Looking at that signboard, Kusanagi couldn’t help but let out a scornful laugh. No many how many times he saw it, he thought it was a weird name. The true identity of this building, which wore the skin of a proper government office, was the blue clan’s- Scepter 4’s headquarters.
Apparently, the name comes from how they claim up front to be dealing with ‘special foreigners’. But that’s just something like a metaphor. In actuality, they don’t deal in people who are from different countries, but rather those with different abilities- in other words, people with supernatural powers.
Even amongst that, the type they dealt with the most were people who naturally gained abilities without joining a clan or receiving power from a king, Strains. Because there were cases where Strains, who had neither an organization they were affiliated with or a king to listen to, used their powers to commit crimes.
When Scepter 4 discovered an unregistered Strain, they were to take them into custody, and send them to centers for education and research under the golden king’s jurisdiction. Because of that, from before the golden clan and the blue clan already had an intimate relationship. But…
“With one of ‘em without a king, there’s no way they’d be able to keep up an equal relationship.”
He didn’t know what things had been like before. But, now at least, one couldn’t see the blue clan as anything but a bunch of hired security guards being used by the golden clan.
“…it sure is tragic, ain’t it. A subject who’s lost their king.”
Saying that to himself, Kusanagi went through the forth ward’s gate.
Kusanagi was led into a meeting room further in by a person from Scepter 4 in blue clothes, even as they gave him painfully suspicious looks. One way or another, Scepter 4 was supposed to be an organization that considered protecting the law amongst those with superhuman powers to be their principle. He figured it would probably be alright, but if there was someone here who thought they might as well take the opportunity to squash a red clan executive, would he be able to return in one piece, Kusanagi thought to himself half whimsically. He supposed he’d be completely outnumbered, so it might be difficult. Sitting on the meeting room’s old sofa, the amount of time he had to wait was about as long as it took to smoke one cigarette.
A heavy knocked filled the air, and then door opened. Putting his shortened cigarette in the ash tray, Kusanagi stood up.
The person who appeared was a man who looked just over forty. One could figure that he was that old from his face, but from his blank expression that went beyond tiredness, and the way he moved as though even taking a single step was tiresome, one would think he were someone older, like an old man. His formal uniform also seemed to be neglected and worn-out.
“…So you’re that guy? The red clan’s adviser, Kusanagi Izumo.” Said the main in a heavy, weary-sounding tone. Kusanagi smiled.
“Well, I’m not somethin’ as big and important as an adviser… you’re Scepter 4’s deputy commander, Shiotsu Gen-san, correct?” In response to Kusanagi’s words, for some reason Shiotsu spat out a ‘ha!’ and smiled scornfully.
“Deputy commander, huh.”
“…am I wrong?”
“No, you’re not. Unfortunately, right now, there’s no one here who’s any better than this mediocre guy.” Saying that sullenly, the deputy commander sat down on the sofa across the low table. The old thing let out a stupid sounding ‘swoosh’ as air escaped from it.
“Want some tea?”
“No.”
“Figured. You shouldn’t put anything from enemy territory into your mouth carelessly.”
“Oh, is this enemy territory for me?”
“Isn’t it?”
Sinking into the sofa while leaning sloppily on the back, Shiotsu glared up at Kusanagi. Kusanagi didn’t confirm or deny it. “…today, I’ve come to apologize. Yesterday, our kids apparently caused you some trouble.”
Shiotsu didn’t try to respond immediately. He looked up at Kusanagi while his mouth stayed closed.
“It’s against the rules to trespass on another clan’s territory. It’s Scepter 4’s duty to punish those who deserve it.” Shiotsu said quietly, and as though he were chewing on sand. Kusanagi nodded.
“I understand.”
“…but, there was a problem with my subordinates who attacked first without properly assessing the situation, apparently. And anyway, chief Mizuchi doesn’t seem to want to make a fuss out of this case. There’s no need for you to apologize to me. If that’s all you wanted, leave.”
