school in better times.

"No, thinking about it, three years - back then you, off the skyscraper's roof… No, nonono! Actually, four..."

"..."
He wanted to say "Just pick one already". Perhaps he got tired of the youth's overly stereotypical phrases? Hinomori Shusei clicked his tongue in irritation, extracted the pipe from the guy's hip and enviously said:
"Not bad. You keep in character well, dude", - and stabbed it into his left shoulder.
A scream spilled from the boy's lips. It was the center of a populous district. "What, what's happening?" - a crowd of onlookers gathered immediately, but the man threw an "It's nothing" to them over his shoulder. The youth was in Hinomori Shusei's shadow, and the crowd, seeing nothing, made a logical assessment of the suspicious man in a black cape and dispersed.
"Hmm, it's kinda too easy these days. Not like the nineties: scream in town, and a crowd of bodybuilder college students would run over right away. Indifference weakens people, although in some respects it makes 'em stronger, you agree?"
"Y… you..."
"Oh yeah, about why I'm alive. I was waiting for the question, actually! There can't be a lead without a catchphrase, after all! Especially an evil one! All right, you ready? This time I've thought things through and have confidence. …Yeah. For I am invincible. So long as this hungering blood runs in my veins, I shall be reborn time and again..."
"..."
"Uh, umm, didn't you like it?.. Well, okay, I know it's kinda weak… Mmm, like, it's kinda like transforming after a pointless phrase. I mean, a deal-breaker if you're planning to go into the monstrous killer business. Man, I wish someone gave me a decent name..."
"..."
The boy's eye flashes red.
'Black coat's distracted, can't miss the chance' - and, quite literally painting the entire eyeball red, the youth commands the man before him:
"Look me in the eeeeeye!"
"Hmm?"
A fiber a tenth of a millimeter thick is woven.
The nerves created and launched by the boy's eye pierce Hinomori Shusei's eyes.
The sunglasses are useless. The unseen thread creeps along the surface like a vine, twists and launches straight towards the eyeball.
"Bound him!.. Now, go!.."
The sight fades in both his eyes. After invading the sight, the nerve maliciously falsifies the image, burns a picture into memory, fixing it over a part of the field of vision.
This is why the possessed boy is nicknamed "Wall-eye". Using his power, he easily performed small robberies. Mostly stealing money from convenience stores. Each time he invaded the nervous system of a person who met his gaze while within 15 centimeters of him and burnt a permanent, indestructible image into 30% of their sight.
He hadn't stolen more than two million yen total, but this hooliganry had cost eight people their sight already.
Wall-eye's victims couldn't bear the horrifying images and gouged their own eyes out, but he burnt them in down to the very brain, and not even blindness got rid of them.
As a result, the victims suffered mental damage, became empty shells, even committed suicide.
Not very inventive, but you can't call it anything but satanic. A visual drug that stays in your head until you die once applied.
However…
"Whoa, what kinda porn is this?! Hey now, you're far too depraved for a teen! Grow up a bit before showing people these snuff scenes! Come on, you're just a kid! Seriously, that's just not right. Oh well, can't look a gift horse in the mouth, guess I'll commit this to memory! I'll keep it in mind, the thing is to not let it into your conscious thought. It's like cable TV!"
"Wha… Whaaaaat?"
The youth's eyes open wide.
What did he just say? He's paying it no mind? An unrelated image worming its way into his consciousness is nothing to him? This is abnormal. If this man had deflected the "wall-eye" through some possessed ability, that's understandable. But for him to receive it and not care - that's just impossible.
"Hey, are you crazy? You took it, now drop and thrash around! I'm going to be sick just looking at you!"
"Huuuh? Don't be so rude, I'm just bearing it. One link broken, and it'll still be too soon! No, that's wrong… Grin and wear away a stone, right?" ²
"I'm not talking about that, moron! To neutralize poison you need resistance! How can you bear it from the get-go? You aren't immune, and you took a lethal poison - and it's working! So why are you still alive?! You should be dying, what fucking perseverance?!"
"Ohh. You're a good liar. It's like the difference between a walking corpse and a reanimated corpse, then. Mmm?.. It's not? Well, whatever. Anyway, you shouldn't have done that, kid. This stuff should be off-limits until eighteen thousand, not just eighteen! Take my advice, drop it! If you stoop to this while young, in ten years you'll wind up either dead or a hopeless small-time thug. Ahh, but then, you..."
He bares his set of sharp, predatory teeth in a grin.
The youth felt some indescribable, cold evil spread from the pipe in his shoulder.

"...You're actually not going to live another minute anyway, hmm?"

The boy's loud scream echoes through the alley.
A deafening scream of agony. Before that screams meant fear of pain. Compared to that, the last scream belonged to a creature on the brink of death. Now even the most indifferent passerbys couldn't ignore it. The onlookers turned into concerned citizens and rushed into the alley.
In it lay a human body.
Covered in lacerations, but failing to spill even a drop of blood, as though smoke-dried.

*

"...What do I care. You're an idiot, after all."
Let's move twenty meters upward, to the roof of an office building.
A woman roughly twenty years old was addressing Hinomori Shusei, who jumped up and was now standing on the wall like a mountain goat, from there.
Wearing a hunting cap reminiscent of a movie detective and large-rimmed glasses. Also a beige raincoat with a high collar, a bit too large for her.
"Mhm. Well, I know I'm an idiot, but hearing it from others stings. Especially when it's so sincere, with slight contempt and great pity!.. Ah, but still, what exactly don't you care about, Maki-chan? The boy or my style?"
"Both. The unlucky child who stumbled into your sight as well as your manner of killing, paying no attention to your surroundings - I'm already used to it. If I were to stop to groan each time you did it, I'd never move from this spot… If you're done, I'm leaving. I'll call you when I find out anything else."
"Counting on you! Oh yeah, where do you live now? How many lairs do you have now, Maki-chan?"
"Three at present. One in the Nozu district, one in a cheap flophouse in Shikura's industrial zone and, to tap the phone line, a room near the police station. And now I can gather up to three faces for my disguises."
"Wow. Mhm, isn't she wandering near Shikura? That one girl, can you look for her?"
"I'll lure her out soon. She only goes for men thirty years of age and older, and I already know her favorite situations. I don't know why, but she's fascinated by the hunt. If I could become a man, it'd be easier, but..."
"Huh. So you can only wear female skins?"
"Currently, yes… But, Shusei. The girl you're looking for looked very strong. When you find her, you might not escape in one piece."
"Hmm… Well, that only confirms things",- Shusei self-derisively curls his lips.
His usual talkativeness hides in shadows, and his true obduracy shows itself.
"Surprising. You believe my conclusions. And to think you were putting me down - not worth killing, smell unattractive, no female charm."
"Those are good things, Maki-chan. It was exactly because you're of no consequence that you could convince me not to kill you. Besides, your lack of womanly charm and your slightly mechanical analytic nature are completely unrelated, no? You have a trained eye. As soon as you met me, you thought "I'm killing this one", right?"
"Well..."
"It's fine, relax, we fought to the death anyway, I don't mind! Still, it's not often that a possesed reacts like that. Usually they either run or fail no notice. Your analysis is always correct, Maki-chan. Thus the one I'm looking for is definitely more capable than I."
"But you're going to find and kill them? Planning a hunt, too? Look out, you might become the prey instead."
"Prey, you say? Well, yeah, this hunt was a hobby, and that is a job. As distant as heaven and earth! By the way, Maki-chan..."
"What? If it's some nonsense again, spare your breath. I don't have as much excess energy as you."
"Now, now, don't sulk like that. What, are you acting out a small girl who hasn't played enough today? You have it good, like, the second player's color, the third's. I don't have anything like that. Isn't that weird? I'm so upbeat and energetic, but I don't even have a cool nickname!"
"You do have a nickname. You've been called Vampire these past two years already, with rumors to suit it."
"Hmm, oh, that… Actually, it's not true… I don't like these simple ones. I'd like them to think before sticking a label on. Laziness leads to senility, dammit."
"You're senile yourself. That said, you really are pretty banal, Shusei. Calling such an odd-looking guy Vampire is somewhat lame."
'See, you get it', - Black Coat droops his shoulders.
Hinomori Shusei.
His achievements include staying free the longest and having the biggest list of deeds of them all.
Frankly, this man is a horrific criminal, but surprisingly, city rumors have yet to agree on a 'name'.
"Perhaps I lack charisma?"
"Well, at least you have plenty of stupidity. Anyway, I have to go. The other residents might start suspecting me."
The glasses-wearing woman sticks her collar up and turns towards the roof exit. Unlike Hinomori Shusei, she's not the kind of monster to scale building walls without any tools.
"Oh, something's been bugging me, too. Hinomori Shusei. This boy screamed that you should be dead; he's the sixth to do that already."
"Yeah. What of it?"
"Nothing. Even children not a day over fifteen have already had the chance to meet you, and the location of the meeting is of no significance. Neither are the date or reason of your death. You seem to not die when killed."
"Exactly. So you don't have any questions, after all?"
"Here's what I'm trying to say. Men, women, children, adults. They are all unrelated, so why are they all saying the same thing?"
There is only the howling of wind.
The Black Cape standing on the rooftop's edge and the woman who's stopped in front of the door. They peer into each other's faces over a distance of ten meters.
"Well… The information's outdated, to say the least. Yours truly is famous, even though I might not have a name. You've been in Origa and wouldn't know, but here, in this world, I am the "strongest possessed". Those guys probably heard that as well."
"Heh. You, too, seem unaware of what's going on inside the clinic. The strongest possessed? Yeah, great joke there."
The doorknob turns.
The woman in glasses leaves the roof.
Words chase her back:
"Well, a pleasure to work with you today. But be careful, Maki-chan. Not only the government's might is scary! Don't over-rely on your cool mimicry, use your investigative skills. I don't want to think of you as an enemy. Finding and killing you would be a royal pain, after all!"
Vampire's perky, upbeat voice.

*

Hinomori Shusei.
Nearly two years ago, in February 2003, in the town of Kareno located in the southernmost point of the S prefecture, this A disorder carrier caused an incident and was captured. He's the young man considered by rumors to be Shikura's first possessed, and he's also a large-scale criminal with over 20 murders under his belt.

In 1995 Hinomori Shusei was diagnosed with the A disorder, after which he placed into the Kinui public hospital. Three years of procedures later a decision was made to transfer him into the Origa clinic that's been fitted with appropriate facilities; this is the moment when all his trails disappear.
Since then he's been filed as missing, surfacing in the beginning of 1999 as a suspect in the Kareno station mass suicide case, and was captured by Kareno district's inspector with police assistance in the beginning of 2003.
Being escorted to the Origa clinic, he forcibly deprived an inspector named Tougo Kisara of consciousness, dealt fatal injuries to the driver and his assistant and escaped. After that he disappears again, and his identity can't be confirmed.
However, the likelihood of Hinomori Shusei being in good health is extremely low, as the driver of the other convoy car testifies. He witnessed the incident from about 10 meters behind, but he saw everything quite clearly.

After a sudden stop of the car he heard two sounds, presumably of a gun being fired. Then the door of the convoy car opened, and the suspect, Hinomori Shusei stumbled out, but another shot rang out from within the car, and the suspect swayed and dropped.
As the column stopped on a bridge, the suspect fell into the river and didn't come ashore. Later a search was conducted on the river, but there were no leads that could be ascribed to the suspect. Inspector Tougou, who accompanied the suspect, insisted that Hinomori Shusei was alive and continued the investigation to the suspect's home town in the northern part of the S prefecture, named Shikura, but found nothing.
Half a year later the investigation crew was reassigned. Hinomori Shusei, wanted prefecture-wide, was written off as possibly dead, and although the investigation is ongoing, there are too few people involved, and it's in a dead end.

This master of appearing out nowhere and disappearing back into it, the perhaps alive, perhaps dead killer was spotted in the S prefecture in August 2004.
His good health was confirmed by the traffic accident on the circular road, but Kareno's police department limits its aid to some material assistance for the investigation and isn't very helpful.
Meanwhile Shikura's department, spurred on by the mass suicides repeating since October, has formed a team to apprehend Hinomori Shusei, dispatching twelve local policemen and two people from the central office.
The passive investigation elicited some protests from Kareno's department, but Shikura's station is not responding to those for the moment.

*

Ishizue Arika doesn't go on trips, and with reason. Not enough money, and besides, his employer, Karyou Kaie, a natural hikkikomori, doesn't need him to leave Shikura.
Thus, if he's put into the spotlight, you'll get a low-budget house drama. That's one of the reason why Hinomori Shusei calls him a "salted brother", and for Shusei, who's walked all over the prefecture, Ishizue Arika's lack of movement was inexplicable.

S is a fairly big prefecture.
Its total area is aboout 5000 square kilometers. It's located in Kanto's east part, on a flat, and is home to about 60 towns, its total population reaching 6 million. Shikura is located in its north and a bit to the east from the center, houses the only international airport in S and is two hours by express train from the capital's center, which is a fairly good location. It's absolutely rural - as you approach the airport you'll only see gardens and fields - but time isn't passing it by. Compared to the capital, it's as follows: below Tokyo's 23rd ward, but above its small suburbs; not amazing, of course, but still.

Anyway, the east is home to nature, an airport located among mountains and fields, and if you move west, towards the capital, you'll see city-like progress. By the way, a famous buddha and shaman lives near the airport, and on holidays up to two million people come to worship him. It's a rare land where this horde of pilgrims may freely pass, as though going through the gates of Hell. On the other hand, there's also a bustling hot springs district, open anytime except for winter holidays, and sometimes even inspector Touma Matou and Ishizue Arika spend a night there while working on some creepy case. And sometimes Ishizue Arika learns of the mysterious Touma Matou's true nature or intentions, but that's a different tale.

