The last part of chapter 4, about Hidaka and Gotou’s peculiar connection, Munakata’s little revenge on Doumyouji, and Awashima being loyal but reckless.

Chapter 4 (part 2/2) (volume 1, pages 206-233)

†

On that night, Hidaka followed the wishes of his tired flesh and returned to Scepter 4’s dorm. Because of the attack the other day targeting electrical equipment, Scepter 4 still had no electricity on its premises. Of course, it meant that once the night fell, all the buildings were plunged in darkness.

In addition to general power lines provided by a power company, Scepter 4 was equipped with a gas turbine installed in the bas.e.m.e.nt and solar panels on the roof, specifically for emergencies. But the whole electricity distribution grid was managed by the computer system, which, for reasons unknown, had crashed.

Presently, Enomoto, in conjunction with external engineers, was investing his every effort into repairs as the leader of the counteraction group. However, so far, the situation was dire, with the cause of the failure still undetermined. As a result, after dusk, Scepter 4 members equipped themselves with flashlights and candlesticks and loitered around the HQ like ghosts.

Hidaka, too, took a lamp, prepared at the entrance and, together with the spot of light his lamp provided, started advancing along the pitch dark hallway. It was drizzling outside the windows, and the whole atmosphere felt more like he was on a ruins exploration trip than on his way home.

Moreover, the dining hall was presently closed, so come late night, everyone had to arrange meals for themselves on their own.

“Haa, I’m so hungry…”

He rushed out of the HQ in the morning and hardly had anything to eat ever since.

“If you’re OK with cup ramen, I can share some with you.” A voice that seemed to be coming from the ground resounded just in front of him, and a light appeared at the same time.

“Whoa!” Hidaka shrieked reflexively.

Gotou, with a candle in hand, suddenly revealed himself standing in the hallway. “Welcome back, Hidaka,” he said.
“—Th-Thanks, Gotti,” Hidaka answered after a pause that was necessary for him to calm his wildly beating heart, because frankly, Gotou gave him quite the scare.

†

“…How do you like it? Yummy?” Gotou, one elbow on the table, was watching intently Hidaka slurping the noodles with intense concentration.

“Yup.” It was only commonplace cup ramen that could be bought in any convenience store, prepared by simply pouring water, boiled on the alcohol lamp that Gotou happened to have, into it, but right now, to Hidaka, it tasted so delicious that it even bothered him a little. “It’s so yummy I can cry.”

“Umn-humn.” Gotou nodded with satisfaction. “I also have some tea, Hidaka.”
“Thank you.”

With a slurping sound, Hidaka drained the last drops of the ramen soup and caught his breath. “Ahh, I’m alive again.”

He took a few gulps out of the bottled tea Gotou handed him, and his earlier gloomy mood gave place to contented happiness.

He had a sudden thought that he was a really simple creature by nature. Or maybe human beings in general weren’t very complicated. Lately, Hidaka could sleep much even at night, so now that his stomach was full, he suddenly felt very drowsy.

“You sure have it rough. You’ve been on your feet since morning, no?” Gotou asked, eyeing Hidaka.

“Desperately working with a pale face I’ve never seen on him before,” Gotou replied.

Presently, Doumyouji was single-handedly in charge of ma.s.s media and lawsuit countermeasures in his new capacity as the freshly appointed “PR officer”. Everyone was in mute shock at this kind of personnel selection.

Doumyouji, with his airheadedness and messy nature, was literally the most unfit person for the job. Media countersteps required meticulous forethought; cautiousness and special knowledge was also indispensable for making decisions in that area. And Doumyouji was known for not being able to even write his own reports right.

The order left most members in deep puzzlement, and among them, there were even those who started worrying if maybe Munakata was getting desperate.

“I wonder if the Captain meant it as punishment for Doumyouji-san?” Hidaka voiced the thought that had been bugging him for a while.

“True. I don’t think the Captain would do something like that simply to be mean.”

Although he wasn’t completely sure that the possibility of that was cold hard zero, Hidaka had faith in Munakata, in his own way.

