The Mind Control Assassins

  Chapter 6

  Since I can’t contact Shiori, I don’t have any choice other than to go to her house. I have a feeling that something bad must have happened to her. “I understand that you’re worried about her, but you can’t go. You’ve just recovered. There’s no way you should go in a condition like this,” Ms. Shoko says to me. She’s against the idea of me heading to Shiori’s house right now.

  I clench my fist when Ms. Shoko tries to stop me. I feel frustrated that Ms. Shoko doesn’t allow me to go there. “What do you want me to do then? Do you expect me to wait here and do nothing? I can’t just stay here when I already know something bad must have happened to her!” I yell at her.

  Dad doesn’t say anything despite Ms. Shoko’s opposition. “Shoko, you’re right about that,” dad says, “But we still need to check on her.” Dad then looks at me. “Since Yuuto is in school right now, Azuma will replace him as a sniper. I’ll be there as well. I won’t let the same thing happened to you again.”

  Ms. Shoko seems surprised with dad’s sudden reaction. “Minoru, I thought that you won’t take action when things are uncertain?” She asks dad. Dad sighs as he answers Ms. Shoko’s question. “I usually don’t, but I do think that there is a possibility that Satoru Yuuya is with her. Even I also agree with Touka that we can’t just sit here and wish for the best. That won’t work.”

  Ms. Shoko gets up after that. “If that’s the case, we’ll send you the reinforcement to help you. This is a rescue mission anyway. We need as much support as we can.” Ms. Shoko leaves so then she can begin making a request to help us. “Touka, I think you’re better off running to her house instead of going there with a car. Yotsuya isn’t that far from here, so it’s faster that way. Leave once you’re ready,” dad says to me.

  I nod and go inside my room to make preparation. Dad is right about that. It’s much faster for me to just run off to Yotsuya instead of going there with a car. Besides that, it’s better for us to go on a separate way. Dad probably has other things to do before he heads to her house. So, it’s better for me to go ahead first just to observe the situation.

  I leave the house as soon as the preparation is complete. On my way to Shiori’s house, I receive a connection from Ms. Chiyo through my earpiece. “Guys, I’ve found a lot of surveillance devices in her house,” she says to us, “I have hijacked one of them. According to the backlog, Shiori had left her house with her manager since yesterday.”

  With Shiori not coming home since yesterday, it makes sense that she hasn’t called me. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s unable to call me because she’s busy with her work. “But that’s not all,” Ms. Chiyo continues, “It seems that they only monitored the call she made to Touka. I’ve yet to find out why, so I’ll let you know when I find anything else.”

  They only monitored my calls with Shiori? Why in the world they want to do that? It’s not like we’re talking anything confidential or anything that threaten them. “Ms. Chiyo, do you know who place the surveillance devices in her house? It feels creepy that Muse Agency will go that far just to keep track of their idols,” I say to her.

  Ms. Chiyo replies to me a couple of minutes later. “Well, they’re the same as the one we’ve used to keep an eye on those researchers. So, I don’t think the agency is the one who placed them. One possibility can be Satoru Yuuya. If Shiori has been his target all along, it’s not surprising that he’s monitoring her. He can use Shiori to threaten us because he already knows your relationship with her.”

  Damn! So, what we do now is according to Satoru Yuuya’s plan? I can’t say for sure yet, but I still need to hurry. Shiori can be in danger if we’re too late. “Touka, I’m already at a place not far from her house,” Mr. Sakakibara says to me, “I don’t see anyone in her house. I will inform you if someone comes in.”

  I finally reach Shiori’s house a few minutes later. It seems like I reach here faster than I’ve estimated. “I already reach the target location. This posh apartment building has a concierge, so I’m going to ask them about Shiori. I’m going to cut my communication temporary. I don’t want them to feel suspicious about me.”

  I go inside after letting everyone knows that I’ve arrived. Once I’m inside, I walk straight to the concierge. “Um, I’m here to go to Shiori Ono’s house. She wanted to see me,” I say to the concierge. If Shiori didn’t tell them anything, then I have a chance to ask them about Shiori’s whereabouts. The concierge then begins to look at the database. He’s currently checking if Shiori had ever informed them about anyone coming to see her.

  “Well, Ms. Ono did say that someone will come here to see her. Do you happen to be Ms. Touka Kimizuki?” The concierge asks me. “Yes, I am,” I answer him. It seems strange that Shiori lets them know that I’ll be coming. She had never said anything about asking me to meet her. Not only that, the concierge doesn’t even suspect anything that no one is inside her house. If she does, Mr. Sakakibara would have notified me.

