~Cottage at the edge of a forest, Kanagawa Prefecture~
Masahiko: "So, let me get this straight: you grew up for most of your life in a facility that trained you to be an Initiator, then, after all of these years, you were finally paired with a Promoter and hired in a civil office almost a year ago, and now, after your incompetent partner failed in finishing you off and you turning into a Gastrea, you somehow reverted back to your human form and now you sought to find me, knowing that you're close to the end of your days…." he recapped everything that she had narrated to him in detail, as the girl was consuming the rabbit stew that he had procured for her to allow her to recover after the long journey she had walked to get to that cottage in the middle of nowhere.
Enju: "Pretty much, yes" she replied honestly, still feeling a bit disgusted at the food that she was eating but she was still doing her best not be impolite and forcing that meat down her throat. It felt so odd consuming the meat of the animal whose genes now resided in her own body due to the Gastrea virus.
Masahiko: "So you broke into your own old training facility, got some information about me and eventually tracked me down to here. And now you finally met me!" again, she nodded at him while still trying to force that stew down her own throat, forcing the image of the dying rabbit that used to live before becoming that stew to the back of her mind. "Why?" naturally, this had to come out. He was perplexed at the strange behavior that this Initiator had been engaging in for the past couple of days.
Enju: "Well, I don't know how long it'll be until I'll turn back into a Gastrea again, maybe for good this time. So, I thought I might as well come here to visit you and, maybe I thought, you would have even been living with mom over here so that I'd get to meet the both of you, together!" that was such a ridiculous proposal, he couldn't even begin to understand her. Was she really serious? Did this child not know how the world she lived in worked?
Masahiko: "Enju….do you not know what happens to all mothers of Cursed Children?" the girl chocked at that phrase, the stew stopping in her throat. She began coughing violently after that, truly taken aback by this man's bluntness.
Enju: "Geez, I was hoping you'd have been more delicate about this!" she tried to scold him, to which he payed no regard.
Masahiko: "Your mother died many years ago, Enju! I know cause I was there!" he informed her with such a lack of emotion in his voice, the girl was genuinely horrified at this news.
Enju: "Oh….is that so?" this man was the last shred of hope she still had of ever finding her missing mother. Now, he only just confirmed her worst fears; now, she knew there was no chance left of ever meeting her mother.
Masahiko: "I know…..because I was there when she died! I know because she was the one suffering so hard due to the virus! She would scream in pain during the night, crying as the infection tore her already post-childbirth body to shreds" he began to recall old memories of what had happened in the past. "After just three days since she gave birth to you, she perished in my arms, turning as cold and lifeless as my life afterwards. I could only comfort her in her last moments, regretting the fact that I have failed to protect her from that horrid creature that had infected her" even though he was very nonchalant for the most part, he still betrayed a bit of regret deep in his voice as he spoke, something which even Enju picked up on.
The girl stood there, very disappointed that her almost four year old saga of searching for her mother had ended up at such a dead end. Apparently, she had to be satisfied with this ending. It was such a bitter conclusion to a journey that she couldn't help but curse her own life for the, what would be now, the fifth hundredth time.
The man then rose from his seat, walked to a drawer nearby, collected a large plastic photo, and then came back with it in his hand.
Masahiko: "This, right here, was your mother, Enju!" he showed her the picture of a young woman, smiling blissfully on the beach next to a younger version of himself. The woman wore huge sunglasses but had a very vibrant and beautiful smile plastered on her face, a smile which emanated such a powerful love for life that even Enju could sense it just by looking at it.
Immediately, the girl began to cry in despair, snatching the photo of her mother from the man and pulling it into her chest, trying to absorb whatever hypothetical energy it could have had into herself, just so she could feel even a faint trace of life of the woman that was painted on it.
Enju: "…..mother…." she said to no one in particular. The man just stared at the child in front of him, not reacting nor stopping her from her sobbing. He allowed her to keep the picture to herself for a couple of minutes before she finally calmed herself back down. "Sorry…" she then pulled the newly formed snot from her nose back up her nostrils, barely controlling the flow of emotions that she was navigating.
Masahiko then took the picture back and then returned it back to its rightful place.
Masahiko: "So….now that you're at the end of your journey, what plans do you have from now on?" this was, without a doubt, the hardest question that he had asked that night and, for better or for worse, it was a question that even Enju did not have an answer for.
