messiah novel (drive me crazy, part 6)

[devilism]

There wasn't any brake noise.

Instead there was an explosive sound resounding in the dead of night as the van the two had prepared specifically for this went straight through the guard rail and fell to the bottom of the cliff.

Yuvin would have died without a doubt. That cliff was easily a hunderd meters deep.

It was easy to guess with what kind of ungodly speed he would have driven into the guard rail with how he was gasping about trying to escape to the embassy.

And even if he would happen to escape harm by any chance, there unfortunately wasn't anyone around here right now.

After all, it's Christmas Eve. No matter how whimsical any human was, they would want to spend time at a warm place with their family or lover.

Either way, that guy was dead.

— — — — — — — — —
The boy--- Kaidou Eiri slowly walked over to the spot where tire marks were left behind.

He wasn't dead. There was only a trace left of Yuvin's blade having torn through his shirt.

"Haku."

There was a man standing over there.

It was Mitsumi Haku. After he acted like he fell from the hood of the car, he was covered in dirt all over.

"The main part of the brakes doesn't work. If you stick rubber in there, then the brakes won't work. Since he ran off with that kind of speed, he wouldn't have had time to fix it while he was already on his way."

"... Geez, it's this hard to kill even a single diplomat, huh."

He sighed in his T-shirt with a hole in it.

"It really is an ironclad rule that you have to make it seem like an accidental death until the very end."

"There'll be trouble if there's something unnatural about the corpse. That's the basis of murder for Sakura."

Or, well, "purification", Haku corrected himself.

"I don't think that weathered spies from the North would have gotten onto a car without working brakes."

"Maybe he was happy that he could go to heaven on Christmas Eve."

Eiri slowly started walking in the direction where the van had stopped.

"What the chief said was ridiculous from the start. Don't let the information about the satellite that Yuvin stole from Shinmoto get to those evil people, no matter what. Let's keep it an accidental death until we confirm his national rank before today is over."

— — — — — — — — —
Everything that Eiri had told Yuvin had been a lie.

Shinmoto Keisuke, whom Alexei Yuvin got the information from, was a real researcher at the Japanese Meteorological Agency.

He gave the confidential information about the development of the satellite to Yuvin in exchange for money.

Public safety noticed this on the twenty-third of last month.

Public safety immediately made a move to try and secure the information. It had been Eiri and Haku's superior, Ichijima Harumi, that had put a stop to that. If he ends up needing to be killed, make it seem like an accidental death. Let all pieces of classified information that he's received disappear."

Perhaps the rescue squad that would uncover his corpse would find a micro card that Yuvin had attached to the inside of his sleeve's cuff links.

"Leave everything to us, Section Five."

— — — — — — — — —
When he looked up at the night sky, he saw the moon before anything else. The stars were sparse. It's since the moon was too bright.

Suddenly Eiri noticed that his partner was looking at him across the distance between them. Haku was gazing at him as if he was looking at something wonderous.

"What?"

"... I'm impressed."

"Why?"

"You really didn't die."

Eiri looked straight back at him.

Suddenly Haku's moved his hand towards him and touched the hole in Eiri's chest pocket. Golden pieces spilled out of there.

"Toffee...?"

"That's what you gave me yesterday."

Haku had pressed Eiri to take the chewy candy that was as hard as hard rice crackers.*

That candy had become a cushion and had obstructed Yuvin's necktie pin. Thanks to that there wasn't a wound on Eiri's chest. It wasn't like he didn't have any pain, there was still a small bruise left behind.

"It's exactly like Ichijima said. There's a guy who doesn't die, no matter how close he gets to death."

It was weird how he said it with some kind of deep emotion, like he really was relieved somehow.

What's with this guy? He always seems just like a mannequin, and yet...

"Hey."

"What is it?"

"Have you met Yuvin before?"

Haku looked at Eiri with a blank face.

"He seemed like he knew you."

"... No."

Since it seemed unlikely that he was going to say anything more than that, Eiri stopped prying. Haku had a longer career than him. In that time he might have come across that opponent once before.

"So, the van that Yuvin was naively driving fall to the bottom of the ravine, but how are we going to get home then from in the middle of the mountains of Okutama?"

Haku pointed into the darkness of the night.

"By using that."

There was something over there. Under the slight moonlight Eiri managed to distinguish by straining his eyes that there were two bicycles.