  He then begins the procedure by asking my ID just to confirm my identity. I hand over my ID despite feeling that something is not right. I wish I can ask Ms. Chiyo to hack into their database. But I can’t make a request for the time being. He returns my ID after the identification process is complete.

  “Ms. Kimizuki, you may take the elevator over there and head to the fifth floor. Ms. Ono’s house is the fourth one,” says the concierge. I bow and thank him for his patronage. My instinct is getting stronger, telling me that there’s danger ahead. But still, it’s my responsibility to save Shiori if something is bound to happen. I resume my communication once I’m inside the elevator.

  Suddenly, I can hear a mild sound of an explosion. Don’t tell me that they’re going to blow me along with the elevator? “Ms. Chiyo, what’s going on here? I’ve heard an explosion here,” I ask her. Ms. Chiyo replies to me after a while. “Satoru Yuuya has blown off the security camera on the fifth floor,” she replies. After that, dad begins talking to me. I think he must be here by now.

  “Touka, do you notice anything suspicious?” Dad asks me. I begin to explain to dad everything about what I’ve encountered. He sighs after I’m done with my explanation. “Touka, listen carefully to what I’m going to say,” he says to me, “I bet that we’ve already fallen into his trap. Once you’ve reached there, leave this place at once.” I follow dad’s order despite feeling reluctant. I know that Shiori is in danger, but it’s too dangerous for me to go there.

  Once I reach the fifth floor, I’ve decided to go down by taking a staircase instead. When I try to open the fire-resistant door, I realize that the door is locked. I guess he insists me to use the elevator to go down. As I press the button, the elevator suddenly explodes. It looks like he wants me to go to Shiori’s house no matter what. I don’t think I have any ways to escape other than to head to her house.

  As I reach Shiori’s house, I notice something strange. Her house’s door isn’t shut properly. I thought that someone must have broken into her house, but there’s no sign that the door is being tampered. If no one is inside, why the door is left open? All I can think right now is he wants to lure me to go inside. If I see that the door is open, I will immediately go inside and begins my investigation.

  “Dad, the fire-resistant door that leads to the emergency staircase is locked. And the elevator has been blown off too. It looks to me that he wants to trap me here. I already look everywhere for a possible exit route. But it seems like Shiori’s house is the only exit route left for me. I guess I have no choice but to enter her house if I want to escape from this place,” I inform dad about my decision.

  Dad replies to me after that. “Touka, I don’t think he just wants to trap you on the fifth floor. It looks to me that Satoru Yuuya is trying to cut me off from you too. The access to the emergency staircase in the lobby is blocked too. The elevator is unusable because of the explosion. I can choose to climb all the way to the fifth floor, but that will attract unwanted attention to me. It looks like you have to proce
ed on your own.”

  I reply to dad after that. “Alright, I will handle things here on my own.” After I cut off my communication with dad, I begin to reach out for the door knob and yank the door as wide as I can. Once the door is wide open, I go inside the house without closing it. One of the reasons is because that’s my only escape route if anything happens. Another reason is it will help me to be aware if someone is coming inside.

  As I enter the house, I begin to examine if there’s a sign someone broke into her house. Well, it’s less likely to occur. But I’m just keeping this as a possibility that someone did break into her house. But then again, everything in her house looks so neat. It looks exactly the same, just like when Shiori left the house. Even the things in her bedroom are in the proper place. There’s not even a single sign that somebody already broke into her house and stole something.

  Now, I begin to wonder why the door was open with no sign of being tampered. Well, I doubt that anyone can tamper with this kind of door easily. It’s because this door requires an authentication from the owner. With the door was open and there wasn’t a single sign that it has been tampered, I can only think of one possibility. Somebody must have already cracked the authentication code. There’s no doubt that Satoru Yuuya is behind this.

  As I begin to report my findings, I realize that I can’t connect with dad. Not only that, I can’t connect with everyone. I try to contact dad again, but the only thing I get is the buzzing sound that comes from my earpiece. It seems like Shiori’s house has become an isolated place. So, it means that any kind of communication can’t get through. I’m pretty sure that they can’t even establish any connection with me unless I leave this place.

  Before I can do anything, I suddenly hear the door closed. As I turn around, I notice that there are three men standing at the entrance. I don’t know any of them, but I do recognize one person. And that person is Dr. Frederick Choo. It’s the guy Hayato is keeping track of. What is he doing here? What’s important, when do they come in? And why I don’t even realize that they’re already here?