So. To the west of Shikura and even the capital is the western border of the S prefecture.
Eleven o'clock PM. The top of the iron bridge over the river separating S and Tokyo.
On the arc bent like a bow, stretched like a web by the metallic cables, stands Hinomori Shusei, katana in hand. On a cable ten meters away crouches a monster as tall as a human. Limbs grasping the cable, red eyes distrustfully watching the hunter, flowing black hair. "Monster as tall as a human" might be imprecise. It's better to say it was a human that became a monstrous beast. Fourteen meters tall.
They both stand on the thin forty centimiters of metalwork.
The wind is strong, it'd be easy to fall on the rails below, or perhaps even lower, into the wide river.

Billowing black cape and long hair, Hinomori Shusei is covered in cuts. The cape is torn, as though a giant cat played with it. No fatal wounds, but a bit more, three centimeters deeper - and arteries would be torn, leading to death from blood loss.
On the other hand, the beast gripping its foothold is unharmed. And so presently it's studying the hunter, waiting for him to drop his guard, flashes its claws, getting ready to leap.
"Huh, tough luck. It's just as Maki-chan said. Too bad, so sad."
Either bluffing or defiant.
Twisting his mouth into a smile, Hinomori Shusei brandishes his katana.
As though in response, the four-legged beast lunges into the darkness.
Running on the stretched metallic construct, scattering diffused reflections, it attacks the black cape.
In order to, this time…
It howls: to, this time, tear this clumsy prey into shreds without fail.
"Phew!.."
And, standing on a barely visible edge, Shusei endures the attacks of the beast coming from multiple directions.
Evaded where possible. Put an arm or leg in the way where not, saving the vitals. The return attack with the katana came in time, stopping the opponent.
The attacking beast is three-dimensional, and Hinomori Shusei opposed it despite being a mere point.
A side observer would've thought this a hopeless defense. A one-sided game where a breach of guard, a swift end was a matter of time.
But - why has this been going on for five minutes already?
"Ha, aaaaah!"
Finally the beast let out a voice.
Not a howl, a human voice. With a cute girl's shout she leaps from beneath Shusei's legs, aiming for the head.
"Hi there."
Evading the beast's claws by hair's breadth. Casually - no. Specifically by a hair's breadth. On the level of one's finesthour, avoiding death through extreme luck, a maneuver nearing a miracle.
The secret is that Hinomori Shusei, who evades death by a blood-chillingly small margin, has nerves of steel.
"Hmm, you angry? I should've been shredded into bits? Tough luck. Your life not going well or what, why so slow? Such a body, yet your mind can't catch up to it. Where's the sparkle in your eyes, my fairy?"
"H, hhh!"
The beast's attack becomes even fiercer.
One arm won't be strong enough. Gripping the katana with two hands, Hinomori Shusei survives again.
Why is this a one-sided game? It's because Shusei is clowning around. He may pretend, but the beast has the edge in speed, energy and rage. So enough playing with his opponent. He was never planning to compete in prowess to begin with.
In these three seconds time seems to have frozen.
The train passing below shakes the bridge.
Again failing to kill the prey that seems so easy, the infuriated beast-girl jumps fifteen meters away and lands on a support pillar.

"What's with you?.."

Breathing heavily, the beast desperately, sincerely even, composes words. Although it's very hard to put that much will into letters.
"Hmm… Me?.. Well, I dunno..."
Shusei cocked his head to the side, thinking up an answer.

The situation is as follows.

The beginning of October, the situation getting hotter by the minute. The person he's looking for was found - a helpful volunteer informed him, and that very day he put together a trap, drew out the girl and is now fighting her to the death. The goal is death, so there's nothing to explain there. So all that's left is to introduce himself. But, well…
"Hmm. Well, I'm..."
Shusei didn't have an appropriate pretty phrase in his head.
He lost the timing to call himself Hinomori Shusei, and calling himself "just a passing immortal vampire" was not sophisticated enough. "I'm reborn time and again" sounds poetic, and he'd like to go with that, but the girl sees him for the first time. She wouldn't care…
"Well, so… I don't matter, but who are you? I'm told it's polite to introduce yourself first before asking others!"
This was his way of buying time.
"I'm Lawnmower."
Fervently, like a prayer, the girl continued:
"I'm a beast of that species."
She expressed her will to be that way with her words sharp as fangs.
"Holy shit..."
This must have been how the expression "scales fell from one's eyes" came to be.
It was the first and last time Hinomori Shusei felt respect for his chosen possessed opponent.
Seriously, he might've kneeled on the spot.
Indeed, Lawnmower! True, her claws are a tool of dissection and tearing apart. Eerie, like propeller blades turned into knives. Of course, that's why a lawnmower. Vroom - and ground meat scatters in all directions instead of cut grass; somewhat incongruous, but the name fits.
And the self-presentation is superb, too. Sharp. Complete and impactful, expressing a powerful impulse. Now compare to this:
"For I am invincible. So long as this hungering blood runs in my veins, I shall be reborn time and again..."
…To this lameness.
"Waaaaaah! What is this heeeeelll!" - Shusei even started twitching.
Bad. Very bad. Must hide away somewhere this very instant. Any small hole'll do. Time to hit the bullseye with another dart. His own, of course. To lay low and become a yellow tape-covered, gone and forgotten street tale. For Hinomori Shusei, who skillfully played a murderous maniac, this was a strong enough blow that such an all-consuming feeling of shame was a given.

"Damn… What's this feeling, what is it, mmm… Envy?"

Suddenly he breaks into a run.
No, into a flight, like a bullet.
"?!"
The girl's following leap was decisive and precise.
The previously clumsy prey bared its fangs. And, again, with a different kind of speed. The instant feeling of danger and attempt to dodge were only due to the girl's two-year hunting experience.
But she doesn't make it in time. Well, she did, but for a fraction of a second the prey was faster.
Two shadows cross in the dark.
The girl swings her claws, but the approach of the black cape is a bit faster.

There is a strange discomfort in the girl's mind. She opposed such speed many times already. But now she was too slow. Something is wrong. The speed of the prey seemed to differ in the principle of the beginning of motion.
Still not understanding the true reason, the girl swipes her claws at the prey that's moved into point blank range. And again the katana rises after a hair's-breadth dodge. And now Vampire is swinging down from his shoulder.
He's close enough to bite her neck.
However, biting is the prerogative of beasts. At the moment when, faster than the bite of the one called Vampire, her fangs were nearly in his throat…
"Aaaah?!"
An unfinished kick by Black Cape's leg throws her body upwards.
Knee bent, a twisted, rocket-like kick.
The girl flies far away from the metallic bridge and helplessly falls into the river. Black Cape watches, keeping the same kicking pose, as he…
"Oh… Crap, I can't recover either."
…must have swung his leg a bit too far.
Losing his balance, he falls into the dark river.

*

"...Have it your way. You're the fool who's seriously decided to oppose the entire world, after all."
Quite some distance from the metallic bridge, on the river's shore.
The woman Hinomori Shusei called Maki-chan said, addressing him as he calmly crawled out of the river. But the impression she gave off was startlingly different. Red highlight, pierced ears, black leather pants and jacket. Her bearing also changed somehow, and she resembled a teenage boy more than a woman.
"Have a towel. I³ figured it'd end like this."
Wet as a dog, Black Cape wipes his soaked hair with the towel given to him.
"The girl ran away to the other side, by thw way. Are you following her?"
"No, I'll leave Tsukiri-chan alone. I thought I guessed right at the beginning, but it turns out she was nuts even before."
"I see. All that effort for nothing..."
"Well, no, one less suspect is still progress. And besides, now I'm out of ideas, so now I can return to the main business."
"I'm talking about myself. I work, look, and you spoil the goods with a stupid kick. Don't do that. You know, I look at her and just feel angry… or not, but still, it feels like deep down she was mocking me… Well, whatever. Shusei, her name is not Tsukiri."
"What? Really? But it's written as "moon" twice and "league", right?"
"Yes, and read Tomori. And her last name is, by the same logic, read as Takanashi, even though it's small-bird-plays, I believe. Mountains where a small bird can play since there are no eagles. And here is a league of such flat land that you can see the moon because there are no mountains, like that."
"Hmm. That's just weird." - Black Cape nods. - "No wonder I coudn't find her. Well, whatever, thanks for the info. Still, it's a shame. Now I have nothing to ask you for, Maki-chan. What will you do next? Stay in Shikura? You're one of the few possessed capable of escaping the prefecture, don't you want to appreciate other countries?"
"Not really. Wherever I am, they won't find me, so I might as well stay."
"Huh. Fancy someone from Shikura?"
"Sh… Shut up, why would you care!.. What about you? You're sitting here, too."
"Well, it's like this. I just feel that Shikura is the place. The search for Tsukiri-chan was an aside, and I have bigger concerns, like I said. And this is the perfect place! And I found a friend - as good a reason as any, right? He might be salted, but when I say a word, he hears ten, and even pretends he didn't hear five of those so as not to make it awkward, what a guy. And reliable, no-nonsense… oh yeah, I'll ask him about my name! They say rightly, friends are the stuff! So Shikura's peace may rest easy with me here, Maki-chan!"
Black Cape loudly claps the woman on her back, attracting puzzled stares from the passerbys on the dam.
Correction. No matter how you look at it, those two are crazy rocker buddies, incredibly annoying and shady, but not enough to make the townspeople call the police.
"That's a scary thought… How depraved would a person have to be to become your friend. Are they human? To be near you and not feel down… are they right in the head?"
"Heh. You see, Maki-chan, there are such curious people in the world, you couldn't even imagine. Well, I'll be off. I'll contact you if I need anything!"
Leaving the woman, Hinomori Shusei crosses a dry riverbed.

And then, in the beginning of October, an unremarkable affair between possessed that they didn't know about happened.
And so, linked by an elusive thread in a place unknown to both, the two unmotivated killers - Yamanashi Tomori and Hinomori Shusei - met and parted ways.
Two months later, on the 31st of December at 16 o'clock, Yamanashi Tomori will be formally hunted by Touma Matou, but the end of this thread is unrelated to Hinomori Shusei.

*

"...Still, that was tough. If we met on even ground, I could have done nothing. She'd just overpower me and cut me into ribbons, no two ways about it. Looks like a pure, proper possessed is full of talents."

On his way back.

After parting with Maki-chan, Hinomori Shusei walked the road back in sad solitude.
Deep night, on a highway. Once every few minutes a car passes by, but generally it's quiet and devoid of people, as befits the late hour.
"So. Where do I spend the night? It's not the season to sleep under the stars any more..."
Holding the long cloth bundle with the sword, he massages his shoulders with the free hand.
Relaxedly thinking out loud, Black Cape trots on through the night. It's understandable. A martial artist would say that after a significant duel he finally released the accumulated stress.
It's a small breather both humans and possessed need. The preparation for the next battle, the new encounter needs some proper sleep.
In this necessary time, at the moment when anyone would drop the heavy burden after returning to where death isn't breathing down your neck, it arrived.

"Mmm, as usual, break into a house? For some reason no one ever finds me in the sitting room… No, sometimes I do have to chat with an early bird of a housewife, oh..."
A merciless strike from exactly behind him. The body of the man reminiscing about "extreme" wake-up calls flies stylishly.
A sudden traffic accident.
Maybe the driver lost control, maybe something else, but a car crashed into him at over 60 kilometers per hour. Swept under the knees by the car's front, hitting the windshield on the same impulse, rolling over the roof, he falls on the ground. Spin, another, plop. With all the tragedy of a garbage bag being tossed out.
Like debris, Black Cape curls up motionlessly on the roadside. Instant death, of course. However powers you might have, you can't argue with a random bumper to the back. And besides…
"Hinomori!"
If this was a premeditated crime, that was the finisher.
The door of the car opens. The driver appears, but they don't run to the victim and instead unsheath a pistol - an automatic S&W - and empty a clip into Black Cape.
A control shot.
Black Cape doesn't run and takes the shots directly. Of course. It was doubtful whether he was alive in the first place.
The driver quickly closes the door, floors the gas and leaves the site.
It all happened within a minute. A convenience store worker who happened to notice the crime while spicing up - although we're talking about cup oden here, so he was just emptying the packs - his food abandoned his cooking and immediately called the police.

Ten minutes later.
When the patrol arrived, it only found the shells discarded by the gun and blood that presumably belonged to the victim whose existence the cashier insisted on.



¹ sen no sen: blocking and counterattacking simultaneously.
² Shusei jumbles together the sayings "one link broken, the whole chain is broken" and "if we never see you again, it'll still be too soon". Then, "grin and bear it" and "constant dropping will wear away a stone".
³ Maki-chan uses male pronouns in this scene.

[ItsaRandomUsername]

There have been worse years than 2017, thanks for your efforts

[Rygah]

What a great start to the weekend! Thank you very much Desu, I've been craving some more Hinomori in my life

Spoiler:

And it's a nice surprise to see Makina and Tomori again.

[hayate]

Welp, lot of catching up to do, but we thank you for your efforts.

Should read this from the beginning as well as the other light novels. T.T

[Desuclocker]

Here comes part 2 of Fomalhaut. A breath of air, so to speak, before we dive headfirst into the conclusion and vt.in day dream (you won't have any there).

