Chapter 6 - Black Badger (6)

It felt as though my organs were floating up inside me.

There was no time to take in the city in daylight. My voice caught in my throat, and my eyes squeezed shut on reflex. Fierce wind swept past my body. The sensation of falling. I would keep falling forever. All the way to the ground...

A powerful force pulled me from behind. I opened my eyes to find green eyes before me.

"Got you." Riccardo smiled as he pulled me close. "Thought I was going to miss you there."

I stared blankly upward. Riccardo held a wire in one hand. It stretched all the way up to the window on the floor I had fallen from. The building rose overhead, lined with smooth windows.

The bizarre organism was still clinging to the glass facade. Ami was riding on top of it.

Dangling in Riccardo's grip, I gaped. "Ami..."

"She's fine. She may not look it, but she's good enough to have survived both the First and Second Wars..."

He tightened his hold on me. A fresh, woody scent. The instant that thought crossed my mind, my body dropped from its suspended position. I gasped involuntarily and clutched his arm.

Holding the wire, Riccardo descended at tremendous speed.

The ground drew closer. People screaming as they fled the building. The gray asphalt growing larger.

The gray asphalt rushing toward us!

Aaaah! We're going to hit it!

The asphalt surged up. Riccardo pulled me tight against him and rolled across the ground.

"Th...thank you."

"Don't look at the ground when you're landing." Riccardo got to his feet and offered me a hand. He hauled me upright and smiled. "Next time you have to land, look as far into the distance as you can..."

I'd rather not have to land again. But I had no time to say it. As soon as I was on my feet, Riccardo shoved me in the back.

"Run." His voice was cool and sharp. "Get far away from that thing."

I wasn't stupid enough to argue.

A man looking up with a wire in his hand, and a woman slashing at a horse's head with a knife. Black blood spattered the asphalt to the sound of a blade biting into flesh.

I nodded and immediately turned. "Thank you!"

No answer came.

I ran without looking back. Terrified screams pierced my ears. Everything had been peaceful just a moment ago.

People in business casual and white coats. Service workers running beneath the blazing sun. All of them were racing in the same direction, their faces stricken with fear.

Where should I go? The grounds were larger than I'd expected. Having open space ahead was good, but I had no idea which way to run. The others seemed to know where to go, scattering in different directions.

As for me... I didn't know, so I'd just get as far away as I could. As far from that thing as possible.

I drove my legs harder, picking up speed. A cool wind raked pleasantly across my cheeks.

Ah. As I ran, the edge of the grounds came into view. Beyond it lay a road full of honking cars. Some people were leaping out of their cars and scrambling toward the other side.

I should head that way too...

BOOM!

The asphalt shook. A heavy crash sounded behind me. I lost my balance and staggered. I couldn't bring myself to look back. Hastily planting my feet, which had lifted off the ground, I steadied myself.

Cries of "Aah!" rose and faded. A child running ahead of me took a tumbling fall.

"Ow!"

The child hit the asphalt so hard it hurt just to watch. Ignoring the presence I could feel behind me, I ran over.

"Are you okay? Can you run?"

The moment I knelt beside the child, a shadow fell over us. An icy feeling sank through my insides. Reflexively grabbing the child's arm, I raised my head.

I found myself facing something new. It was different from the thing I'd just seen. Bigger, and winged.

Its wings were a faded blue-gray, torn and shabby as ancient rags. It called to mind a person in a Gothic dress. Except thick tentacles sprouted where its limbs should have been, and what looked like the hem of a dress was made of writhing hair.

A tentacle split into five strands held a sword made from an enormous bone. The moment it raised the sword, I snatched up the child and rolled.

BOOM!

The asphalt split. We'd dodged it by a hair. When I opened my eyes, the child held against my chest, I saw the bone sword. A sword that had cracked the asphalt like a cookie.

"Mommy!"

The child began to wail hysterically.

As I hurriedly gathered myself and stood, the ground shook. The thing was slowly withdrawing its sword from the fissure in the asphalt. I changed direction and bolted.

Now that it had spotted me, I couldn't run toward the main road. I raced along the wall separating the grounds from the street. The child was crying hard enough to collapse from exhaustion, but I had no time to offer comfort.

What the hell were those things? I was pretty sure there hadn't been anything like them on the Earth I remembered!

I pushed my legs hard, running at full speed.

BOOM! BOOM!

I could hear the sword slamming down behind me, but I didn't look back.

Wind shoved hard against my back, and the road tore apart. It was easy enough to tell that the sword was striking right behind me.

If I can't dodge it, please let it go straight through my head! Let me die instantly, without pain!

I stumbled on. A corner appeared in the wall I was following. With the child exhausted from crying in my arms, I rounded a plain-looking building. And knew at once that I was screwed.

A long, straight stretch. The path ahead was long, but it ended in a wall. The plain building blocked the way beside it.

