Chapter 523: 521
By the time Shiba Miori came to her senses, her expression had darkened. She hurried after Tendo Kisara, who was already leaving.
“Kisara, what did you do to these Cursed Children?”
The Cursed Children living in the Outer District received almost no education. They were left to fend for themselves.
Normally, even after one was adopted, she needed time to train with her partner before she could take the field as an Initiator.
Yet these girls had undergone an astonishing transformation in barely half a day. Someone must have done something to them. They followed orders with the unquestioning obedience of machines.
Kisara merely smiled at the accusation.
“Take a guess.”
Her deliberately sweet, girlish voice only made Miori more uneasy.
“You and the doctor have been secretly experimenting on these children, haven’t you? There’s something wrong with the vaccine!”
The vaccine had already been successfully administered to a Cursed Child. A blind girl had volunteered to receive the first injection, and so far, she seemed fine.
However, they had held off on vaccinating the others, saying they needed to observe her longer before proceeding with mass inoculations. They couldn’t take chances with the children’s lives.
But that didn’t rule out secretly giving them something else. They could have mixed it into their food, for instance. Perhaps that was what had turned these girls into this.
It wasn’t that Miori was particularly softhearted. Kisara’s behavior was simply so chilling that it frightened her.
“Hey, hey! What nonsense are you spouting? I haven’t conducted any special experiments on those children.”
The indignant voice coming through the facility’s speakers belonged to Dr. Muroto Sumire.
“Tendo, these aren’t human, are they? Where are the real Cursed Children?”
A nearby screen lit up, showing Sumire searching the shelter. She tapped on the walls, apparently looking for hidden compartments.
But Miori was far more concerned with what the doctor had just said.
The Cursed Children leaving the facility weren’t the real ones?
Then what were they?
The fear of the unknown sent a faint tremor through her body.
“Doctor, you mean these children really aren’t human?”
“That’s right. Their movements are too precise. So precise that only one possibility comes to mind.”
“What?”
“Robots.”
R-Robots?
Miori stared in disbelief. These girls, indistinguishable from living human beings, were robots?
She couldn’t tell at all!
“Doctor, I’m going to collect a debt. You should stay in the facility. You’ll be safer here. Even a nuclear strike won’t hurt you.”
Instead of answering Sumire’s question, Kisara left her with that remark and headed into the city.
Whose debt was she going to collect?
Judging by her direction, she was making straight for the operations headquarters in Tokyo Area’s First District, where the leadership had gathered.
Were these “Cursed Children” an army she intended to use to clear a path?
This was bad.
Miori hurried after her.
Fifteen minutes later, they had entered the city. Chaos was everywhere.
They had already encountered more than a dozen Gastrea along the way, attacking people who hadn’t managed to reach shelter.
Only twenty or so Gastrea had initially broken through the air defenses. Finding more than a dozen while passing through less than ten percent of the city was a terrifying sign.
Every person a Gastrea killed could become another member of its horde.
Meanwhile, the civil security force sent to Monolith No. 11 to intercept the Gastrea army’s flanking contingent had only just arrived. Before they could finish taking up formation, they were ordered back into the city to eliminate the creatures spreading through the streets.
The entire city looked as though it had become a war zone.
Yet five hundred civil security pairs, a thousand Initiators and Promoters in all, would probably struggle to eradicate the infestation. The Gastrea could multiply faster than they could be killed.
In practice, however, the outbreak was being contained.
And the reason was the group of “Cursed Children” Kisara had brought with her.
They were an army of killing machines. Watching them made Miori’s scalp prickle.
As she and Kisara proceeded deeper into the city, the girls spread out, dispersing through its streets and into every corner.
At the operations headquarters in Tokyo Area’s First District, despair had taken hold.
Roughly seventy percent of the population remained. With the Gastrea inside the city spreading the infection, the number of monsters could rise at an explosive rate.
Everyone present had all but given up hope, including Seitenshi.
Then an unexpected force joined the battle.
The Cursed Children from the Outer District.
Their intervention checked the spread of the infection. At the rate they were killing the creatures, they might even eliminate the Gastrea entirely.
Yet most of the people watching them on the conference room’s screens were frightened.
Every Cursed Child from the Outer District appeared to be participating, aside from those under five.
And their combat skills were extraordinary.
How could they have suddenly become so capable? Children raised in those conditions should never have possessed that kind of fighting ability.
They were practically a trained army.
No, more than that. They fought like veterans, an army already accustomed to killing.
Was this why that mysterious man had gathered the Cursed Children from the Outer District?
What had he done to them?
Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been humane.
The thought only deepened their fear of the enigmatic young man.
Suddenly, panicked shouts from the guards rang out beyond the conference room.
Bang!
The doors were forced open, and a figure strode inside.
“Finally lost the patience to settle your score?”
“Yes. I really couldn’t wait any longer.”
The icy exchange between the old man and the young woman made Seitenshi tense.
The newcomer was Tendo Kisara, who clearly commanded that army of Cursed Children.
And now she appeared ready to turn her blade on her grandfather, Tendo Kikunojo.
“Kazumitsu. Bring me my sword.”
The man Kikunojo addressed was Tendo Kazumitsu, another of his grandchildren. He was Kisara’s older half brother and the vice minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
Kazumitsu took down a sword hanging elsewhere in the conference room and brought it to him.
Seitenshi tried to speak.
“Lady Seitenshi, stay out of this. What happens here today is beyond your power to intervene. Please remain there and watch.”
Kikunojo slowly drew the blade.
The instant it cleared its sheath, a head flew into the air.
Seitenshi froze.
As far as she could see, Kikunojo had merely drawn his sword. She hadn’t seen him strike anyone. Now he was calmly inspecting the blade.
Beside him, Kazumitsu still held the empty scabbard.
His head had simply leaped from his shoulders, leaving a clean cut across his neck.
“I thought you’d gotten old and useless. Looks like I can still expect something from you. But killing my dear brother? Who gave you permission to do that?”
To an onlooker, Kisara might have seemed furious that her brother had been murdered.
Standing beside her, Miori understood something else.
Kisara had wanted to kill him herself.
She was angry because someone had beaten her to it.
“M-Mr. Kikunojo, you…”
“There is nothing to fear, Lady Seitenshi. My loyalty to you is beyond question. As for why I killed Kazumitsu, he deserved it. He was responsible for the construction of Monolith No. 32. He cut corners so severely that he brought about today’s disaster!”
“Oh? Lord Tendo, are you saying you only just learned what my dear brother had done? You must have known long ago. You simply didn’t expect him to be so greedy that the Monolith would fail this badly.”
Kisara’s voice dripped with contempt.
“I have no intention of denying my own sins. But tell me, Kisara. Do you intend to destroy Tokyo Area, or save it? If you mean to save it and change the Cursed Children’s circumstances as well, the strength you’ve shown so far is insufficient.”
“Insufficient? Take a look at the sky.”
The sky?
“Y-Young Mistress! Look at the sky! No, at space!”
Miori still had an open connection to her company. A voice suddenly burst through it, shaking uncontrollably.
But she was inside a conference room. How was she supposed to look at the sky, let alone space?
The other end of the line had dissolved into chaos. Everyone sounded too frightened to work. She could hear people babbling about an alien invasion.
About humanity being wiped out.
Nothing made sense.
Then the satellite images began to arrive.
What they showed…
Miori fell silent.
Utterly silent.
A few seconds later, the same images appeared on the conference room’s displays. On those larger screens, the sight was even more overwhelming.
There, in orbit around Earth, was an enormous object several kilometers long.
(End of Chapter)
“Zaelum”]