Arika might even make a better crazy handler than Guda(k)o, it seems

2/ R.HF (Intermission: Ishizue Arika)

*

“Arikaaa-kuuun! Let’s have fun!”
“…”
One night in the very beginning of December, Shusei-san showed up uninvited, as usual.
“Anyway, I’m coming in!”
Not using the door. Rather, through the window.
The window of my room on the fourth floor of a municipal dormitory, located a dozen meters from the ground, of course. No balconies. No other ledges to scale. Still, somehow he casually got in through the window. The very first time was accompanied by him breaking the anti-suicide window grate. This is no longer unlawful entry. It’s an act of terrorism.
“Man, it sure got cold. Oh, the window? Might as well keep it open for ventilation and stuff. Or should I close it?”
“Close it from the outside. And go back to wherever you came from.”
“Oh come ooon. I have presents, and you’re still so unhappy to see me. I’m so overworked these days, let me relax a bit…”
Black Cape says that as he dives on the sofa and wails. Not even overexcited kids on a school trip do that, but this guy doesn’t care.
“Shusei-san, you don’t work to begin with. You just have fun all day. That’s not the least bit like overwork… Presents, you say?”
“Mhm, you probably tried them already. Well, it’s like a pipe you stared at while sucking on your thumb as a kid… Or a ten-year-old autographed CD of a singer… Or a guitar with swords drawn on it that you grabbed on eBay as a memento of your ending youth, not that it plays very well… Some useless and sad thing like that…”
Yeah. He’s clearly half asleep now.
“So probably not food, then. Something useless and unfashionable… oh, a map of Torino-nori, perhaps?”
“Correct. Not that I’m very informed, but anyway, those are not being printed any more. I had a girl I know look for it, begged her… Well, she seemed like an enthusiast herself. I said, like, I want a map, around 1980, and she just goes “Oh, I have one right right here”. Maybe she’s a collector. Anyway, here you go, Arika-sempai. It’s just a copy though, no street cred for you.”
I take the copy.
An A5 sheet, which is curious in itself. I look it over - indeed, most of the map differs from the new one.
“That’s one hell of a house… And there seem to be other buildings around it. How did those wild fields and forests end up there?”
“You talking about the forest around Shikura hill? Well yeah, there were some well-bred folks living there… And there seem to have been houses for servants and relations around. But they were weird. You had to have a name with birds, fish and other animal kanji in it, or they wouldn’t employ you. Misanthropes, maybe?”
Shusei-san roars with laughter.
By the way, the copied map doesn’t have those details.
Only the scale of the Karyou mansion corresponds to the map I saw somewhere before.
That said, there it was just marked as private land, but this map is many times more detailed, with the main mansion and outbuildings marked.
The cellar where Karyou Kaie now resides wasn’t a part of the mansion, it seems more like a storehouse.
The map doesn’t reveal anything else. If I want to learn about the old Karyou mansion, I’ll have to look for people who remember those times.
This seems to be all. I’m just curious what his house looked like. No need to seriously investigate. For now, at least.
“So? How’s it going lately? I hear Nozu smells like trouble?”
A question by the man with the worst smell of trouble in the S prefecture, casually changing the topic to Shikura.
Hinomori Shusei. The suspicious guy I came to know in August turned out to be a maniac killer working in a large area, but I only found out in the beginning of October.
Oh, the police booth has a musician poster on it! Either it’s a show of will to resist the law or a “we’re law friendly” statement - brave either way! Upon a closer look it turned out to be a wanted poster, though.
…Anyway, we talked like this before that, and I’m a bit uncomfortable telling him killers shouldn’t roam free. After the November underground incident I learned his reason for killing, but I couldn’t just ignore him and chase him out, which leads us to the present moment.
“The Nozu industrial district is growing more closed. The inhabitants of our dorm are often lynched right on the streets, it’s scary to go outside. Well, you know, it’s fine to never leave. A truck brings food, we commute via a special bus. And there’s a patrol car stationed near the entrance. I only caught a glimpse, but it’s definitely an inspector.”
“Not very nice. The Nozu industrial zone is on top of a hill. There’s only one state highway. And they’re closing it now? …Heh. That’s almost quarantine”, - Shusei-san bitterly smiles, laying on the sofa.
…The weirdness in the Nozu industrial district began towards the end of September.
Some empty rumors that only possessed lived here started circulating, the locals started feeling uncomfortable before I knew it, and towards December - that is, now - everyone thought the rumors to be true.
The rumor that spread through the district before - that a building’s inhabitants all had the same faces - kept growing until it graduated into a scary story about the entire district.
“I think the place has always been full of scary stories, though. It’s just, for some reason this time it became a serious problem…”
"Because the sparks of the rumor reached our neighbours, of course. Previously the scares began and ended within the district. The rumours didn't leak, and everyone ust ignored them."
"Ooh… I see. You're a smart one, Arika-sempai."
Shusei-san performs an agile half-roll. Like a panther, or something.
"Hmm, by the way, how's Kirisu-kun?"
At this, seemingly remembering Kirisu a bit too late, this panther jumped up and peeked into the other room.
"Not here. Says he's visiting some woman. He's got no money, so he might even bring back a check."
"That so. Well, that kind of dinner can't be bought with money anyway… Hmm. Still, a random woman - not good. Is Kirisu-kun a womanizer?"
"Not quite, I think. He takes entertainment seriously. Well, I do admit he's amorous. I think he just unconditionally falls in love with every cutie he sees."
"Oho. A true man."
"You think? Well, if you look at it from a different angle, he doesn't get with serious girls. His romantism isn't a focused laser, it's more like a multilaser. He likes them all, but just can't find her, the one and only, something like that."
That said, should he meet a girl he'll seriously fall in love with, I'll support them wholeheartedly and help out as an old friend. This kind of guy sheds old skin when he changes class to husband. Because inside he's packed with the sense of responsibility.
"Uh huh. What about you, man? Got a girl?"
"I'm not sure. Kinda yeah, but kinda no. I can elaborate, if you don't mind some sappy gushing. Interested?"
"Hmm, I am curious, but I'll pass. I might just turn green from your stories, if you get my meaning… No, normally gloomy types grinning and running their mouth is not something that happens! What is this happy end aura anyway?! As though you scored the goal long ago! Damn, don't tease me with your red string stories!"
Black Cape flails his arms and legs on my bed.
He looks irritated but also happy - looks like he's having fun.
"Fine, fine, and take away the trash you scattered when you leave. What about you, Shusei-san? Idiot or no, you might pass for a cool dude when you keep your mouth shut."
"Hmm..."
Like an unwinding spring, the hinomorilimb flailing mechanism stops.
Shusei-san straightens his crooked back:
"I don't care for 3D women", - he proclaimed, and immediately: "And women in general!"
With this exclamation he turned to the wall.
"Well..."
"Hold on. Why did you just roll away into a corner on your chair?"
"To avoid infection. Why did you come anyway?"
I stare at him. Shusei-san coughed, put a serious expression on his face and switched modes from sprawling on the bed to sitting on it cross-legged.
"Well… Actually, I wanted your advice."
Looks like he's telling the truth.
I'll digress a bit: his statement about not being interested in women has a different meaning. I'm a bit jealous. He just thinks about a certain woman so much he doesn't recognize others as the opposite sex.
So.
That day Hinomori Shusei came for my advice on a silly, as usual, matter.

"Oh, so you want a nickname?"
"Well yeah, yeah. Maybe you can think of one, Arika-sempai? Something cool."
The pervert stared at me with eyes full of hopes and expectations.
As Shusei-san explained, he'd always wanted a catchphrase, and a possessed he met recently said some cool words, so now he wanted a neat name even more.
"..."
How do I put this… I lamented Fortune's prank my life had become, but that evening the lament turned into practical experience… It's midnight, after all. In what kind of world is this a time for a phantom to visit an ordinary man and demand a presentation?
But since it's come to this, and I have time to curse my misfortune, the best thing to do with that time would be to think up a name and send him on his way. I brightened up.
"You have Vampire and Invincible already. That's enough."
"But they sound laaaame. I don't want to be a cliche, I'd rather have something more specific. Some pseudonym."
Pseudonym… A made-up name. Hmm.
"Mhm. What about Zofu Tsukumu - Gut-Ripper? Sounds badass."
"Ghah?! Well, that's more badass than I expected, so bold!.. But my friend, let's reverse the direction a bit!"
"Reverse it how?.."
No ideas of his own, but always full of criticism.
…That said, seems like he doesn't want it to sound like a human name?
So it has to be symbolic, expressive of Hinomori Shusei's distinctive traits.
"Shusei-san's traits, huh… I mean, inside or outside, you're just a phantom in a black cape… Oh. By the way, it's been bugging me for a while now. Shusei-san, how come you don't die?"
The self-proclaimed immortal vampire.
That's what they say… well, that's what he says, and yes, it's his quirk. Even battered like crazy, the next day he shows up alive and well. Invincible might be too much, but he is oddly tough.
"No, actually I'll die just like everyone. Pierce the heart or chop off the head, and it's bye-bye… Ooh, that's how it is. Well, yeah, not dying when killed is different from unkillable even if put to death. Uh huh. You're the only one I'll tell, man. I just try to not die no matter what, that's it."
"What?"
I'm even more confused. It sounds like your usual spiritism, but in his case it becomes a reality.
Pushed from behind in the underground before a speeding train, scattered into mincemeat all over the station; the next day his "hiii" and face in my window nearly gave me a heart attack.
"Come ooon. I'm not invincible, I'm undying. I don't need invincibility to be immortal! Whatever happens, I won't die - that's immortality, isn't it?"
"Come ooon, I'm asking you to elaborate from that point on. I mean, true enough, Shusei-san. While you're not dead, you're immortal. But after falling under a car or falling from a roof a man becomes mincemeat. You can't deny that, right?"
Uh huh, the killer nods. This guy is possessed, but actually not that seriously. In Origa he'd be assigned to building B or C. His wounds bleed. If all of his blood drains away, he'll die. How does he claim immortality with such a normal body?
"It's actually not that hard. Animals have a hard time dying, after all. So it's about speed, Arika-kun. For example…
And here, as usual, Hinomori Shusei explained his personal theory of immortality.
This ability to survive however dire the situation.
This lifestyle of the one who boasts of immortality, the fastest possessed in the world.

*

"That's how it is. Anyone can do that, right?"
"..."
Of course not. Hinomori Shusei's lifestyle was literally a brain-searing death run. He spoke in a way that made me want to call him a workaholic, but the word is too bland for him.
No, the problem doesn't lie in the bodily sphere, it's in the aspects related to it. How does one reach such a method? On what basis can this formalization be considered consistently usable?.. The attempts to make my consciousness work in this fashion make me uncomfortable, and I want to forget it all.
"Anyway, it's about isothermic blood… Mhm, isotherm plus Shusei equals..."
A match made in Heaven comes up. In a certain creation myth the god of fire was imprisoned in a spirit prison with the help of a certain incandescent unmoving star, if I remember this right.
"Listen. You know this story?"
I should really leave it be, but the words just started flowing.
And in a few minutes an extremely happy Hinomori Shusei shook my hand - that's just it!
"Perfect. Oh yeah, this is super, Arika-sempai! It's fine, I'll add the final touch myself! No, really, this name will win for me! At least it'll beat Tsukiri-chan!"
"You sure? This manner is a bit old-fashioned."
"That's the idea. Your pose is something that should be slightly embarrassing!"
"Well, see you" - with those words Hinomori Shusei happily left through the window.
Closing it, I looked outside, but the black-caped figure was nowhere to be found. When all's said and done, he's still a phantom leaping across rooftops.
Still…
"I don't even know. In my personal opinion, Vampire suits him better..."
Well. Whether the nickname we thought up this night will spread depends on his further actions, but honestly, in any turn of events his actions are just murders. I don't condone them, I try to ignore it, but in my helpless position I can only pray for this madness to end as soon as possible.

More Hinomori

As for the myth Arika is referencing… I haven't the slightest clue. The research I did does not turn up anything close even if I omit the (for now unmentioned) involvement of the star Fomalhaut. If anyone could help out with this, it would be much appreciated.

[Leftovers]

秋星

Shuusei

is the

Fomalhaut

Autumn Star

. And then there's:

Its origin (the one Arika followed I guess) was that of the Cthulhu Mythos. Fomalhaut is the brightest star of Piscis Austrinus, a white-blue main sequence star near where the Great Old One Cthugha is imprisoned.

And hey, thanks for sticking with translating this.

[Malgos]

Welcome back and thank you for continuing to translate this.

[Rygah]

Shusei-san straightens his crooked back:
"I don't care for 3D women", - he proclaimed, and immediately: "And women in general!"

Man, Hinomori just gets better and better!

Thanks again Desu

[Desuclocker]

Here's the conclusion to Fomalhaut. Only vt.in day dream left!

DISCLAIMER: child violence and general brutality follow. You've been warned.