Enju: "I don't know…." she revealed, disheartened now that she had come to terms with the reality that her mother was dead. "I can't go back to Tokyo now. People already know my face from the news, don't they?" she inquired, to which he nodded to affirm her previous assertion.
Masahiko: "Yes, when I first saw your face on the news, I immediately knew that you were my daughter. I recognized you the second I laid my eyes on the photo that they used of you when that article was being run on my TV….although when I saw you on the front porch just a couple of hours ago, I have to admit that even I couldn't really…..make the connection that you were the girl that was just featured on the news. You….uh….look a bit different without your hair" he admitted, as Enju then remembered how awkward it must have been for him to say that to her.
She raised her hands onto her scalp, trying to feel for any shafts that may have risen from the depths of her hair canals since she last tried to do the same thing. She still couldn't feel anything else but smooth skin, which was depressing.
Enju: "Yeah….sorry about my look! I guess my body just couldn't fully revert back to how it was. I lost all of the hair on my body when I turned into a Gastrea and I didn't get any of it back when I returned to my human form! I guess I'll just be like this for the next couple of months until my hair grows back….that is if I won't turn back into a giant spider before that even happens" she remarked disheartened.
She was still obviously very sad about what had happened but tried to not dwell too much over it. She tried to move the conversation along.
Enju: "Anyways, to answer your previous question: no, I have no idea what I should do next. If everyone in Tokyo will be able to spot me, I guess I'll just try to live in hiding until I'll die for good!" that didn't really surprise him in the least, given her situation.
Masahiko: "So I'm guessing you're not planning on going back to your Promoter, are you?" that question hurt a bit more than she had expected it to.
Enju: "No….I'm not planning to return to anyone that I used to know. I don't trust myself to not put their lives in danger if I were to transform again!" she revealed. The man shook his head in exasperation.
Masahiko: "Well, that's what you get for being paired with an incompetent Promoter! Normally it should have been his job to take care of you once you started to attack civilians! But I guess he just couldn't do that!" even though what he had just said was technically true, it still hurt Enju a bit to hear her father badmouth Rentarō like that.
Enju: "It wasn't his fault! I'm sure he did it because he loved me!" she tried to defend whatever dignity there was to still defend for his sake, even though even she hated how Rentarō had failed his duty in giving her long lasting peace.
Masahiko just snorted at that comment, almost dismissing it entirely at how inconceivably stupid it sounded to him.
Masahiko: "Love? For a monster?! That's just insane!" he replied, disparagingly. "What kind of love is there to justify him allowing you to kill innocent bystanders? That's not love! That's just madness! And he will pay back tenfold to society once his trial finishes!" the girl felt a jolt in her heart when hearing her own father call her a 'monster'. How could she handle such a comment?
Enju: "You don't seem that happy that he ended up sparing my life! Aren't you glad to see me?! If it weren't for him, we wouldn't be here discussing this in the first place, right now!" she tried to knock some sense into him, although the man had a particularly different take on that whole situation.
Masahiko: "I don't think you understand the situation that we're currently in, Enju! It brings me absolutely no pleasure in seeing you here, tonight!" he revealed hardheartedly, without even the slightest hints of remorse on his tongue when saying that. That really shocked Enju, who just stared at him, horrified.
Masahiko: "You're a menace to society! And you having killed those civilians back there when you were in your Gastrea form is just proof of that! You should never have been allowed to live after your transformation began at all! In fact, you just sitting with me, at this table, is putting my life at risk since you could turn back into a Gastrea, as you yourself just admitted, at any moment now!" that felt hurtful. Even though she had barely known this man for less than three hours, he still seemed excruciatingly brutal with her, for whatever reason.
Enju: "I would never-…." but she then stopped immediately in her tracks when realizing the position she was in. There was no way she could argue against him, since, at the end of the day, she did indeed kill innocent people when she was transformed, so clearly she had no control over her body when such times arise.
The girl suddenly hopped off her chair, trying to suppress lashing out at the man for his comments.
Enju: "If you feel that unsafe around me, then I guess I'll just leave then!" being hurt by what he had said, the girl turned her back and began walking away towards the exit to the building.
Masahiko: "Don't you even dare try to run back to the city!" he warned her with a very imposing voice. The girl stopped when hearing that. "If you return to Tokyo as you are right now, you'll just put the lives of even more people in danger!" came his unexpected reply to her. When she heard that from him, she turned around, confused but still angry at him.