So this was it. I'd never imagined it would end so soon, though. Wasn't there some way to save at least the child?

My heart sank with despair, but my legs kept moving. I'd figure out what came next once I reached the dead end. Biting my lip, I kept running, hoping for some escape route I couldn't see yet. A little gap, too far away to make out...

CRASH!

A shock wave struck my back and sent me tumbling forward. White-hot pain wrapped around my ankle.

"... Run in there."

The bizarre organism's wing had sliced my left ankle. Hot pain seared across it. I gave the child, still unable to get steady after the fall, a firm push. There was a small gap beneath an apartment balcony.

"Get inside and stay still. Don't make a sound."

The bone sword stopped in midair. The child scrabbled away from me on all fours. I was relieved that the child didn't look back.

Once I'd made sure the child was crouching beneath the balcony, I slowly turned my head.

I could see the sky. So high and clear that the sight alone lifted a weight from my chest. An enormous bone sword blocked it. Blue-gray wings.

The tattered wings flapped a few times, then stopped. The tentacle holding the bone blade aloft showed no inclination to move either. The tip pointed straight at my face.

Ah. It had been short, but a pretty good life. I thought this vacantly as I felt the tip of a fluttering wing slice my right forearm.

A life full of things I couldn't explain, and astonishingly short, but I'd still been lucky. I'd met people full of goodwill, received all sorts of things from them...

The vivid sensations of being alive. A confusing time, but not a bad one. Small kindnesses given and received.

Yes, I should love humanity. A voice drawn from the far reaches of memory overlapped with my own thoughts.

At that same instant, the bone blade plunged down.

CLANG!

Something blocked it. I stared blankly at the person who had stopped the blade. Someone in an ordinary white shirt and black suit trousers.

His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, and his feet were bare. He looked as though he'd rushed out while getting ready for work, but he held an enormous spear. The sun backlit both him and the weapon.

I blinked, and a distinctive feature came into focus. Braids streaming in the wind.

"I'll take the second creature," he told someone.

The black spear tore through a wing. The creature let out a scream that was both agonized and chilling. Jet-black blood sprayed like ink, and its two-story-tall body staggered.

A long scream poured out of the organism. With blood raining over me and the sound washing over me, I furrowed my brow and squinted.

"I'll finish this quickly, so please bear with it a little longer," the man with the braids said without looking down at me. I tried to answer, but the din swallowed my voice.

With a powerful swing of his spear, he knocked the bone blade away. The stark white blade went flying and struck the wall with a tremendous crash.

BANG!

While I was still reeling from the noise, the spear tore through the other wing. Saliva burst out, drenching the man's shirt and my body.

Ignoring the pain and unpleasant wetness all over me, I murmured, "Thank you so mu—"

"Hey! Opening fire!"

A window in the building flew open, and Ro appeared.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

A continuous barrage of gunfire filled the air. The noise drowned out even the organism's screams completely. If anyone had replied, I wouldn't have heard it.

Ro rested the barrel on the balcony and fired mercilessly. The shells were tearing the bizarre organism to shreds.

The spearman sprang backward, out of my sight. I sensed him crouching by my head. Soon his arms slipped under my armpits. I relaxed, letting him drag me backward.

"I'm sorry." His voice was laden with regret and self-reproach. "It's our job to prevent things like this... I'm sorry you had to go through it."

"Not at all," I replied with a drained smile. The persistent pain in my forearm and ankle was tormenting me. But the relief of having escaped death was strong enough to make me forget it.

I'd thought my life was over. Relief surged through me as he dragged me farther from the monster.

Looking at the blue sky above, I let out a long breath. I tipped my chin up slightly to look at the man dragging me, his face upside down from my perspective.

A handsome face filled with remorse. Braids blowing in the wind and a white shirt stained black. A silver piercing on the rim of his ear catching the light.

A pleasant breeze swept over me. I'd really survived.

Meeting his eyes, I grinned. Gratitude welled up from deep within me. "Thank you for saving my life."

His lips curved into a smile, open and sincere. "You're welcome," he whispered readily. "Thank you for saving that child. That was truly brave."

"Not really."

It was only natural.

I lay there gazing blankly at the sky.

I stayed where I was, not moving. Until Ro flung aside his empty gun, climbed on top of the organism, and started swinging a hammer. Until Riccardo and Ami came running. Until Ami's eyes went wide and she screamed, "Hilde! Your wounds!"

The man with the braids was horrified. "He has an enhanced body. Why isn't he healing?"

Riccardo rushed over and hoisted me onto his back. I was hauled off to the infirmary, dangling from his back. The man with the braids hurriedly tore his shirt and tied it around my arm, while Ami called the infirmary as they came along.

Once I'd been treated, we could still go out for brunch, right? Surrounded by people in a panic, that was what I found myself thinking.