Fomalhaut, part 3: that power sounds oddly familiar…

3/ Present time (2004,the end of December)

In Shikura town's police department Touma Mato was treated very delicately.
Not because she's that delicate, rather, because she tends to explode if approached incorrectly. So fragile, so ready to trample everything around at the drop of a hat… she is delicate after all.
The HQ gave her the post of Assistant Inspector, but the forcedness of the assignment was clear as day. Originally from the second department (social order)… experience with work conflicts and ultra-left demonstrations… that's all her, but Imai Atsushi from the first department (investigations) of Shikura's police station was suspicious of even such a resume.
Clearly a careerist. Touma Mato isn't even thirty. Getting to Assistant Inspector in this time is only possible through pure careerism. Normally it goes like this: being on duty in a local district as training, then, after about a year of study, getting assigned to the same department as a patrolman. In a year or two the graduate goes through sergeant exams and, if he manages to win over several hundred people in the competition, becomes a police sergeant. Usually by this time they're about thirty. Assistant Inspector is an even higher rank, but careerists tend to have it upon entering the office for the first time.
As such, Assistant Inspector Touma Mato is an elite, of course, but even if you assume that she really distinguished herself in her last workplace, her true nature becomes even less clear. She's not just a careerist. You don't get privileges like those without someone powerful backing you.
And her description by the head of Shikura's police department began and ended with the following: 'If you enter Assistant Inspector Touma's eyesight, just surrender'.
"Just who is she?.."
Having walked a policeman's path since college at a friend's suggestion, becoming an officer of the first department at twenty-nine before he knew it, Imai saw Touma Mato not quite as a heavenly being, more like a valkyrie… or a monster… or maybe even higher than that. - "Investigator Imai. Do you mind bringing me November's roadkill cases?"
Imai Atsushi still hadn't comprehended his miserable fate of being subordinate to this woman as the reality it was.
Touma Mato has four colleagues she brought along (brought along!), who spend day and night locked up in their suspicious investigation headquarters.
Her four 'servants' smell just like riot troops from the second or even inspectors from the fourth - tough, aggressive. Actually, they cheerily eat lunch and chat with the guys from the fourth.
Touma Mato deemed them insufficient and incorporated Imai Atsushi, who was just passing by, into her team for some reason.
He was literally sold off. No warning or 'with your shield or on it' farewell from the chief. He only found out when Touma Mato stopped him with the words 'Hey, guy. I'll trust you with driving the car. I'm not too used to 'crowns', see'.

"Well, I suppose the rifling patterns are similar enough. Just an extra for the investigative conclusion, we have enough evidence as is. Imai-kun, I need the records of the usage of the gun belonging to Tougo Kisara, contact the Kareno department."
"Got it. But I think the answer won't arrive today. It's this kind of day."
"Fine, I guess. This is just to leave a record of the request anyway. Actually, the answer being late is better for us."
Assistant Inspector Touma Mato was responsible for several investigation teams.
One is a team for investigations related to the A disorder, known as the "Burial Agency", which she was the head of. The name was sarcastic, of course. The majority of their "clients" arrived to the clinic already cold, and so it stuck.
In the other, more presentable, teams she works as a rank-and-file member. No one knows how she finds out, but at the slightest scent of A disorder carriers she sprints right off. It pisses the detectives off. Even department heads lose hope and throw small objects at walls. Stress and antipathy abound.
And thus, Imai Atsushi postulates, he was chosen as the bridge - grease, rather - between the suspicious former social order inspector and the respectable inspectors of Shikura's department.
Basically, when Touma Mato throws around police resources, his role is to run around getting the materiel and orders for her.
"Miss Touma, may I?.. You're presently acting as the Assistant Inspector on the case of Yamanashi Tomori's disappearance, right? But you're supposed to investigate the hit-and-run case of two months ago, right?"
"Well, yeah. I want to concentrate on the main case too. But your bosses throw bonus tasks at me. The kidnapping in Nozu, have you heard? They said, like, surely it's your territory, give us two people at least. And now everyone's got themselves a headache!"
"Uh huh… So what next?"
"We have to close the case quickly. Oh, when you speak to Kareno's department, don't forget to ask for senior patrolman Tougou Kisara's whereabouts if they have those… Oh, whoops. Former senior patrolman."
Getting up, Touma Mato busily left the first department. 'Quickly closing the case' is one of her sayings you don't want to hear. When she says 'close the case', Touma Mato stops being a police officer. She becomes a soldier. A state Ishizue Arika calls "assault Tomato" and runs like hell.
"Ohh, I wish I could just disappear…"
He's certain that tomorrow he'll have to see, and document, a gut-wrenching crime scene.
Left behind, rubbing his drawn-in belly, Imai Atsushi regardless realized that these workdays were more fun than those before.
Looking up, he saw that the landscape behind the window became snowy.
Thirty-first of December, 9 AM.
The snow that's been falling since early morning repainted the entire town a monotonous white.

*

"Yes. The Koala-kazaka office building. There're also the Nishiguchi and Hayashi buildings there. She's hiding somewhere in there. Watch them, call if there's any movement. The other matter is urgent, but I'll try to deal with it quickly, wait for me. Oh, and her, the chipper one. Tsuranui-san? Bring her along. She'll be a great talisman for today's patient. Okay, counting on you. It'll be awkward if you die on me on the last day of the year, after all. At the end of the night I allow you to congratulate me with New Year's - don't lose your chance, no messing about."
Touma Mato ended the call and stared through the binoculars again. Hazy in the falling snow, a three-story entertainment center was towering in their vision.
December 31st, afternoon.
She's fifty meters away from the three-story building she's observing. Touma Mato with two subordinates was watching a kidnapper across a six-lane road.
"Chief. The search warrant for Tougou Kisara's house has been given. Do I contact the investigator in charge?"
"Right now? Forget it. If they say this isn't necessary, it'll be too late to stop, and anyway it's better if they don't show up here now. The patient will notice more people than just us. And we'll have a full siege on our hands! If there's an investigation team made for every one criminal, it'll be next year before we can nab any. And anyway, it's two hours from Kareno to here. We three'll lose any tension while we're waiting for them to get here."
"So we do nothing?"
"Sounds arrogant, but we can handle this. I won't brag, but it is our bread and butter. Well, yeah, it's not our territory, but still, the victims might really turn out to be possessed. My hands are itching."
Touma Mato with her subordinates has chased down a kidnapping suspect. No, observed is closer to the truth. There still hadn't been an arrest order, after all. It should be issued today at exact noon, but the situation doesn't allow waiting for the paper - the suspect has captured residents of the Nozu district and dragged them to the defunct amusement park.
"Still… This one picked a weird place as well. An underground parking lot on floor minus one, a bookstore on floor one, a game center on floors two and three; all the floors are open through. Thus, you can see what's going on in the store from the third floor. The floor structure is a staircase. Like mountain plantations."
This amusement park is next to a state highway, no living districts can be seen around.
In a branch off the six-lane road, where only cars pass, big shopping centers are lined up. But half of those is closed right now. Only small shops are open, and the personnel of the places appropriate for this scale is on holiday break since yesterday.
Considering the proximity to a highway, the buildings are thirty to fifty, up to two hundred sometimes, meters apart. Times wider than the buildings spread the parking lots; a quirk of the C prefecture's western planning.
And, in the center of an empty flat circle fifty meters wide, the amusement park building stands, also serving as the criminal's hideout.
The parking lot on its territory holds a few cars covered in snow. Upon inquiry the owner answered that the open sedan, van and six more cars belonged to him. His friends are allowed to park there too, so even on an empty day there would be a few cars standing there.
The car of the criminal hiding in the building is in the underground lot, so capturing it is trivial, but as soon as they move down they'll have any amount of wheels. The cars outside are likely just bait, and the ones underground would be their real bet. However, heavens are on our side today. The snowfall will complicate driving, and the exit of the underground parking lot is growing more and more blanketed in snow.
"I think it's time. They're alone. One stun grenade, and they're suppressed."
"Chief, query confirmed. Nozu's inspector really was senior patrolman Tougou Kisara. She often falsified inspections of Nozu's industrial district in order to provide a cover story, there are witnesses of her heated interrogations of several locals. She put the citizens she captured in a car and drove them to the various crime sites."
"Not too shabby, going from once a week to a person a day toward the end of the year. She realized she could use the shop and began gathering a crowd - I wonder why? Well, we'll look into that after the arrest. So", - she continued. - "I believe there are four civilians, what about you?"
"I didn't notice any more than four either."
"Me neither. The working hypothesis is five, including the suspect? You can't be beaten in these things, Touma-san."
"…"
Busy looking through the binoculars, Touma Mato darkened.
As the guys say, she'll get top grades in a wide variety of subjects, but best of all she can… rather, perhaps, her God-given talent is the assessment of a location through binoculars. Touma Mato herself sometimes grumbles that her special skill is boring. Her other skills were built up with a gun in her hand, so they can't be called natural.
"Still, chief, what would Tougou Kisara want with Nozu residents? She's a Kareno inspector. There's no reason for her to show up in Shikura…"
"She's a former inspector. Over October she kept going AWOL and abandoned her duties as senior patrolman. It came back to bite her, and yesterday she was told to consider herself fired at her own request since October. She chased down that vampire, I think, but right before she could nab him her daughter was killed. And now she's a radical anti-protector."
Anti-protectors. A movement that considers A disorder carriers born criminals instead of sick people and doesn't accept sheltering them when it comes to legal punishment. Anti-protector activists try to erase possessed and stubbornly call for violent measures.
"Revenge on A disorder carriers? But that's still unrelated to Nozu citizens."
"It is related. Everyone in Nozu is possessed, remember? Well, I don't know how much Tougou Kisara believes that, but she still kept catching them and putting her gun against the backs of their heads; work and revenge in one package. It's just…"
"Weird, right? She could go on kidnapping and killing them one by one. Why'd she gather four at once, and in such a place?"
"Uh huh, just like hostages. No terrorists claiming responsibility, though. Perhaps it's none of our busi…"
Touma Mato's voice went cold.
Abandoning the binoculars, she immediately started putting on the armored vest.
"Hmm? What's wrong, Touma-sa… whoa! Wh-what's this Black Cape there?! Where is he off to through the foyer?! It's clear that the shop's closed!"
"What, a civilian?! What bad timing… Assistant Inspector, what do you th…"
"Give me the MP5. You wait here. Report anything wrong in full."
Strapping on the armor, Touma Mato puts on clothes on top of it.
Grabbing the suitcase, she immediately headed for the exit.
She, talking about a single stun grenade so recently, said that the Berettas in her pockets would be enough. But now it's different. The very sight of the figure casually walking through the empty amusement park sent chills down her spine. Thus, it'd be too dangerous without this high-class armor. Thus, just a Beretta M-92 wouldn't cover the difference in abilities.
She knows nothing about the nameless caped man's identity. Whether he's just a passerby or the criminal's associate. Right now it's unknown whether he's friend or foe.
It's only clear that the man is an unspeakable criminal. The villainous twist of the mouth as seen through the lens tells Touma Mato's sixth sense that his victim count is in the tens.
"Damn, the safe tactic is out after all!.."
The room taken for reconnaissance is too far from the target location.
There's no time to leave the building and take a detour on the walkway. Three lanes each way, six total, will have to be crossed directly.
Right now we're on the sixth floor. Three minutes to leave, a minute to go around the building, a minute to reach the amusement park, no, another minute if you factor in the snow - there's desperately little time.

