Just what does she want from me? Minoru thought to himself.
Women had all been an utter mystery to Minoru from as long as he could remember, but especially with Yumiko, he had no idea where her mood would turn. It was like riding on a roller coaster in pitch darkness. This was fitting, perhaps, for someone named Accelerator. But as he was pondering this, his thoughts were interrupted by Yumiko.
“Umm… Utsugi? I was just wondering, but…,” she said.
“Wh-what?” Minoru replied.
“Let’s assume there was a girl out there who was madly in love with you,” she continued.
“Wait, what?!” Minoru reflexively jerked back, but Yumiko waved her hand in front of her face with a serious look to calm him down.
“I’m not talking about me. This is a ‘what if’ scenario. Anyway. Assuming there was a girl like that, would you want to erase all of her memories of you as well?” Yumiko asked.
“I would,” Minoru quickly replied, and this time it was Yumiko who jerked back about five centimeters.
“…Why? Wouldn’t it make you happy if there was a girl like that?” she asked.
“Whether I would be happy or not doesn’t make a difference… There are no emotions that last forever,” Minoru replied, looking down at the table. “Eventually there would be something to make that girl hate me; she might even grow to despise me so much she would want to kill me. That always remains a possibility, so it’s better to not have a relationship at all.”
For a while both were silent. Minoru didn’t look up and kept staring down at the table. He didn’t want to be even having this conversation. As soon as he was alone again, thinking back to this moment, he was sure that he would regret every word he said.
Finally, Yumiko broke the silence with a stern voice.
“Hmph. I see. In other words you just don’t want to be hated. You want everyone to like you,” she said.
“…That’s not what I said. I only want them to be apathetic to me. That’s all,” Minoru replied, shaking his head without looking up, but Yumiko didn’t stop there.
“If you’re hated, all you have to do is ignore it. No matter who you are, there’s going to be at least one person out there who hates you, and I’m no different,” she said.
Minoru slowly lifted his gaze and looked at Yumiko across the table.
She had straight, flowing glossy hair. It didn’t seem as if she was wearing any makeup, with her skin as white as magnolias. Her eyelashes were thick and her eyes cool and filled with light.
Taking his eyes again off of the girl who ten out of ten would call beautiful, Minoru muttered, “Are you sure you know what it’s really like to be hated? Do you really think you know?”
But whatever Yumiko’s answer was, it did not reach Minoru’s ears.
Before her pink lips could move to form that answer, the elevator doors at the north end of the room groaned as they reluctantly opened. The young man wearing a cap who leaped out of the elevator was someone Minoru was familiar with. He was one of the Jet Eyes, DD, code name “Searcher,” and as soon as he entered the room, he called out in a loud voice.
“E-everyone! It’s him! He’s returned! The one responsible for the murder in Ikebukuro is Igniter!”
With a loud thud, Yumiko slammed her mug on the table.
Once again, everyone gathered in one place. At the west end of the room, there was a space where folding chairs set in front of a large eighty- or so inch monitor that looked like it was used for meetings.
Riri, who stepped in front of Yumiko, DD, and Minoru after they had taken their seats, lightly tapped on the monitor with a stick pointer. The 8K monitor flicked on and displayed a single photograph. The photograph, captioned by the title “Identified Ruby Eye Host No. 19: Igniter,” was very blurry and taken from diagonally behind the subject. All that one could tell from the photograph was that it was a thin man in a suit.
As Riri turned around, she had a stern look on her young face.
“…It appears that, unfortunately, Igniter is alive and well,” she said.
“I expected as much,” replied Yumiko in a low voice. “A Ruby Eye isn’t so weak as to die from being stabbed in the stomach with a knife. Next time, I won’t miss his heart, I assure you.”
When Minoru turned to glance at Yumiko, her face was more tense than he had ever seen it before, and it wasn’t just Yumiko. DD, who was sitting next to him, also looked nervous.
From Minoru’s perspective, Igniter was the second Ruby Eye he’d heard of after Biter. From his code name, it seemed that his power had something to do with fire, but was he really that dangerous of an opponent?
