messiah novel (you are in shine, part 18)

[devilism]

The colors of the flowers were starting to peek through the stubborn buds of the cherry blossoms in the park.

In March in New Tokyo the wintry grey sky was occassionally tinged with warm air, as if it was leaking out of a broken hot air heater.

Anyone could feel that spring was close. But if you reached out your hand, spring wouldn't just come along. While you were doing it, the winter cold would suddenly return. It only got warmer very gradually.

Although the world didn't get as crazy as it did around Valentine's Day, there was still a big sales war for White Day once March 14th got closer. In March the confectionary industry would first sell cakes for Girl's Day, and then they would quickly start selling marshmellows and candy after. That was mostly for the happiness of women, so for half of the world.

While Church's, the Japanese government's, and the North's goals all still weren't clear yet, there were only three days left until the world conference where World Reforming would be discussed.

In the meantime Eiri had been trying to reveal the spy from the North which should be hiding at S School, guarding Ushio Yoshiya and healing the damage he received to his arm due to Ginzburg.

If the North was serious about their threats, it was possible that something more violent would turn up after the paint bullets. But in his current state he wouldn't be able to hold a gun until in maybe three days.

In the meantime there had been suspicious accidents and thefts happening to the families of cabinet members one after the other.

Although there wasn't anyone being shot at with paint bullets like Ushio Yoshiya, the politicians whose families were being exposed to danger were in a state of panic and were scrambling to get the SP to protect their family.

Among them Prime Minister Ushio's family got protection from the SP 24 hours per day. Since Ushio Yoshiya also got confined to his home because of it, he still didn't come to school day after day. Instead he sent Eiri emails each day, as much as he could.

"What about class? I'm super worried. Ah, I couldn't take the literary mock exam either."

"Hey, your old man is the Prime Minister. A lot of foreign bigwigs are coming here for the disarmament conference. Seems like they're worried about terrorism. It's a real bother."

"Will you come over to my place tomorrow? You can see some interesting things."

He invited Eiri over to his house. Although he made it seem like it was just a good opportunity to study together, he had been sending an unordinary amount of emails, showing that he was nervous.

It was just as Eiri had planned. He was pretty relieved by this course of events.

With this he had a reason to visit the Ushio home where the SP was camping out. The only thing he had to make sure of was to visit the day before World Reforming.

While they didn't know when "Tower" would appear again, it wasn't good to let him go to S School. While he was staying indoors, the SP could at least protect him.

In any case, the crucial part is "World Reforming". No matter what decision Prime Minister Ushio makes, Eiri and Haku's mission as Sakura was to protect Ushio Yoshiya and to get rid of any spies from the North. And the former was a priority over the latter. And to that end there was no better method than to watch over Ushio himself.

Nevertheless, he was worried about the fact that there hadn't been any contact from Ichijima at all.

(He always contacts us about details while we have a mission this long.)

That wasn't the only strange thing. Ichijima had specially sent Shiba Shuusuke, who was from the same class as Eiri, as a messenger.

Since the opponent was also involved with intelligence agencies, Ichijima would sent out messengers from the headquarters if there could be some form of interception. Since there was the possibility that anything sent over phones or computers could be leaked.

But that sort of case was rare.

(Was the chief on his guard because of the spy from the North who might be hiding at S School?)

Eiri's position was leaked out for sure at the moment Egor Ginzburg had come across him. The problem was figuring out who the hell the spy from the North was.

It was sure that he was worried that information would be leaked.

But it was unusual that there hadn't been any thorough instructions so far. Since there weren't any instructions, both Eiri and Haku could only go through with the original plan. It was an ironclad rule that cadets like them should make sure to contact the head quarters as little as possible. There hadn't been any unexpected accidents around them aside from the appearance of Egor Ginzburg. If nothing else happens from this point on, should they just silently let World Reforming pass?

(Or was the chief waiting for something...?)

A mystery. A mystery. There were only mysteries.

Why didn't Ichijima get in touch with them?

What was Haku's big brother, Egor Ginzburg, thinking? Why wasn't he just getting in contact with Haku, but with Eiri too?

(And World Reforming...)

— — — — — — — — —
"Haku, are you there?"

After passing through the unlit living room, Eiri went towards Haku's room. The sliding door was only slightly opened, and a dim pale light came out from there. It was the light of the computer's monitor.

"I'm here."

After giving that brief answer, he turned around his chair to face Eiri. It seemed like he had been watching some sort of video.

If Eiri had to say it, then he'd say Haku's speciality was information warfare. Unlike his own speciality, which was sniping. He could locate a target from enormous amounts of data, and was able to quickly replace the screws in furniture with cameras and wiretaps.

"What are you doing?"

"You can see the cherry blossoms from there."

Eiri slowly entered the room. Among the cherry blossom buds, only one flower was blooming. It was doused by the white light from the streetlights, to the point it almost didn't seem like a cherry blossom flower.

"What kind of cherry blossom is that?"

Eiri said.

"Who do you think we're saving?"

Haku shot a mysterious look at Eiri. If anyone else would have seen it, he would just have seemed drowsy.

