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messiah novel (you are in shine, part 16)
In the meantime Eiri was still guarding Ushio, while being irritated about the fact that he couldn't move his right arm.
Thankfully Ushio himself had not been hurt, other than that unnatural spot on his back.
In order to not stress him out, neither the SP nor his parents had told him about the sniping attempt. Due to that Ushio was acting the same as usual at school. He just thought someone had accidentally gotten a stain on his clothes with the ink from a pen or something of the sort.
Since that day Eiri's right hand was constantly wrapped in a compress.
Although the arm that Ginzburg had twisted wasn't broken, the muscles in it were still severely damaged. With it like this he couldn't hold a gun or even chopsticks very well.
(Although he went this far, he didn't kill me.)
What was worse than the pain in his arm was the humiliation from that guy having gone easy on him twice already now. He surely said at that moment that he came to see me. And that Eiri was incredibly pitiful.
(Ridiculous.)
Why would you say something like that to someone whose parents you killed?
There were so many things he didn't know. Why did that guy kill his family? Why was he following him around now?
Everything was unnatural, he got a bad feeling about it.
"Is there a traitor from the North at S School?"
Haku had come back to their base a step ahead of Eiri. Since he was a contract teacher, he always went home earlier than Eiri on days where he had few classes to teach.
Eiri went back after making sure for at least ten minutes that there was no SP trailing him.
Kaminari still didn't seem to be aware of Eiri's true identity. He hadn't seen that guy around him anymore ever since he gave Eiri that strange look before.
"Information must have been leaked to Ginzburg somehow. Even though I'm not sure of it myself, I feel like someone around Ushio must be watching us."
"There was for sure someone else who sniped Ushio. "Tower" was just a decoy."
As he said that, Haku's gaze turned towards the computer. A few images were opened on the monitor, and he carefully looked at them.
"There's a spy from the North at S School who noticed you're there as well, Eiri. Naturally he must have noticed the SP as well. But..."
"But?"
"No one comes to mind."
As Haku removed his gaze from the computer, he looked at Eiri. On the monitor portrait photos of students who went to S School were lined up in a row.
"On that day I checked all of the spots where Ushio could be sniped at from the outside. But they shot Ushio on the back in a surprisingly shot time. And if you consider that it was right after putting on his jacket, wouldn't the sniper have been in the building--- In other words, one of the students who was taking the mock exam."
"Is there a spy from the North hiding as a student at S school?"
Eiri protested.
"Could there be a student like that?"
"There were 21 others at the same mock exam that Ushio Yoshiya took. Among them three of them were from the same class as him. But it's unlikely that any of those three are spies from the North."
"Could it be that there were other people?"
"Seems like it. Through data from "Drainage", the IDs of these three have at least been confirmed. The possibility that they are spies from the North or have been replaced by spies is virtually non-existent."
"Drainage" was the name used for the police's information desk. It was called that since it scooped up information from everywhere like a drain does with garbage.
Although Drainage is under direct control of the National Public Safety Commission, even members of Public Safety don't know where exactly it's located or who works there. There's different ranks there when it comes to access rights, and the information that could be pulled from there by Eiri and Haku's IDs was limited.
"Well, it could be a teacher from S School..."
"Teachers weren't allowed to enter or exit the venue for the mock exam. As far as I can see, there's no teachers who seem like spies from the North."
Haku declared that. He used his time that wasn't taken up by teaching to investigate that side of S School.
"But it's for sure that someone inside S School is a traitor. So it's no good to keep letting Ushio Yoshiya go to S School like this."
"That's right."
Eiri nodded while putting on a liquid coating that was supposed to help with muscle pain. Indeed, it was necessary to once again closely observe the janitor they passed in the hallways and the classmates who would occassionally talk to Ushio.
In fact, ever since that day where Ushio Yoshiya had been sniped, there had been one incident after the next during which children of important government officials had been injured.
Although all of them had been treated as traffic accidents or pickpocketing, there was always an ink stain on the back of their clothes, so the police department still considered it a problem in secret.
The media hadn't discovered it yet. Since both the police and Public Safety were desperately trying to cover it up. But if the North got tired of waiting and moved on to more flashy actions, the fact that children of important government officials were being targeted like wild goose would leak out immediately.
"Why does the North want to threaten Japan this much?"
Eiri thought there was too little information. He had already thought it was strange from the start to have to be a bodyguard to the son of the Prime Minister as a Sakura cadet.
He wasn't too surprised that said son was being followed around by the SP already. But Eiri was surprised when he really got shot at.
It felt like the scale of this incident was getting bigger, like the way a snowball would grow as it rolled down a hill.
"How much have you reported to the chief?"
Haku took his hand off the mouse and grabbed the box of Nanny that was sitting on top of the computer desk.
"Everything up until now."
"... About your older brother as well?"
Eiri stopped smearing the creme to help with the pain on his hand and looked at Haku. Haku slowly looked back at him.
Just like always there was the sort of expression on his face that you just couldn't read. If they looked this similar, to the point they seemed like identical twins with the same face, then Ginzburg still seemed human after all.
