Part 5
Private salons were one aspect of the service industry characteristic of Academy City. Simply put, they were something like a fancy karaoke box. Customers could rent the rooms based on time and have fun or throw parties or do whatever else they wanted inside.
Eighty percent of Academy City's residents were students and most of those lived in regulated student dorms. Being under the eye of adults during classes and after school could be stressful. Private salons were a bit like secret hideouts that could be bought.
This setup had the danger of being about a step away from becoming a hotbed for sexual crimes, so it wasn't something to be completely admired. However, the very act of selling an area of freedom was an effective symbol of the social psychology of Academy City.
The numbered rooms in a large building had become something to be sold.
Hamazura and the others had fled to a room in one of those large buildings.
"…"
Hamazura lowered his gaze to the screen of his cell phone.
He had the numbers of Takitsubo, Kinuhata, and Mugino programmed into it.
Those three would surely be more help against an unknown enemy than the collection of Level 0s they currently were.
Item of course did not know what was going on, but they were out searching for him in a game, so (despite having to redo their game), if he told them the "solution", they would all gather.
However…
(…I just can't get them involved in this.)
He gritted his teeth and then turned off his phone.
Fremea Seivelun was Frenda's sister, so it wasn't as if this wasn't any of Item's business. Yet this had to do with the city's darkness, and that changed things. Hamazura didn't want to get them involved in order to protect himself.
Then Hanzou spoke to Hamazura ignorant of the issues he was thinking about.
"Hamazura, if you're going to make a phone call, use a dummy SIM. I've got a few of them if you need one."
"No, that's fine."
Hamazura shook his head.
He looked over at Fremea's back as she operated the large TV with the remote control. He spoke to Hanzou in a low voice.
"What are we going to do? We know Fremea is being targeted by the dark side of the city, but why does she have to be attacked by such dangerous people?"
"I actually don't know any of the details," said Hanzou in a stiff voice. "It isn't anything about her herself. The school's System Scan has her as a Level 0, so she doesn't have any huge value as far as a DNA map goes and I don't think she's had a chance to contact the real darkness out there. All I know is that she had a point of contact with me and Leader Komaba."
"…"
"So I'm assuming it has something to do with Skill-Out or its former leader, Komaba Ritoku."
"As you well know, that's just a group of delinquents."
Fremea was flipping through channels a bit away, but it didn't look like she was finding a show that she liked. The talk shows were just going over serious news about most countries accepting Academy City even though its belligerent interactions had been one of the things that led to World War III. This was because Academy City had paid out large amounts of money to pay for reconstruction after the war.
"Is there something those at the very top of Academy City, the ones that hold the administrative power, want enough to take someone's life to get?"
"As I'm sure you know, when Leader Komaba led Skill-Out, he had a large-scale plan in order to revolt against Academy City. I played a major role in creating the plan. Of course, it ended up failing."
It seemed Fremea was not interested in a commentator going on about a conspiracy theory about Academy City altering the balance of power in how they regulated the balance of the funds they gave out. The conspiracy theory was quieted as she flipped through the channels.
"It's possible Leader Komaba prepared a spare plan back then. One that dealt with a vulnerability in the city other than the one we were using."
"Then…"
"Those at the top would want to deal with that, right? And Fremea was under Komaba's care. They might be thinking that he gave her a hint just in case."
"But the main plan was destroyed so easily. If this spare plan was so great, why didn't he use it instead?"
"They don't care about our plan. They just want to utterly destroy any vulnerability in the city."
That was assuming it had to do with Komaba Ritoku.
However, Hamazura knew of another point of contact with Fremea Seivelun.
Frenda.
And the group Frenda was part of, Item.
That group contained a Level 4 effective at battle, one of the seven Level 5s, and a girl who was said to have the possibility of becoming the eighth. They were a skilled organization that had been prepared by the dark side of the city in order to eliminate the elements of unrest within the city.
Since Fremea was Frenda's sister, it was possible this had to do with Item via Frenda.
(Frenda was a member of Item, but I didn't know what they were doing 24/7. Could she have been working on some other project on the side?)
He didn't have enough information.
Why was she being targeted? How large was the organization after her? How serious were they? If he knew what they were after, he might be able to put together a way to survive.
"…Fremea has no clue what it could be, but there's no mistaking that the darkness even brought out a powered suit to target her. We have to look into this while staying on the run."