That Eiri understood it was a sign that they were close.

But Eiri wasn't convinced yet whether Haku was his Messiah or not.

"What's this all of a sudden?"

"What your brother said. What he told us on the day we met, on the rooftop of that high building. Even if you'd stay here, you couldn't save anyone and you couldn't be saved either. So why don't you come with me.. that's what he said."

Haku blinked as his gaze met Eiri's.

"I kept thinking about it. The reason why the man who killed my family came to see me. That he told you "it's been a long while." I hounded Ichijima for information since I wanted to know more. Only you have access to Drainage, but as expected, it's impossible for you to hack in there. There's so many things in this mission that I don't know about. I don't feel good about moving towards the World Reforming day as things are now. That's why---, I'm asking you now."

Eiri stared at Haku. There were knives hidden inside his long sleeves that would land in his hands if he shook said sleeves. It was in case Haku's answer was exactly what he thought it would be.

"Are you a Russian spy? --- Haku."

Suddenly the brightness stopped, and the room got darker. Since the computer hadn't been used for a certain amount of time, it went into the energy saving mode.

"Why do you think that?"

"It's been two years now since we got partnered up. But Sakura purposefully doesn't tell you your partner's profile. Why is that? It would be better to know more about the person you're working together with. But Ichijima didn't give us each other's personal data. In other words, we had to find it ourselves."

Since partners shared a room together in the dormitory, they often went back and forth between each other's space. You were able to profile your partner through finding out their likes and dislikes and the way they spent their leisure time that way.

"There's a magazine in your room from a few years ago. You haven't thrown it away ever since I came here. And it's not just that magazine. Your room is full of things that you've bought. Although I often told you to throw it away, you never did that. That's why I started thinking. You don't throw it away since you can't throw it away."

Haku's face was without any facial expression, just like usually. The face of a mannequin standing in the storefront of a luxury brand shop---

"You can't throw things away. Since you're extremely afraid of losing things. That's why I was wondering what you could have lost. Because of that I thought about the reason why you're so attached to cheap sweets. Instead of eating well, you go to the convenience store and eat snack food and drink from boxes of milk drinks. It has some sort of meaning to you."

He was obsessed with candy, just like a little kid. But he didn't seem to be concerned about what he was wearing or his everyday necessities. He didn't throw away old things, yet he seemed obsessed with new things. He cared about what other people thought. But he kept that pressure inside so other people wouldn't notice it.

"You can't throw away old things because you had a poor childhood. You're crazy about buying new things since you couldn't do that back then. You care about what other people think since you were always worried about what adults would think when you were little. Am I wrong, Haku?"

If you've been together for a long time, the other's past would show somehow.

Under what circumstances did Mitsumi Haku grow up, and how that shaped him.

According to the reports, Egor Ginzburg and Mitsumi Haku were last seen in a place in the Chiba prefecture where the public order was particularly bad.

Under the elevated JR old snack shops and brothels were crammed together, the puddles on the ground didn't even reflect the sky.. A district that took away people's dignity until they were exhausted enough that they seemed like they were about to die.

A district known as the gutter district.

How did Haku grow up in a place like that?

It wasn't so difficult to imagine for Eiri, who had been picked up by Gwon in a similar sort of place.

A one-room apartment at a brothel where his mother worked, a very small environment. Having to share everything with his brother there, living while constantly being exposed to the gazes of adults...

Eiri had seen plenty of those kinds of fatherless families. They couldn't eat as much as they wanted, and they grew up eating snack food and drinking carbonated drinks in order to try and fill up their empty stomach from a young age.

Of course they'd get malnourished. Their eyesight would get worse, their bones would get weaker and they'd get easily injured. But the children's mother wouldn't have money to buy them three meals a day. So they would irresponsibly be given sweets in order for them to fill up their belly.

The mother would get home at dawn and sleep until the afternoon. Once she woke up, she'd immediately have to put on makeup and go to her part time job. Since she couldn't go out at times that the supermarket would be open, the children would only get things that could be bought at 24 hour convenience stores.

A child would quickly learn that it's futile to cry. Acting like a spoiled child or crying wouldn't get anything done, you'd only get a kick from the mother's pimp or plain silence.

What the hell was Haku trying to fill himself up with in a room in a spacious dorm filled with candy boxes, magazines and Nanny bought by the box?

"For you it was absolutely natural that your brother was there. You're actually waiting, right? For your big brother to come pick you up."

Eating the same things, drinking the same things, trying to fill up something.

Haku had a rebuttal.

"That guy almost didn't say anything to me. He must have been inviting you to come along with him."

"You've killed some spies from the North before. So Ginzburg can't openly rescue you. But it'd be a different matter if you were persuading another Japanese Sakura to move over to their side. Those guys always welcome traitors. In order to save you, that guy prepared a script which would cancel out your sins. By using me. Am I wrong?"

Despite being the criminal who had killed Eiri's family, that guy had seemed strangely impressive. He had been talking to Eiri as if he knew everything about him, he seemed confident.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes. My family that was killed seven years ago by that guy--- Maybe they were part of the North. I can't think of anything else."