***

Blood for blood.
Revenge for revenge.
This is Hinomori Shusei's creed. And a normal human emotion in general. This is how the chains of hatred are forged.
Hinomori Shusei is not angry over the hit-and-run and the control shots. It's just that if such interruptions continue, there'll be a delay in his work, and that is best avoided. For this extremely robot-like reason, he came to the amusement park.
"Wow, good job, Maki-chan. Always finds out everything about Shikura's possessed before everyone else."
A giant tombstone being covered in snow.
Fifty meters wide, fifteen tall, made of concrete, three stories. In a dark corridor, unlit by the electric lights, the black-caped killer drew a long sword.
"Thus, dear ladies and gentlemen, the show begins. As a possessed, I consider it necessary to teach my arrogant fellow a lesson."
A wide swing with the katana. Hinomori Shusei hits the defunct automatic door with a blow aiming to cut it in half… and failing, so he takes a short run-up, smashes into the door with both heels, gets up and becomes a visitor of the amusement park.
The entrance wall is all glass, so the building is still bright. Sadly, the snowfall dulls the sunlight, but it still draws a peaceful picture, industrial decay style.
First floor, the book store. No people in sight. Up the staircase in the middle, to the second floor filled with the large arcade machines of the game center. From the crane with plushies in it to the card games and races supporting up to ten people, he expects a hidden killer in every shadow. No adventures here either. As such, up to the third floor. The staircase is in a corner of the floor, going up in a small arc.
Arriving at the top, Hinomori Shusei whistled.
On the third floor, machines with fighting and shooting games were even now lit with images of critical battle moments.
Behind the glass is a peaceful landscape fully covered in snow.
The floor themselves was an illustration of child violence, however.
"Why are you alive?"
And there, automatic pistol in one hand, ten-year-old child with teary eyes and a gag in his mouth crying for help in the other, stood former officer Tougou Kisara (f., 35).
Post script: at the floor's borders - near every wall not adjacent to the entrance - are three bound children. They were directly in front, to the left and to the right of Hinomori Shusei.
"Long time no see, Kisara-chan! When have we last met like this, face to face? When you shot the driver of the convoy and tried to shoot me as well, right? You released your anger so violently I thought you'd run out and return to being a proper officer…"
"True. I was planning to. If I didn't hear that you were still alive this summer, that is."
A voice full of hatred.
The child in Tougou Kisara's left hand winced painfully.
Of course. Grabbing him by the neck, Tougou Kisara mercilessly pierced his skin with her fingernails.
That said, blood was not just flowing there - even from afar one could see the brown stains on Tougou Kisara's shirt.
The child she's holding and the three bound near walls - all have swollen faces, bloody marks on their lips, one's arm is particularly bad, crudely bandaged. Presumably she forgot herself too much and, later realizing that a death could cost her dearly, bandaged the wound just in case.
"Brutal. What do you have against kids in particular?"
"Possessed are not people. They're all monsters. Like you."
"Very brutal. Look now, they're all watching you in fear, Kisara-chan! Like slaves waiting for their master's anger to pass over! It's bad for their upbringing! Really, this is going too far. They're all the same age as your daughter!"
"Shut the fuck up!"
Tougou Kisara's pistol spits fire.
The bullet grazes Black Cape's sleeve. Either she missed due to rage, or he dodged. Probably the former.
"Oh. You're still hung up over that? Women, am I right? Come on, Kisara-chan, it wasn't you that died. Okay, condolences about your daughter, so? I took off her head, so? She's not alive anymore, so what? What now, keep reminding yourself of what was two years ago? We're not watching an anime remake here."
"You…"
Teeth grinding.
The captured and bound kids, remembering the cruelties they went through over the last two days, started shaking, expecting the worst.
"Right here!.. Right now, I'll kill you!"
The muzzle looks at Black Cape…
But there's no shot. Before shooting Tougou Kisara released the kid she held.
Kicked him in the back, towards Hinomori Shusei.
Whether or not Tougou Kisara considers the kids possessed, Hinomori Shusei definitely is one.
As such - what will he do with the child? Even if he doesn't save him, he should at least think of him as kin.
And that's the moment she'll shoot. It doesn't matter whether Hinomori Shusei saves the kid or abandons him and lunges at Tougou Kisara.
At the moment of this unnecessary action she'll put a bullet into his forehead. With this plan of gaining at least this advantage Tougou Kisara puts her finger on the trigger.
"…"
In those two seconds…
The child seeking a handhold. The gag, painfully tightly bound. Inflamed, bleeding, swollen corners of the mouth. Eyes red from an entire night of crying. Weak body, left without any food, of course.
Hinomori Shusei hugs the child.
No. In a seeming embrace he plants the kid on his sword and throws him off to the second floor.
"What?!"
Naturally. Because in the child's hand was a knife, and he suddenly lunged, aiming to pierce Hinomori Shusei's belly.
"Are you a demon?!"
Having forced the child to do this to be safe herself, Tougou Kisara shoots and retreats.
It was all irrelevant. He could save or ignore him. It'd be even better if he let the child be. The child would have an easier time stabbing Hinomori Shusei in the back. She would empty the clip at the stunned Hinimori Shusei. That was Tougou Kisara's first plan.
But it didn't work. Yes, however hard it is to believe. This man, as soon as he extended his hand towards the hand of the child gripping a knife behind his back, mercilessly pierced his shoulder. Good reaction time? It's not about that. It's about how he seemed to react to something that was yet to happen.
His danger sense is close to future sight. Even now he, walking casually, keeps dodging Tougou Kisara's bullets or deflecting them with his sword…
"Why, why won't you die?! Back then, too, and then, and then!.. I put a bullet into you, threw you off a bridge, ran you over in a car!.. And still you, like just now, I thought I'd kill you for sure, and you!.."
"Nah, this isn't for sure. That time you hit me with your car and drove away, but you know, I just jumped and sprung off it. And deflected the bullets with this toy here. And you dropping that on top of me, eh, a bit of thrashing around, and you'll survive it. And this time your firepower wasn't enough to be called seasonings, much less a full course."
Hinomori Shusei is unstoppable. Her ammunition is long gone. As he said, the method of shooting him point-blank, foolproof in principle, met a similarly foolproof defense.
"A… ah."
This is impossible. This method won't kill him. Losing her will to fight, Tougou Kisara made a decision.
Hopelessly lowering the gun, she absently watched Black Cape walk towards her.
"H… el…"
"Eh, giving up? Hmm. Oh yeah, Kisara-chan is not possessed, if she gives up, she can just go home free… but tough luck. Or good luck, should I say? Seems like the kid really was possessed."
'There's a fire somewhere', - Tougou Kisara thought.
On the second floor?.. There's a cracking sound and the smell of burning meat.
"Don't kil…"
"Gathering hostages against me was pointless. Your excess violence has made you the enemy, Tougou Kisara. Your blood is already infected."
The vampire slowly advanced towards the woman with her back to the wall. Seeming to get used to the terror, Tougou Kisara shrilly…
"Forward!.. If you don't want to die - do as ordered, runts!"
…gave a command to the leftover children.
This time the surprise worked.
How did she scare them into that?.. The three children, still bound, ran at Hinomori Shusei. Of course, Black Cape heartily readied a swing. But…

"Oh?.. You aren't, actually."

He stopped himself.
Tougou Kisara's mouth bent into an evil smirk. Jumping to the second floor, she pressed the switch prepared in advance and triggered the trap that could be called the main course.
She left explosives in a corner invisible to Hinomori Shusei so he wouldn't notice. And now she detonated them.

The amusement park shook.
A bright greenish-blue light obscuring vision. The entire third floor is wreathed in fire that consumes Hinomori Shusei and the children.

*

She saw a miracle.
In the hell lasting less than ten seconds the girl saw a vampire dancing in the flame.
The explosion consuming three children.
Red smoke immediately obscuring the sight.
Arcade machine covers jumping in a mad dance as though alive.
And - becoming shrapnel, tearing their bodies apart - pieces of furniture.
All of this Black Cape let pass by him.
In the girl's eyesight the child who spent all night crying was turned into a distasteful piece of fried meat. A chair passing by hit his shoulder, and the flesh that'd irrevocably lost its form was consumed by the tongues of flame.
Luckily, the girl's eyes and ears were blinded by the flash and deafened by the rumble of the explosion. The horrifying scene became blurry. And immediately after - perhaps not even a second passed - Black Cape enveloped her. Wrapped in a cape, carried in arms, protected.
Whatever happened after, she knew only from her sensations. Those sensations tell her she rode a rollercoaster. The girl's eyes were covered, after all, and she didn't see what happened outside of the cape.
However, she definitely saw him in that darkness.
The silhouette of the vampire who picked her up without hesitation and completely shielded her from the blast.
His wounds are bleeding.
If all the blood leaves his body, he'll die.
With this body so close to the norm, this time he wasn't ready for the sudden attack from the outside. The best he could manage was quickly, as much as his abilities allowed, using his sensitivity to the situation close to future sight, rushing through that hell, through the needle's eye created by the hundreds of objects.
The vampire boasting of immortality.
The logic at his core is too simple.

"…It's actually not that hard. Animals have a hard time dying, after all. So it's about speed, Arika-kun."

Hinomori Shusei smiled at the youth whose life was the most - diametrically even - opposite to his own of everyone he knew.
Death that you boldly step towards yourself.
A spontaneous, jumping out from behind reason's back, irrational threat.
You must understand that to you they are one and the same.
Even now, while talking, he thinks about the death awaiting him in 0.2 seconds.
"So, once you experience something spooky, stay in that state. Like, when you get into it, when you barely dodged a car, your body shifts a gear, right? So, if you constantly keep that up, you can react to danger at any moment."
He assumes the worst.
Not quite correct. He imagines a slaughter.
He has no intention of returning to the hell he once fell into.
"Say, let's put falling from a cliff in a car down as a five. Compared to that, an attack with a katana is a 2-3, right? You can dodge that in your sleep.
"Just keep up the, what's it called, alertness? On-edgeness? Compared to normal people like us, born monsters have maximum speed so much higher it hurts… So I'd lose in a fair race. But it doesn't mean I can't win. The starting speed of a genius and the peak speed of a normal man might actually compete."
A warm-up before activities. The first strike of the mind, revving up the relaxed psyche. That's what he reached four years ago… I can't imagine what kind of hell he went through, but he left his reasonable self, accumulated over more than twenty years, behind.
"Uh huh. A proper man would die without a fight, and if so, I'll at least maintain the speed. I won't ever relax after stepping over the border. Burning my boiling blood until I die, I'll keep up the maximum speed for my entire life."
In other words, it's…
"This is the speed of avoiding a threat. See, dear Arika, this is my speed - I will never stop."
Even as he explaned, he was nothing but a psychopath out of his mind.
Insane scenes whirl around in his mind. Giving himself over to madness, he maintains the highest speed.
Boiling, fiery blood. With a body at the limit, a psyche ready to break, knowing no end, he meets the accelerating monsters with a return strike. They can't reach their maximum speed before he gouges the limit of his abilities into them.
…Thus, even surprise attacks on him won't succeed. Just the opposite. Because the one doing the surprise attack is always him.
Against everybody who needs an initial impulse is his speed, maxed from the start. Not physical capabilities but his broken mentality build this incredibly obvious theory of not dying.
This is how simple the undying vampire - Hinomori Shusei - turned out to be.

"Yaaaawn. Well, of course, usually people die from that, yeah" - Black Cape drops with a casual yawn, standing on the burnt third floor that's been turned into a field of charred ruins.
His unsinkability is still based on nothing but mentality.
His personal quirk, the new growth of a possessed, is aimed at enhancing the abilities of the body as a whole, like Yamanashi Tomori. He's not as beast-like as her, but Shusei himself counts an increase of between three and five times in the mechanical abilities of the body when compared to a grown man.
"Still, what a dull finale. I hoped she'd at least strap a smoke grenade to the kid's back. Well, it's over, you've been through enough", - he unwraps the cape around the girl. - "The other three weren't lucky. Forgetting them is sad, so you better treasure the memories of your friendship."
He fixed the sunglasses that slipped off.
In the girl's eyes looking up at the black-caped monster there's no amazement. She's not afraid, the opposite, rather.
"Mister, the fire…"
She expressed her gratitude for being saved through worrying about the man with the smoking back, shoulders, left leg. To Hinomori Shusei that's a minor thing.
"Oh… Another interruption."
He felt a human presence from the direction of the entrance. His hearing, sense of smell and skin nerves jointly relayed that knowledge to him.
That isn't Tougou Kisara, who jumped to the second floor. Somebody else entered the amusement park.
Hinomori Shusei shifted his gaze from the girl to the outside. Looked at the broken window.
"All right, this is where we part. Oh, but don't think I saved you because you're a good girl, get it? I wonder if you really were more fortunate than the others."
The one who entered the first floor is a woman. She's heavily armed. The lift is frozen on floor B1. Shusei is in control.
"But yeah, your life has been saved. Now use it wisely. Mister will see to the bad woman's funeral rites and then go bye-bye."
Black Cape ran through the floor, still on fire. Just a three-meter run-up. A sudden leap. Without using the stairs, he jumped out of the broken window to the ground.
Thus avoiding the woman.
And so. Before him, who landed with smoke trailing behind him all the way, was the slope to the underground parking lot.

*

Heavily breathing, Tougou Kisara jumped out of the elevator.
Two minutes earlier - jumping to the second floor to the third, having made sure Black Cape was engulfed in flame, she escaped to the parking lot via elevator.
"Hah… ha-ha, ha!.."
Guilt from killing the hostages as well.
Excitement from destroying the building.
Exhilaration from finally wiping this unkillable possessed off the face of the Earth.
Dimming the huge emotions threating to tear her mind apart, Tougou Kisara ran to the 'wheels' she prepared.
Yes. Dead. Died. Killed, in fact. This time for sure. The one who even death couldn't stop so many times. This monster rising from the grave, this time it burned to aaaaash!
"Hooray… hooray, hooray, hooray!"
In retrospect these three years seem a nightmare.
When her daughter was murdered by this lowly killer before her eyes, she still begged him to spare her life. Regret and shame. Fear and rage. Miserable days that made her want to die from just knowing he's alive. It's finally all in the past. Send him to the Origa clinic? Tougou Kisara couldn't move on without ending him with her own hands. She couldn't start life anew. Since that time she lived for revenge. Shooting the convoy driver, shooting Hinomori Shusei, blame it all on the killer - that was the plan. Except that Hinomori Shusei survived his planned execution. When Kareno's police department disbanded the investigation team, she nearly went mad. And though she told herself that this guy wouldn't come back and lived a life akin to a walk on a tightrope, Hinomori Shusei revived with his usual certainty. But she couldn't reach into Shikura. The same was true for Hinomori Shusei, so she understood she could just keep quiet and be safe, but once she saw him she couldn't stop any longer. He was like a mosquito on the ceiling: unbearable, demanding to be squashed. The house is uninhabitable until you get rid of it. To think just how her life shattered after the loss of her daughter. She lives separately from her husband, has lost the meaning of her life - like a living corpse. And all of this accumulated and spilled out on Hinomori Shusei… no, on possessed, to be more precise. Kidnapping Nozu residents, making them plead for mercy and shooting them was absolutely, completely unpleasant. Sickening, even. Because she didn't want to touch possessed with so much as a finger. But without at least this much stimulation she couldn't have done her duty. After all, she understood she couldn't kill the monster without becoming a murderer herself.
And so - sweeping away common sense and any virtues, she prepared this trap. And in the end, finally, at last this…

"Excuse me. This is where the curtain falls, Tougou Kisara."
"W… h… y…"
This. The demon standing before her right now, the one she thought had fallen.
"Why. Why."
He's real - this crushes Tougou Kisara's last mental support.
He's a real, no-frills killer.
He may not be undying, but if he avoids the Reaper's scythe every time, it is a true immortality of the body.
"Why… are you still alive?!!"
She draws the gun and pulls the trigger.
She'd reloaded the pistol. All eight bullets were shot without jamming. And the burning man avoided them all.
"The last question of your life. It'd be proper to answer. All right. So, why I won't die…"
His liveliness instantly disappeared.
In his mirror-lens sunglasses was reflected an unsightly, ugly, alien Tougou Kisara, who sighed heavily…

"I am the God of Flame, fiery Cradle - Fomalhaut.
"Long as a drop of this blood Mine runs in these veins, I shall be reborn anew."

…Majestic.
She heard a sound - from the warped stake piercing her heart.

