messiah novel (epilogue)

[devilism]

The 27th year of the imperial calendar, Russian federation, the outskirts of the capital Moscow

The four star first-rate Hotel Ukraine had a very beautiful Gothic-style appearance.

This hotel was built during the old Soviet regime, and to the people who looked up to the tall skyscraper with the sickle and star design in the middle that could be seen anywhere, it seemed different from the Greek Orthodox Church that could be seen from a distance with its onion-shaped dome. It was more reminiscent of a Catholic church.

From that hotel two men were heading towards the bridge over the Moscow River.

One of the men was tall and thin like an obelisk. The other was small like a child. Those two, who gave off the impression that they had Asian blood, seemed at a glance like siblings, or a teacher and a student.

Dislocation by itself could be fixed. The problem were the Botox injections which he had had received in his legs pretty much every day during the last few days.

The Botox that was used frequently in the world of cosmetic surgery nowadays was originally a drug developed by the Isreali army in other to weaken the legs of prisoners of war.

He tried to step firmly on the cobblestones with his own feet, whose muscles had been completely weakened. It felt strange to walk.

"Can you walk, Eiri?"

The man who got out of the taxi earlier said.

A blue-grey woolen middle coat, narrow skinny jeans which left the feet visible and dark brown leather shoes. A diagonal bag. The man, who would with one glance be mistaken for a university student just about anywhere, slowly raised his face.

It had been a while since they last saw each other. At least several years.

Mitsumi Haku.

If you'd look closely at him, his face would seem well-proportioned, but it lacked any facial expression. It was beautiful, but without personality, like the mannequin in the window of a high-end brand store.

He was Eiri's partner.

The assassins of the Japanese police, "Sakura", whose family register was erased and who were trained at Public Safety's secret school. They had spent more than two years at the training facility called Maru School, during which they had been "Messiah" who always carried out missions as a pair.

It was unexpected for them to meet again in such a place.

"How many years has it been?"

"Let's see. Maybe two or three years..."

It was actually the first time in a long while that Eiri had met Haku again. He had never seen him again ever since they cleared their graduation mission and left the gates of Maru School together.

After graduating from Maru School, Sakura usually only had solo missions. Sometimes they joined forces with someone else depending on the mission, but that partner was never decided beforehand. It sometimes changed.

Haku spoke up.

"We got a room at the Ukraine Hotel. It was a bonus from Ichijima."

"... Hmm."

Even if he called it a bonus, he didn't necessarily feel grateful.

It had already been strange that he had been released from that Yasenevo forest, and it also didn't quite click that he would be sleeping at first class hotel today.

"Haku."

"What?"

"Why.. How did you negotiate with the North? Why did Yasenevo release me?"

While infiltrating in the North, Eiri unluckily got checked up on while carrying a gun, and he was recently captured by the secret intelligence agency as a terrorist of the various terror acts that had been carried out in Moscow lately.

He didn't think that he could return from that forest alive. He could be discarded at any time he was deemed to be inconvenient--- Since he was a Sakura.

"Well, you'll have to hear it from Ichijima when you get back. I just came to pick you up."

Eiri was dazed, and he covered his cheeks with the collar of the down jacket he had been given by Haku when he was released and left that forest.

He felt relieved for some reason. His to-the-point way of speaking hadn't changed.

Sakura had a lot of foreign missions. They were support for diplomats, or they blended in with people who worked overseas to transmit information. That was why Eiri had no idea what Haku was doing now.

But he remembered something.

The partner you were assigned to at Maru School was your Messiah.

The country couldn't save Sakura, whose family register had been erased.

As it says,

Sakura members will hold their silence in protection of Church.

Sakura members who leave / graduate from Church will have no contact with Church.

Sakura members will not aid / rescue another Sakura member who has failed in their mission.

Sakura members will not become friends or lovers.

But there is one exception to these rules.

Only Messiah could, during future missions, go save Sakura who were abandoned by both their country and the organisation. So it was said.

