The Destruction of the World by Fire (17 page)

After they walked for a while, Rentaro saw a mountain of trash blocking their way. Once they got past that, the open meadow would be spread out in front of them. And as long as they had a blackboard and students, it didn’t matter where they were—it was a classroom.

The closer Rentaro got to their destination, the more nervous he got. But for some reason, it wasn’t a comfortable nervousness but an ominous premonition. Just then, Rentaro noticed an unpleasant smell and covered his mouth and nose with his hand.

Was it the smell of something burning? Why?
When he saw a police officer from afar, Rentaro’s heart skipped. The whole area was cordoned off with caution tape. That was exactly the place Rentaro and the others used for their outdoor classroom. Even though he had no idea why the policeman was there, all his hairs stood on end nervously.

The eyes of the hoodlums from the city flashed through his mind. “
The ones you civil officers are protecting are those brats after all, huh?
”

As the distance between them shrunk to ten meters, the policeman also noticed them and walked over.

“Enju, stay here…,” Rentaro whispered.

“R-Rentaro?”

Leaving Enju, Rentaro went to face the officer and exchanged a few words. There was sadness in his face. Finally, the man opened his mouth. His words were few, and cruel.

The blood drained from Rentaro’s face. The things around him faded into oblivion, and the scene twisted. He didn’t hear anything else the officer had to say. He even forgot to thank the officer as he turned around and returned to Enju.

When Enju saw his face, she froze. Fearfully touching his face with his hands, he felt his dried-out skin and tense muscles. “Enju, let’s go home. You don’t have to go to school today.”

“Wh-why? Why all of a sudden—?”

Rentaro didn’t say anything.

“Then, early tomorrow morning for just a little bit…”

“You don’t have to go tomorrow, either.”

Enju gasped. “Then, then, after we finish fighting—”

“You don’t have to go the day after, or the day after that, or the day after that.” Rentaro put both hands on Enju’s shoulders and met her eyes. “Enju, listen to me calmly—”

His nails almost dug into her shoulders. He couldn’t meet her eyes and looked down. “A bomb exploded in our class. Because of that news report.”

Rentaro followed along as he was taken through the gloomy building with moldy black concrete and was made to wait in front of the door. He lifted his eyes to read the words on the sign over and over and tried to reconnect with the reality that he had lost, but he couldn’t focus, and his thoughts were disordered and fragmented.

Finally, the door opened, and a police officer in his late thirties appeared wearing white nitrile rubber gloves, and he beckoned Rentaro listlessly. It would have been nice if it had been Inspector Tadashima, whose face he knew, but it appeared to be a different jurisdiction. Rentaro made a silent bow and went inside.

It was a concrete room with an area of about six tatami mats. The lighting was dim, and it smelled of incense. The inside was full of stretchers covered with white cloths, and because it was summer, a sour smell was mixed in. There were a total of nine inside. There were apparently more in the room next door.

Rentaro shook his head. He just wanted to yell at them to stop messing around. There was no way this was reality.
Just let me wake up from this ridiculous dream right now.
He was overcome with the desire to yell that out. However, no matter how long he waited, the nightmare would not end.

The inspector with the tired eyes spread his arms perfunctorily.
“Well, it’s great that you can confirm these. It’s kind of soon but take a look.” Saying that, he roughly flipped back the first white sheet.

As he did so, the cloying smell of blood spread, and Rentaro gagged and covered his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut. The body in front of Rentaro forced him to confront the reality that he had been half avoiding. He would be having nightmares every night for a while and did his best to swallow his nausea.

After he calmed his heaving stomach, the first thing he heard was the sound of the air conditioner running. Rentaro shook his head desperately with his hand still covering his mouth. “This is terrible… I can’t believe something like this happened…”

“In order to increase its destructive power, a large amount of Varanium fragments were stuffed inside. It was terrible. The victims were Children who didn’t belong to any family registers, much less have IDs. You’ll have to verify their identities.”

