messiah novel (you are in shine, part 8)

[devilism]

"Is it finally that?"

Someone called out when he left through the gate. Kaidou Eiri didn't turn around to look. He knew the owner of the voice.

It was Gojo Souma, who was in the same class as him in Maru School.

"Did chief Ichijima's summons come? Ah, it might come at any moment for me too by now."

"What?"

"What, you say, of course it's the 'shedding'."*

'Shedding' was what the graduation test was called at Maru School. All pairs have to tackle all themes, and they have to go for it without any prior notice.

"Souma, what are you doing here?"

"I'm searching."

"Searching for what?"

"Cherry blossoms."

Gojo had the kind of face that gave off a frivolous impression due to the fact that the corners of his eyes were drooping a little.

It wasn't always the case when he went out, but inside the dorms he always wore a bandana to keep his hair in place, along with turquoise earrings. But since it was forbidden for Sakura to tamper with their bodies, the earrings were probably just the clip on kind with magnets.

Although he seemed like a college student who just wants to play around at first glance, with his different way of talking and dressing himself, he was actually a teacher at an elementary school before this.

"But it's still too early for cherry blossoms, right?"

I guess, Souma seemed to suggest as he shrugged his shoulders in an over the top way.

"But isn't this the time you'd really want to see them? When you're outside and all. I wonder why."

The two of them stared at something that couldn't be seen at the bottom of the hill.

"But the 'shedding', huh..."

"It'll soon be a good time for that."

Haku said it from behind them as he put a straw inside his juice box. That guy was always drinking that milk drink.

— — — — — — — — —
With the "white" hint, Eiri was aiming for Meijiro inside of New Tokyo.*

After walking a little bit from the north entrance, he confirmed there was a small cake shop there.

There was a small stand in front of the store where hot white chocolate was being sold. It seemed like it was made out of white chocolate compared to the usual light brown chocolate.

He oddly enough had wanted hot chocolate since this morning.

After thinking about it for a bit, Eiri bought the hot chocolate. Since Haku was staring at it with desire in his eyes next to him, he decided to buy some for him as well.

In exchange for the fact that Sakura could die at any moment, they received a large amount of money from the country each month. And yet there were never any coins in Haku's wallet. It was a mystery that Eiri hadn't been able to solve these past two years.

Under the pedestrian bridge cars passed by.

After putting the chocolate in a paper bag and holding it under his arm, Eiri looked at the nice view of the road ahead. From there he could see someone on top of the pedestrian bridge a little bit away from them.

It was Ichijima.

He had chosen Meijiro with the keyword "white", and then picked the northern entrance that had an elevator.

Ichijima had a wheelchair. He was basically limited to going to places that had an elevator.

After getting up on the pedestrian bridge, they slowly approached him.

(I wasn't wrong about this place.)

He squinted his eyes.

The wind was cold. It was still January, the year had only just begun.

"I wonder if you can even see the sea."

Eiri addressed his boss, who was wearing a beige trench coat. He could faintly smell the scent of sweet fruit soap.

Eiri held out the hot chocolate.

"Oh my, now isn't that delicious?"

"Since you picked this place, I simply just wanted to drink it."

"I understand that well myself, it's nice."

Ichijima snatched the cup from Eiri's hand and immediately sipped its contents.

"Has it been 32 minutes since I issued the order? That's good."

Ichijima shifted his cuff to look at his watch, white foam lingering around his mouth.

"I appreciate your efforts on the special trip to Nagasaki you two had lately. That Chinese smuggling group has given the Japanese coast guard trouble for many years already. You see, due to the super-disarmament many navy officers have been re-employed as part of the coast guard. They sent someone to us confidentially. They didn't care how it would be handled."

That they didn't care how it would be handled of course meant there was "purification" involved... in other words, killing.

"After all, no matter how many guys they capture, they come back one after another like cockroaches. A special airplane would have to be sent out for it too. The costs are also ridiculous. That's why there was no choice other than to handle it with a little bit more force. That's why I specifically made you two Taiwanese pirates."

The other day, before coming back to the Maru School dorms after two months, Eiri and Haku were out on the open sea near the Senkaku Islands as Sakura with a special team for the destruction of smuggling ships.

The goal was to sink smuggling ships one after another as they came from China.

"The results were magnificent. About a hunderd boats sank and there aren't any new ones showing up for the time being. It's not like those guys were concerned about the people they were smuggling on their ships, but it's still regretful that those had to meet a watery grave."

As Ichijima said that, he looked at Eiri from his lower position.

"Your rifle skills are especially splendid. The Sakura that accompanied you also spoke well of it."

"... It's not like I aimed at people."

The whole time Eiri had been aiming at the fuel tanks of the ships. Moreover, he had been using a rocket launcher that had been made in Pakistan. If you fire at the fuel tank, a small boat would sustain seriously damage in the blink of an eye.

"But you carefully shot all the members of the smuggling organisation that jumped off the boats with life vests to death."

"......."

Eiri went silent.

In any case, the order had been to make sure everyone ended up in a watery grave. Not a single person had been saved by the patrol boats of the Japanese coast guard.

"I heard the tidal current is complex around those parts, so when something sinks, it'll never come up again..."

"That's right. It was the right answer to shoot them to kill them that way. I'm glad that I chose you, since your strong point is shooting from a distance."

As he said that, he drank a gulp of the hot white chocolate and wiped away the foam around his mouth with his thumb.

"It was a great feat. That's why I'd like to give you a slightly longer break."