Eiri didn't know whether it was true or not. It could just be a mere consolation, a desperate wish that took on a life of its own.

But Haku had really come to save him this time.

"Yasenevo already knows your true identity. That you're not a terrorist, but part of Japan's Public Safety. There aren't a lot of countries who will kill a spy once they capture them compared to half a century ago. They actually do backroom deals to send people home."

"Did Ichijima pay from his own pocket then in order to save me?"

"Well.. The North owed you something. From that time."

(That time.)

On top of the Novospassky Bridge he could see the surface of the Moscow River, which had turned as white as an overcast sky. It wasn't cloudy, but instead it was freezing.

The perceived temperature didn't get lowered since there wasn't any wind, but at that moment the atmospheric temperature was minus ten degrees.

— — — — — — — — —
Eiri was able to remember how he killed a person on this very same place as if it was yesterday.

The person he killed wasn't Russian, but Japanese.

The former chief of the defense department, Kurusu.

He hadn't met him before since he was so out of reach, but organisation-wise he had been the person in charge of Section Five as well.

That man had practically killed Eiri's mother and little sister. Although it had been indirectly, it was a fact that he had been the one to drive his father into coldhearted cruelty.

When he had retired from the police force and immediately headed to the North, Ichijima had asked Eiri if he was prepared.

Of course it was about whether or not he was prepared to kill Kurusu.

"I'll kill him."

He immediately replied without even having to think about it.

Ichijima had given Eiri a ticket for a ferry going north, some cash and small change in the Russian currency, and a passport forged by the state. There seemed to be relief on his face.

Kurusu had become someone who had to be killed.

If they gave higher ups within the police who had worked together with the North a quiet and peaceful old age, Japan would be ridiculed as a nation.

While Kurusu was talking on the phone with Ichijima on top of the Novospassky Bridge that day, someone was hearing everything from another place.

Eiri was standing in the left wing of the Ukraine Hotel at that time.

The hotel, which looked similar to a church on the outside, constructed in a style called Stalin gothic, had a hotel in the central skyscraper part of the building and the low-rise parts were apartments. The facade of the apartments part was decorated with a sickle and star, which looked like a person from a distance.

He used a locally obtained rifle for the sniping. He loaded bullets with a removable magazine, he put it into position on his right shoulder, and pushed it against the synthetic stock. He looked into the scope and checked the distance to his sniping target.

--- As expected, Kurusu was standing at the spot Ichijima had led him to.


Kurusu really admitted to the indirect murder.

The truth was just as he said.

He turned his father deranged, who took Eiri's mother and sister along with him. Unfortunately "Star", with the same face as Sou, appeared at that same place later. The man who witnessed the unexpected tragedy shot and killed his father, who had been bloodstained and holding a gun, with a rifle.

Eiri just happened to be present.


"Star", also called "Charo", who had killed his father, had been killed on a bridge a little bit upstream in pretty much the same manner three days ago.

A notice about an unidentified body had appeared in the local newspaper, but Kurusu hadn't seen it since he had still been unreachable at that time.

He put his finger on the trigger.

He listened carefully to the sound of the blood gushing around in his veins, and he tried to relax by synchronizing his breathing.

He always felt heavy when he pulled the trigger. Why was that? Was it the weight of a life?

His breath was white.

It brought back the feeling from the past of how he sat on the veranda, looking up at the winter sky and drinking hot cocoa. Suddenly he couldn't breathe anymore, and rushed to control his breathing again.

Everything was far off. He couldn't get it back anymore---


"This is a magic tube."

"A magic tube..."


(Father..., father, mother, Moe---)

His thoughts felt like physical pain, overwhelming his heart.


Are all of you over there with the stars now...?


As soon as he saw the point of impact, Haku got in touch with him over the cellphone.

He was seated in a stopped car near the Novospassky Bridge and was responsible for blinding Kurusu.

It all went according to plan. Kurusu's field of vision was taken away by the scope lens of an astronomical telescope that Haku held in his hand, and at that moment he was shot.

At the moment he was blinded, Eiri shot a paraffin bullet at the back of his head.