Kusanagi looked at Shiotsu’s expression silently for a moment, then got his cigarette box out from his pocket.
“Mind if I smoke?”
“…I told you to leave.” But, even as he said that grudgingly, he gave permission by gesturing with his chin.
Kusanagi took a cigarette out from the box and put it in his mouth, then lit it with his lighter. A small flame lit up its end. Smoke rose.
“Yesterday, the ones who got into trouble with our kids were the twins from your place. It sounds like they’re pretty young. Even younger than me, maybe?”
“So what?”
“Well. It’s just… it’s been ten years since the previous blue king passed away, hasn’t it? So I was just a bit interested, since if there were such young clansmen, then they must’ve been only children when they joined.”
Shiotsu clocked his tongue a little, and also got some cigarettes out from his pocket. When Kusanagi offered his lighter, Shiotsu paused for just a moment, before tiredly getting up from the back of the sofa and leaned out to use the fire.
“They were a special case.” Said Shiotsu as he held the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and smoked it with a displeased face.
“Their parents were members of Scepter 4, you see. Then they died on duty during a certain incident. Those two were twelve at the time. Since they didn’t have anyone else to go to, Scepter 4 decided to take care of them as a group, but… those guys, they went to the previous king and asked to be made members of Scepter 4 themselves. Since they wanted to take over their parents’ dying will.” Only at the moment that he was speaking about the previous blue king did light appear in the tired-out deputy’s eyes. When the previous king was alive, he must have also been a member full of hope, one could feel from those eyes.
“And then…”
“He gave in. He made those two, who were still children, into clansmen. Of course, he hadn’t intended to let them work as actual members for a while. He probably just wanted to respect their wishes and raise them slowly.”
‘Probably just wanted to’, meaning that didn’t come to pass.
Kusanagi knew what happened after that. He knew, and he still asked.
“Then what?”
“…It was two weeks after those two became blue clansmen… that the Kagutsu incident happened.”
The Kagutsu incident. The incident that happened ten years ago when Japan’s geography changed. People who knew what had happened called the place that had been dug out in a circle the ‘Kagutsu Crater’ after the man who had been at the center of the explosion.
Kusanagi breathed slightly.
“If I recall correctly, the previous blue king passed away during the Kagutsu incident.”
At Kusanagi’s words, Shiotsu’s slack body which had been sinking into the sofa tensed slightly. Wrinkling his brow, he answered shortly. “Yeah.”
“It must have been such a shock for the brothers, who were children and had just become blue clansmen. Since right as they decided to take over their parents’ wills and decided on which back they should follow, it vanished.”
Shiotsu glared up at Kusanagi.
“…You’re not being sympathetic.”
“No, I’m not.”
“What are you trying to say?”
Kusanagi smiled like he would at a customer in his bar, and said, “What occurred ten years ago was really a tragedy, but I was wonderin’ what happened to the sense of justice you guys were surely holdin’ on to at first even then.”
Shiotsu didn’t change his sloppy posture. But, his eyes alone began to shine dangerously.
“…are you trying to provoke me?”
“I’m aware that I’m bein’ rude. However, from what I’ve heard, the brothers who got into trouble with our kids didn’t seem to care a whole lot about justice or anythin’.”
“Are you trying to gloss over what your comrades did?”
“What I’m tryin’ to say is,” Kusanagi raised his voice. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Shiotsu.
“Can you guys vow to your own king that your actions are nothin’ to be ashamed of?”
The atmosphere in the room tensed. Kusanagi could clearly sense killing intent rise from the man who was sitting loosely in front of him.
Kusanagi focused on the cigarette still in his fingers. So that should the other guy get into ‘that mood’, he’d be able to respond right away. The shortened cigarette flame wavered slightly in response to Kusanagi’s thoughts.
“…you won’t respond right away?”
“We have no king anymore.”
Kusanagi breathed out slightly.
“That’s your answer, huh.”
Shiotsu smiled thinly, but his eyes still shone with the killing intent reflected within.