***

The third floor of the amusement park was engulfed in flame just as Touma Mato got past the parking lot.
"Touma-san, the third floor blew up! This is terrible, in a few minutes it'll all burn away! The client is wrong in the head!"
"I have eyes! Anti-fire measures, cretin, now!" - gripping the handle of the suitcase with the submachine gun, she shouted into the radio. Of course, even in these circumstances Touma Mato didn't break her running pace.
She forcefully ran on the asphalt covered by twenty centimeters of snow.
Six minutes exactly to the site. With a speed that'd make an athlete blush, right across the six-lane road, through the two hundred meters of parking lot, she arrived at the entrance to the amusement park destroyed by somebody.
"I'm going in. Keep a two-minute record of the communications."
Taking the submachine gun out of its case, she assembled it in a few seconds. No time to re-check.
…Hard to believe, but there was someone on the exploded third floor.
Perhaps Tougou Kisara, or, maybe, the recent uninvited guest. Either way, she couldn't kind out without entering.
From shadow to shadow. Touma Mato concentrated and carefully but quickly ran between pieces of cover. First floor, the staircase up from it, then to the second floor.
There were several meters to the stairs to the third floor. Straight ahead, on the third floor was the target. Lurking in the shadows of the stepped structure, she arrived at the staircase to the third floor.
She heard a voice. Carefully but quickly reaching the end of the steps, Touma Mato aimed the gun at the room. And just then, as though having waited for her to arrive, some black humanoid made a running jump outside.
She really wanted to pursue straight away, but there was a person needing rescue on the third floor. Touma Mato took care of the injured girl, led her to the middle of the parking lot and told her to go on alone:
"Get to that sidewalk, there are policemen there. Run and don't look back."
Then she turn around and ran for the amusement park.
The recent black man was nowhere to be seen. They passed each other by, but still, it hasn't been two minutes. He couldn't just vanish.
Thus… it's clear where this uninvited guest headed. To the underground floor of the amusement park. To the parking lot where the criminal presumably left her car.
The parking lot entrance was on the east side. The tracks of a single person. Following them to the driveway, she tiptoed undeground.
And there, when Touma Mato took in the parking lot about fifty meters wide…
She only had a second for her next step.

*

In the depths of the underground parking lot, among lined-up cars, stands a single man.
An outsider in a black cape. Back to the entrance - to Touma Mato. Before him burns a fire.
A sprawled human. Most likely Tougou Kisara. Her body is on fire. No noise, as though it's being smoked. The flame sways like a human-shaped candle.
After the second it took her to take note of all this… no, it happened in half a second… Touma Mato pulled the pin on the item resembling a paint can on her belt and threw it under the man's feet.
A thirty-meter throw.
She immediately hid in a car's shadow, shifted her gaze and covered her eyes with an arm.
In a second…
A retina-burning shine and eardrum-rupturing thunder spread through the parking lot.
A stun greande. Used when sieging criminals or against terrorists. A hand grenade robbing the target of sight and hearing.
The powerful light blinds the eyes and robs the opponent of theirvision. The light hurts the brain as well as the eyes, causing nausea and disorientation. And the sound. The soundwave that can be felt striking the skin neutralizes hearing, and for the next few minutes the target is left in complete silence.
This suppression weapon leaves the criminal unable to resist, ensuring the hostages' safety. A combined attack of light and sound that nearly completely disables an inexperienced opponent.
Confirming its devastating effect, Touma Mato leaned out from behind the car and aimed at the man…
"Kh!.."
…noticing his eyes covered by an arm in the same instant.
Touma Mato didn't know this, but the Black Cape, Hinomori Shusei, wore mirror-lens sunglasses. Clamping his eyelids shut, protected by the sunglasses, he also defended against the light with his arm. The effect on his sight is minimal.
However, he'd be unable to protect his ears. With a katana in one hand, covering his eyes with another, he couldn't plug them. The stun grenade completely took his ability to hear. A person submerged in total silence loses the ability to make rational decisions.
Without losing his sight he lost his hearing.
'This should be enough', - Touma Mato decides and squeezes the trigger.
Diametrically opposite to the grenade, this has a quiet effect. But the physical attack that definitely outdoes the grenade in the damage department strikes the black cape.
MP5. A counter-terrorist suppression weapon known as "the police standard", a submachine gun. Initially placed in the "spray and pray" category over "one shot, one kill" due to its high firing rate, this amazing automatic weapon still allows for high-accuracy fire. On a battlefield just accuracy is not enough, but in this set of situations - a hostage situation, armed criminals taking over a building - it shows great power.
And so it spews fire.
Nine-millimeter bullets - a dozen per second. Even with meager destructive power it's more than enough to turn the deafened human target into a honeycomb. The famously acccurate MP5 with Touma Mato's shooting skills allow no misses. And anyway, Touma Mato is not a person who presses the trigger to miss.
But he dodges. Black Cape dodges even that.
Before disbelieving her eyes Touma Mato sends a few more bullets after the running, as though in a nightmare, target.
Rat-a-tat-tat. Twenty rhythmical shots - and the monster pursued by them, but still unharmed.
How did he notice Touma Mato's surprise attack?.. Black Cape, barely dodging the submachine gun's bullets, jumped straight into the cover of a parked car.
"Damn…"
Touma Mato took her finger off the trigger and looked at the car Black Cape hid behind.
Shooting at random to smoke out the hidden criminal - she doesn't toy around like that. She might have had some fun with a large-caliber gun, but currently it's not necessary.
She is positioned to block off the exit of the underground parking lot. Her opponent has some long likeness of a sword, but doesn't possess firearms. With this disposition she can hold out. Suppression is a matter of time. In five minutes her subordinates will arrive. Then they'll pin him down. Taking a target without a gun as a trio - a bit boring, even.
…Another minute. Black Cape's hearing must have come back, so Touma Mato shouts:
"Hey, I forgot to say, this is poilce. So I'll still offer you to surrender, if you don't mind. Right now, as an exception, I'll only shoot your legs through."
A statement unbefitting of a police officer.
What did he think about Touma Mato, who didn't even think about the right to keep silent or call his lawyer?..
Hinomori Shusei, sitting in the cabriolet's cover, grinned - so that's what kind of enemy we have here!
"All right! If so, let's play!"
Black Cape, formerly sitting on the ground, stood up.
"Hah."
They shoot each other a wicked grin.
Hinomori Shusei is curious about Touma Mato's inhumanity.
Touma Mato is intrigued by the impudence of Hinomori Shusei, who accepted her challenge.
A rain of bullets.
A long katana, sent flying like a spear.
"Kh!.."
Touma Mato, instantly letting the katana thrown straight at her heart fly past.
Using this fraction of a second to his advantage, Black Cape went on the attack.
All according to plan. Even easier to aim - and Touma Mato straightens up, corrects her aim…
"Ah-ha-ha! I always wanted to do that!" - an overjoyed voice rang out from the driver's seat, and her pupils shrunk into dots before the monster who sunk the gas pedal, attaking her with the car itself.
"Ah…"
A speeding cabriolet. Distance - twenty meters. He seems to have triggered the ignition while hiding. The engine started up. How many seconds until acceleration? No, such crazy drivers need to be shot!
"Sorry, but this won't work!"
"Aah?!"
The seat disappears. Black Cape fully lowered the adjustable seat and casually sprawled in the car. Yes, this does make it hard to hit the driver, however you aim.
The lively monster floors the gas with one foot, the other is on the steering wheel. The seat is still down. Lying legs to his target, barely raising his face, he shoots Touma Mato a glare:
"Well, let's go! You're gonna shoot my legs through, right?!"
"Are you a moron?!"
He is. The cabriolet, "american style", not even drunk junkies drive those nowadays, ominously rushed forward. In a few seconds this large thousand-kilo prop will surely splatter Touma Mato on the wall.
"…"
0 seconds. Thoughts flow with interruptions. Stop the car. How? Shoot the hood randomly, hit the engine, boom. Impossible. Hard with the MP5. She can hit it with some luck, but you can't aim in this situation. So, impossible. Can't shoot the driver either. The MP5 is just baggage here.
1 second. Jump away. Dodge and immediately from the side. No sides, lead him from behind until the clip runs out. Impossible. The foot's on the wheel for a reason. He'll adjust the direction, however you run. Back, to the sides, suicidal. Therefore.
2 seconds. Ten meters left. It's settled. If she stands like that, in two seconds there'll be a collision at sixty kilometers per hour. But now, if she runs at it herself, it'll be at less than sixty!..
"Ah, yoooou!.."
Dropping the MP5, Touma Mato leaped onto the approaching cabriolet from a run.
She turned the ten remaining meters into five.
Kicking the hood in her flight, Touma Mato jumped.
A beatiful, but also powerful side somersault. Using the hood as a foothold, group your body together and turn in midair. Oddly enough, this was exactly how Hinomori Shusei avoided being hit by Tougou Kisara's car.
However, Touma Mato added the gymnastic element of "taking her Beretta out of the holster while upside down".
"Eh, what the?.."
Time to shoot. Touma Mato started firing from the air at the moron sprawled like a king in the driver's seat.
"Lady, what's with you?!"
Black Cape, jumping out of the seat while still lying down. He must have used just his arms, but the incredible movement looked as though he had a spring in his back.
Losing its driver, the cabriolet heavily crashed into a wall.
The police officer landing with a Beretta in her hand and the killer falling where he threw his katana.
Touma Mato is in the depths of the lot. Hinomori Shusei is with his back to the exit.
A castling.
Taking down the monster that didn't die to the submachine gun with a single shot from the Beretta is unthinkable. 'Last time on Shikura Hill it was a shotgun. Now it's a stun grenade and an automatic. I really want a better weapon'. Touma Mato ground her teeth in anger.
And then… Looking at this woman nearing thirty, worrying over the advantages of various armaments instead of clothes, Hinomori Shusei had a revelation. Gripping the katana, he spoke with a grin:
"Oh. I know about you. You're Touma-san, right?"
"Yes. How'd you know?" - Touma-san dropped while aiming the Beretta.
Her mentality is not one for talking to a criminal as an equal, but Black Cape's question touched something in her.
"Well. 'There's a scary cop in Shikura, she'll make cutlets of any possessed in an instant, better not run into her', as someone told me. Hmm, who could it be? Nah, I can't talk about that! My informer strongly forbade me to give his name, after all!"
Hinomori Shusei is being his usual self and appears to Touma Mato who sees him for the first time to be a typical drunk. No, more like a drug addict, she decides earnestly.
"I see. Well, I don't know who that is, but they're an accomplice. If you meet him again, say hello for me."
"Again? What again? Will there really be another time?"
"Well, will you give up without running, possessed?"
Killing tools in hands, silently standing off.
Some time will pass before they'll learn of each other's way of life.
Recently Touma Mato fought a superhuman whose abilities exceeded those of man and achieved a decisive victory.
This person in a black cape is their butler… no, a demon that possesses the abilities of two at once.
"Hm… I'd really like to go on a walk with you, miss, but you want something different. I don't want to get hurt for no reason, so could you let me go? Oh, by the way, the explosion upstairs was not me. But yeah, tough luck with the kids."
"There was one survivor. She said a black mister saved her?"
"Well, love thy fellow man, right. Your work is about saving those you don't really want to as well, right? It's the same thing. To kill or not to kill - emotions don't have a role. It'd be good if Kisara-chan understood that, but oh well."
"You're Tougou Kisara's acquaintance?.. I see. So you're Hinomori Shusei. The hit-and-run case of two months ago. Were you the one Tougou Kisara ran over?"
"That's right. Well, I didn't get too hurt, so I decided not to bother the police."
"Heh… You want to say that you didn't kill her in revenge?"
"Of course. Actually I came to ask her to not get in my way. But it so happened that we began killing each other."
"I see. I thought you were just a killer, but you have a quirk. I looked through the vampire killer report… Hinomori. Is your target "H", Heartless?"
"Hatless*? What's that?"
"An A disorder carrier whose growth is in their heart. In the D building the most special patients are called "nots". Well, that's a codeword to signify that their humanity is gone. So fat three go by that designation. Heartless, or Heartless, is one of them. Actually, they're one of the patients who were designated for D before the Origa clinic was even built…"
"Hmm. That's not a bad name for rumors… Well, I'll let you guess about that. Or are you going to help me out now?"
"Like hell. Whatever the circumstances, I'll cut you into pieces, bag them up and send the bag to Origa."
"Yay, peace talks have failed! Oh well, that's why others are only hindrances. Now, let's conclude. I'll see myself out, okay?"
Of course it's not okay, but Touma Mato can only drill him with her stare.
As it stands, she can't capture Hinomori Shusei. After all, the weaponry and ammunition were taken with the capture of Tougou Kisara in mind. If Touma Mato was still blocking the exit, she could've held him back until the police's arrival. But…"
"Go away. But there'll be no next time, vampire."
"Tut-tut. No, Touma-san. My name is Fomalhaut. Like, I mean, the cradle of the god of fire and, yeah, the fiery Fomalhaut… this nick…"
Hinomori Shusei didn't sound too confident.
Touma Mato watched him emotionlessly.
"Hmm?.. What is this, don't I look bad?! It can't be. Oh, the shame! What am I embarrassed for?! Oh no, don't look at me! Ugh, I said it so naturally just then - what was that, me, a miracle of nature?!"
"…"
Touma Mato silently watched Black Cape who clasped his head.
"Damn, get used to it, gotta get used to it! You'll see, lady, when we meet again, it'll be different, just wait impatiently for the reborn me!.."
Throwing this nonsense over his shoulder, Hinomori Shusei ran away. With ridiculous speed. The black silhouette was soon lost in the strong snowfall.
"What was that… You couldn't catch a guy like that even with thirty people. If I really want to take this one, I'll need a tailored spec ops team", - she lowered her weapon with a sigh.
The criminal escaped, but her task is done.
Taking care of Tougou Kisara's remains and putting out the amusement park fire is a headache, but luckily she has support that knows its job - the job of cleaning up after her.
"Touma-saaan, are you heeere?"
Speak of the devil. One of her underlings entered the underground parking lot.
"Yeah, come in. It's clear. Did you keep the girl safe?"
"Iwa-san is with her. He told me to run and find the Assistant Inspector. That's some scene you made once again! What about Tougou Kisara? Or Black Cape?"
"Those remains over there are Tougou Kisara. I let Black Cape slip by."
"What?.. Impossible!? Whoa, you let him slip, really?! Touma-san?! Not let him run to tire him?!"
"Who do you take me for? If I wanted to tire him, I'd capture him first. I'll tell you who this Black Cape was some time later… Still, Fomalhaut, huh…" - she thoughtfully muttered.
"Fo… what?"
"The famous first star of autumn. It means "fish mouth", I think."
Palm near her mouth, head in the clouds, she looks somewhere into the ground. Snow is falling past the driveway. Remembering the black cape that vanished into it…
"Heh. I don't want to admit it, but not bad. Enemy or not, he has some taste."
…Touma Mato mutters in admiration.
Like Hinomori Shusei, her tastes are stuck somewhere in the eighties.

