Chapter 19 - The Cabin (2)

My house...

I remained dazed even as my training officer actually opened the driver's door and Riccardo flung open the passenger door.

My roof?

I really had said all I needed was somewhere to stay out of the rain...

“Snap out of it and get out.”

Yun's low voice came through clearly even over the tremendous roar of the wind and rain.

“Rookie. Are you listening?”

“Let's just tell him to stay inside...”

My seniors were unperturbed even as the wind and rain mercilessly soaked the smooth car seats. Riccardo had already stepped outside, so I couldn't see his face, but I could see him about to close the passenger door.

“He'll only get in the way...”

CRASH!

A window in the cabin shattered. The little kitchen window. The shards sparkled, reflecting the rainwater. I saw something spill out along with the broken glass.

This was genuinely depressing.

Yun reached in with a wet hand and switched off the engine.

“True enough. Just crouch down behind the passenger seat.”

The wipers stopped, and rain covered the windshield.

“So you don't get glass in your eyes if the windshield breaks. If the car looks like it's going to explode, get yourself out.”

“What?”

There was no further explanation. Without even opening umbrellas, my seniors slammed their doors shut.

SLAM! SLAM!

The roar of rain surrounding me suddenly receded. The rain pouring onto the fine leather stopped, too.

Left sitting dazed in the car, I muttered,

“... So you're telling me to stay inside?”

Not that anyone was going to answer.

I caught a glimpse of the men moving away from either side of the car. Their dark silhouettes advanced and vanished. Killing a creature in this weather? Could they even stay on their feet?

I pressed my face to the rear window to see what was happening. All I could barely make out were silhouettes of things from my house flying around in the whirlwind. It was really being torn to pieces.

They'd said a giant butterfly was causing this wind, but where was the butterfly?

CRASH!

There was a deafening noise. I turned my head, and wet wood filled my vision. A jagged piece of broken timber had torn through the Lamborghini's roof and protruded into the car. If I hadn't been pressed against the window, it would have split the top of my head open.

The Lamborghini's torn roof. The enormous piece of wood. That familiar grain.

Staring at the wood and the rain pouring through the tear, I shouted,

“My roof came back!”

“Is that what you call coming back?”

Riccardo wrenched the door open. He furrowed his brow, gave an odd smile, then seized me by the collar.

“This is why weather-altering creatures...”

CRASH!

The windshield shattered. Another piece of roof had flown into it. If Riccardo hadn't hauled me roughly out of the car, the shattered glass flying inward would literally have embedded itself in me.

I was drenched in an instant. Fierce wind lashed my cheeks. Staggering, I planted my feet beside the car. My senior released my collar and turned his body away.

Before turning his head away as well, Riccardo said coldly,

“Stay right here.”

The ever-present smile had vanished from his lips.

“Don't go running off anywhere.”

Running off? I could barely take a step.

The wind battered me. Even outside the car, I could hardly see ahead. Heavy raindrops pelted my whole body without pause. My socks and shoes were getting soaked. My hair clung to me.

Shielding myself from the wind and rain with a forearm, I narrowed my eyes, searching for the butterfly they kept going on about.

THUD! THUD! CRASH!

Things flew up out of my house with its lid blown off. The cabin broke into pieces and went sailing on the whirlwind. Bagels, chocolate, the beanbag, the mattress, dishes, a kitchen knife. I watched them spin round and round in midair.

Then I spotted something like a heavy shadow at the center of the spinning objects.

Was that the butterfly in the middle of the tornado?

What was that thing streaking across the sky above it, like an engine flame?

“Yun!”

Ami's clear voice rang out from above. As my jaw dropped, she continued,

“I'll knock it down, so you catch it!”

“Sordi.”

Yun had somehow moved right up to the whirlwind.

“Pin it down when it falls.”

There was no time to understand what he meant.

BOOM!

A shock wave slammed into me. The Lamborghini beside me flipped over and went flying backward. If Riccardo hadn't grabbed my collar again, I would have shared its fate.

The impact stung as it swept over me. Flailing, I grabbed my senior's arm.

For an instant, I felt the wind stop. The fierce gale that should have followed the shock wave suddenly vanished.

Why had the raging wind died down?

Because Ami had slammed the butterfly into the asphalt.

A massive crater had formed where she'd driven it into the ground. Ami hovered in midair—she was wearing strange boots—and looked down into the crater.

“It's alive.”

With the wind dying down, I could hear her clearly.

“Ric. Pin it down for me.”

Something stirred on the hand gripping my collar. I stared stupidly at the ring on Riccardo's finger. This was the first time I'd noticed he wore one. It was shaped like a silver snake.

It moved, smoothly unwound, and changed shape.

What the hell?

Blankly, I watched the tiny silver snake ring lengthen, growing longer and longer until it became a sharp spear. In an instant, Riccardo held a spear in his hand.

BOOM!

The silver spear flew through the air. It traced a beautiful arc before falling into the crater in the asphalt.