“Right now, no one here can vow to their king that they have nothing to be ashamed of… we’re just a group of cowards who couldn’t even be at their king’s side when Kagutsu happened.”
Kusanagi frowned slightly at the words that were spat out.
“It’s not cool to talk down on yourself like that.”
“Shut it.”
“You’re not cool, but you’re not really a bad guy, I guess.”
As he said that, Kusanagi shoved his shortened cigarette into the ashtray. The fire crackled and vanished. Standing up straight, he turned to look right into Shiotsu’s petulant eyes.
“I’ll take that as a warning to ‘not believe me’. You should know what we’re feeling. Even then, you don’t say one word of excuse… you don’t intend to defend what you’re protecting, and you don’t think the work you’re doing right now is what’s right.” Shiotsu didn’t reply, and only looked sullenly at Kusanagi. Kusanagi was smiling.
“You’re tryin’ to be shameless, but do you not wanna regain your honor? We’ve lost any intention of trusting chief Mizuchi, and if it comes to a fight over that girl, we plan to face it… would you still become our enemy if that happened?”
“That’s our work.” It was a deep voice with all expression deadened. Even the sulky atmosphere from earlier had vanished, and a wall that seemed to shut everything out had been born.
Kusanagi decided it was time to go.
“…excuse me. Even though I just came to apologize, I ended up startin’ a long conversation.”
Kusanagi bowed one and stood up. As he was walking to the door, Shiotsu’s voice came.
“Not to mention us, I can’t recommend making an enemy out of the golden clan.”
“Thank you for your concern.”
“You.” Shiotsu’s voice rose for a moment. Kusanagi turned to look at him without thinking. His greying head could be seen from behind, still seated on the couch.
“…what do you think about the Kagutsu story?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you trying to act like it’s unrelated to you?”
Right then, Kusanagi shuddered slightly.
He inwardly clicked his tongue at the fact that he had.
“That your king, that Suou Mikoto is different from the previous red king, Kagutsu Genji… can you vow it?”
…He asked something unpleasant. Kusanagi made a complicated face somewhere between annoyance and a bitter smile. But, they had both asked something unpleasant. However, Kusanagi still didn’t feel the urge to talk self-deprecatingly like Shiotsu had.
“He’s different, our king.”
Shiotsu went ‘hmph’.
“I hate red kings. Their nature as king is too dangerous… Suou Mikoto might also become a Kagutsu at any little provocation.” “…by provocation, you mean?”
“Anything. A waver in his mentality, indulging in his power, strong interactions with another king… especially, killing another king.”
At the end of that sentence, Kusanagi suddenly remembered something he had heard before.
“The previous blue king passed away while trying to stop Kagutsu’s rampage, correct?”
“…yeah. In truth, he should’ve killed Kagutsu before he became like that. But, even if he had been able to, then the Crater’s name would’ve just changed from the Kagutsu Crater to… the Habari Crater. Our previous king was pulled along by Kagutsu before that, and his own Weismann value got messed up. If he had killed Kagutsu, his own Sword of Damocles would’ve fallen.”
The smell of tobacco filled the room. Kusanagi thought that it was a weirdly quiet place. Suddenly, he felt homesick for the noisiness of his bar.
“Regardless, should something happen to a king, another king is required in order to stop it. Now, there’s no longer a blue king… do you think there’s something you can do when your king crumbles?”
Kusanagi didn’t reply. He excused himself in a flat voice and left the room.
Apparently, Anna intended to become the blue king.
As he finished hearing that from Totsuka, Kusanagi sighed. Kusanagi, Suou, and the others were in Honami’s school. The sun had gone down, and the nighttime school grounds were sunk down in a creepy darkness. Honami was apparently working overtime, and was still working in the office. Anna was supposed to be reading a book beside her.
When Kusanagi had been contacted by Suou and ran to Honami’s school, there was no presence of anything suspicious around her. While being suspicious of his surroundings, he went ahead and waited for and met up with Suou and the others, and then because Anna was lonely… they claimed, they pushed her off on Honami.