“What about Mr. Matsuzaki?”

“Oh, that old man? He’s fine, but he’s laid up in bed from the shock.”

Rentaro turned his head and, looking over the depressing number of stretchers around him, took a pair of rubber gloves selflessly.

Had
all
of these been his students? There was no way. Yet his instincts told him that if he didn’t do something, the despair would swallow him up whole, and freeze his feet to the floor. However, that feeling was soon overwritten by hellish despair. Every time Rentaro lifted a sheet, his eyes encountered a new hell.

He girded his breaking heart and carefully told the names of the girls one by one to the inspector next to him, who was taking notes with a binder in one hand. It was surprisingly similar to the morning roll call.

He wondered how the perpetrators felt right now. Were they holding their stomachs and laughing because they were successful? Were they satisfied? Or did they feel the slightest bit of remorse?

When the long hand on the clock made about one circle, the
hellish torture finally ended. He was so completely exhausted that he could barely stand.

Signing the documents and turning his back on the voice that said, “Good work,” he went outside, dragging his feet until he came to sit in the waiting room. He wanted to fall asleep then and there.

Just then, a “Let go!” ripped through the hall. In front of him, he saw Enju struggling desperately as she was held down by two police officers. Shaken for a moment, Rentaro took a deep breath to calm his heart and walked briskly over to the girl, a stern expression on his face. “Why did you come here? I told you to go home!”

“I want to see Micchan! I promised Sasana I’d show her
Tenchu Girls
next time!” Enju yelled.

“Enju, you understand, right? They’re already—”

“It’s a lie! They’re all lies!”

Enju, you…
Rentaro closed his eyes and rebuked his half-flinching heart. He knew what he had to do. Rentaro looked quietly at the police officer near him. “Throw her out.”

Enju looked at him like he had betrayed her. “Rentaro? Rentaro? Rentaro…!”

Listening to her wails grow farther away as she was pinned down on both sides and dragged away, Rentaro’s fist shook and he gritted his teeth. Just as she was out of Rentaro’s field of vision, suddenly, the officers on either side of her were knocked down, and Enju rushed back toward him.

Her eyes were red. She had released her power.

“Hey, idiot. Stop—” Before he could finish his sentence, he was blown back by a strong force, and the next thing he knew, his hands were on the ground. Looking back reflexively, he realized that she had gone into the morgue behind him.

What had just—? The air trembled for a moment, but it could also have been Enju’s sob. But the next instant, a shriek echoed inside the police station. It was a scream the regular Enju would never have screamed that could crush the hearts of those who heard it.

Rentaro closed his eyes hard and held his ears as hard as he could.
He wanted to avert his eyes for just an instant from the harsh reality of it all.

When he pushed the iron door open, a strong, slanted gust of wind greeted him. The clouds were moving surprisingly fast, just like they had been that morning.

Rentaro went to the fence and held it with his left hand, staring at the bleached Monolith in the distance. Civil officers couldn’t cry every time someone died. Hardening their hearts was something they all had to master sooner or later.

Seeing that Enju had calmed down after crying herself to exhaustion, Rentaro went to the roof of the police station. Right before he left her, Enju was even able to muster the strength to smile at him to thank him for his consideration, but when Rentaro saw that, it made him feel the impending danger even more.

Rentaro pulled out the bundle of handouts from his bag with his right hand. They were the future dreams he had his students write for fun after the quiz. Idol singer, actress, pastry chef, nurse, wife. It brimmed with various hopes that would never come true.

Lynching and killing with bombs. What made the hearts of the citizens of Tokyo Area so devastated that they would do such things? In the past, Rentaro had been taught that humans possessed both high intelligence and virtue and were true social animals, that they were the beings closest to God. Then why did they kill each other like beasts? How could they destroy each other’s hopes and dreams? Why in the world could they machinate such stupid things?

Damn it
, he muttered in his heart.
What in the world was I looking at? The ones who really needed a helping hand were those girls.

