"Ha, ha, ... n, gu ... fuha ... "
Inside a large van speeding along.
The seat was reclined to a full flat position, and there lay the demon girl, breathing heavily, on her back.
Veronica, a Soviet agent.
Veronica clutched the blood pack she held upside down, and when she confirmed that nothing came out, she sighed seductively, a drop of liquid dripping from her lips. The dark red liquid that had been roughly splattered stained not only the wound but also the inside of the car. It even landed on the feet of three boys and girls, about 12 or 13 years old, who were hiding nearby, but they didn't even flinch. They waited patiently for orders from their superiors, like trained military dogs. That's how well-behaved they were.
"Comrade Veronica"
A young boy, his pale skin moving, asks a question.
Where he pointed, lay the horribly mutilated corpse of a boy, his upper body remaining. A starter's cord was protruding from his chest.
"Aren't you going to take out the chainsaw's heart?"
"ah ... "
Veronica answered briefly while lying on her back.
Blood replenishment was complete, but the wounds wouldn't heal immediately. Rest was necessary to recover strength.
"Hmm, uh, uhh ... Phew ... I almost died ... "
"Comrade"
"What ... "
"Let's remove the heart. It will be easier to transport."
"You're being persistent. Who's in command of your team right now?"
"This is Comrade Veronica."
"Well, then just shut up and obey ... That's what I'd like to say, but oh well. ... Phew. I'm a kind senior, after all. For your own learning, I'll teach you. Listen, there's a reason why I'm leaving Hayakawa Denji as he is.
It's to reel in Reze."
"Reze ... You're the owner of Bomb's heart, aren't you?"
"Oh, that's right."
Veronica sat up and crossed her legs. She looked at the three guinea pigs that were within arm's reach, then at the boy in the driver's seat, and finally at the corpse lying beside her.
"This Hayakawa Denji lived in the same dwelling as the Control Devil. ... You know the Control Devil,
right?"
"I reviewed the materials during the briefing."
"Huh? You only wrote the bare minimum there was. ... Hmph, let me tell you. The previous Control Devil, Makima, apparently controlled and manipulated even corpses."
"A corpse ...? "
"That's right. So even though it's a corpse, it's being controlled. It might start moving at this very
moment."
The boys and girls' faces tensed. They hastily pulled out silenced guns from their pockets.
Veronica, on the other hand, was in a relaxed mood.
"His reaction speed is decent, but he lacks imagination."
They say it so brazenly.
"Calm down. This thing is missing everything below its stomach and both its wrists. No matter how it moves, it won't pose a threat."
"But comrade, this guy is a weaponized human. If you pull the trigger, even missing body parts will
regenerate."
"If only I could pull it. But I don't have a wrist. Even if I could move it, there's no way I could pull it."
" ... surely"
The boys slowly lowered their guns, but their shoulders remained tense.
Veronica says:
"This guy was living with a demon of control. So there's no doubt he's being controlled. Because demons can't help but harm humans in that way. ... And, being controlled means he's become a terminal. Think of it like being connected wirelessly."
The corpse doesn't move a muscle. But Veronica says it's emitting a signal like a beacon.
I'm here, you see.
Track them down.
Ever since being kidnapped, she has been continuously informing the boss, the Dominating Demon.
Someone swallowed hard.
"For example, if we dismembered this body and left only Chainsaw's heart, we might not be tracked
anymore. But that won't do. Reze won't chase us. This body of Hayakawa Denji will be bait for our second mission."
"Isn't the risk too great?"
Even if they deliberately let them pursue them, it wasn't guaranteed that only Reze would show up.
Kishibe, who had just repelled Veronica, and other members of the Public Security Bureau might also appear, or even worse, all of Japan's public agencies might get ahead of them and block their path.
Leaving them alone would have been an act of barbarism.
However, Veronica doesn't seem to mind.
"There are two tasks. It's pointless unless you complete both. Are you trying to make me a failure?"
"but ... "
"What are you so scared of? Let me give you some advice. Those who take things seriously will have their spirits broken by the reality that they might die tomorrow. But only the fools who think, 'I'm invincible, this won't frighten me,' will survive. It's a well-known fact, isn't it?"
"That's about soldiers. We're different.
"Is that so? You're still just soldiers."
Veronica flopped down, looking up at the ceiling, and twisted her cheeks into a sarcastic grin.
"Alright, since we're here, I'll give you a lecture. We, the inhabitants of the secret room, are first stripped of everything. We are stripped bare and rebuilt into soldiers to serve our homeland. ... That's the stage you're currently on. I'm a kind senior, so I'll teach you about the next stage."
Veronica reaches into the pocket of her tattered skirt. A single flower appears. A cheap flower that
Hayakawa Denji had given her as a gift. She picks it up with her fingertips, holds it up to the ceiling, and spins it around.