A big-shot in the Russian intelligence agency, Ginzburg.
The enemy of my parents.
... And Haku's biological brother.
"Commonly known as "Tower." His real name is Egor Ginzburg. His rank is first lieutenant of the foreign investigation department of the Russian intelligence agency. He graduated from Moscow University while even skipping a grade. But his real personal history is unclear. From this point on everything is unofficial data. It's from "Drainage"'s information bank. His Japanese name is Mitsumi Sou. He went missing in the imperial calendar year 1XX. The details are unclear, since no official disappearance was reported. He was last seen with a middle-aged man looking like a Russian office worker in front of the station. His birthplace is the Chiba prefecture, the Higashi-katsushika district, Funabashi. Right now is he presumed to be 25 years old."
An interrogation-like atmosphere slowly filled up the narrow room.
"Haku, why is your older brother a spy for the North?"
Haku didn't move his gaze away from Eiri. But he didn't say anything.
"Are you from the North?"
"I've heard that I'm half Russian."
Eiri gasped. It felt like it was the first time that he heard Haku say anything about himself.
"It seems that my father came from the North. I've heard that from my mother, but I actually don't know it myself. I've never met him."
"Your big brother... Did he disappear?"
"Fourteen years ago."
His fingers moved across the table and picked up chocolate sweets from a paper box.
"I heard talk that he became a spy in the North. But it was rare for him to come to Japan."
Intelligence gathering activities in Japan would be difficult for sure with his face. At least everyone from Section Five knew Haku. He's very skilled as a Sakura, calm, amazing at other languages, but for some reason misfortune always followed him around---
"Haku. Was Ginzburg the one who killed the Sakura around you?"
When they confronted Ginzburg on that high building's rooftop, hadn't he said something odd when he faced Haku after he appeared?
"It's been a long while."
Eiri understood through that simple comment during the sudden chance encounter.
Ginzburg killed Haku's former partners.
(Haku's Messiah.)
The bad luck that followed him around wasn't just simple coincidence.
"During missions in the North both of your Messiah were murdered. Ginzburg killed them, right?"
"That's right."
"Did he kill them since they were your Messiah?"
"That's right."
"Why?"
"To make me defect to the North."
He didn't hesitate with his reply.
Eiri was convinced.
Haku said that he had been ten years old when he was seperated from Ginzburg for the rest of his life. But since both of them had still been at the age where they were just elementary school kids, it was difficult to imagine that the intelligence agencies of both countries had something to do with it.
But there was something. Haku's older brother hadn't given up on Haku. With the rumors going around about Section Five being disassembled, he must have wanted to take advantage of that and bring him along to the North.
Then what would Haku do?
(If his Messiah kept dying, then surely he would end up relying on his older brother.)
But that older brother was an enemy of Eiri's family.
Eiri spoke up while pondering whether he should tell him that or not.
"... You heard it from Ichijima, right?"
"What?"
"Your big brother killed... my family."
Eiri didn't even like hearing himself saying that. But Haku's gaze didn't waver even slightly, and he turned away from Eiri to look at the monitor of the computer.
"No."
"You're lying!"
"I don't know anything about things you don't tell me. That's what it's like to be a Sakura."
It felt like he was being thrown away.
Eiri stood up with the tube of painkilling cream and returned to his own room.
It was obvious from his eyes that he knew. That's what Eiri thought. Haku must have heard about Eiri's past from Ichijima.
He was strangely curious about what Haku thought of it.
(It's not his fault. Haku himself must also be suffering because his brother has become an enemy... probably.)
He didn't think their mutual trust had been weakened. But Ichijima and Haku must be hiding something. That was what he was unable to stomach.
Most likely this incident wouldn't just end with only being Ushio's bodyguards. Ginzburg himself had contact with Eiri, and there should be some reason why he was so careless about the way Ushio was sniped.
(And the key for that was in next month's Memorial Day.)
What would he do if Ginzburg appeared in front of him once more? Eiri vaguely thought about it.
That man would most likely appear in front of them again. He must be acting with some intention other than just threatening Ushio and the children of other government officials. If that wasn't the case, he wouldn't have come to Japan, where someone with the same face as him was part of Public Security.
He wondered if he would just point his gun at that guy again without thinking if that would occur again.
Just like when he was told to shoot Gwon's enemy, he went in front of his target without looking at anything else and kept pulling the trigger without thinking of anything else until the person in front of him was dead...
Just how many of those lead bullets entered his stomach, the pain from getting grazed by them, the scent of the blood streaming out of the holes in his own body, like that--- He wonders how he would escape.
"It's since I spread my roots here."
The words that Gwon often said.
He protected it. Since he didn't have any other place than that one.
But Eiri didn't have that chance anymore as soon as he had become a Sakura. Where the hell would people who lost both their family register and nationality spread their roots?
Will he really, when he faces Ginzburg again at that time..
(Can I also be invulnerable at that moment?)
... still live?
He still didn't know for what reason he was doing it.