“You're so good at that.”

Ami smiled down into the hole.

“It looks like a giant pinned butterfly specimen.”

My training officer walked to the edge of the fractured, sunken asphalt. He drew a dagger, apparently from a sheath on his combat suit. Standing behind Riccardo, I watched him lower his head.

“Going to take a sample?”

“If I can.”

Yun took a light running start. In the damp air, with the rain beginning to ease, my training officer disappeared into the hole.

His dry voice drifted back.

“Keep an eye on the rookie.”

Why me?

I stared stupidly at the spot where he'd disappeared. The rain was easing. The whirlwind that had made it impossible even to open my eyes was gone now.

Before me stood my green-eyed senior, half shielding me. Ami hovered over the hole with her hair tied back.

My training officer was out of sight after jumping into the hole, and...

BOOM!

The hole exploded.

Wind shot upward, erupting along with the wreckage of the cabin it had swept up. Like a volcanic eruption. Shaped like a waterspout, with tremendous explosive force.

Rain came pouring down again.

“Ami!”

I screamed in horror.

“Yun!”

“They'll be fine, so stay put~.”

Riccardo stuck out an arm to block me as I reflexively tried to rush forward. He reached out and deftly caught the spear flying back, then added coldly without even looking at me,

“Just crouch down...”

“What?”

CRACK!

Something flew at us. A piece of wood. Probably a fragment of the cabin's broken roof. Carried toward us on the wind, it split in two on Riccardo's silver spear.

“What the fuck?”

“There's more coming.”

Riccardo ignored my outburst and gave that warning instead.

I jerked my head up and saw countless things from the cabin being lifted into the air by the wind.

“My beanbag!”

SHUNK!

The beanbag charging toward us met its end on Riccardo's spear.

I watched blankly as Riccardo gracefully knocked the incoming objects away with his spear. Sliced roof fragments. Deflected bagels. Fine chocolates bursting mercilessly apart.

He spun the long spear round and round. I took in the objects flying back the other way and the raindrops scattering in a circle.

What was going on? Were Ami and Yun all right?

And why was all this stuff flying this way?

As if it were trying to kill me?

RUMBLE!

The waterspout-like column of wind grew larger, and what little remained of the cabin came apart.

The mattress, pots, cups, the blanket, pillows. Dismembered, the cabin flew on the whirlwind. The toaster. Clothes. Shoes. An umbrella.

A kitchen knife.

Its blade glinted, reflecting the rain. It flashed briefly among the objects spinning toward us. It was so small that without that glint, I wouldn't even have recognized it as a kitchen knife.

Riccardo, his eyes fixed on the mattress, hadn't noticed.

The sharp blade flew toward him.

SHUNK!

Agony shot through my arm.

“You!”

Riccardo's sharp cry reached me through the wind and rain. That single word held both shock and anger.

“I specifically told you!”

“Is that the butterfly?”

As Riccardo grabbed the back of my neck and hauled me back after I'd lunged forward and taken the knife, I looked up into the air.

An enormous butterfly hung in the sky. Its lower pair of wings had been cleanly severed. Only two forsythia-yellow wings remained attached to its body.

It looked ready to fall out of the sky and die any second.

“Sordi!”

Yun sprang out of the hole, completely unscathed, and raised his voice.

“Stab it in the body and kill it! Don't touch the wings!”

They must be poisonous.

The instant I thought that, the butterfly grew larger. It flew at me with a speed I had never imagined an insect could achieve. My focus locked onto it, and my surroundings blurred.

The yellow wings growing larger. The abdomen growing larger. The wings beating as if to engulf us.

The enemy right before my eyes, lowering its body to attack.

'It's easier when the target gets bigger.'

Memory overlaid my vision.

I shoved Riccardo back as he tried to step in front of me and pulled the kitchen knife out of my arm with my uninjured hand.

SPLURT!

I plunged the kitchen knife into the butterfly's abdomen. Thick black liquid spattered everywhere.

Even as I squinted against the liquid soaking me, I kept my hand moving. Gripping the knife tightly, I raised my arm. With a series of tearing cracks, I dragged my hand upward and split its body in two.

I felt the life leave it.

The butterfly fell onto the asphalt in left and right halves. They fluttered down like flat sheets of paper and lay spread across the ground.

The wind grew damp.

Only then did I feel the pain in my left arm.

“Hilde!”

Ami dropped lightly out of the air and ran toward me.

“Aaah! Hilde, your arm's bleeding so much!”

“Hildebert...”

Behind me, Riccardo said my name ominously.

Then came the searing ache in my left arm. It was covered in blood. As I looked down at my injured arm, I realized the rain had stopped.

The wind had stopped, too.

The sky had cleared.

* * *

We were inside my training officer's house.

“Was ‘don't run off’ too hard to understand?”

Riccardo smiled down at me. His green eyes, curved into crescents, gleamed venomously.

“Or did you decide you didn't need to listen to me?”

“... I'm sorry.”