After you become a soldier, you'll be taught common sense. The common sense of the world, of society.
The naive, misguided, and ridiculous belief in the inherent goodness of people ... You have to know these things, otherwise you won't be able to blend in with the general public. For example, family. Parents.
School. Friends. Romance. A normal life ... "
The flowers spin. Round and round.
Goodwill. Kindness. Veronica continues to gaze at these symbols of kindness with a distant look in her eyes.
"It's really tough to be shown something like that. I mean, think about it. We guinea pigs had our lives
completely destroyed. We were taught to live only as warriors, and instilled with the belief that completing
missions was the only thing that mattered, and then afterwards they tell us that all of that was actually
wrong? It's a mess. Some of us went crazy because we couldn't make sense of it anymore."
"What about you?"
"So, you're saying I'm weird too?"
"home ..."
"Well, I won't deny it. It's true that I've developed a strange fetish. ... Everyone's a liar, and every teaching
is questionable. That's why I like hearing screams. It's reassuring. There's no falsehood in them."
" ... I don't really understand. But there's one thing I can say for sure."
"What?"
"We can become warriors who can properly contribute to our nation."
Three boys and girls, each holding a silenced pistol.
Without warning, they all turned their weapons towards Veronica at once.
"I'm different from you."
It spewed flames.
A series of hissing sounds, like air escaping, can be heard. Over and over again.
Even a demon would die after being hit enough times, and several muffled groans escaped his lips.
And then, without a trace, silence returned as if nothing had happened.
... This was the boys' mission.
The guardian of the demon whose words and actions are unstable --
They were also given the authority to carry out executions if necessary.
Veronica was clearly fixated on her former classmate, Reze.
"To the point of misjudging the balance between risk and reward."
-That's what the boys thought they should report.
I don't know what the actual situation is.
They were only concerned with achieving results for themselves and making their existence recognized by their home country.
The boy in the driver's seat surveyed the outside of the car emotionlessly.
The car windows are tinted. Naturally, no ordinary person walking down the street notices.
Everything was going smoothly.
All that's left is to dismember Denji Hayakawa's body at a nearby hiding spot and take out Chainsaw's heart. If we can escape before the Control Devil captures us, our safety will be practically guaranteed.
Finally, if we can reach the designated port, we can return to our homeland. Then we'll gain recognition.
The four of us will finally be given the names we've always wanted.
The boy even felt his heart race just a little.
I turn on the turn signal to make a left turn.
Then, I sensed a comrade approaching from the back seat, letting out a small sigh. He touched the back of my neck, and I felt a chill. No, rather, I felt a lukewarm sensation.
The smell of blood hangs in the air.
"Not that way. Go straight ahead."
It was Veronica's voice.
" --!? "
"What's wrong? I'm telling you, not left. Turn off your turn signal."
A head slithers up from behind my shoulder. A distinctive head with two metal rods stuck in it. The head of a demon. The large, bulging eyes of a non-human being, who should have been killed, stare intently at the windshield.
I haven't seen the boy.
Yet he can't move.
His neck was firmly gripped by the five fingers of the scissor demon.
"Turn off the turn signal."
I had no choice but to delete it.
"That's good, just keep going straight. I just taught you that, didn't I? Whether you're heading towards a cliff or the sea, just say, 'I'm invincible, this doesn't scare me at all'."
Hesitantly, I checked the rearview mirror, and saw that immature arms and legs were sticking out in
pieces at the bottom of the narrow mirror surface.
"Well, their way of life is so similar to how I used to be that, as a kind senior, I felt I had to stop them. -
So, what about you?"
The Scissors Genie leans forward and switches on the radio.
"Hey, are you going to dedicate everything to your country too?"
On the other side of a single pane of glass-
As she gazed upon a peaceful world untouched by the smell of blood, Veronica hummed a sarcastic tune.
A gentle melody began to play from the car's speakers.
Over the Rainbow
Somewhere high in the sky beyond the rainbow
There is a country I heard about in a lullaby.
The sky beyond the rainbow is blue.
All the dreams you believe in will become reality.
A song that contemplates fantasies that can never be realized.
It's a globally popular song, and it was even used in a drama that Veronica studied to create common ground with Japanese people when she came to Japan.
It was a scene of a man and a woman riding a bicycle together through the city at night.
The man pedaling the bicycle is an imposter, impersonating the CEO of a major corporation.
The figure with a happy expression on his face, arms wrapped around him from behind, is the corpse of his secretary, who was murdered when she tried to expose him.
The secretary had feelings for the man.
However, the man was an imposter. His name and identity were fake; in reality, he was just a poor man.
Only the genuine article is recognized in this world.
The secretary was murdered to silence her, and her corpse wandered the night streets with the man
riding on a motorcycle.
