I waited until the time was just right to jump. My coat billowed with air and rustled in the wind. I landed on the roof of a red minivan that was driving in front of the bus, throwing out my hand and one knee to blunt the fall. I heard someone inside the minivan scream.
When I turned around, I saw the bus and a Mimic soldier in gray behind the wheel. He fastened his gaze on me with bloodshot eyes. There were at least two enemies on that bus. They were military, and almost certainly armed. I, on the other hand, had no backup or weapon to defend myself with. But I would be able to handle things as long as I got just one look at the enemy. The bus itself sped up, closing in on the minivan. It looked as if the bus driver wanted to hit me along with the car. In this kind of situation, I’d normally want to cower and run the other way—that is, if I hadn’t seen the kid’s swollen face moments prior.
After a brief yet silent apology, I violently kicked the minivan’s side-view mirror with my heel. The metal snapped as the mirror lazily fell, only to dangle by the vehicle’s side. Right as I reached out and tore it off, the bus rammed the red minivan. I desperately latched on as the car drastically swerved to the side, and then I threw the side-view mirror in my hand directly at the Mimic soldier driving the bus. The oversize red-painted mirror shattered the front window and smashed straight into the driver’s face before he could draw his gun. Immediately, he slammed on the brakes as he began to lose consciousness. Like an intoxicated rhinoceros, the bus swerved back and forth before eventually coming to a stop. Meanwhile, the minivan I was standing on also came to a halt as if it had drawn its last breath. I jumped off the roof.
When I faced the bus, I got a terrible feeling, as if someone had just put my heart in a vise. Alarm bells relentlessly pounded in my head. My vision flashed red and white. Before I’d even realized it, I was already sprinting.
—“I will make you understand me.”
The driver was holding some kind of signal transmitter. I already knew what that meant. My body, however, hadn’t caught up yet. A single moment that felt like an eternity passed by. The Mimic soldier pressed the switch on the transmitter.
And just like that, the bus instantly exploded.
My body was blasted back by a wall of air. I lost consciousness as I flew through the sky, but my back crashed into a nearby car, jolting me awake. I looked at the bus. Pillars of fire rose out of each window as it flew in the air almost as high as the eye could see. After briefly spinning through the air, it quickly fell onto the side of the road.
A moment went by before shards of glass rained from above. I tried to rush over. I tried to sprint to the bus even if it would only get me there a second faster. But in reality, all I did was fall face-first and writhe pathetically on the hard asphalt. The bus went up in flames. It lay on its side, bent in the middle. I tasted blood in the back of my throat. There was a deafening ringing in my ears, and I could barely hear a thing.
—“Like, he treats us all like kids, but we’re all adults here, ya know?”
My throat hurt. I couldn’t breathe. I could hear someone’s screams from afar. I realized—because my throat was in so much pain—that the one screaming was me.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”
A small sightseeing ship floated in the Yokohama Bay. Gentle waves glittered in the rays of sun from a crystal-clear sky. The ship quietly drifted through the waters as it bathed in the reflected glare.
Only a few people were on board the vessel. In the center stood a young man with scholarly features and round glasses—Ango Sakaguchi, an agent with the Special Division for Unusual Powers. A man was sitting to his right.
“Ango, it’s been a while. Thanks for inviting me. How have things been since returning to your real job?”
A man with slicked-back black hair and a white coat—the Port Mafia boss, Ougai Mori—spoke to Ango in a friendly manner.
“……” Without saying a word, Ango simply lowered his gaze nervously.
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t pick on my youngster here, Mafia leader.”
Sitting on Ango’s other side was a tall, middle-aged man with white hair who towered over the rest of the people on the boat. He was Chief Taneda, the commander in chief of the Home Affairs Ministry’s Special Division for Unusual Powers.
Behind the Mafia boss and the Division chief respectively were men in black suits standing guard and the Special Forces in black. However, not a single soul was armed.
His expression strained with tension, Ango said, “Thank you for coming today. Once again, this is an unofficial meeting. All audio and visual recordings or physical intervention by anyone other than those present will be treated as acts of treachery, and the meeting will be immediately terminated.”
Ango glanced at the bay as he spoke. Men from each organization secretly, or perhaps openly, waited on land off in the distance. In the unlikely case that one party decided to betray and kill the other during the meeting, the injured party’s subordinates on the coast would immediately annihilate the enemy. This meeting was created on a state of delicate balance with each party holding a knife to the other’s throat.
“My little Elise has been nagging me to buy her ice cream on the way home. Do you know of any good places, Chief Taneda?”
“Ha-ha-ha. Well, isn’t that sweet.” Chief Taneda laughed while cooling himself off with the fan in his hand. “Maybe I should pick something up for the bureaucrats waiting for my report back at the Home Affairs Ministry, too. They’d love to have your head, I’ll tell ya.”
Two Mafia subordinates waiting behind their boss started to shake with rage. However, the boss simply smirked with an air of indifference.
“Feigning concern for the higher-ups at the Home Affairs Ministry to boost your reputation? Government officials always seem to have something to worry about, don’t they, Chief Taneda?”
“Oh, it’s a trifling concern when compared with someone who has to hide in the sewers in fear of getting squashed by the government.”
The two men spoke and looked as if they were playing shogi under the eaves of a house together. But the designated mediator, Ango, who was standing in the middle, couldn’t stop himself from breaking into a cold sweat. If the two men before him seriously went at it, then Yokohama would become a city of corpses before three days had passed.
“Now, let’s talk business,” said Ango. Even the Division’s elite needed to exercise utmost caution when interrupting these two. “Mr. Taneda of the Special Division for Unusual Powers has two requests for Mr. Ougai of the Port Mafia. First, you are to neither concern yourself with nor inflict harm on me, Ango. Next, you are to wipe out the European crime syndicate, Mimic, that illegally entered Japan. Do you accept?”
“I have no problems with the first condition. Personally, I’m actually extremely grateful to you, Ango. You’re talented, and you supported me a great deal with my work, r