\FOMALHAUT.end



* "Heartless" is in English, which Shusei doesn't speak.

Looking back on it, holy hell, that kid's suffering is almost comically ridiculous.

[Rygah]

The action in this chapter was great, it's nice to see Mato kicking some ass again. And yeah, poor kids. It was almost like Urobutcher took over the writing for that part lol.

Thanks Desu! Can't believe it's nearly over.

[Desuclocker]

And with this, the story of DDD2 concludes. It's been a fun run, and I'm eagerly waiting for the next volume to come out. I present vt.in day dream.

pic

lul arcuied

*

A fantasy after the story's conclusion.

A postscript seen by a girl in an unremarkable dream where she was
with Arika.

------------------／Vt.in day dream.

0/
(2005, 14th of February)

*

The alarm signal from the Origa clinic arrived in the fourth hour of the night, when even the trees sleep. Everything happened some time past 3 AM, about three hours before sunrise.
Touma Mato, who took the call (not as an inspector, rather as the consultant of the clinic's social order control department), hurriedly prepared a helicopter and flew to the mountainous outskirts of the N prefecture, which is where the clinic was.
On the 13th, at 22 o'clock, an outburst of aggression happened among the Agonist Disorder patients.

The rampage began with a small breach of discipline among the C building patients, but soon the spark spread to the B building as well. As though it was planned beforehand, the patients started rioting at the same time. Confirming the unity of the diseased, the hospital staff evacuated from buildings B, C and D, inevitably retreating to the A buidling. At 0 o'clock of the fourteenth the patients occupied the central A building up to the third floor, but when the security squad mobilized, the situation reversed completely. The revolt of the B and C patients was immediately suppressed.

However… They bought enough time, and the instigators of the riot - C building patients - unlocked the D building. The appearance of a girl from the depths of this structure changed the situation on a fundamental level.

The next day, 3 AM.
The temporary aggression outburst among patients turned into mass murder without distinction or countermeasures.

*

Thus presently, in the mountainous part of the N prefecture, 2 kilometers high…
"…This is the situation. Today, as an exception, I authorize the use of weaponry. Defend yourself on your own."
We were sitting in a vibrating, roaring helicopter, and Mato-san passed me a small pistol.
"Wait, that isn't what we talked about! Why?! Why am I here?! I'm not involved, this time I'm one hundred percent innocent!"
I shook my head with all my might, denying my complicity, but alas, my shoulders were firmly held by the harness belts. Seriously, what's the point? Due to some karmic injustice I, Ishizue Arika, having only wanted to finish my sleep a minute ago, have been thrown straight into hell by Mato-san's hand!..
"Relax, Shozai. When I said I hadn't been to an amusement park for a while, it was you who suggested we go sometime. This is a good opportunity… Well, yeah. I guess a mountain lab is not the best place for a first date."
"I was joking! That was irony! I'm interested in neither rats nor cats! Come on, Mato-san, this place doesn't even have a rollecoaster, right?! This is Origa, there's no fun to be had there!"
"Ha-ha-ha. Come on, I'm sure it'll be interesting! At the very least, we're already one hundred percent excited."


The least fun hundred percent ever.
"What's with the cheery smile?.. That impatient to drag me into the D building?!"
"Hey… Don't be so angry. To be honest, Origa's layout is an important secret. It'd take too long to clear my people for entrance. You're all I could scrounge up in half an hour. I apologize for dragging you into it."
"Oh… O-okay."
The surprise scrambles my thoughts.
For M-Mato-san to apologize so earnestly… I'm a bit dizzy. Not from fear, though; more like a thought: 'whoa, I'm getting married tomorrow!..'
"It's almost time. Listen, this gun holds tranqulizer darts. Just score a hit, and it'll work. I'm not expecting great marksmanship of you, of course. But if you're grabbed - pull the trigger. There's enough poison for the thing to die on the spot. According to yesterday's data, batrachotoxin hasn't been tested yet, after all. There shouldn't be an immunity yet."
"I don't think that's a tranquilizer any longer, Mato-san… And anyway - what if the enemy doesn't grab me?"
"I'd suggest saying your prayers in advance… Anyway! We're going down. You're my first trump card. Don't move away from me."
The chopper came to a halt over the Origa clinic's central building.
Mato-san grabbed two comically large automatic pistols and even more comically rested the barrels on her shoulders. Some real anti-tank firepower there. Looking closer, I noticed these weren't her usual Berettas; those were Desert Eagles, proudly bearing the title of "largest pistols in the world".
"Hmm…"
No-no. It's impossible to carry those beasts in two hands. Even Mato-san holds them more like axes; it may look cool, but aiming is simply not an option.
I was ready to sigh heavily - either she really wants that much firepower, or she's just a pyromaniac - but we'd already entered the central building through the roof, and I had to concede that the measure was justified.
The corridor suffered an eerie change. Floor, walls, ceiling - all was decorated with human bodies.
Some scattered in pieces, like food.
Some stacked in piles, pathetic remains of staff and patients.
Most likely, even the luckiest of the eight hundred people locked in here couldn't make it to the roof and were killed by someone.

RUMMMMMBLE.

A local earthquake shook the central building.
If you imagine what must be going on on the lower floors, Touma Mato's armaments make even more sense.
"Mato-san… Are there actually any living people here?"
"The biolocator says there's seven. One is definitely among these. Here are you and I. One in C, one in B, one in D. Well, and also…"
The last one doesn't need to be mentioned.
On the highest, twenty-fifth, floor which we occupied, in the end of a curving corridor a suspicious shadow showed itself.
The man dressed in a D building patient's uniform smiled from ear to ear, welcoming new prey.
"Kuramitsu Meruka!.."
Mato-san's Desert Eagles instantly spit fire.


Easily outdoing Berettas, destroying the body with a single shot, the .44 magnums unloaded into the D building patient Kuramitsu-san.

*

…Wherever you look, there's just a sea of blood.
A square metallic corridor. A wide swamp on the floor, rising up to the ankles.
A vivid surface reminiscent of slick jelly. The amount of blood made it impossible to perceive anything resembling human bodies. Everything looked like the blood drained from some room and flooded the entire D buidling.

Ishizue Kanata stands on this red carpet.

Like a magnificent rose, a graceful chrysantemum, a bright sunflower, the firl was a flawlessly harmonic contrast. Beautiful like a flower - there's no better metaphor. Today is her seventeenth birthday. A naive girl two years ago, now she's grown into a gorgeous woman. At least to an outsider's solely fleshly gaze.
About five meters away from her stood a girl very reminiscent of her.

Her name is Helmia Russell.

More hateful of Ishizue Kanata than anyone else, she tried to escape to the central building, but got called from behind and was now a regrettable victim of the motto "no one escapes".

"Nonsense. You really want to kill every single one?"
Proudly, with a stare full of hatred and disgust, Helmia Russell raises a questioning eyebrow. She's whirling in a mad hurricane of thoughts, considering whether she should run and be killed or stand up to the danger and live.
And so…
"Ooh. What wonderful words you utter, Helmia-san. Four years in here, and your beliefs stay unchanged still. Must be hard to live like that, eh?"
Ishizue Kanata smiled casually. In this sea of blood she and Helmia Russell are polar opposites: in position, in abilities, in ways of thinking.
They could be called the hunter and the hunted.
Unlike Russell who's trying to somehow get out and survive, Kanata isn't too troubled. Just a bit dissatisfied. She's wearing a sports suit that looks more like underwear. Everything happened very suddenly, and she didn't have much time. To tell the truth, she wanted to wear a proper dress when the time to rampage arrived.
"Don't compare me to yourself. I'm sane. Don't take me for a cheap thing that goes mad this easily."
"Oh, I'm very sorry. But I'm sane too, all right? I calmly and rationally concluded that I can kill everybody alone. Otherwise I wouldn't start this fight! Running headlong into a battle you have no chance of winning - the mad one here is you, it seems."

"This is why you're a psycho!.. Kill everyone alone? Seriously? You, who only have physical strength to boast of?.. Don't make me laugh. Yeah, you have no equal when it comes to breaking stuff. But when it comes to playing, you're not even fit to lick my boots. Just like everyone else. You can't even imagine the possessed of building D. Maybe you can handle those in C, but us…"
"Aah. I see, you don't know. Sorry, Helmia-san. At this point, the only ones alive here are you and I", - she twittered with a broad smile.
"Ah!.."
Naturally, Helmia Russell is speechless.
The D patients were treated like monsters. The people showing symptoms of the A disorder were considered "ill", but even the clinic doctors working with them left them to their fates. Their symptoms were beyond medical science, and they were plainly called "possessed", monsters. And of those forty equally lethal creatures only they were left?..
No, there were also those who were just in a bad condition and didn't move a muscle. Out of forty were there even ten like Kanata, capable of mass murder?
Still, this was exactly why they were the chosen of the chosen. They were the ones who bore the "possessed" title with pride. They were monsters feared by Origa's personnel. And they were no more? What about the pool full of guts, nauseating to look at? Or the man who retreated so deep into his personal space it could be called an alternate dimension? Or the child that made bodies instantly rot and turn into soup? Or the creature whose mind was so confused it turned everything around it into nonsense?
And all of them were exterminated by this woman with her bare hands?

"…Ishizue…"

"Oh, finally resolved yourself? Great. Now I'll have you for desserts. You only get such a chance once in a lifetime, after all. It'd be a waste to not have a taste of all of you, right?"
Kanata crouches, puts a leg forward a bit, ready to lunge at her target.
Just this motion causes a quake, sending a ripple through the red carpet.

"!!!Kanata!!!"

Russell's vocal cords shake the atmosphere.
Even a monster like that can't beat the speed of sound. Kanata, splashing crimson as she runs, meets the return strike of Russell's new growth. A sound-based hypnosis on a biological wave frequency. The electrical impulse generated by her bodily biocurrents invades the human brain. It's effective at a distance of up to thirty meters.

RUMBLE.

Their two-second encounter is over. The extended right fist of Kanata, who ran casually, destroys the wall behind Russell's back.
The metallic wall caves in with a pathetic screech. If this was a direct hit, Russell's organs would have been pulped, but it was off to the left and missed. This was not Russell dodging; Kanata's eyes failed her.
Unbelievably, Kanata's accurate movement failed to land. The girl didn't understand why she missed. She immediately shifted her stare to the target, but to the side…
"Eh, aaah?!"


Kanata stunnedly looked up at she who used to be less than a hundred and sixty centimeters tall. Now of such a height she had to look up at the figure now ten times larger. A figure so giant she couldn't see the top.
"Hee hee… Welcome to my world. Now the game is over, marionette!.."
Of course, it wasn't that Helmia Russell was a giant. Such accelerations going counter to the laws of physics can't happen. So, it's the other way around. Did Ishizue Kanata shrink to a tenth of her size in just a few seconds? That's even less likely, of course. Atomic forces wouldn't allow such a nonsensical compression of a a living being.
The problem is not physics, it's the mind. Ishizue Kanata's senses created an anomaly. Space didn't extend, neither did she shrink, but the scale of the perceived image and the visions perceived by her brain just went insane without asking her!..
"Oh. So it's all re…"
It's not reality. No, it is, but only within the bounds of the brain's perceptions. Even with this understanding, her senses took the giant world too realistically. For the current Ishizue Kanata the red puddle became a lake coming up to her collarbone.

Helmia Russell.

Having lived with a visual impairment since childhood, she constantly claimed despairingly: 'Everything around me presses me down'. Her parents couldn't understand her. She, huddled in a corner in a corner of a room, eyes shut tight, was just carelessly considered shy, unable to adapt to society.
But still, the world really seemed gigantic to her. A slight impairment of sight and a heavy perception disorder. Eight years later the insane gears finally joined together into a working anomalous mechnism. She couldn't feel the distance to objects. The girl kept screaming about the horror of a warped world sometimes large, sometimes distant, but she was still misunderstood and left on her own.
Dysgnosia - a malfunction of learning capability, a misunderstanding of the true scale of the world. And so these lonely times let a demon possess her. Not to cure the anomaly. She created the growth to make others understand her nightmare that nobody wanted to even hear about. She wanted to show her pain.

"Oh. It's "Double Bind" - a possession capable of inflicting your dysgnosia on others…"
"Correct. It was limited to shared perception at the beginning, but now it's different. You can only ever kill a single person through sharing, after all! To cripple the entire class, such wasteful behavior can't be allowed."
The giant Russell lifted her foot.
An observer would've seen this as a simple step forward. But it seemed to Kanata that a true, grand horror was raised above her.
"Not only can I share my perception, I can substitute that of others'. Didn't I tell you, my dear? You're good at destroying, but in playing with minds I'm miles ahead!"
"Khh!"
A hallucination of a falling fifty-ton mass.
Kanata strongly jumped backward to dodge, but the distance between them didn't change at all. The mobility of her body was limited by her shackled mind. Just now she intended to jump back ten meters, but in reality her body stepped back a mere ten centimeters.