Enju: "Then, what am I supposed to do?!" seeing as he had no intention of holding back when talking to her, she just decided to try to get an opinion out of him instead now. "What do you think I should do in my situation?!".
Masahiko: "In your situation? Honestly? I'd kill myself…." he replied, again, with no sarcasm or hint of sadness or any other form of emotion in his voice. He had so little humanity in his voice when saying that, almost as if he was speaking not to his daughter, but to a complete stranger, that she was still feeling shivers whenever she thought about how this man must have lived alone for so many years.
Masahiko: "But, since you're with me now anyway, I think I might have some ideas of what you could do that might, at least, slightly redeem what you have done to humanity!"
~Next day, Satomi residence~
The boy was finally feeling at peace. After so many sleepless nights from the past, he finally managed to get a good night's sleep.
His body, after being put through the mental stress that it had to go through, finally decided to shut down and just simply give up at that point, realizing how pointless it was to constantly stay awake just out of worry for Enju. Even though he wanted to await her return home diligently, regardless of how unlikely this was, he couldn't keep up after so much time in forcing himself to stay conscious.
Even his guilty conscience eventually ceased in its incessant scoldings of him after such a long time, his mind eventually quieting down and allowing for a restful night.
After being sleep deprived for this long, he was in such a deep recuperative slumber that he was way less subconsciously aware of his surroundings than how he'd normally be, which allowed for a rather unexpected surprise to arise.
As the boy was enjoying REM sleep, he eventually turned around, instinctively, on his left side, to get into a more comfortable position. When he did that sudden move, he immediately bumped into a foreign stranger in his bed, a small stranger.
Feeling the unnatural blockage that was keeping him from using the full area of his futon, his surprise slowly pulled him back into the world of the conscious once again.
Rentarō: "Enju….I told you to sleep only in your room! Get out of my bed!" he said in a very low tone, still very drowsy but still annoyed.
However, when his own brain processed what he had just said, it immediately went into full blown adrenaline mode and he opened his eyes very wide, feeling his heart jump out of his chest.
Rentarō: "ENJU?! YOU'RE BACK?!" he almost jumped out of bed before he realized that the one he was sharing his bed with was not the same girl that he was expecting.
Tina: "No….it's just me, onii-san!" he did not expect this. Kisara's own Initiator was in his bed at that moment.
He had to ask himself how this course of events came to be, so he recalled all of the events that he could remember the previous night, scavenging for any memory that could explain how this small girl could have gotten into his house. He found none.
Rentarō: "Tina….what are you doing in my bed?!" seeing how he couldn't explain what had happened by himself, the next natural thing to attempt is ask the child in question herself.
Tina: "Kisara-san sent me to ask you to come into the office today, after breakfast. She also told me to check up on you while I would be here and cheer you up if you were still depressed over Enju's" this was a bit surprising. Hearing that Kisara was concerned for him was a bit odd, seeing how she usually trusts him that he will always pull through on his own.
Rentarō: "I guess that this is just a testament to the fact that I've been awfully quiet these past couple of days. Of course Kisara-san would become worried over me…." he concluded, realizing how careless he had been for not having bothered to get in touch with her at least to let her know that he was still fine.
Rentarō: "But….still, I kept the door locked! And the windows shut! How did you break into my house?! And without me even noticing?!" to have someone as careful and meticulous in security as himself be outsmarted to this extent by a child felt a bit too hurtful for his pride.
Tina: "Onii-san, did you forget that I was an assassin? I did this for a living!" she replied very softly, drowsiness still present in her exhausted voice as she yawned deeply.
Rentarō stood there, blinked a couple of times, before acknowledging how good a point that actually was. She was good at what she did.
Rentarō: " (sigh) OK, that explains it a bit. Now answer me this: why are you in my bed?" of course, now he got to the meat of the conversation.
The girl just stared at him, not sure where he was going with this.
Tina: "I just thought you would have wanted a substitute for Enju, seeing how she's been away from you for these past couple of days! Since Kisara-san told me to cheer you up, I thought that maybe I could try to comfort you like Enju would have if she was still here!" the fact that she kept on bringing Enju up didn't help in lifting his own mood, it only accentuated his depression, although he did not state that verbally to her. "She told me that you two used to sleep together all the time!" she revealed.