Ichijima acted like he was writing something down on the top of the fence of the pedestrian bridge, at the part where it's flat.

"The shedding."

Finally it came up, Eiri thought.

In the special code of section five "shedding" meant a graduation test. If you could clear that mission, you would become an official Sakura and would leave Maru school to carry out independent missions.

Of course that means the pairs are split up.

"Well, it's merely a graduation test for form's sake. It isn't like anything that's been done before."

"In that case, what is it that we have to do?"

"Babysitting."

Ichijima said, straight to the point.

"Babysitting..."

It felt out of place.

Section five was full of thrifty people who dealt with people who were a bother to the country or foreign spies hiding inside of the country. Most of the missions dealt with finding those spies and in some cases deal with them, depending on the situation. Just like Yuvin during that first mission, and even down to their latest.

But Ichijima was insisting on making the two of them babysit.

"Ushio Yoshiya, a second year student at S high school, 17 years old. I'd like for you to stick around close to him from now on."

"Does section five hand out bodyguards for high school students?"

"It's because of what time it is. I'm sure you know. On White Day during the month after the next the disarmament summit will be held here in New Tokyo after ten years. Leaders and intelligence agencies from around the world will gather. They want to know what kind of answer the Japanese government will give to the "world reforming". Of course we'll be troubled."

Eiri nodded.

— — — — — — — — —
World reforming.

All around the world military forces were put into the freezer with a time limit, and now it's been ten years since.

And on March 14th the disarmament summit will be held once more here in New Tokyo.

Whether the disarmament treaty that has been upheld for ten years will be re-signed or not---

Eiri knew well that news about that was being shown on televisions all around the world every day. Will White Day really be able to live up to its name? Or will it be the dawn of a bloody day? Celebrity has-been commentators repeatedly talk about it with serious faces.

The United States are all for re-signing it, but China and Russia are against it. A certain country in the Middle East also wants to restart their military industry as soon as possible. Since the treaty wasn't passed by an overwhelming majority last time around, Japan's single vote isn't any small deal.

— — — — — — — — —
"Your target this time is the son of the prime minister, Ushio Junjirou."

Again Eiri felt like his breath was taken away.

(So that's it, the family of a high government official.)

It's no wonder that section five, part of public safety, would be bodyguards for the family of a high government official.

But,

(I wonder why I have a bad feeling about this.)

It was just intuition. But when it comes to espionage, there's nothing you can rely on more than that sort of feeling.

It felt like Ichijima was hiding some different reason for all of this. Was it really just being a bodyguard, or was there something else hidden behind it? Eiri instinctively almost swallowed down the question he was about to ask.

"Is just that really okay?"

Eiri said. He still thought there was some sort of ulterior motive.

"What do you mean with 'just that'?"

"I meant if it's really okay that our 'shedding' is just protecting a high school student."

Of course it's not a simple thing to protect even just one person. For example, if there's a spy from the North near him, no matter whether it's a Japanese or a Russian person, then they would have to deal with them on the spot without any accidents and without being noticed by anyone.

It'd be difficult to deal with them.

A woman who was going out with a spy from the North that Haku had taken care of before wasn't convinced that her lover's death was accidental, and she stormed into the police department while yelling about this and that. Although Haku hadn't left behind any suspicious signs, you can't take relatives' or lovers' intuition lightly.

Unless it's an urgent situation like with Yuvin, a death from illness is the best.

Ichijima operated his wheelchair, turning suddenly and skillfully.

"Oh my, you don't trust me at all, hm?"

Eiri frowned. Was there something up after all?

(... That's right. This boy is the son of the prime minister... So...)

Haku spoke up while expressionlessly sipping from his Nanny.

"It's troublesome for sure."

"Troublesome?"

"Ushio already has bodyguards. People working for the police and the government. ... Those guys don't know we exist."

That's right, Eiri nodded.

Officially public safety consists of foreign affairs and internal affairs, there's nothing after section four.

Of course there are a lot of sections that are kept secret since they're intelligence agencies, but very few people know of section five among them--- "Sakura".

Sakura actually aren't part of the metropolitan police department of New Tokyo, nor are they exactly part of the intelligence department of the foreign affairs section of the polite force. It's a completely secret institution directly managed by the National Public Safety Commission.

This state of affairs was only natural. If it became known that the country had assembled an assassination team to kill the people who trouble the country and that those spies' nationality was even taken away from them, there would be a huge uproar about human rights issues.

In other words, this mission was troublesome since they had to approach Ushio without being noticed by strong military personnel around him that came from the security department and special assault teams, not to mention that they had to get close to him and guard him.

"Can't you confidentially talk to the security department?"

"I'm afraid that'd be impossible. Only a small portion of the National Public Safety Commission knows of section five, let alone the security department. If you were caught by them, we wouldn't be able to do anything about it."

That meant they'd have to silently die if that happened. The existence of the organisation called Sakura shouldn't be known by anyone other than authorised people.

"Well, that's all. I want you to guard the son of the prime minister without being noticed by the regular security people. This will be your final test. It's slightly troublesome, hm?"

It's more than just slightly troublesome, Eiri thought.

In other words, they can't use any forensic investigation. Everything has to be done in an analog way. The level goes way beyond just being a bodyguard.

Eiri sighed.

"--- There's no way that graduation tests usually just involve being a babysitter."

Haku replied through his straw.

( back to index. )

notes:

* "脱皮" or "dappi" in japanese, used for snakes shedding their skin or similar animal processes.
* part of "meijiro" is the same kanji as for "white".