“Well, Doumyouji-san aside, what about Kamo-san? I wonder what is he doing right now?”

At these times of a great crisis for Scepter 4 as an organization, the reliable and talented Kamo hadn’t been seen on the premises for a while now. He was a man with impressive ability and strong sense of responsibility. Though it wasn’t very clear how much of rea.s.surance his presence would have provided had he actually been here—

“Well, according to Lieutenant Awashima, he had some sort of unavoidable circ.u.mstances he had to attend to, something like that.”
“Hmmm.” Taking another gulp out of the pet bottle, Hidaka c.o.c.ked his head to the side. “Just what on earth could it be?”

Since Kamo’s background was unique, he must have had quite a few peculiar “somethings” to take care of. With this thought, Hidaka reached his bed and, flopping down on it, stretched out. He was so drowsy he could fall asleep this very moment.

Seeing him lie down, Gotou stood up. “Alright, I’m off then.”

“Huh? Didn’t I tell you? In addition to regular work, Lieutenant gave me the task of searching for Kounomura’s whereabouts.”

In this emergency situation, saying that Awashima, Gotou and Hidaka were pretty much the only group within Scepter 4 that continued to operate normally wouldn’t be very far from the truth.

“I-I heard about that.” Hidaka knew, of course.

“R-Right. Good luck.”

But Hidaka couldn’t bring himself to say what he really wanted to. Gotou was going to work at the expense of his own sleeping hours. So Hidaka just couldn’t possibly up and ask him shamelessly to please stay in the room until Hidaka himself fell asleep.

“OK, I’m off then, Hidaka.” Gotou was about to leave, but suddenly stopped in the doorway and said with a completely serious face, “Hidaka, since you’re tired, I recommend you not look at that statue directly.”

With this, he left the room. Hidaka, left alone in the room, grimaced at those cryptic words.

Surveying their room, he confirmed again how full of bizarre things it was: a mask with something like a bird’s beak in the center of it, weird books and alb.u.ms, ethnic musical instruments you would only normally see in a museum, music boxes, old cameras, tools for waterpipe tobacco smoking, suggestive India-ink paintings… All of the above was kept by Gotou as a hobby. And all those things were illuminated by the unsteadily swaying candlelight, casting thick black shadows across the room.

The object Gotou mentioned in his warning was a huge wood-carved statue that sat imposingly right in the middle of all those weird items. Hidaka remembered Gotou saying that it was an object of worship in Papua New Guinea or maybe in New Caledonia.

It had its arms folded and tongue stuck out and dripping with saliva. Among all the weird things, it was that statue that Hidaka found the most eerie.

“Eeek!” he screamed without realizing, because as he stared at the idol, it seemed to begin staring back at him. Covering his head, he burrowed under the blankets and tried to forget everything and just sleep.

The reason why lately Hidaka had been suffering from lack of sleep was fear: he couldn’t sleep at night because of it.

Hihi. Hihi.

Hidaka thought he heard a child snickering, so he hurriedly covered his ears with his hands. He was simply hearing things because of his exhaustion, he thought to himself - wanted to think. It wasn’t the first time this happened, and not only in this room. Just a little while ago, (he thought) he saw will-o’-the-wisps floating in the empty dining hall, and before that, he kept hearing sounds of water splashing coming from a definitely unoccupied toilet.

To Hidaka, it felt like all of Scepter 4 turned into one giant cursed spot.

‘Gotti, please come back asap!’ This was Hidaka’s only wish at the moment.

†

At about the same time, Awashima stood at high alert in an abandoned building under the moonlight coming through broken windows. She knew that it was a trap, but psyched herself up regardless. Naturally, she wasn’t going to let her guard down.

In Scepter 4, she didn’t stand above a former soldier Akiyama and a dojo heir Doumyouji Andy simply because she had more power as a clansman. Actually, those two’s abilities were such that they both could probably outdo her in fencing and martial arts.