“By the way, is this really okay? If it’s found out that people like us came into the school, would Honami-sensei get fired?” Said Totsuka with a smile that made it hard to tell whether he was worried or not. As he said that, he was sitting cheekily on someone’s seat. Kusanagi was lightly sitting on the desk of Totsuka’s seat. Suou was leaning at the window, while Yata, Fushimi, and Kamamoto were standing broken up within the classroom, and they were all grimacing. “The blue king… huh.” Kusanagi whispered quietly.
“I wonder if at the center, Anna-chan is… being made into a test subject for the sake of pursuing the ‘Slate’.” He couldn’t believe that Anna wanted to become a king of her own will. Thinking of how Anna was often worried about Honami, it was natural to think that she was being made to cooperate with the experiments for Honami’s safety. If that was the case, then it would stop being a problem that would simply be solved if they didn’t give Anna back to the center.
“…We might have to make this into a big deal, I guess.” Kusanagi sighed, got a cigarette out of his chest pocket, and put it in his mouth. As he was about to light it, he stopped himself. This was a school.
Putting his lighter away, Kusanagi fell into thought while moving the unlit cigarette in his mouth around.
“Weren’t that kid’s parents killed by the center?” Suddenly, Fushimi, who had been quiet until then, spoke up in a cold tone.
“Hey!”
Yata kicked back his chair and stood. Raising his eyebrows, he glared at Fushimi in a reproachful way. Fushimi glanced at Yata particularly coldly.
“Maybe that kid didn’t want to go to the center at first. Her parents felt that the center was suspicious, and tried not to hand her over. That’d mean the center would lose a good test subject… so, they killed her parents who were in the way and made it look like an accident.”
“Don’t say random things based off of your imagination!”
Fushimi went ‘hmph’ at Yata, who had stood up suddenly.
“…Kusanagi-san and everyone were thinking the same thing too, right?”
Yata quickly turned to look in Kusanagi’s direction. Kusanagi sighed lightly, and took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth.
“I’m thinkin’ the possibility isn’t low.”
At Kusanagi’s words, Yata looked shocked. Fushimi looked between Yata and Kusanagi with an uneasy face.
“Hasn’t that kid herself realized? Because there was a past case with her parents, she seriously thinks there might be a danger to her aunt… no.” It’s a bit different, Fushimi said as though talking to himself. Beyond his glasses, his cold eyes narrowed.
“Even if she’s noticed the possibility, she might be trying not to see it.”
Suddenly, Kusanagi felt like he might have heard a slight noise out in the hall. He frowned and got down from the desk he was on, going over to the door. He stuck his head out the door, but there was nothing but a dark hall and no one was around.
“Kusanagi-san? Is something up?” Kamamoto said questioningly. Kusanagi shook his head.
“Nah. I just thought I heard somethin’.” Returning to the inside of the classroom and turning back around, Kusanagi’s eyes met Yata’s, whose fists were shaking.
“If… if what Saru said was true, then we can’t forgive that, can we!”
If Anna had vaguely come to realize the truth behind her parents’ deaths and was pretending not to see.
Kusanagi thought and his mood became heavy. To Anna, ‘pretending not to see’ was different from a normal person’s. Because Anna ‘Sees’ without acceptance or denial. To look away from that would be nothing but denial of reality.
He tried to imagine how the world, how the truth reflected in Anna’s eyes… and stopped. Even if he thought about it, it wasn’t something Kusanagi could understand. It was the same as how he couldn’t truly understand how a king… how Suou saw the world, even if he thought about it.
(Ah-, this is no good. I’m draggin’ it along.)
Remembering what he had talked about with Shiotsu during the day, Kusanagi scratched his head.
“What’ll you do, Mikoto?”
Suou slowly looked up when addressed, while still leaning against the window.
“This is how things are. Like Totsuka said, makin’ Anna your clansman is one option too.”
Suou frowned in a complicated way.
“…I can’t make someone into a clansman if they’re not interested.”