  “Hi there, you must be Ms. Ono’s friend, Touka Kimizuki,” he says to me. He only smiles at me when he greets me. “Just to let you know that I was the one who blocked your escape route. So, the locked fire resistant door and the elevator explosion are all my doing. My purpose here is not to let you escape from this place no matter what. Not only that, but we also have a surprise for you. I’m pretty sure you’ll love it.”

  I clench my fist when I hear his words. So, this guy must have been targeting me all along. As I retreat to the living room, the TV suddenly turns on, showing me footage of a guy with a beaten-up girl. The girl is wearing a virtual reality headset. That’s when I realize that the beaten-up girl is actually Shiori. And the guy next to her is Satoru Yuuya. Now, I begin to think that I’m already too late to save her. “What did you do to her?” I yell at him.

  “Calm down, Ms. Touka Kimizuki,” Satoru Yuuya says to me, “You insist on seeing this girl. And now, she’s right here in front of you. Shouldn’t you smile when you see her? You’ll scare her away with your angry look.” I feel frustrated when I see what he has done to Shiori. I’m pretty sure that he’s doing this just to make her dissociate from the reality. Before the microchip implant can work, this is a crucial step for him.

  “What are you trying to do to her?” I yell at him. He only smiles at me, though. “Well, it’s nothing much. I just want her to experience something in a long distant,” he replies. He then pushes his glasses back and continues talking to me. “I guess I don’t need to tell you what I after all this time. With her current condition right now, it’ll be easier for me to achieve my goal. I’m pretty sure you’ve already known what I’m going to do next.”

  It saddens me to see Shiori’s condition with my own eyes. I can hear that Shiori is calling my name with her weak voice. She must be brutally abused that she’s too weak even to lift her finger. “So, you intend to use me to inflict trauma on her? I can tell with the virtual reality headset strapped to her head. This is the best method since you don’t want me to know your current whereabouts,” I say to him.

  He chuckles when he hears my explanation. “You’re right. As expected from my former test subject. You and your twin brother indeed are the outlier. Since you’re here, Dr. Frederick Choo and I are going to witness something interesting. I’m pretty sure that your friend here will feel the same too.” I cringe when I see him looking so amused. I bet that he’s planning to use the other two men to kill me. As a result, my death will inflict trauma on Shiori.

  “Touka, I’m scared. Please…help me,” Shiori begs to me. Even by just listening to her voice, I can tell that she must be suffering a lot. Dr. Frederick Choo only smiles when he sees my reaction. I bet that he can’t wait just to see how I fare against these men. I’m pretty sure that these men don’t just have a microchip implant. But they also receive a physical enhancing drug at a high dosage. Everything about them looks so superficial to me.

  “Mr. Yuuya, please don’t hurt my friend. I’m willing to do anything as long as you don’t hurt her,” Shiori says to him. Despite her weak condition, she still has the energy to beg for him. “I’m sorry, miss,” he whispers to her, “It’s fine if that’s what you want. But you have to endure the pain on her behalf instead. Either one of you has to suffer. I’m not going to let you off the hook just like that.”

  His whisper is loud enough for me to hear. It frustrates me even more when he smirks at me, mocking me that I can’t do anything to save Shiori. He then slaps her countless time until her cheeks bleed. Shiori doesn’t even scream or yell at him. I can tell that she’s enduring the pain. Satoru Yuuya stops slapping her after a while. “You’re a lot stronger than I thought,” he says to her, “Then I should use your bestie to inflict the trauma on you.”

  I can’t bear this any longer when I see how Shiori is enduring the pain only for my sake. “Shiori, can you hear me?” I ask her. She nods despite feeling weak after being beaten by Satoru Yuuya. “Listen,” I tell her, “Don’t worry about me. I promise that I won’t let these bastards kill me. And I will come and save you. Until then, please hang on.”

  Shiori smiles faintly when I tell her that. Dr. Frederick Choo claps his hands. He looks amused with what he witnesses. “Wow, you sound like a superhero,” he says to me in a mocking tone, “But sorry, I won’t let you win this easily. My trusted men will take care of you so you won’t leave this place alive.” Now, I don’t care what he says. The only thing I know is I trust myself that I can defeat these guys. And Shiori trusts me that I can do this too.

  “Oh, I forgot to mention that these guys are not an ordinary person. Their abilities are already enhanced with the microchip implant and the physical enhancing drugs. Surprisingly, this combination works well together. I can’t wait to see the final outcome,” he says to me. Just as I’ve predicted, these men do have a microchip implant. Added with physical enhancing drugs, these drugs will give them the upper hand.