…Yes, this is hard to bear.
She sustained no bodily damage, but her mind would begin to melt after being subjected to this nightmare for hours.
"Can you keep running for long? I can add more scale if you want."
An error of perception.
The owner of the insane perspective raised her foot. She can't escape. The perception of Kanata, capable of evading Russell's strike just a moment ago, already considered the scale of the surroundings to be the truth.
Working through electromagnetic pulses, a psychic disease affecting the brain directly. A brainwashing of incredible power. Only an intervention by a third party and deprogramming can fix this.
And also… The girls couldn't know about him, but there was a possessed who would act even more normal when subjected to such an attack.
He, the possessed with the sign opposed to Russell's, Hinomori Shusei, and Kanata will meet very soon.
Each of them had their own way of dealing with mental interference.
"No, that's enough, Helmia-san. Yes, I really needed time… but I already tried dreams like that a year ago, after all."
She can't run from Helmia Russell. Rather, she doesn't need to. To Ishizue Kanata this growth is already a thing of the past.
"What?.."
A chill goes up her spine - forget the spine, it reaches her brain.
Helmia Russell raises her head towards the source of the voice, located high above her head.
She can't believe her eyes… She'd never be able to do that! Ishizue Kanata is towering there, head only not brushing against the clouds because there are none.
"And you know what? Sorry, but this is not funny at all."

As though the skies fall.

Not an illusion born of compressed perception, but a very real right foot stomping on Russell offhandedly falls right next to her.

RUMBLE.

The strike shakes the crimson liquid, the corridor and the entire building altogether. To Helmia Russell, who's got her powered-up dysgnosia back, this is enough to erase her reality, to make her apocalypse come.

*

RUMBLE.

After a heated battle Kuramitsu Meruka fell to Mato-san's "five strikes down the middle". Chest!
"Lucky… I just knew Kuramitsu's state. And his possession is easy to deal with if you know where the center is. If he was the same type as Yashikido Kyouma's "Visceras hyperplasia” or Yoruguchi Shishiya's "Freesia", I'd have to rely on this."

Mato-san nodded at the RPG on her shoulder. I'm the first trump card, and it would seem to be the second one.
Abandoning the body of former D building resident Kuramirsu Merula, Mato-san heads for the stairs. Either the light was off or someone broke the wiring, but the elevator stood still.

RUMBLE.

The central building shook from the mysterious earthquake again. The source of the quaking is clearly on the first floor. That's some hammering, felt even twenty five floors up. I didn't want to go down in the slightest, but Mato-san's beckoning me - get over here, fast.
"Mmm, a question, Mato-san. Off-topic, though."
"No life signs until the third floor. Fine, we can talk for now. Out with it."
"Yeah. You were talking about visceras and freezers, or something?.. Are those patient nicknames?"
"Well, yeah… Just keep in mind, that wasn't me! It's well… When they arrived, they were written down like that by someone overzealous, so", - she handed me a notebook page.
Familiar writing… I saw it a few times when acccepting tasks… Oh, right, there was a lover of giving out nicknames. She was fourteen, no, fifteen back then. Why not, after all? Still, those are outrageous. Well, I guess it's a good thing when a person has imagination.

RUMMMBLE.

Still… The central building was shaked even harder and meaner.
We passed the twelfth floor. The lower we descended, the more oppressive the smell of blood became.
…The twelfth was still of the human world. Although hell reigned here for a long time. Walls of a pink organic color. Air like sweet treacle. All kinds of destruction on each floor, and the twelfth - I took a quick peek - had the east wall erased altogether. Only a bulldozer could've take everything apart so thoroughly. After that I decided I wouldn't be surprised if it suddenly became a giant, and managed to keep its form, at that. The law of conservation of energy was violated on every step anyway.
"M-Mato-san. Do you think these rockets will work on her?"
The question could be said to express the very core of my worries.
If she answers 'I don't', I'll start a marathon in the opposite direction. Whatever happens, I'll get to the roof and watch the grand final boss monster fight from a height of three kilometers.
"They will, for now. This "for now" would only last another five minutes, though… If in these six hours it experiences a death that'll see it torn into pieces, our friend here will become useless."
"What? Explain it properly."
"Like I said. It's a possessed that's immune to everything in the world. Like I said, now it can't be killed just like that… A small accident happened in the beginning. The personnel got the amount of nerve gas wrong and thoroughly killed it."
"I have quite a few questions about that, but do go on."
"Uh huh. A regrettable incident, but what's done is done. We were already in the middle of the autopsy when it suddenly came back to life. The strangest thing is, the body was completely dead, but the brain seemed to function independently. After that the gas stopped affecting it. The body didn't die. Can you guess what followed? The personnel was nervous and excited at the same time. Understandable. Death from poison and then, after some time, the production of effective antibodies. Long story short, deadly experiments could be performed with just one subject. A perfect test dummy."

RUMBLE.

The monstrous pulse was slowly getting closer.

"…But in a month it all went awry. Naturally, the chemical reactions in its body stopped resembling those of humans. Science was no longer applicable. The data of hundreds of experiments gave no results, but sadly, it developed immunity to those hundreds of deaths."

CRASH! THUMP!

We're on the fifth floor.
Eerie. The smell of blood emanating from the lower floors makes me dizzy.
"Get it? The medicines in Origa's storage can't kill it anymore. There's any number of other ways, of course. If nothing else works, you can throw it into a press or, like now, use explosives."
"But… if it revives regardless, what next?" - she continued. - "If the pieces of meat come back to life, we're done for. We'll run out of ways as far as physics is concerned. And Origa's personnel was afraid of that 'if'. They had no right to create the "final solution" with their own hands. After all, if they manage to kill it, but that power will not be enough to completely destroy it, the "we can still kill it" hypothesis will disappear. A normal man's most impossible dream - bodily immortality - will come to life in a monster. In the end, they decided 'No more killing'. Right now it's still possible there are deaths it didn't experience. And since that's true, it's not immortal - so they covered up their actions as best their could. But it matures with each day. We can't secure the door with the same lock forever. The D building was modified half a year ago exactly because they feared it. After all, it's possible it'll die of old age soon, so let's manage to hold it in until that death, and the question of responsibility will just vanish! Thus they underestimated the issue and…"

CRASH! THUMP! SLAM!

We arrived at the third floor. Eww. Shit. Bad. What's bad? Well, the lake began on the third floor. Hard to believe, but the first and second floor were flooded in an incredible amount of blood. I very much didn't like that. Not so much because of the question of the source of this blood, but more because something that had that much red liquid had already died at its hand!..
"We'll have to move to the D building from here. All right, there was a fire ladder somewhere…"
Unlike me, Mato-san didn't even raise an eyebrow.
Her look is heroic - behold, it truly is the one whose vocabulary lacks the word "danger"!
"We can't get through! Let's return to Shikura right now, Mato-san! It won't work, trump card 2 will definitely fail!"
"Idiot, don't diss the rocket launcher! It eats fortifications and even Type 90s for breakfast - this is a work of weapon-making art made for infantry! The only thing that might survive that is a Tyrant*!"
"Holy shit!"
I… just noticed! Mato-san was panicking, she's been on pins and needles for a while now!
"Come on, Shozai. With you we might just manage. Do you know about the paradox?"
"!.."
Touma Mato grabbed me by the collar and let out a battle cry.
Then she ran down the third floor corridor flooded with blood. I was trying to run the other way. And then… heavy, the highest-pitched and strongest

BOOM

shook the central building.
"What?!"
"There it is…"

What "there it is"…
The wall ten meters ahead of us was shattered into dust. Judging by the hit, it must've been struck by a dump truck.

Splattering blood and a black-haired girl bathed in the light of the dawning sun.

…It's been two years.
The bloody dress is gone. She executed an unbelievable slaughter, yet there wasn't a single stain on her, not one drop of red. Once defeated by Touma Mato, finished off by Ishizue Shozai, she was nothing like the one that now stood here and triumphantly smiled:
"Long time no see, old lady. I've been waiting for this for two years. And here, with a face like he's just stepped into a pile of crap, would be my dear brother?"
Clearly having also greatly developed mentally, she greeted us.
By the way… actually, I already saw that in that video… hmm, I think she grew up a bit too much.
"Shozai!"
But my impressions of our encounter didn't concern Touma Mato. A mutual, oppressive difference in fighting power.
Can't afford even a spare word, determine Mato-san's instincts honed to a warrior's perfection.

Abilities grown beyond any limits.
Endurance trained past any bounds.
Yes. "Monsters" similar to her simply don't exist.

Not a single chance of victory, running - if only right this instant. Touma Mato aims her rocket launcher to protect Ishizue Shozai…
"Forget it. Too late, old lady."
The monster crosses ten meters in an instant, she hears its voice.
Her right fist descends like a pile driver.
The fist capable of punching through a steel wall ten centimeters thick mercilessly…

"Go, Shozai shield!"

…slams through the middle of my chest. Ghah!..

"Damn, I didn't even think of that!.." - Ishizue Kanata stretches her lips in admiration.

Then trump card two goes off. Ghoh!..
That's how it is, now I, ghah, see why the trump card were gh-numbered, like, tha-khh, ghoh-khoh, ghah!..














































***

Year 2005, the fourteenth of February, 7 AM.

I'm in an indescribable mood. Thoughtlessly, I peel my eyes open.

"What a dream…"
That was a dream. The worst of nightmares.
Well, it was weird in places, and the hints about the plot were plain to see, so it was kinda easy to bear, too… But I want to make one thing clear - this is not my fault at all.
"…Every year, every single one, something happens. Looks like the fourteenth of February is a psychological trauma for me…"
Rubbing my chest that had a gaping hole in it a short time ago, I quickly get off the bed. Washing the nightmare's chains away, I turn the TV on, mood improved.
The weather is cloudy. So that's how the unbelievably beautiful sunrise from the dream really looks.
"Hmm?"
My phone rung. "Tomato-chan" is displayed on the screen. Nice name… although if she sees that, I'm dead. Since Mato-san oversees former Origa hospital patient Ishizue Arika, she has to call like this once every four days.
Usually after that she accompanies me to the Marion that's in front of the establishment.
I have to pay my check myself, of course.
"Yes, hello. Good morning, this is Ishizue."
"Oh, Shozai. I have bad news. Get comfy and listen."
The voice in the receiver is serious, but also calm. This is how Touma Mato sounds when she's on the cliff's edge. The indescribable deja vu makes me slightly sick.
"This morning, Origa clinic has been demolished. All departments are in ruins. We're looking for the patients and personnel, but it doesn't look good for the other survivors. We'll find one or two if we're lucky. Security cameras show this was the doing of a single patient. They exterminated every escapee. Then they broke through the lobby and discharged themselves, shall we say."

I felt a jolt, as though of electricity. 'All right, where is my international passport?' - I think, rising from the sofa, but I, who's treated as an A disorder carrier, am not allowed even a driver's license.
"Get it?.. They're searching for the suspect with all of their resources right now, but they haven't determined their identity yet."
Right. Origa is an island separate from the mainland. No one can enter from the outside. Any disaster in that place must happen inside. Destroying Origa is like pressing the self-destruct button.
Thus the sole survivor equals the real criminal.

"Shozai. Ishizue Kanata will appear again."

So, it wasn't any mere nightmare.
It was a prophetic dream interspersed with reality. Inevitable for Ishizue Arika.

His headache that will never go away.

/Vt.in day dream.end




*She is probably referencing Nemesis.

Actually, I forget, was Kanata's notebook ever properly translated? The guy who did the Russian translation made a really neat image of it.

[chipathy]

i never thought id see the day, ty for your hard work

[Leftovers]

I am filled with conflicting emotions.

Awe, for how action-packed and blockbuster-like the volume's finale was.
Gratitude, for the translators that have made this work accessible for most.
Sadness, because Nasu will never get off his Fate-writing ass to finish this.

Still the best thing he's ever written.

Actually, I forget, was Kanata's notebook ever properly translated? The guy who did the Russian translation made a really neat image of it.

Yes, by DDD Patriarch Crown.

And with this, the story of DDD2 concludes. It's been a fun run, and I'm eagerly waiting for the next volume to come out.

Thank you once again for your translation. Do you plan on also doing Sora no Soto?

And y-yeah, surely that will happen, uhh...



"soon"

[Desuclocker]

Thank you once again for your translation. Do you plan on also doing Sora no Soto?

Yeah, I think I do.

EDIT: Well, so long as someone's willing to assist with actually replacing the text on the pages, because I definitely don't trust myself with that.

EDIT2: nvm

[Rygah]

And it's all over. Goddammit Nasu, why would you leave us on such a cliffhanger! Great finale though, I've enjoyed volume 2 very much. And yay, I finally understand the Meruka Kuramitsu reference in Mirai Fukuin.

Once again, I'd like to thank Desuclocker, Enhance, Crown, arai, and everyone else involved in the translation of DDD. It's a real shame it's so underappreciated in comparison to Nasu's other works, imo it's very reminiscent and could be just as successful as KnK if it were complete (especially if it were to have a similarly styled movie adaptation). Wishful thinking aside though, it's been a blast to read through it all.

Okay then, excuse me while I crawl into a corner and lament over Decoration Disorder Discontinuation.

[Leftovers]

Yeah, I think I do.

EDIT: Well, so long as someone's willing to assist with actually replacing the text on the pages, because I definitely don't trust myself with that.

EDIT2: nvm

I meant the short story. I'm assuming it's the second-to-last zip on the first post of the Russian thread linked in the OP.