Riri, who seemed to read his mind, said, “First of all, for Mikkun’s sake, let’s go over what we already know,” and turned back around to control the monitor with her pointer.
“Mikkun, huh?” said DD to Minoru’s left. When his eyes met Minoru’s, he made a faint, sympathetic smile.
“Well, it’s still more of a proper nickname than ‘DD.’ I mean Oli-V even calls me ‘D&D,’” DD continued.
Minoru found himself smiling and asked, “Professor decided your nickname as well, right? What is it based on?”
Before DD could answer, Yumiko, who was sitting farther away, replied, “It’s just an acronym of his real name, Denjirou Daimon.”
Denjirou Daimon, huh? thought Minoru.
Yumiko, who had stolen DD’s answer away from him, ignored his frown and asked, “Where is Oli-V anyway?”
“He’s scouting out Ikebukuro, just in case,” DD replied.
“Is there any chance that Igniter will return to the scene of the crime?” Yumiko asked.
“Well, he is like an arsonist in a way, but I can’t say for sure…,” DD replied.
“You there, stop your chitchatting,” scolded Riri, like a teacher, as she turned back around. Yumiko, DD, and Minoru all straightened their posture.
On the monitor a number of new photographs were displayed. Their resolution was low, as if they had been taken from security camera footage, and all showed nothing but something burning on the street at night.
“Like his code name suggests, Igniter manipulates flame. Do you remember seeing a number of incidents in the news in October about people whose faces were severely burned when their cigarettes suddenly burst into flame?” asked Riri.
Minoru nodded in an ambiguous way. “…I have a feeling I read something about it in the paper.”
“All of those incidents were the work of Igniter. In the beginning, we hypothesized that his power was to heat objects by amplifying the vibrations in the atoms of those objects. His code name is also based on that hypothesis, but we were wrong. He is technically not an ‘igniter,’ but a ‘combustion catalyzer.’”
“A ‘combustion catalyzer’? Just what does his power manipulate?” Minoru asked.
“It’s oxygen,” answered Riri gravely. “Igniter has the power to manipulate oxygen molecules in the air and concentrate them at a single point. Our misunderstanding of the situation led to us having to pay a terrible price.”
“A terrible price…,” repeated Minoru.
“We’ll talk about that later…once you’ve gone to meet her. DD, can you show us that picture taken today at the scene of the crime?”
DD, the Searcher, nodded, taking a smartphone out of his tactical jacket. Riri took the data he sent and displayed it on the monitor.
Seeing the first photograph, Minoru gasped.
DD must have taken the photo with a long telescopic lens. In comparison to the previous pictures, this photograph was very clear. It seemed to have been taken from a high place, looking down at a brick walkway. One area of the bricks was whitened as if they had been bleached by the sun, and in the very center of that area was a pitch-black stain. The stain was distinctly in the form of a person, and it was clear what had happened. Here a person had been engulfed in flame.
“He’s becoming a lot more powerful, isn’t he?” remarked Yumiko.
DD n
odded before giving his explanation. “Today, at around three thirty in the afternoon, in the street of a shopping district near the west exit of Ikebukuro Station, a twenty-five-year-old businessman suddenly was covered in flame and burned to death. At the same time, I sensed by smell that a Ruby Eye’s powers were being activated and quickly went to the scene with Oli-V, but by the time we arrived, everything was over.”
At the words “around three thirty,” Minoru’s body tensed. Around that time, Minoru was with Yumiko in that taxi on the highway, and Ikebukuro Station wasn’t very far from the route that they took to get here. In a place that Minoru might have been able to see out that taxi window, a Ruby Eye had been making a kill.
Seeing Minoru’s shock, Riri said, “Mikkun, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Although it depends on a number of factors, Jet Eyes who don’t have a power like DD’s usually can’t smell a Ruby Eye’s power more than one hundred meters away.”
“…Okay…” Minoru nodded, and DD continued his explanation.