Rentarō: "Tina, I don't want to burst your bubble but whatever Enju may have told you was a lie! We don't normally sleep together in the same bed! I only rarely did that with her when she needed me to keep her company at night when she was having nightmares!" he tried to be as truthful as he could be with the small child next to him.
Seeing where this conversation was going, Tina adopted a disappointed face.
Tina: "So….I guess you don't want me to be here with you?" she asked, pouting. His heart ached when seeing that miserable face. "It's fine then! If that's what you want then I guess I'll just have to go to and sleep in another room…."
Rentarō: "Fine, you can stay!" he suddenly gave up, regretting the fact that he was being so cold towards her and trying to change that a bit. "You can stay here until a bit later, when we'll have to wake up. But don't get any wrong ideas!" he warned the blonde who suddenly nodded in excitement. "Last time we slept together like this, you made Kisara-san believe that we did something immoral in this bedroom. I don't want any more misunderstandings like that!" he tried to be as reasonable as possible with her, to which she nodded once again.
Tina: "Don't worry, onii-san. Us sleeping like this together will not reach my Promoter's ears! And also she won't be arriving in the morning to pick me up like she did last time so there's no need to worry about anything!" she informed him, happy to have this agreement to sleep in the same bed with him for now.
Rentarō: "Well, it's almost five in the morning. So we can sleep for another two hours for now…." he concluded before flexing his muscles a bit to release some pressure off his now strained body. "Damn, I'm tired. I haven't slept well for the past nights. I need to refill my lost energy levels…." he complained audibly as Tina simply smiled warmly at him.
Tina: "Want to cuddle up with me a bit, then? I can refill your energy levels, onii-san!" she said that statement in such a suspicious tone that the boy couldn't help but wonder what plan she was having when saying that.
Rentarō: "You're scaring me a bit, Tina! Is there any reason you want me to cuddle with you?" he knew that there was no point in asking her that. Even if she did have ulterior motives for that invitation, she wouldn't just admit to them openly, would she? Still, he couldn't help but ask anyway.
Tina: "Geez, there's no need for you to be suspicious of me, onii-san! I'm just asking for some body warmth, since I'm getting a bit cold!" that seemed innocent enough.
Rentarō: " (sigh) Fine! Let's do this!" he gave up and approached the girl, wrapping his right arm around her body under the bed covers and then embracing her, pulling her tiny form into his chest.
The girl yelped a bit, adorably, not having expected that much assertive force into his movements.
Tina: "T-this would do just fine, onii-san!" she smiled very warmly at him, genuinely happy that he voluntarily trusted her enough to lie with her in that embrace.
However, while pulling her into him, he did notice something that was very peculiar: he was touching bare skin.
The boy's heart rate increased threefold when realizing this and his breathing intensified, as a blush began to develop across his face when realizing that fact.
Rentarō: "Tina…." he began speaking, still trying to maintain control over his overly tense body now.
Tina: "Yes, onii-san?" she responded, feeling the anxiety behind his voice but playing innocent and pretending like she didn't know why he was like that.
Rentarō: "What are you wearing at this moment?" he asked, too afraid to remove the covers on top of them, very anxious over what he might see if he did.
Tina: "My underwear!" she replied in her usual sleepy tone of voice, not investing too much emotion when saying them. The boy only became more worried when hearing that.
Rentarō: "And besides your underwear?" he had a very bad feeling, feeling a form of nausea building up inside of him now.
The girl stood there, for a moment, trying to process his request and thinking a bit over the answer, before finally concluding.
Tina: "That's it! Just my underwear!" his blush only grew even deeper at the hearing of that.
So, it was indeed bare skin that he felt when he had pulled the girl into him. She was almost stark naked under the covers at that moment.
He could feel the pressure beginning to apply to him, as he was chasing away dirty thoughts and trying to contain his now wild libido from doing anything that would have landed him in prison.
Rentarō: "Why….aren't you wearing anything? Especially around your chest?" he could feel her tiny nipples puncture through his own T-shirt and against his skin.
The blood vessels going to his groin were now pumping way more blood to his nether regions than he wanted them to, him trying desperately to avoid an erection but barely managing to control it.
Tina: "Geez, onii-san! You're so blunt about this!" she made an adorable pout while answering. "It's not my fault that they're this small! I'm just a late bloomer, that's all! I'm sure in a year or two I'll be able to wear a bra!" he couldn't tell if he simply had inadveredly formulated his question in such an ambiguous way to allow for her misunderstanding or if she was intentionally just messing with him at that point.