“Want to try and convince her?”
When Totsuka tilted his head and said that, Suou’s face got even more complicated and he looked away.
“…it can’t hurt to not make a brat go bad, can it.”
Totsuka smiled wryly at those words that could also sound like they weren’t like Suou.
“I guess.”
As Suou looked out the window at the dark school grounds, he said ‘and before that we might as well,’
“Crush it.”
To those words thrown out casually, Yata raised his clenched fist.
“That’s right! Let’s go, Mikoto-san! There’s nothing to do but crush that inhumane facility, right! They owe me, too!”
Watching Yata who was getting all excited, Kusanagi let out a long breath.
“For now, we can finish this talk when we get home… I’ll go check on Honami-sensei and Anna-chan.”
As his head hurt because he felt like this was getting to be a troublesome situation, Kusanagi went out into the dark hall. When he walked towards the office’s light at the end of the hall, he heard footsteps following him in a hurry.
“Totsuka, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just thought I’d go too.” Smiling, Totsuka lined up beside Kusanagi.
“Kusanagi-san, you went to Scepter 4 today, didn’t you.” As he walked, Totsuka said this casually.
“Yeah.”
“Did something bad happen?”
Being asked that lightly, Kusanagi was at a loss for an answer momentarily. Stopping and looking to his side, Totsuka was watching him with a mysterious smile.
“It’s like, you’re a little tired, aren’t you.”
What a sharp-eyed guy, Kusanagi thought as he felt a complicated mix of being impressed and displeased.
“…not really. It wasn’t a real fun talk, so I just got a bit sentimental.”
“It must’ve been pretty big if it made Kusanagi-san sentimental.”
Being told that with a bright smile and teasing expression, he felt annoyed along with feeling a bit better. What a mysterious guy, Kusanagi thought rather late. He tried to start walking again, but his legs just wouldn’t move, so he opened his mouth while looking in the direction of the office.
“We can’t understand the world as Mikoto sees it.”
“Yeah.”
“We also can’t really understand the world as Anna-chan sees it, can we.”
“That’s true.”
“But… there might be just something between those two that they can share.”
“I think so, too.” Totsuka smiled transparently and nodded. Kusanagi felt like he could understand Totsuka’s feelings when he had wanted to bring Anna into Homura now.
They were holding down the things within them so that they wouldn’t spill out. That was what the two of them shared, most likely. There was no way to solve what those two were holding.
About the only thing they could do was offer momentary soothing, and continue to pull those two back from this side whenever they were almost swallowed up by what was inside.
Looking at Totsuka out of the corner of his eye, Kusanagi started walking again.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
“…what’s wrong, Kusanagi-san? Are you that seriously sentimental?”
“Shut it.”
When Kusanagi opened the office’s door, Honami was just getting ready to go home. She looked in Kusanagi and Totsuka’s direction while getting papers together and smiled.
“Ah, sorry to make you wait. I just finished my work. I can go ahead and leave…”
“Huh, Honami-sensei, what about Anna-chan?” Asked Totsuka, who had peeked into the office and realized that the small, doll-like form was nowhere to be seen. Right then, Honami’s smiling expression clouded uneasily.
“Eh? Anna hasn’t gone over there? She said she was going to go to Suou-kun and everyone, and left here just earlier…” Blood drained from Kusanagi’s face. When he reflexively looked beside him, Totsuka had also paled.
Anna had come to the classroom where they were talking.
At that time, what had they been speaking about?
“I’ll go look.” Totsuka said as he swiftly moved away.
Kusanagi soothed Honami, who was worried, and said he’d go check the classroom, then rushed back to where Suou and the others were.
…Weren’t that kid’s parents killed by the center.
…I’m thinkin’ that possibility isn’t low.
…Even if she’s realized the possibility, she might be trying not to see it.
If that conversation had entered Anna’s ears… cursing their own uncarefulness, Kusanagi ran down the hall.
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k side: red translation (a rainbow dream, part 1)
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(part 3)