"We'll fight back once we've ensured her safety," said Hanzou as he headed for the exit.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to contact Kuruwa. I wouldn't exactly call this place safe. This will be our relay point. We'll use Kuruwa's network to find a safe hideout to move to."
"Is it safe to contact her?"
"I already told you. I'm going to put a dummy SIM in my phone. Even if they're monitoring my number, they won't be able to trace my call to the antenna it's using."
Hanzou grabbed the doorknob as he spoke.
When he opened the door, he turned around.
"Hamazura."
"What?"
"You really saved us back there. I'm not happy with what you did, but I'll admit that much."
Before Hamazura could respond, Hanzou had left the room.
Hamazura felt a little awkward and his gaze wandered around the room until his and Fremea's eyes met.
This was the girl Komaba Ritoku had risked his life to protect.
She was also the little sister of Frenda, one of the main members of Item.
"Long time no see."
When Komaba had still been alive, Hamazura and Hanzou had spoken with her. They hadn't even known her name at the time.
"Do you remember me?"
"Yes. In the first place, you're one of the people with Komaba-oniichan."
Hamazura smiled slightly at how she remembered him.
He could no longer think of Komaba except in the past tense.
But he couldn't let her know about the painful things that came with the passage of time.
"That's right. I'm Hamazura Shiage. Nice to meet you again."
"I'm Fremea. Fremea Seivelun."
Hamazura felt as if he should have learned of her family name sooner, but he didn't say anything about it.
"Things got a bit rough back there. Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine. My ears were hurting a bit ago, but in the first place I'm fine now. Nyah."
(…Where in Japan did she learn "nyah"?)
He didn't recall her saying that when he had spoken with her before.
That raised a question in his mind, but asking about it wouldn't help anything there.
He was lucky enough she knew Japanese.
"In the first place, what are we going to do now?"
"Hanzou is calling a friend, so you don't have to worry."
"Where's Komaba-oniichan?" Fremea looked up at him with her blue eyes. "I haven't seen him in a while. He doesn't answer his phone and I haven't seen him on the roads I usually see him on. In the first place, do you know where he's gone?"
Hamazura tried to keep his voice from catching in his throat.
He wasn't sure if he succeeded.
"He's, well…"
He managed to put on a smile.
But her blue eyes saw through him better than a lie detector.
"He isn't a very smart person. I know it isn't right for someone like me to say that, but he really isn't. So he's been stuck in supplementary lessons at school. If he doesn't do that, he'll end being held back. Can you keep that a secret for a while?"
"…Yeah," Fremea said with a slight nod.
Her voice sank, but it was only at the level of someone breaking their promise about coming to play on a day off.
"In the first place, I understand."
Fremea plopped down on the sofa that was much too big for her.
"Mh."
"?"
"My stomach almost growled, but then it didn't."
She leaned back in the sofa and put her small hands on her stomach.
Hamazura frowned.
"…Do you want something to eat?"
Fremea gave a small nod in response.
Just like in a karaoke box, the private salon let you order food over an inner line. There was also a large refrigerator in the spacious room.
Hamazura didn't know what kind of food Fremea liked, so he decided to order various things over the inner line. While Hamazura was talking into the phone on the wall, Hanzou returned.
"Kuruwa will be here before long. …What are you doing, Hamazura?"
"Ordering some food."
"We just ate."
"It's for Fremea."
"Oh, well order some satsuma age while you're at it."
It took about ten minutes for the food to get there.
Instead of main dishes, it was mostly side dishes such as French fries and vegetable sticks.
"…The satsuma age just doesn't fit in with the rest."
"Shut up. I'm going to eat them all myself, so it doesn't matter."
Hamazura and Hanzou moved some food from the large plates onto their smaller plates, but Fremea was acting oddly.
She put some kanitama on her small plate, but, when she noticed the green-colored bean-like objects that were in it, she passed her small plate to Hamazura.
"Green peas," she said.
"W-what? Why are you passing me a bunch of peas?"
Fremea was precisely removing the green peas and giving them to Hamazura.
"I see. So you don't like green peas," responded Hamazura.
"Nyaaoohhn"
"But you're too old for that. You need to know that the world isn't always so kind. Have your green peas back."