All this started when she, having finished paying visits to the ministries, rode a taxi on her was back to the dorms. When they were pa.s.sing through the shopping district, she suddenly spotted an all too familiar back. Eyes growing wide, she pressed her face to the gla.s.s of the taxi’s window, then shouted to the driver, “Sorry, but stop the car please!”

She only faced that man once, but there was no way she could ever forget that extremely conspicuous, grotesque-looking bald giant of a man in an ink black priest’s robe - Nakamura Gouoku, Kounomura Zenichi’s helper.

Leisurely strolling along the night street, he disappeared in a back alley.

Pa.s.sing a banknote to the surprised driver with a “Keep the change”, Awashima opened the door and jumped out of the car.

Feeling frustration welling up inside, she raced after Nakamura, diving into the alley he entered earlier.

He was nowhere to be seen.

She rounded the corner, and just when she thought with bitterness that she had lost Gouoku, his giant frame flashed, as if surfacing from the sea of people, turning a corner a little further down the road.

Awashima broke into a sprint again.

But when she, out of breath, reached that corner, Gouoku was nowhere to be seen again.

Twisting her head around, she caught a glimpse of him as he was just about to disappear in the pa.s.sage between two buildings.

Awashima resumed the chase.

After that, Nakamura Gouoku continued to flash at the very edges of her vision. There he was, under a neon sign, then next to a red paper lantern of a pub, easily weaving his way through the drunkenly staggering mob, appearing and disappearing like a mirage. By that time, Awashima had already figured, "He’s leading me somewhere, inviting me to follow him.

As the crowds around her thinned more and more, that suspicion transformed into certainty. When Gouoku had disappeared in the bowels of an abandoned building, she made up her mind. "He’s trying to lure me into a trap alright, but on the other hand, this is my chance.’

The first floor lobby was empty, all of the furniture and equipment having been long since taken away. Awashima unsheathed her saber quietly. She had already sensed the presence of her opponent.

And sure enough, the bald man abruptly stepped out of the dark. He was smiling with an amused smile.

“You sure got guts. Too bad that you’re a woman.”

It really was none other than Nakamura Gouoku.

Awashima didn’t mince her word when replying, “And you’re not much as a person if you let yourself get tied with gender bias like this. Courage has nothing to do with whether you’re a man or a woman. Don’t you know something even that basic?”

“I’m not happy to get such compliments from someone with misguided values.”

Awashima didn’t just keep up the conversation. All the while, she was carefully probing all around her for the signs of Gouoku’s accomplices lying in ambush.

One more, still in hiding.

When she was finished, she asked, “—By the way, what is this about?” She brought her saber up to position. “A challenge to a revenge match?”

Awashima took the stance with one leg bend in front, the other extended behind her, and raised her saber, like a baseball player their bat. Her saber was pointing cleanly at Nakamura Gouoku because the other person she had sensed  hiding in the area was just an ordinary civilian with no skills to conceal his presence and apparently not thirsty for her blood.

Basing her conclusion on that, Awashima interpreted Nakamura Gouoku’s luring her here as him challenging her to a one-on-one fight. Of course, they weren’t old friends or anything, so Awashima couldn’t be sure, but that sinful monk seemed like a man who loved the beauty of formalities.

So he wanted their fight to be what is called a duel.

“I accept, then.” Awashima couldn’t picture herself lose to this man in a one on one confrontation. “I was really getting fed up with all your striking our weak points. Oh well, now I just need to arrest you and make you spill Kounomura Zenichi’s whereabouts.”

Awashima frowned. “—What do you mean? What on earth…”
“I won’t be the one to fight you. Also, making me own up about Zenichi’s whereabouts is meaningless.”

At that moment, a person separated from a pillar’s shadow and came into light.

“Good afternoon. Ah, no, it’s good evening by now? Awashima Seri-san, the right hand person of the Blue King, Munakata Reishi. I wanted to meet you.”
“As you see, the person whose whereabouts you wanted me to spill is right here!” Gouoku roared with a broad grin.

Awashima was left speechless. The tip of her saber drooped down without her realizing it.