Two people who could never be together in life finally find peace together only when one of them dies.
The sight is terribly immoral, horrifying, yet fantastical and beautiful.
The large white van continues to drive.
Chasing the setting sun, its orange glow.
"I just want to find out... Reze. I want to hear your true voice."
I'm running through the night sky with Hayakawa Nayuta on my back.
I grabbed onto the building's eaves, leaped off the rooftop fence, and soared through the air.
Artificial stars shone upon us.
Skyscrapers reach towards the sky. Through the lattice-framed windows, glimpses of the workers' daily lives spill out, and looking down, the stream of cars heading home forms a gently meandering river.
He controlled his posture by creating small explosions in his palms and the soles of his feet.
Jump from building to building, climb, fall, and move forward.
Eventually, the light of the earth faded away.
In front of me stretched an endless, vast ocean.
The pitch-black horizon blends seamlessly with the sky, blurring the boundary. Looking up, countless natural stars twinkle, too numerous to fit into the field of vision.
'We've arrived."
Following Hayakawa Nayuta's directions, we arrived at a dilapidated harbor.
Check your surroundings.
Huge containers are lined up, and numerous warehouses, weathered by the sea breeze, stand silently along the waterfront.
"Denji hasn't gone out to sea yet, right?"
"Yeah, I'm in that building over there."
"I see."
Where he pointed, there was a white, box-shaped building. It was a three-story school, and its windows,
shrouded in darkness, peered out at us. It was as if it were a hole leading to another world.
"Is it a trap?"
"Definitely."
I let out a sigh.
I used quite a bit of energy, even though I was in a hurry. I sipped the blood pack that Kishibe-san gave me to recover, and stretched lightly to relieve the fatigue. As I brushed the soot off my hands and feet, I asked about something that had been bothering me for a while.
"Hey, Nayuta-chan"
"what"
"You said you were using your power on Denji, right? Thanks to that, we were able to track him down, but what exactly does that mean?"
"The power of control. I control Denji."
"Ah ... so that's the kind of person he is."
"Let me say this upfront, I have Denji's permission."
"Well, that's something I don't really understand."
What is domination?
I know this from personal experience. If you fall under that influence, you lose not even 1% of your free will.
But Denji was still Denji.
It didn't look like anything had been taken from them.
"Because I haven't done anything.
Hayakawa Nayuta said:
The power of control is lacking. But nothing is being forced, and nothing is being taken away.
Furthermore, taking advantage of the fact that it "can do anything to the target," it is also given the
same command authority as Nayuta.
In other words, Denji right now is-
She can force anything upon Hayakawa Nayuta, who is supposed to be her master, and take anything from her.
Free will can be eliminated.
It can completely expose your memories.
You can manipulate your emotions as you wish.
-He possesses such an all-powerful right.
But they haven't exercised their power. Both sides are simply observing the situation.
" ... Does that have any meaning?"
" Something like mine , I guess ... sex
The demon of control cannot help but try to control others, no matter how much one desires an equal relationship. This desire intensifies the more attached one is to the other person.
Therefore, they exerted their power of control by mutual agreement.
However, that alone would only give Nayuta the "superior" position, so Denji also ensures that he can do the same. It seemed that only when each of them had 100% control over the other did they finally feel they were in a perfectly equal relationship.
" ... Hmm."
They entrust everything to each other in order to satisfy Nayuta's desire for control. And they do it to each other. Isn't that like giving each other the switch on a bomb implanted in their hearts?
I tried to imagine what I would do in that situation.
I don't think it's possible.
I feel nothing but resistance.
Even if it were acceptable to entrust someone with the power of life and death, it's unthinkable to
expose memories and experiences without censorship. Everyone has shameful secrets they would never want others to know.
Especially not for someone like me.
A mold-like darkness, which can never be wiped away, lurks deep within.
... I think I need a little more time.
I think Denji could do it, but ... I don't have anything yet either, so it's still scary to reveal everything.
As I remained silent, a smile suddenly appeared on Nayuta's lips.
... I wonder what it is?
Was that a feeling of superiority?
Oh well, I guess you're not qualified to stand on this stage.
... something like that.
Ohhh?
Do you make that kind of face?
It really struck a chord with me.
"Nayuta, you also got a glimpse into the memories of when Denji and I were playing together, right?"
"yeah"
"A festival date. Kissing with fireworks in the background ... Ahhh, it was so romantic! Once I save Denji, I'll do it again!"
"Huh?"
A vein bulges out on Nayuta's temple.
It sounded like it was crackling.
"Heh heh heh. Well then, shall we do our best to get Denji back?"
"I won't give it to you."
"Yes, yes. I won't take it."
Not yet.
But someday. Yes, one day I will get it—