  Their physique somehow is the same as the physique of a pro-wrestler. I guess they’re a lot tougher than fighting Momoko Sugita. Their large built gives them a huge advantage over a small physique like me. Before I can land an attack on any of them, the first man begins his attack on me. His attack sends me off to the bookshelves which are not far from the living room. Their movements are fast too. I’ll be toast if I don’t move fast enough to evade their attacks.

  Unlike my previous fight with Ryu Mikado, they’re a lot tougher to deal with. In their case, their strength, awareness and their durability are on the different level. It all thanks to Dr. Frederick Choo’s drugs at a high dosage. Maybe this is another way for him to make the effect of the drugs to last longer.

  Despite my high durability, I’m not going to lie that my back hurts. I can’t even stand properly because of the high impact on my back. If this fight continues, I bet that I will break apart before I can kill them off. “You’re strong even for a girl. I know th
at you’re an outlier just like your twin brother. But I don’t expect that you’ll be this strong,” Dr. Frederick Choo praises me.

  I’m happy with the compliment. But it doesn’t mean anything if I no longer have the strength to kill them. Physical enhancing drugs and a microchip implant is the worst combo that I have to deal with. I guess they’re the perfect illustration of a transhuman. It’s just that they no longer look like a human to me. They’re no different than a monster. They’re not under the mind control, but they can’t seem to think and behave for themselves.

  “Wow, it looks like it takes more than that to kill you in an instant. I should have gone and increased their dosage. I thought that this will be good enough to kill you,” he says to me. I hope that he’s kidding about the dosage. I can’t even beat these guys with their current dosage. I don’t want to imagine what’s going to happen to me if he gives them drugs with the highest dosage. There’s no doubt that I’ll be dead meat by now.

  The fight continues with me attacking one of them. I’m able to knock one of them. But I don’t realize that the other man attacks me from behind, sending me flying off to the wall. Now, my back hurts because of the double momentum. I can’t even stand straight. It feels like I’m in the wrestling ring, with these men are taking their turn to pounce at me.

  Both men are now surrounding me and begin to pound me to the ground. This fight now turns into a brutal fight. I no longer have the chance to evade their attack, let alone attacking them back. Shiori screams when she sees that they keep on pounding me as I have no strength to counterattack them.

  Dr. Frederick Choo smiles when he thinks that the victory is his. Satoru Yuuya seems pleased with the result too when he notices Shiori’s reaction to what they do to me. I guess Shiori’s dissociation process is almost close to completion. I hate to see that Satoru Yuuya finally gets what he wants, but I just don’t have the strength to turn the tide. I guess that I’m going to die for real this time. This fight is a lot worse than my fight with Momoko Sugita.

  “I guess this is your goodbye, Ms. Kimizuki,” Dr. Frederick Choo says to me. I hate to admit defeat, but I guess what he says is right. I have no chance against them, even from the beginning. Their strength exceeds mine, so I have no chance to win against them. Even being an outlier doesn’t help me to win this fight. I’m sorry, everyone. Not only I fail to rescue Shiori, but I also fail to leave this place alive.

  Now, I barely move. When both men are about to attack me again, Dr. Frederick Choo snickers at Satoru Yuuya. “The circus performance ends here, Satoru Yuuya,” he says to him. He then takes off his mask. It turns out to be that it’s Hayato who disguises himself as Dr. Frederick Choo. Satoru Yuuya looks surprised when Hayato reveals his identity to him. He only smiles, as if it’s nothing surprising to him.

  “I should have known from the beginning that it was you all along. So, I’d like to express my gratitude for eliminating Dr. Frederick Choo on my behalf. Now I have one less thing to do on my to-do list,” he says to Hayato. Dad is right about this. Satoru Yuuya did have the intention to get rid of Dr. Frederick Choo. It doesn’t seem like their cooperation is as glittery as it looks on the surface.

  “Why do you have to kill him? Is it because he already knew you were the one who killed your colleagues in UC Berkeley back then?” I ask him as I’m about to stand up. He only smiles when he looks at me. “You seem to know a lot about me, Ms. Kimizuki. About that, I won’t deny that I’m the one who killed them. But that’s not the reason why I want Dr. Frederick Choo to die. I won’t bother to kill him for such a petty reason,” he answers.

  A petty reason, he says? So, it’s true that he has another underlying reason to kill him. “Since I’m in a good mood today, I guess I don’t mind to tell you why I kill him,” he says to us, “He’s just like Saburo Matsuda. He’s another greedy bastard that I need to get rid of. He always thinks that his research is flawless, but it doesn’t look that way to me. Just take a look at these men here. They don’t even look human at all. Those drugs will never fit my ideal vision of a transhuman.”