Were both of his parents spies from the North, or was it just his father? Or maybe just his mother?

He couldn't hear the truth about that from anyone but that man.

But Eiri was already almost completely convinced.

"While my parents were Russian spies hiding in Japan, they were swayed over to the Japanese side before they knew it, and so they became traitors. That's why Ginzburg killed them for betraying them."

If he viewed it that way, the reason why Ginzburg asked him if he didn't want to come along became clear.

There was a reason why Eiri might as well go to the North. Either his father or his mother's family might be there.

Thinking about it now, he had never met his grandparents or other relatives. He had been told that his grandparents had died a long time ago. But it was strange that, no matter how distant his relatives were, they never received a single letter or New Year's card from a single person.

Eiri wondered if he had been using that as a pretext. To Eiri, who had already settled his roots in Japan, Ginzburg had been acting so boldly and acted confident about showing him his true roots. Eiri couldn't view it any other way.

"Telling me the truth about my parents, taking me in, using me to threaten Ushio Yoshiya, putting pressure on the Prime Minister. And if Japan would go along with the side of the North for World Reforming, he would be discharged from having to kill his brother Haku as well. If I were Ginzburg, I'd arrange something like that."

"And because of that, you'll accept that invitation?"

Haku said with a monotonous voice.

"Are you going to accept the invite of a man who killed your parents?"

"It's an attractive offer."

"Even though he's your parents' enemy? Why?"

"They're not necessarily my real parents. You must know it too. Sakura might be dismantled."

Only then Haku's facial expression changed.

"If the disarmament continues, there's a possibility that Section Five, which the police chief Kurusu thought of himself, will be shut down. If that happens, we won't have a place to go. The country will easily abandon us Sakura. We don't have a family register. We're just humans who died a long time ago. It doesn't seem likely that they'll allow such ghost-like people to be released into society."

If that would happen, they would have no choice but to start a battle for survival as just one person with a huge country like Japan as their opponent. In this narrow island country they would have to survive by escaping the police dragnet. Anyone would think it's obvious that such a thing is impossible.

"We'll be erased."

"That sort of thing is..."

"Impossible? Is that what you wanted to say? If that's so, then why hasn't Ichijima contacted us?"

When confronted with such a situation, it would not be impossible to consider an invitation to come to the North.

"Ginzburg wants both you and me. And you already know that. Haku, are you planning on going to the North? Is that why Ichijima is not giving us information, since he's on guard because of you?"

My partner might be a traitor.

It was a simple conclusion to arrive at after Ichijima hadn't sent them any instructions for a long time now.

All of this was just Eiri's conjecture though. There wasn't any evidence.

It were just vague thoughts.

"That's wrong."

Haku firmly said.

"Your parents aren't from the North, Eiri."

He rotated the working chair and slowly stood up.

Eiri was on his guard. He felt even more aware of that knife hidden inside of his sleeve.

"Your parents are Japanese. But they also didn't work for an intelligence agency on the Japanese side."

Eiri instinctively got annoyed at that tone that made him sound like he knew just about everything.

"Why would you know about that?!"

"And besides that, your information about me and Sou is also wrong. That man isn't my brother. That man didn't come here for me. Ichijima has a different reason for not contacting us."

"Not your brother, that's ridiculous..."

It was unthinkable that they had no relation at all with their faces looking so much alike. But he...

"Look at this."

Urging him to look at the computer, he sat on the chair once more. He put a card next to the card reader that was about the size of a driver's license.

"What... ID?"

Not only members of the government in Tokyo had cards as proof of their identity, but police staff in the whole country owned them. Aside from registering your personal profile, you could get the right to view other people's information depending on your work. And depending on your permission rank, you could access various ministries' databases.

"Drainage" held the most information in all of Japan, including the database of the Ministry of Finance that held the budgets for all ministries, and the criminal investigation database of the Ministry of Police.

But Eiri and the others couldn't look at a lot of information at their students' rank.

"This was delivered by a messenger just now before you came back."

"Well, isn't it yours?"

"My ID couldn't access this much. But I don't know how long I'll be able to use this. If the owner blocks it, then it's over."

"Owner?"

Several seconds ahead of Eiri's question Haku was already projecting onto the screen. Like a picture show report windows started overlapping one by one.

"This... is..."

The words instinctively came out. Information that would normally never be available to only a student investigator was being listed like some online information bulletin board.

"Who the hell does this ID belong to?!"

He pulled the card out of the reader. Eiri was speechless again as he noted the full name and the photo on it.

"What..."

It was a familiar face. He had seen it at Maru School several times.

Eiri had no words when he realised the meaning behind the ID he was holding in his hands now.

He felt dizzy.

It was a feeling almost like the drunkenness you get when you lose your sense of direction after getting out of a very, very long tunnel...

(Who the hell are we fighting with?)

Everytime Haku's mouse scrolled on the screen, the information they wanted to know appeared, one after another. At that moment the table clock on top of the computer desk stirred.

Midnight.

There was one day left until the disarmament conference that would address World Reforming.


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