"Fgyaaaaaaaahh!?" screamed Fremea now that she had a mountain of peas twice the size it was before.
After that, Hamazura got in a fight with Hanzou when Hanzou put salt directly on the large plate of fries and there was a dispute over whether the vegetable sticks should have mayonnaise or dressing on them, but the dark atmosphere was mostly swept away. They had just been attacked by that eight-legged powered suit, but it didn't look like Fremea was in any kind of emotional shock.
It was possible that the feelings just hadn't caught up with her yet.
Part 6
Meanwhile, there were other people who found Hamazura and the others' actions to be odd.
Mugino Shizuri and the rest of Item.
They had split up to search around the city for Hamazura, but they had each caught scent of the familiar smell of the darkness.
Take Mugino for example.
She was leaning up against a wall in order to gather information.
More precisely, she was connected to the building's security cameras with a long, thin cable stretching from the fake eye built into her eyepatch. Of course, she had no interest in the building itself; the camera was just a gateway. Through it she entered the security company's network and went through the footage archives to see if Hamazura was in them.
Her flesh-and-blood brain was directly connected to the mechanical eye, but there was additional meaning there.
It meant she could directly receive information from the machine.
Of course, it had to be translated into information a human could detect, so it wasn't perfect and she mostly relied on images through the fake eye's system. However, she could do things that were impossible with a normal interface.
While an image search was being carried out at high speed behind her forehead, Mugino used her spare hand to operate her cell phone.
It was in "Chat Mode" where it could communicate on multiple lines at once.
"A powered suit went nuts in an underground mall in District 7. In a few hours, the higher ups will probably have revised the footage and debunked the rumors so that it 'didn't happen'."
"I found that super fast by intercepting Anti-Skill radio. Originally, a boy and a girl were being targeted. Later, another boy super joined in. The three of them super got away from the powered suit and ran off above ground. Did the cameras get any of their faces?"
"The first two weren't him. The guy who came later is…I can't tell. The smoke gathered around the ceiling, so I can only tell there was someone there."
"But," Mugino added, "I think the original boy is someone Hamazura would talk with. And the girl looks somehow familiar…"
"Oh, so you even super looked into all the people Hamazura knew? Yanderes can be super scary."
"…Kinuhata, I can see the things around you. Could you grab that thick thing over there and shove it up your ass?"
"I'm super not interested in size and thickness, so no thank you. Anyway, let's continue the super Hamazura Search. Hee hee hee. Let's see what finds the super right answer faster: security cameras or radio information."
"Ahn? At this rate, won't Takitsubo be the punishment bunny?"
When Mugino asked that frank question, the rabbit girl Takitsubo Rikou spoke up for the first time in the conversation with a trembling voice.
"…A signal is coming from north-north-east… I sense that Hamazura is flirting with another girl…!!"
"Mugino, I'm most afraid of that super vague medium. We need to go all out so that we don't end up being a super unsightly bunny in front of that idiot."
Part 7
"Kuruwa sure is taking her time," said Hanzou as he leaned back in the private salon's sofa.
Hamazura and Fremea were checking out what was inside the spacious room. There were card games and board games on some shelves and a video game system was installed next to the large TV. It seemed the TV could also be used to browse the internet.
It also had a satellite connection, so there were more than three hundred channels to choose from. This meant that it would take a long time to find something to watch even if there was something you wanted to watch on. Fremea had given up on finding something to watch and the TV was left on news about the end of World War III. It was something about the weapons not needed now that the war was over being transported to Districts 2 and 23.
Hamazura quickly gave up on the TV, sat down on the sofa, and started looking through the road service reference book, but then someone grabbed the edge of his clothes. He looked up and saw Fremea looking bored.
At her request, he started looking for a multiplayer game.
Because of the type of facility they were in, there were a lot of party games that could be played with a lot of people.
It might have been imprudent to turn towards hobbies and time-killing devices at a time like that, but it might have been a defensive reaction of their minds. If they sat still and went crazy, they would have lost everything. They would win by safely returning to their everyday lives. That eight-legged thing wasn't a part of their fates.
"Hamazura, in the first place I want to play that."
Fremea stretched out her hands, but she couldn't reach her target which was on the top shelf.
The shelf had video games lined up on it.
"This?"
"No. Not something that's in the first place as boring as that."
"Then this?"
"To the right. To the right. Farther right. No left. In the first place, there."