“According to the testimony of witnesses gathered by the Ikebukuro police, the source of the flame was, like before, a lighter, but this time the flame didn’t dissipate until the victim’s body had completely carbonized. Additionally, people up to twenty meters away felt a wind rushing to the source of the flame. There were nine people taken to the hospital who had fainted after suffering from oxygen deprivation.”
“Yes, that itself is the most dangerous element of Igniter’s power,” said Riri gravely, writing on the monitor with her pointer.
Over the black stain, it said, “Combustion Catalyzation = Oxygen Deprivation.” Despite everything else, her handwriting was a bit childish.
“Due to his ability to manipulate the oxygen in the atmosphere at will, Igniter has two forms of attack. One is to concentrate oxygen around a source of flame, to explosively catalyze combustion. The other is to, for a limited time, deprive a certain area of oxygen,” explained Riri, turning around to look at Yumiko, DD, and Minoru in turn.
“Of the two, the most dangerous is the oxygen deprivation attack. That’s because while the combustion attack is flashy, it requires a very important initial condition. Mikkun, can you tell me what that is?” Riri asked.
Suddenly asked a question, Minoru, feeling as if he was in the middle of an afternoon class, raised his hand to answer. “Y-yes. Is it that a spark, or initial flame, is required?”
“Precisely! Igniter’s power can concentrate oxygen around a certain point, but he cannot start the fire. Therefore, either he must use an existing flame, such as a lit cigarette, a burning stick of incense, or a gas stove, or he must supply the flame himself with a lighter or something. For Third Eye hosts such as yourselves, who have very fast reaction times, it is not that difficult to avoid a combustion attack. However, an oxygen deprivation attack is a different matter. Even if you want to avoid it, it’s not something that you can see,” Riri explained.
Riri then spread her arms wide, as if she were following a radio exercise routine, and took a deep breath.
“When you are fighting, your bodies, stimulated by their Third Eyes, exhaust a large amount of oxygen. Your breathing becomes faster and deeper. If you take a full breath in an oxygen-deprived environment, it is even possible that you will immediately faint on the spot,” Riri said gravely, as if she were describing something that had already happened before.
But after immediately wiping that expression from her face, she stuck her right hand in her lab coat pocket, digging around for something.
“So the next time you face Igniter in combat, I will have you use these,” Riri said, showing them small gas cylinders about fifteen centimeters in length. Attached to the cylinders were clear hoses and a small mouthpiece.
“These are specially modified forms of the small compressed gas cylinders that the Japan Self-Defence Forces’s marine units use. It is possible to breathe using just these cylinders for a maximum of five minutes. I have modified them so that you can equip them under your clothes and extend the hose from the cylinder up to your necks. The cylinders are filled with enriched air, containing a high concentration of oxygen,” explained Riri.
Just then, DD raised his hand. “So if we have those cylinders, we don’t have to worry about the breathing problem. That’s our Professor! But rather than those small cylinders, wouldn’t it be better for us to use full-size scuba tanks? For people like us, the weight would mean nothing.”
“That brings us to another problem. Can you guess why I made these cylinders small and had them equipped with thin, clear hoses?” Riri asked.
There was silence.
For at least about five seconds until Minoru slowly raised his hand.
“Oh, go right ahead Mikkun,” said Riri.
“Umm…well,” said Minoru in a small voice, shrinking away. “Igniter is able to manipulate oxygen, right? Therefore, if he realized that we had cylinders of compressed oxygen, wouldn’t he also be able to manipulate the oxygen in those containers?”
“Correct!” shouted Riri.
DD and Yumiko clapped in admiration. Riri smiled, and with her slippers flip-flipping, she ran over and took something out of her left coat pocket. Minoru reflexively extended his hand to Riri’s outstretched fist, and she dropped a piece of nostalgic-looking strawberry milk candy into his palm.
“That was some nice insight. Good job,” she said with a smile. Riri then ran back to the monitor, and when she had turned around, she looked again like a stern teacher.