Although she only saw him on the screen of a monitor, the man who stood there was, unmistakably, Kounomura Zenichi in person.

Even Munakata had yet to meet him directly. Among all the Scepter 4, Awashima was the first and only one to face the mastermind of the recent string of incidents like this.

Kounomura waved his short hands. “Weeeell, I’m so glad. You’re a beauty, just like I imagined. And dignified. I can sense that you’re also intelligent. What conviction and will! Wonderful!” He was rapid-talking on and on in a high pitched voice.

The more Awashima stared at him, the more strange-looking he seemed to her. He really was very short, especially now, standing next to giant Gouoku. His belly was conspicuously protruding, his hair was thin… If a penguin was to be anthropomorphized, the endresult would be this man, no doubt.

He was an unappealing human lump no matter how one looked at him, save for one detail - his black l.u.s.trous eyes, alit with odd vitality.

Awashima had never met someone - someone who was not a child - with eyes that clear. They had a mysterious power to enthrall and she would be their captive if she continued to carelessly gaze into them like this, she realized.

Kounomura, meanwhile, kept chatting, paying all sorts of compliments to Awashima, until finally he said, “And that’s why, Awashima-san, I’d like you to stay on as my Lieutenant when I become the Blue King.”

Awashima’s shoulders jolted. She finally came back to her senses. This man was Munakata Reishi’s enemy. Obsessed with a wild delusion, he tried to collapse Scepter 4 and usurp their king’s throne.

Him not being malicious didn’t make all of that OK.

“Please allow me to ask one question,” Awashima addressed Kounomura with politeness, honoring his background and social standing. “Are you really serious about trying to subst.i.tute the Blue King?”

“And that’s why he’s so wicked,” Gouoku, standing next to Kounomura, smiled wryly. “He really is serious, don’t even doubt. A thousand times more serious than a normal person can ever be.”

Awashima had also realized it somehow. It’s because Kounomura was like that, more sincere than anyone and endlessly pure, that countless people adored and helped him, and that was why he was able to acc.u.mulate his wast wealth and gain international fame. He even was able to become an outstanding philanthropist.

However…

Awashima Seri had only one king - Munakata Reishi, and no one else.

“I shall take your offer not as an invitation but as an insult. Please make no mistake: once I have beaten Nakamura Gouoku, who is standing next to you right now, I will also arrest you.”

The point of Awashima’s sword rose up again, her eyes burning.

“Uh-huh,” Kounomura smiled. “Nothing less from Awashima-san.”

She felt irritation at his wording.

“Please don’t be mad,” Kounomura soothed her, as if reading her mind. “When I approached you, it actually came as a relief to you, no?”

“I’m right, aren’t I? After all, our ploys were taking out the Scepter 4 members one after another, starting with Akiyama-san and Benzai-san, and only you were seemingly neglected as a potential target. That made you doubt yourself that maybe you’re not being regarded as a useful person to Munakata Reishi, no?”

Awashima wanted to scream at him to shut up, but rode out the impulse.

Yes, Kounomura’s words nailed part of the truth. But Awashima wasn’t simplistic enough to fall for his provocation so easily.

She smiled with a delicate smile. “No, you are wrong,” she said, shaking her head.

Awashima elaborated, “I delt with it without hard feelings.”

“If you’re ignorant enough to shut your eyes to my existence when you’re trying to corner the Captain, then you’re not someone worthy to get angry at. I don’t overestimate my abilities, but I don’t underevaluate them either. Had you kept ignoring me, you would have learned that the hard way.”

“Though a losing battle it is bound to be for you, you are the man who dared to challenge the Captain. It is only natural to a.s.sume that you should have enough wits to set up that kind of ploy.”

“No, I don’t. After all…” Awashima gave him a smile. “…you personally bothered to come greet me here. Which means that in a sense, you regard me quite highly, doesn’t it?”

In Kounomura’s eyes delight sparkled.