Rentarō: "I'm not asking why you're not wearing a bra! I'm asking you why you're not wearing your pajamas!" he was dying, his soul was also crying and his innocence felt like it was slipping away out of his mouth, as he was mentally preparing himself for giving up his being to Satan.
Tina: "Oh…." she then pretended to finally realize what the issue was, after which she pulled her index finger to her lips while taking another ten seconds to think up an answer for that question as well. "Well, Enju said she used to do this type of stuff with you every night!" she began explaining while looking away, this time with her blushing as well. "So I just thought that maybe this would have made you happier!" the lack of malevolence in her voice could only make him feel genuine remorse as he mentally scolded his redheaded partner for having created the conditions to encourage such a scene now.
Rentarō: "IT WAS A LIE! DON'T JUST TAKE EVERYTHING ENJU SAYS AS TRUE! SHE NEVER DID THIS TO ME!" it was too late, her small nipples against his chest had been too much to bear, after this many minutes. He could feel the bulge in his pants having grown to noticeable levels. He could only hope that she didn't observe that.
Tina: "Oh….my apologies, then! I never considered that possibility!…" her cute remorseful face was so adorable that he couldn't stay mad for too long at her, although them being in this close proximity to each other was obviously a problem for him. "Well, whatever I guess!" she shamelessly dismissed that point and then she placed her head against his chest once again, trying to end that conversation like that, much to Rentarō's chagrin.
Rentarō: "DON'T JUST 'WHATEVER' ME! I CAN'T SLEEP LIKE THIS!" his face was now so flustered he was sure he looked like a human tomato, although that wasn't his main point of concern. Tina did not fail to notice this however.
Tina: "You're really cute when you blush like that, onii-san!" she remarked bashfully. "And besides, what's the problem? Just pretend that I'm wearing my pajamas and there won't be any problems, will there?" that was easy for her to say. She was the almost-naked one, not him.
Rentarō: "Don't be unreasonable! I can't contain it! There's only so much self-control I can manage before I lose myself! I'm just a virgin, you know!" he blurted out, immediately regretting having revealed that to her.
Tina then pulled her head from his chest, and looked at him directly in the eye.
Tina: "That's wonderful news! Then I'm gonna beat both Kisara-san and Enju tonight! Let's do our best together, onii-san!" she missed the point entirely.
Rentarō: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SUGGESTING?! NO! WE'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING! NOW GET UP AND GO PUT YOUR PAJAMAS ON RIGHT NOW! I'm not sleeping with you while you're like this!" his temper now lost, he had enough of her shenanigans.
Tina: "Are you sure about that, Rentarō-san? I'm just wearing my underwear right now! Do you really want me to rise up from under the covers like this?" that was a fair point of contention but he had to be firm if he was going to have any more peaceful sleep that night.
Rentarō: "It's not like I have a choice in the matter! And as long as I'll keep my eyes closed, I won't see anything!" he tried to reason, still feeling awfully dirty for having allowed himself in such an awkward situation.
The girl then pouted, once again, annoyed that he had somehow managed to salvage this situation for himself. Still, she had one last trick up her sleeve.
Tina: "Fine then! You leave me no other choice, onii-san!" she complained before pulling away from him a bit but still keeping herself under the covers as she then moved her arms around her abdomen.
Many movements could be felt around her, as he could tell that she was doing something but couldn't know what since she was still hiding under the covers.
Tina: "Done!" she innocently declared before re-approaching him and wrapping her arms around him again. The boy could still feel her naked skin against him and that made him worry.
Rentarō: "Wait? What did you just do?" horrified, he could only imagine.
The girl then grabbed his right arm and placed a soft fabric in his hand, squeezing his hand around it before smiling an innocent smile towards his face.
Rentarō: "Tina? What did you just put in my hand?" he asked that even though he suspected he already knew the answer for it. His genuinely surprised face was adorable for her to see.
Tina: "That's my underwear, onii-san! I just removed it from my body!" now she was fully naked under those covers.
He lost it at that point.
Rentarō: "Oh, Hell is waiting for me! And prison, too! I'm going to die tonight! And mother and father are probably staring at me from above right now, regretting that I was ever conceived!" he couldn't believe her. "Why?! Why did you do this?! Put your underwear back on this instant, Tina!" he tried to order her but she moved her head back into his chest once again.