He had practiced this many times back at Maru School. In Japan, where murder was not allowed, it was the top priority to make it look like their assassination targets died an accidental death.

Kurusu's upper body became unsteady, and he fell into the frozen Moscow River.

— — — — — — — — —

"That was already three years ago, huh?"

He carried no grudge against him. He just carried out his mission as a Sakura.

If there was any element of vengeance included in the plan, it was that he had used the lens of the telescope his father had bought for him. It was the single memory that ended up back in his hands when he faced the fake Ginzburg on the day of the summit.

Even now he held it within him.

Eiri sometimes saw the stars with that small lens that was scratched and slightly hazy. When he was very young he sat with his father on his family's veranda and did that.

"The North must have been thankful for that time you got rid of Kurusu for them. This release is just them paying back the debt."

Haku said. In his hand was the familiar package of the fermented milk drink he had taken out from somewhere. His favourite water of life. Nanny.

"Did you know? It seems Kaminski likes this Nanny too. He owns a two percent stake in the Nagamori diary company."

"Ah, is that so."

"And in toilets."

He added.

"Toilets..?"

"Since those are terrible in the North. The toilet bowl freezes and it damages the pipes, making rust-filled water come out. Kaminski and his men are focusing on the Russia Olympics next year. They're using more and more Japanese companies in order to improve the toilet situation in all urban areas. It seems he wants to get along well with Japan while he's doing that."

Within the Russian Federation the dictatorial system of Secretary General Kaminski still continued.

There wasn't a single person in that country who wasn't afraid of the spy Secretary General who came from Yasenevo, but unexpectedly it wasn't common knowledge that that feared dictator was a big fan of Japanese style toilets. In other words,

"Because Kaminski is secretly famous for having hermorrhoids. Every time he comes to Japan he always buys great amounts of Japanese candy, Japanese style toilets and hermorrhoid medicine made in Japan."

(Is my life on the same level as that guy's hemorrhoids?)

While Eiri recalled that anger-inducing memory, he glared at the Ukraine Hotel from on top of the Novospassky Bridge.

"Haku."

"What?"

"Are they already blooming?"

There was only one flower that would come to mind if a Japanese person was asked about something blooming during this season.

Maru School. A top secret school that trained special spies, "Sakura."

There were two old entangled cherry blossom trees there. The branches of the cherry trees on both sides of the small stone gate were intertwined, making them look like an arch. They were the only cherry blossom trees on the premises, and everyone who entered and left Maru School would have to go through this arch.

In order to become a nameless spy.

"... When I entered, chief Ichijima told me this. 'Leave your tears over there.' I really thought that I was leaving them behind. No matter how much I'd be tortured or how painful it'd be, tears would be rare."

That was the spirit that was transmitted to you at Maru School aside from the classes.

"Only the cherry blossoms will cry."

Every year in the spring that arch's cherry blossoms would scatter like tears for the people who couldn't cry and for the people who quietly vanished.

"When I was about to die, I didn't think about wanting to see my parents' faces or anyone else's once more time. It's strange."

Eiri said, sounding as if he wanted to cry.

No matter how many times he'd try to carry out some reckless mission, his own life was still dear to him. So he was sad when he felt like he'd be lost, and felt happy when he was saved. He'd shed tears.

That that was compared to the cherry blossoms was since he was someone from a country called Japan.


Suddenly Haku smiled.

"I also remembered something."

"What is it?"

"You really don't die."

Eiri gazed at him in wonder. It looked as if Haku was laughing.

"... Of course."

Then Haku raised his hand in greeting as if he wasn't carrying a juice box in it, and started heading to the Novi Albert street on the other side of the Ukraine Hotel.

Eiri didn't ask why. He probably had his own mission. And Eiri had his own as well.

As Sakura.


He didn't know if they'd meet again soon.

They might not meet again for their entire lives.

This might have been the last time.


But it wasn't needed to ask a lot of questions.


The two of them started walking in seperate directions on top of the Novospassky Bridge.


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