Hamazura moved his finger along the shelf as he listened to Fremea, but then he felt something heavy on his back. Fremea was using him in place of a ladder to get her small frame up to the shelf.
"This," she said as she pulled a game from the shelf.
"…No, that's…"
"I want to play Blood & Destroy."
"What kind of title is that? That just makes it sound like it's full of horrible things! Look, the screenshots on the back of the package are almost all blood red!!"
It looked like a shooting game where a grim-faced guy shot lots of zombies. It practically screamed "For the foreign market!!" When he carefully read the instructions, it seemed the protagonists were the ones doing the chomping. The tagline was "Let's drive back the allies of justice!!"
Hamazura carefully chose his words.
"L-look, doesn't this one with the fluffy pets look fun?"
"Blood & Destroy."
"What about A Stroll with the Mermaid Princess?"
"Blood & Destroy."
"The Meadows of-"
"I want to play it!!"
Fremea held the blood-red package in her hands, hid her mouth behind it, and stared up at him.
Hamazura paused for a second.
"…I'm not going to let you, but can I take a picture of that?"
"Gyaaoohhh!!"
The two of them got all worked up and Hanzou stood up from the sofa.
"…Kuruwa is taking too long. I'm going to try to contact her again."
While Fremea looked over at the cell phone screen, Hamazura gestured to Hanzou with his fingers.
The gesture was saying that they couldn't stay there much longer.
"I know that," muttered Hanzou in what was almost a sigh. "I know that."
Part 8
A certain gigantic dump truck's driver's seat was higher than the second floor of a building.
The back was the size of a pool and seemed to be full of black stones, but that was just a disguise. The outside of the inner domed space was made to look that way.
On the inside it was a maintenance area.
A maintenance area for a powered suit.
The sound of chemical springs creaking could be heard.
Those springs were inside the powered suit and it normally creaked like that whenever it did anything. It was sort of like the rustling of clothing, but there was a rumor that it had an effect on the minds of people who weren't used to hearing it if they heard it for long periods of time.
"Silver Cross"
"I'm ready, but isn't this a tad indirect?"
"At this rate, there are too many lines. It would be best if we cut down a few more branches."
"Kuroyoru, does that mean…?"
"Yes, I'll be heading out."
"If we're limiting the lines, wouldn't it be better if you started with crushing Item?"
"Crushing things one by one in order is the fastest way. Also, you failed last time. Having the direction the branches are growing in change would be a problem."
"I thought you had urged for retreat regarding that."
"Even without, it'll be fine. Things weren't exactly perfect from the get-go."
"Don't forget the purpose of pruning."
"I know. The foundation of pruning is to choose the thickest, strongest branch. In that way, that branch is the thickest and yet easiest to handle."
"So you're saying bloodshed and danger will become water that makes the branches grow."
"Let's recheck our plans. I'll be heading for Hamazura Shiage. You support me with the 'bees'. We can leave Accelerator alone for now. The fewer risks the better. The other side has begun moving. Once the moat is filled, it'll all naturally connect like a magnet."
"Is this really okay? It would be safer to take out Item first with a surprise attack. Once Hamazura gets involved due to the attack on Fremea Seivelun, it's likely they'll show up."
"I don't mind if that happens. It saves me the effort of finding them."
"Kuroyoru."
"Silver Cross, are you worried about Mugino Shizuri? Or is it Kinuhata Saiai?"
"It's the Dark May Project."
"Hmph. Kinuhata? Don't worry. You're getting worried over nothing."
In what seemed like the person on the other end of the transmission's habit, she responded with a bit of scorn mixed in.
"After all, I was above her in attack power from the very start of that project." The girl spoke quickly. "And now I've gone beyond the frame of a mere esper."
"Is that so?"
"Aren't you being a little more subdued than before? Even if you're just my support, you haven't used a two-legged one in a while."
"Like I said before: I'm the kind of man that knows how to do the right thing at the right time."
The powered suit responded with the creaking of its chemical springs.
"I got results, didn't I? This is the same. It isn't about which one's the best. There are times to use Enemy Blaster and there are times to use Bee Launcher."
"So we'll go ahead as planned?"
"Yes."
"Fremea Seivelun it is."
The person on the other end of the transmission gave praise with words of scorn.
"That brat really is quite useful."