  I have to agree with him on this part, though. The physical enhancing drugs are already working even at a small dosage. But with a high dosage, the drugs end up turning these men into monsters. It doesn’t even represent what a transhuman is all about. “So you think his research doesn’t mean anything to you?” I ask him. He smirks at me when I ask him that question. “Well, yes. His research is never on the same par as mine. He must be an idiot to think it does,” he answers.

  He then looks at Hayato. “I never thought that you’ve sided with these guys from PSIA. I always assume that you will never trust anyone in your life because of what Tsubaki has done to you,” he says to him. Tsubaki? Who in the world is that? Hayato doesn’t even react at all when Satoru Yuuya mentions the name Tsubaki. Does Hayato even know who this person is?

  “It’s true that I felt hurt when I found out that Tsubaki betrayed me. But it didn’t matter to me anymore. I don’t regret my action to kill her,” Hayato answers. He then looks at me. “But these guys are different. Minoru even allowed me to live together with them. Sure, those two are the outliers just like me, but mine is just way above them. I’m more like a monster, but they still treat me just like I’m a part of their family. So, I have thousands of reasons to side with them.”

  Satoru Yuuya laughs when he hears Hayato’s answer. He must be thinking that Hayato’s answer is way too amusing for him. “What can I say, huh? A ninja will always be a ninja, even in the modern society. You still pledge loyalty to one family even after the Kusanagi clan was long gone.” Hayato doesn’t even react at all to Satoru Yuuya’s taunt. I guess the Kusanagi clan may not mean much to him anymore after all these years.

  Hayato then looks at Shiori. Shiori smiles faintly when she sees him. “Mr. Hayato, please help Touka. She’s badly injured, and I don’t think she can fight them on her own with her current condition,” she says to him. Hayato nods at her. “You don’t have to worry about that. This is what I’m here for,” he says to her.

  Shiori only smiles. Even though it’s only a faint smile, I can tell from her expression that she trusts that Hayato will be able to save me. Somehow, I can’t shake the feeling that her faint smile is telling me that this is going to be my last time seeing her. Maybe I’m just being sensitive, but I do hope that this won’t be the last time I’ll be seeing her.

  After the conversation is over, Hayato then snaps his finger, making the TV explodes. He’s doing this because he doesn’t want Shiori to witness him killing these two men. It’s going to be a brutal fight anyway. So, he doesn’t want to inflict any unnecessary trauma on her even though these men have nothing to do with her.

  He then takes a tactical pen from his jacket and slams it on one of the men’s neck. The blood splashes, making one of them die with just a single strike. He also does the same to the other man. It doesn’t take that long for him to kill both of them. This just shows how strong Hayato is. He can kill them in an instant with just using a tactical pen. Sure, a tactical pen isn’t that different than a regular pen. But it can also become a deadly weapon at the same time.

  After he kills the men, Satoru Yuuya starts talking to us through a speaker instead. The speaker seems hidden from our sight, so we don’t know where the sound is coming from. “Congratulations for killing these men. But too bad, I won’t let you leave this place alive. I’ve already activated the bomb. So now, you only have 40 seconds left to leave this place. Whether you’re able to kill them or not, I’m still going to blow you together with this house,” he says.

  Hayato cringes when he finds out that there’s a bomb in this place. Without wasting time, he begins to piggyback me and breaks the sliding door. At this point, I barely have the energy to argue with him about jumping from the fifth floor. While the fifth floor isn’t that high, it will still cause him to have a few broken bones if he’s not careful. It’s even more dangerous since he’s piggybacking me.

  Wit
hout hesitating, he jumps off from the balcony. By the time he jumps off, the whole house explodes, without leaving any traces behind. We’re glad to see that it only blows up Shiori’s house and not affecting the other houses nearby. The house which is close to Shiori’s house suffers a slight damage. But nobody dies other than those two men that Hayato killed.

  Hayato lands safely on the ground without inflicting any damage. “Please hang on. I’m sure that Minoru will come here at any moment,” he says to me. By the time he brings me out of the apartment compound, dad is already here with a car. “I’m glad to know that both of you are safe,” dad says to us. Hayato doesn’t say anything much and goes inside the car. We head home after that.

  I’m glad that I’ve made it alive. But I still feel frustrated that Satoru Yuuya is holding Shiori captive. And now, I can only hope that his effort has failed thanks to our attempt. I know that Shiori is strong, but I don’t know how long she can last. The only thing I can do for now is to pray for her safety. I will certainly come back for her when the time comes.