“Splendid!” He exclaimed. “That’s a king’s right hand person for you. To challenge me to a verbal battle! Alright, I get it. How about this then? We will fight here, you and me, one on one.”
“Eh?”

Kounomura continued, tossing a glance at very surprised Awashima, “If you win, I will let you arrest me. Of course, I will also prostrate myself before Munakata-san and apologize for not knowing my place. If I win, though, I will have you come with us to our base. How does this sound to you?”

“Yup, one on one!” Kounomura reaffirmed wholeheartedly with innocence of a child.

Awashima, still highly bewildered, ventured a questioning look at Nakamura Gouoku.

Gouoku gave her another wry smile. “Yes, Zenichi is serious. He really is planning to fight you one on one. Needless to say, I won’t intervene in any way. I swear on the name of Buddha.”

Awashima was still suspicious.

“Of course, if Zenichi loses, I will apologize together with him. That, I promise you on the name of Buddha, too.”
“—Are you both making light of me?” Awashima asked with head-on honesty.

From Kounomura’s looks, not only was it hard to imagine him fight, she doubted he was even capable of moving that body of his properly. And he wasn’t a clansman or strain, much less a king. An aging man with below average physical ability, without any special powers was challenging Scepter 4’s second-in-command; this went straight past reckless and well into the ridiculous territory.

Kounomura probably sensed her mood as he added quickly and fl.u.s.teredly, “Ah, but I will be using all kinds of weapons and traps, of course? I think it will be a fair enough handicap, don’t you agree?”

Awashima took her time to think. “Of course. Only…”

Even with that handicap, the power gap between them still looked too big. That’s how potent a power Awashima obtained by becoming Munakata’s clansman. She knew it from first hand experience. But in the next moment, Awashima reconsidered that. Her opponent was a remarkable world-famous man, Kounomura Zenichi. If anything, it could be that that kind of power gap was indispensable when going up against him.

Awashima cautiously asked, “I agree to your conditions. When do we start the fight?”
“Right this moment,” Kounomura grinned.

The same instance Awashima kicked the ground, closing the distance between herself and Kounomura and raising her saber overhead in preparation for a big swing.

Once the two of them expressed their mutual consent, all reason and desire to go easy on her opponent disappeared. Even if she were to seriously injure Kounomura, she was somehow strangely convinced that neither Gouoku nor Kounomura himself would pin the blame on her.

Unfortunately for her though, Kounomura foresaw her move. Producing something like a hand grenade from his pocket with movements that could not be called practiced by any stretch of imagination, he slammed it against the floor with everything he was worth.

“Urgh!” Flashing light and smoke surged out of the thing. Awashima was on high alert, but it still made her recoil a little. She had to hold her both hands out to protect her face. When the smoke cleared and she could see again, she noticed Kounomura heavily climbing a spiral staircase connecting the first and the second floors.

Awashima tossed a quick glance in Nakamura Gouoku’s direction.

“…” He only shrugged his shoulders, and she interpreted it as his declaration that this had nothing to do with him and he had no slightest intention to get involved.

Awashima smirked faintly. “How whimsical.”

Then she sped up again, fully intending to capture Kounomura.

†

After that, mysterious developments didn’t stop. Awashima continued chasing Kounomura, but every time she cornered him, Kounomura managed to give her the slip.

On the second floor a bunch of fireworks suddenly boomed at her, making her falter for a moment, which Kounomura used to make his getaway. Just when she thought she had him cornered in a small dead end room, part of the ceiling came crumbling down and obscured her vision.

After an hour, she was this close to almost catching Kounomura by the neck, but the floor under her feet gave way and Kounomura still managed to escape.

For all intents and purposes, it was a fact that Kounomura, a clearly underexercising man who couldn’t even run decently, was evading the pursuit by Scepter 4’s much superior Lieutenant whom everybody admired and feared.

Awashima began to understand something, subsequently becoming terrified.

Namely that Kounomura had foreseen her every move. That was the only way to explain this highly abnormal state of affairs. It wasn’t much of a stretch to a.s.sume that Kounomura could only run around like this because he saw through everything about her, from her speed limit to the length of her stride and possibly from her thoughts to her pulse rate even.