“That is precisely the case. The gas cylinders are pressurized to two hundred fifty atmospheres. Just think about what the enemy could do with that. He could send it flying in an instant at best or make it explode at worst. You all wouldn’t get by with just a scratch. Therefore, you need to hide the small cylinder under your clothes and stealthily breathe from the tube at your neck. If the cylinders are discovered, you will have to discard them immediately. If it comes to that… Well, you’ll have to manage on fighting spirit.”
“It won’t be a problem,” Yumiko said in a low, tense voice. “As long as I can get close to him once, I’ll make sure to finish him.”
Minoru felt that the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees.
Wasn’t the SFD’s stated goal in dealing with Ruby Eyes to capture them and surgically remove their Third Eye? It sounded as if Yumiko was declaring that she would kill him, regardless of the circumstances.
Riri, sensing Minoru’s confusion, sighed before continuing. “We’ll discuss the tactical details of the operation after Oli-V returns. For the time being, having confirmed that Igniter has returned to the city and that his power has increased by a large margin, I will bring this meeting to a close. I’m sorry, Yukko, but could you take Mikkun to see her?”
“…”
The black-haired Accelerator bit her lip and looked down.
After a short pause, she stood up and turned to Minoru. “All right. Minoru, come with me.”
Following Yumiko out of the elevator, Minoru looked at his surroundings. Unlike the fifth floor, which had all of the interior walls taken out to make one large room, the fourth floor, one floor below it, was just like a regular apartment floor, with nothing particularly strange about it. A concrete-lined hall connecting the apartments extended from left to right, and there were two doors on either side.
Chasing after Yumiko, who had started down the hall making quiet sounds with the heels of her sneakers, he finally arrived at the eastern-most door with her.
While waiting for the door to be unlocked, Minoru looked at the nameplate. Underneath the room number, 404, was a very properly written set of names, AZU–IKOMA. Azu was Yumiko’s surname, so perhaps that meant that she lived here with someone named Ikoma.
Ignoring Minoru’s questioning gaze with her back to him, Yumiko turned the doorknob. From the other side of the opened door came a sweet scent, which immediately gave away that this was where a woman or women lived. When Minoru occasionally went to clean Norie’s room,
it had this same kind of smell.
Minoru, unable to bear the silence any longer, asked softly, “Is this your room?”
“Yes,” Yumiko answered briefly without turning around before she entered the room.
With no other choice, Minoru quietly entered the room after muttering, “Sorry to intrude.”
Again, unlike the fifth floor, this room was relatively normal. From the step up into the apartment, the hallway stretched forward, and to the left and right were two sliding doors and one swinging door. At the end of the hall was a glass door that appeared to lead into the living room. The layout appeared to be a standard arrangement of a two-bedroom apartment with living room, kitchen, and dining room.
After removing her shoes at the door and stepping up into the hallway, Yumiko finally turned around and glared at Minoru. “If you enter the far door on the right, I’ll throw you off the veranda.…You can use those slippers over there.”
“Th-thanks…,” Minoru replied.
“Follow me,” continued Yumiko.
Yumiko, who turned back around, walked straight to the glass door at the end of the hall, turned the knob, and pushed it open. From the darkness on the other side of the door, which clicked open, the sweet smell grew stronger. It wasn’t an artificial smell, but a refreshing scent of real flowers. Along with it, he thought faintly, was also the sense that there was a person there as well.
Naturally softening his footsteps as he entered the living room, he noticed that while the lights were off, the apartment was not cold—perhaps the thermostat had been left up. Because of the Third Eye in his chest, Minoru’s eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, and the faint light of the city coming through the window was enough for him to see around the room.
In the twelve tatami mat–size living-dining area, there was a sofa and TV, but no other large furniture. Instead, there was a large bed in the center of the room. Furthermore, it appeared to be a hospital bed with functions to raise and lower it.
Around the bed were several flowers. There were lilies and heather and jasmine, as well as other flowers that Minoru did not know the names of, and they all spread out their pure white flower petals, shining faintly in the darkness.