"Folding... bicycles...?"

He was stunned by this unexpected development.

"Oi, there's no way we're going to get all the way back to Section Five by bike."

There was no reply.

"Is it since we lost the van? Is it since we had to bring Yuvin here by van on purpose...?"

I guess so, Haku replied, completely unfazed.

Eiri looked up at the sky. No matter how much he was dumbfounded and wanted to curse, it wouldn't change a thing about their current situation of being stuck in the middle of the mountains.

Maybe someone heard Yuvin's accident just now and reported it. It would for sure be for the best if they left this place as soon as possible.

"That boss of ours!"

— — — — — — — — —
---- And so, after having cried at the moon plenty of times in frustration, the lights went on, and the two men both got onto a bike and dashed down the mountain road on Christmas Eve with no one around.

"... I want to drink Nanny."

While pedalling the bike, Haku muttered it in a near lifeless state. It was a fermented milk drink by Nagamori dairy industries that he always called his life force fluid.

"I want to eat hook duck with double tartar chicken. I want to eat French fries."

"Shut up, you're not the only one who's hungry."

Only the winter moonlight shone down on the two people who were pedalling steadily.

(I wonder if Yuvin believed that someone would have come to rescue him in that situation.)

Eiri abstently looked up at the moon.

The spy from the North had gone down in a Japanese forest for the sake of his country, seperated from his family.

But to what extent can a country save people? People are saved by other people.

Is it in the first place even possible for people to save someone?

"Haku."

He called out to Haku, who was driving directly behind him.

"What?"

"Why did you become a Sakura?"

There was no reply. Eiri went on to try and fill up the silence.

"As for me... It's since my whole family and everyone I know is dead... So there's no one I'd want to see out there anyway."

"My older brother is out there."

Suddenly Haku was quietly riding right beside him.

His face, that was like a mannequin's, was illuminated by the moonlight. Just for a moment it seemed to become warmer.

"He disappeared when I was ten years old."

"Disappeared?"

"He was taken along by someone. That's why I'm looking for him."

(Is it possible that he was kidnapped?)

In that case he could understand Haku's reason for throwing away the world on purpose and instead becoming a Sakura.　Although Haku had felt like a completely different sort of unknown being before to Eiri, it felt like he had suddenly become a human being made out of flesh and blood.

— — — — — — — — —
In any case, the first mission with Haku was succesful.

After a few years from now they would finally start purifying the people who are harming the country from within. After going to another country and carrying out a solo mission, after they had graduated.

The even road continued without any curves. The lights of the city drew near. Eiri spoke up, wanting to ask something for one reason or another.

"After we graduate, we'll be by ourselves."

"That's right."

"We might have to sneak into the North."

"That's right."

"What would chief Ichijima have done if I was in Yuvin's position?"

".... He would have made an Ichijima-like decision."

Of course that decision would be to abandon Eiri.

Sakura who have graduated from Maru school are banned to have private contact or friendships from then on.

Even if you had been in the same class, you wouldn't know a thing about what everyone was doing. Even if you somehow knew, it would still be strictly forbidden to help a captured colleague.

In order to be able to carry out the act of proactive murder that's prohibited by the law, they didn't have a family register or citizenship. They didn't have all the rights that Japanese citizens have.

On family registers they were already ghosts, treated as if they had already died. Those were the people from Public Safety Section 5.

"Well, what about you?"

As they slowly went uphill, the lights on the roadway blinked on one by one. It was just like the light of the lanterns that invite you to the road to the underworld.

"... What about you, Haku?"

"Eiri."

There was no need to rush and think that far ahead. Right now Eiri and Haku were bound together.

After this they would act together for a few years. In that time something other than dust and empty candy boxes should be stacked up between them.*

"Today I've surely been saved by you."

Eiri let out a small laugh.

"But make sure to clean up the room when we get home."

"--- Alright."

They went downhill. The wind was cold, so Eiri turned up his coat's collar.

— — — — — — — — —
No one is allowed to save ghosts... Sakura who have failed in their duty.

--- But their partner from their time at Maru School, their "Messiah", is the only exception.

( back to index. )

notes:

* reread part 4 of drive me crazy in case you forgot!
* as in a metaphor for them forming a bond, i just kept the original japanese translation for that verb for the candy boxes metaphor.