Case of the Missing Lawmaker, Conclusion
I ask the girl to look after the lawmaker and wait for me. I tell her I'll be back soon. Erika and I ascend the stairs, my head pounding with each step I climb. On the second floor, we finally meet the enemy. I had expected to find them here; the four surviving familiars stand in our way.
I have no interest in them.
“Erika, do you think you're up for a bout with these things? They should be more of a challenge than the humans ahead.”
“Yeah. It'll be more fun.”
“Good. Enjoy yourself.” She charges into battle, attracting the monsters' attention. Four combat-type familiars should occupy her for perhaps ten minutes, maybe less if she's improved since the last time I saw here.
That should still give me enough time to do whatever I want.
I continue walking, moving towards the stairs to the top floor. One of the familiars leaps at me, but it is swiftly pinned to the ground by Erika, who now has a dagger in each hand. Ignoring the sights and sounds of carnage, I move on ahead. I remove the opaque lens in my right eye as I climb the stairs. I would prefer to have both eyes for what lies ahead.
“Are you okay? Your neural activity is-”
“I want silence, Yua. We will speak later.”
***
track: goldenslaughterer
I open the door casually. All as one, seven cultists turn to face me, expressions of shock on their faces. They had been standing in a circle lined with candles, presumably performing some ritual to leave this place. Their slowness is irritating. They should have attacked me immediately. Their faces are irritating. What is with that slack-jawed expression? But my headache is the most irritating thing of all. Activating my ability doesn't do a thing to stop it. I suppress all the annoyance I feel, and smile in greeting.
“You!” shouts a bearded man, probably Brother Falco, judging from the regalia decorating his robes. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to return something of yours.” I put my hand into my pocket, and slowly withdraw the broken rod. They gasp in horror. I notice one of the women cling onto the man besides her. That's really sweet – you really do find love in the strangest places.
“You bastard... you infidel!” screams Brother Falco. “What did you do to it?”
“It wasn't me,” I bow apologetically. “My friend broke it by accident. How much does it cost? I can pay.”
“Grab him! He must be punished for destroying a sacred relic!”
The first man to approach me tries to grab my handless arm, carelessly judging me by my appearance. Perhaps they have been preying on helpless women for too long. Right before his fingers encircle my wrist, I reach over with my left hand and grab them. If I just push back slightly in this direction... there we go. There is a loud pop as the joints of his fingers dislocate. He screams in pain. I raise my hand, forcing him to stretch up as he follows my lead. Then, I stamp down on his lower leg at an angle with all my strength. The tibia bends at its weakest point, where I have applied the most force, and splinters. His shin buckles inwards, and his scream turns into a shrill shriek. The man collapses, in too much pain to do anything but gurgle. The noise he's making is absolutely irritating. I put him out of his misery by crushing his neck underfoot.
I toss the broken rod to the floor in front of the stunned cultists, still smiling.
“Is that how you treat people who are kind enough to return what you lost?”
Brother Falco's face has turned purple with anger and fear. “You - you're with the government, aren't you? You're one of their augments!”
“This is just a job,” I shrug. “Maybe if you tell me why you did all this, I will let you go. I'm extremely curious about your reasons. I would appreciate it if you think of this little difficulty you are facing as a test.”
He does something predictable in reply – he orders his men to get their guns. What an idiot. This room is too small for them to fire without hitting one another. I spare them the misery of realizing their own foolishness. Before they can aim their rifles at me, my tendrils lash out, catching them by surprise and knocking the guns out of their hands.
“I'll give that zero points. Predictable and stupid.” I remark, as I capture one of the men with my tendrils. They tighten under his head. The man's eyes widen in surprise. Before he can cry out, I snap his neck, giving him a clean death.
By now, the cultists have backed away from me, huddling at the far wall, Brother Falco included.
“Great Mother protect me. You're not government...” he mumbles.
“Oh, no, your first guess was correct,” I grin as I walk towards them slowly. “I do work for the government.”
“You're not one of us either. I know every brother that has been blessed with the power of the Goddess's Messenger. What are you?”
“You mean these?” I raise the stump at the end of my right fore-arm, allowing the tendrils to thicken and solidify into the form of a black hand. Falco's eyes open wide, staring at me as he realizes my identity. How irritatingly slow. That girl down there is quicker than he.
“You were supposed to be dead.” he whispers. “She told us you were still dead, that it was all just propaganda of the Federation. No... you should be dead.”
“As you can see, the rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Now, about my question-”
Falco suddenly strikes at me, black tentacles of his own surging from his arms and streaming towards my face. I take a quick step backwards.