That terrified her.

If he really had predicted everything she would do, then this entire building had probably been reconstructed just for the sake of making it into an anti-Awashima territory. All the traps in it had been set up specifically with her in mind.

"Is he really going that far?!’ Awshima screamed in her mind.

Awashima’s mood, as she chased that little man, who was running while panting heavily and noisily, was growing grim. She felt like she would never catch Kounomura, who looked like he had already used up all his stamina, no matter how long and how far she would chase him.

But if she gave into that feeling of hopelessness here, not even Gotou and Hidaka would be able to keep functioning as Scepter 4’s fighting power anymore. And that would leave Munakata Reishi stark naked.

She couldn’t let that happen. She forced herself to cheer up.

Running up the skeleton of a stairway, she dived into a corridor that was missing part of its floor at full speed, saber held in hand.

It was very possible that luring her to this place, with no one knowing where she was, and toying with her like this was all according to that man’s plan.

And it went beyond the realm of human deeds.

Kounomura Zenichi might have truly been the devil incarnate, then.

Still, Awashima kept avoiding the traps with the help of her stamina, reflexes, intelligence and tactics sense, closing in on her opponent’s castle keep.

She found a fixed correlation between Kounomura’s movements and the traps’ locations. And that, in itself, could be another one of Kounomura’s traps.

However, it was certain that she was slowly but surely driving him into a corner. Of that, she was sure. So Awashima gambled on that.

And she finally succeeded in cornering her opponent in a certain room. Swinging her saber wide, she closed the distance between him and her in an instance.

“With this!” she yelled, about to land a blow on the man’s neck.

The man turned around calmly.

Awashima’s eyes widened with shock.

“How?!” She was almost screaming.“Why are you here?!”

She didn’t expect this person to be her opponent. All her thinking processes froze, and of course, she put every effort into stopping her hand that was already bringing down the saber on her opponent. At that moment, said opponent gave her a twisted smile. And at the same time, the floor under her feet collapsed.

A pitfall.

"d.a.m.n!’ she thought, but it was a second too late.

Awashima fell down to the first floor, and at the same instance gas jetted out with a hiss from all the four walls around her. As it filled the s.p.a.ce around her, Awashima’s consciousness started to slowly fade.

Before everything went black, she thought she heard them say,

“Awashima-san.” The words sounded kind. “As per our agreement, I’m taking you with me.”

Awashima gritted her teeth, etching a single resolution into her memory: she would get back at them, no matter what.

†

All contact had been lost even with Awashima now. Akiyama was under arrest, Benzai was sent on a voyage all across j.a.pan, Kamo was absent due to unavoidable circ.u.mstances. Doumyouji was in dire straits trying to do the job he was unfamiliar with of dealing with the media, and Fuse was MIA. Gotou, besides his normal duties, also was tasked with pursuing Kounomura, working almost around the clock, and Hidaka, in addition to his day work, was troubled by bizarre night phenomena and mostly going on next to no sleep at all.

But even among them, the most frantic and desperate was probably Enomoto Tatsuya, who tried to single-handedly fix Scepter 4’s collapsed infrastructure.

“Why? Why did it turn out like this?” he lamented, violently tapping on his computer’s touchpad in his desperate attempt to locate the error in the system. But so far, his efforts went unrewarded.

The more he looked, the worse it was getting, and he felt more and more like he was falling into the abyss.

His cheeks were haggard, and his hair was unkempt. On his table, convenience store bento boxes and empty energy drink cans were piled up in a mountain. He didn’t have time to spare to even go to the bathroom anymore, holding it in.

There was only one wish he had left, “Ahhh, if only that person was here…”

The man who was snippy, tending to do things on his own, lacking the spirit of cooperation and strangely scary, but at the same capable of doing a job better than anyone else.

And right now, Enomoto was sincerely praying for that young man to come back, not knowing yet that his wish would be granted in the not-so-distant future.