There was a gust of wind on the roof, and Rentaro’s uniform fluttered. The papers in his hand were also blown up, making an arc in the sky, spinning and undulating as they danced in the air. Rentaro
gripped the fence tightly with both hands, his body shaking.
Sorry, everyone. It was my fault. I’m truly sorry.

Rentaro gritted his teeth and looked up at the sky. The Monolith in the distance seemed to be pressing near to his chest.

It was then that the cell phone in his breast pocket started to vibrate. Seeing the name on the screen, he hesitated for a moment but then finally pressed the button to pick up.

“
Can you talk now?
” said the voice on the other end.

Rentaro looked up at the Monolith and closed his eyes miserably. “I’m embarrassed to be part of the Stolen Generation. Even though they trample the Children and laugh, they still expect us to defeat Aldebaran… But we still have to do it… Damn it!”

“
You knew that when you first became a civil officer, didn’t you? You must carry it out, Satomi. That is what a civil officer does.
”

“But Kisara, don’t you always say to carry out justice? Tell me, where is the justice in this vat of filth that is Tokyo Area?”

“
That’s not it, Satomi. That’s why we have to fight. If we win and save Tokyo Area, then there may be a few more people who will abandon their swords of hate and change the way they think. Satomi, didn’t you say it in front of those girls, too? ‘Bear it. And don’t even think about getting even.’ Did you say that even though it wasn’t what you thought just because you wanted to look cool in front of those girls? That’s not it, right? Please, Satomi, let your mind be filled with righteous light. Don’t abandon your heart of justice.
”

Rentaro put his hand to his temple as he shook his head. “I don’t know what face to make as I fight beside Enju…”

“
I don’t know either. But you can’t run from her.
”

“…Being a civil officer is a terrible trade, isn’t it?”

“
But that’s why it’s worth doing.
”

Rentaro looked up at the sky and exhaled deeply.

“
Have you calmed down a little?
”

“Yeah, thanks, Kisara.”

Kisara teased, “
I’m actually a pretty devoted woman, you know.
”

“How’s Tina?”

“
She’s fine. She’s calmed down.
”

“Then, what about you…?”

“
I’m fine, too.
”

“I see…” If that’s what she said, then he was probably supposed to ignore the slight shaking in her nasally voice. Still, the anger that was budding inside him was like a banked fire, burning brightly at a high temperature. But right now, he would not think about the absurdity of it. He had to aim that spearhead at Aldebaran.

Rentaro felt optimistic as he looked out over the Outer Districts. “Then, I’ll go back soon to see how Enju’s doing.”

After Kisara gave herself some time to think, she was sure to say, “Got it.” But she stopped in the middle of those words, and the Kisara at the other end of the line shook violently, and he could hear her gasping breaths.

“Hey, Kisara—”

“
It’s begun, Satomi.
”

Rentaro frowned. But before he could say another word, the woman on the other end of the phone spoke again. “
Look at the Monolith.
”

Rentaro raised his gaze from the ground. A ripple of shock went from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.

First, a corner of the rectangle collapsed. But that immediately led to the next collapse. The large body of the cracked Monolith finally couldn’t stand up against the Varanium corrosion fluid and let out a scream, and then nothing could stop the chain reaction.

From where Rentaro was, he couldn’t hear the sound of the collapse, but that made the shriek of the Monolith even clearer. Abruptly, the whole bleached Monolith became fatally cracked, and the Monolith looked like it was shrugging its shoulders as it completely disintegrated. Chills shot down Rentaro’s spine.

The collapsing structure looked like time-lapse photography, falling from its base with fragments peeling off. It would crash to the ground in no time. There was a roar, and Rentaro was suddenly hit with a rumbling from the ground—a shock wave—making Rentaro raise his arms and grit his teeth. The intense vibration shook Rentaro from his feet to his guts, and the shock wave blew away the surrounding debris, rotting signs, and sheet metal.