“Now, this is more like it! That's worth fifty points, and here I thought you weren't going to put up a fight!” I laugh.
Falco shouts to his cultists, a note of desperation in his voice. “It's the devil! The black nightmare that is the nemesis of our saviour! Fight him! We might not be able to win, but we can weaken him, for the glory of the Apostles and the sake of our Messiah!” They seem convinced, their morale suddenly bolstered. Should I be honored that they seem to have commemorated my existence in their teachings? I grin, but my pleasure soon falters.
They attack crudely, rushing headlong towards their doom. What is this? This is no fun. This is no challenge. It looks like the only entertainment I will get out of them will be to crush them and then sate my curiosity about their motives. I pick my target – the woman I had marked earlier. I dodge beneath their wild swings and send out my tendrils. They penetrate her skin, digging deep into her flesh, and twine themselves around her nerves. She lets out a long, drawn-out scream, as I puppet her in front of me as a hostage. Her man roars in rage, running straight at me. He is stopped by the woman, as I make her embrace him. His anger turns to terror, an expression reflected in the face of the woman, as her arms begin crushing his spine in a bear hug, my tendrils stimulating her muscles beyond their limits. The woman's arms begin to bruise as her muscles rupture and bleed from the strain. Falco's tendrils come for me from the right. I allow the mass of tendrils that have formed a makeshift hand to disperse and intercept his.
“Foul devil! Thief of the Messenger's powers!” he screams, flecks of spittle spraying in the air.
“If these are the Messenger's powers, they are wasted on you.” I chuckle. “Let me show you how they can be used.”
I retract my tendrils from the woman and her lover. They topple to the ground, locked together in death. My control over these black appendages is superb today. Concentrating, I reduce their thickness, making them thinner and thinner. The flowing mass of extremely thin tendrils looks like a floating wave of black wire, and I allow these to wash over the remaining two cultists, slicing their flesh into ribbons wherever the wiry tendrils touch them. Falco's own tendrils only succeed in splitting themselves apart as he tries futilely to pull his subordinates away from my grasp. The floor of the room is soaked in blood by the time I finish, though my victims had stopped screaming long before then.
Brother Falco screams. As he points his hands at me, blood begins to stream from his ears and nose. With intense effort, a spark of flame blossoms from his hand, growing as large as a man's head. It flies towards me.
Blue specks begin flowing into my vision. Fire has an end. It can be starved. I cut the fire apart, tracing the lines easily. It breaks up and flickers into non-existence.
Falco backs up against the wall, his bearded face pale and terrified in the sickly light filtering in from the grey windows. He fumbles within his robes and brings out a rod – identical to the one that we had broken.
“Stay back! If you don't I will break it! Then none of us are getting out!”
I laugh out loud.
“How did you think I managed to get here after breaking the other one? I don't need this toy to travel between worlds.”
“That can't be...” He falters for a second. That's all the time I need. My tendrils seize his hand, tearing it off at the wrist and bringing the rod back to me. Falco screeches in agony, clutching his bleeding stump.
“I lied. I
do need this, thank you. Still, that was not a bad trick. Seventy points, but showing me the rod was a mistake. Was that the last card you had to play?” I ask, looking at the maimed cultist. He is the only one left alive in a room full of the dead.
“Goddess...”
“Your goddess can't save you here. Now, all I want to know is your reason. Why did you kidnap those women and kill them?”
“Our rituals give us strength.” mumbles Falco. “Strength to strike back against the Federation. We would make them scared. Terrified.”
I frown in disappointment. “That's it? That's your master plan?” I had expected more. This man really is worthless.
“What did you expect?” he screams suddenly, glaring at me. “This is all I can do for the sake of the Apostles, you demon! I give the Goddess my life! If you're going to kill me, do it!”
I chuckle. There's some defiance left in him yet. Very well, I should squeeze all the pleasure I can get from this waste of time.
“You have quite the mouth on you, Brother Falco.” I slice off his right leg at the knee. He tumbles to the floor, dark red blood spurting from his thigh. “A worm like you doesn't have the right to look at me. Squirm on the floor and contemplate your mistakes.”
Before he can reply, I stamp on his remaining hand, crushing his fingers under my heel.
“Whatever answer you were going to give was wrong. Tell me now, how do you really feel?”
“I... Please don't kill me. I don't want to die. Spare me, please. I renounce the saviour. I've answered your questions. I'll do whatever you want. Let me go. It hurts. It hurts so much. Please.” whimpers the Third Hierarch incoherently between his moans of pain, his eyes still fixed on the floor as I have ordered.
“Very well then,” I say. “Look at me.” Falco turns his head upwards slowly as he raises himself on one elbow, a mixture of hope and fear clouding his features. Although the lines are ever-shifting on him, as with every living being, for the first time, I notice that they originate from one single point, on the center of his blood-stained chest. This must be his origin. I grin. What happens if I touch it?
I slowly raise a finger and put it against the chest of the puzzled cultist.
I push, gently.
It sinks in without any resistance. Brother Falco looks on, amazed. “It doesn't hurt-”
He fractures along every single line spreading from that point, his body imploding in a red mist. What is left is just a pile of meat and bone.
As I get up, flicking off the blood that had gotten on my hand, Erika opens the door. I hear an involuntary hiss escape her lips. It looks like the sight of the slaughter shocks even her. I turn to her with a sad smile.
“Self-defense. You know how it is. Watch your step, the floor is slippery.”
***
The rod was easy enough to activate - there is no need for elaborate rituals at all - and we return with no other difficulties, Erika carrying the lawmaker on her back and the girl clinging onto my hand. Somehow, some part of me had thought it wise to hide the end of her comrades from her. I just told her that they would never appear again. Erika agreed to keep quiet about the surviving cultist, reluctantly, when I promised her sandwiches. I told her to leave the explanation to me, and to get the lawmaker to the hospital. She seemed withdrawn and nervous, as if there is something wrong about me, but I assured her that it would be fine. When we exit the deserted store, we find that it is already night. It looks like time passes at roughly the same rate between the two worlds.
As we part ways, I stumble back home, my headache slowly receding ever since we left that world.
“Yua.” I mumble.
“Yes?” She sounds extremely worried.
“Do you have a record of my neural activity over the past six hours?”
“Yes.”
“I want to know what happened to me. Start an analysis and compare it with my baseline records, then tell me what you think.”
“It'll take some time. The activity is strange-”
“That is fine.” I snap. “Just do it.”
“Yes, very well.”
I recall what I did to the cultists. Bile begins rising in my throat. It's not like I haven't killed before, but those men had died in their CFs. It was a detached killing. This is different... so different. I didn't
need to kill them, and definitely not in that manner. Groaning, I close my eyes and see nothing but the warm red blood pooling on the grey floor. Then, I vomit, remembering the state I had left the bodies in. I blink back the tears that had formed from the acrid taste of stomach acid in my mouth.
Why the hell
had I done that?
***
The next day, we make our report to Chief Sadomura. He nods as I give him the broken rod and tell him briefly about the other world. I do not mention anything about the white creature, nor what happened to the cultists. Erika remains silent and lets me finish the explanation.
“So, once you got there, you found the lawmaker, and the perpetrators were gone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is most interesting. Our analysts will go over this artifact carefully and let you know what we fine. I'm sure you'll be interested in it too. You've done a great job for your first time, rookie. The family of the lawmaker send their regards, and have donated a considerable sum as a reward. The case won't make it to trial, but we'll consider it solved for now. There are more important things to tackle.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Are you guys alright?”
I smile awkwardly. “It was tiring, sir. The other world is disturbing.”
“I see. Well, I wish I could give you some rest, but we received some bad news this morning.”
“What is it?”
“Ten thousand people committed group suicide overnight, leaping from various tall buildings around Higashi. They posted about their intention on 7ch shortly before doing so. All of them were prominent members in that community.”
“I see. What do you need me to do, sir?”
“Nothing much. This is a serious job for the veterans. We already have a lead. Someone with the online handle of Cyber Jack claims responsibility. Of course, it could be just a wacko aiming for internet fame, but we aren't ruling anything out for now. I have other duties for you to do, since most of our men are busy tracking down this Cyber Jack.”
***
A. There have been rumours of a smuggling operation based in the nightclubs of Rakuten, an artificial island which had been constructed for the augment community off Edo Bay. The smugglers are bringing in drugs and illegal augments. Some even say that combat frames are being sold on the black market. I am to infiltrate the operation and return with names and details. The chief thinks I should be able to handle an assignment of this magnitude, as I'm not expected to bring down the entire organization by myself.
B. A national idol requires a bodyguard. She's taking part in the filming of the blockbuster propaganda film 'Flight of the Kaguya-hime', which is currently being produced in Kyoto, but recently she's received weird letters from Cyber Jack. Her manager doesn't want police presence, which would create rumours, and calls have been made all the way up to the higher ups in the Federation to pull strings for a bodyguard from this department. The chief thinks this is a distraction by Cyber Jack, but to be better safe than sorry.