Tina: "I can't! Not without rising up, anyways!" she revealed, making him realize the reason she had done that in the first place. "I cannot put my underwear back on without standing upright and also positioning it properly! So, now I'll just have to stay like this, for the time being!" she loved feeling his wide chest against her head, as his embrace filled her body with joy.
Rentarō: "No…..you can't…." he was at a loss for words. This plan was so incredibly diabolical, he was surprised Sumire had not been the one to conceive of it, as only she would have had the ability to imagine such a horrid scheme. "This isn't fair! You can't do this to me…." he cried but his wails fell on deaf ears.
Tina: "You'll either have to cope with this for the next two hours until you'll fall back asleep and allow me to sneak out of bed and put my clothes back on or you'll have to close your eyes while I put my underwear back on!" she said lovingly, as the boy was dying next to her. "And, if you'll have your eyes closed, I might just do other things while I'm here too, onii-san!" this was sick, this was so wrong for him.
Rentarō: "What if I just lose my patience and put your clothes back on myself?" he couldn't help but feel truly scared at that moment.
Tina: "Well, you can definitely try. But I doubt you'll be able to pull that off without accidentally looking at my special places!" she had a good point. He just stood there, feeling the sweat bathing his body under the covers as his body temperature rose a couple of degrees.
He didn't want to end up looking at her naked body, there was no way he would be able to erase that image of her from his mind afterwards. He wanted Kisara to be the first woman he'd ever see naked and he wanted to protect his eyes from any other temptations. And yet, now, he was very close to failing that plan.
Rentarō: "Please…..Tina, don't do this to me!" he finally resorted to begging, not knowing how else to coerce that child in his arms now.
Tina: "You lost, onii-san! I tried to be nice but you just wouldn't let me! Now, you'll have to sleep with me like this!" she declared, victorious once again. The man was crying in despair.
Rentarō: "No! I won't be able to fall asleep like this! It's too hard!" he was defeated on every front. "Even if I will fall asleep, I might just touch you instinctively with my arms! I can't control myself when I'm sleeping!" he cried, although the girl didn't seem that concerned.
Tina: "I won't mind! And also, whatever happens tonight will be our little secret. Kisara-san will never find out! So you can do with me as you please, onii-san!" he felt it, his innocence had finally left his body. Now, he will forever just be a hollow husk of what he had been before that day.
Tina: "Sweet dreams, onii-san!" she said very lowly before closing her eyes and attempting to fall asleep. She seemed disinterested in arguing with him any further.
Now, with both of them embraced and the temperature of their bed feeling like it was too hot for anything, the boy realized that he was now alone in trying to fight to protect his virginity. The girl would make no further movements and this would now be a test in celibacy to see the limits of how far he could control his libido.
Rentarō: "I wish…..for peace and quiet. I wish….for happiness! I wish….for justice!" he began chanting, to himself mostly, as his poor brain forced itself into lock-down to prevent his mind from wandering off into unholy land. And yet, as his thoughts were desperately trying now not to stray into dirty territory, his only course of action at that point was to force himself to think about innocent and happy things to allow himself to relax.
That was his plan, anyway, as for the next couple of hours he was not able to fall back asleep anymore at all. He could just stand there, in silence, as the girl in his arms slept quietly beside him, unaware of his plight.
~2 hours later~
Tina: "Geez, I didn't know you could be so obstinate, onii-san! I was almost sure you would crack at some point!" she complained loudly before taking a bite from the jelly toast that Rentarō had prepared for her as a breakfast.
The boy felt terrible, having foregone sleep because of that child due to the stress that her naked body had put on his teenage hormonal brain. He was so traumatized by the event that he couldn't even eat breakfast at all, feeling the sudden loss of appetite as a natural consequence for having endured what would arguably be the most intense test of willpower that he had ever had in his entire life.
Rentarō: "I refuse to let go of my virginity! I'll keep myself pure until marriage!" that wasn't spoken to her in particular, that was also a declaration more for himself to reinforce his stated goal and in an attempt to sooth his wounded pride after the events that had transpired.
Tina: "You're really impressive, onii-san! You're an amazing man!" she said that despite the fact that she was the reason why he had suffered so much in the first place.
After taking another good couple of bites from her toast, finishing it entirely, she then moved onto the bowl of milk and cereal that he had placed next to her.
Rentarō: "Where did you even learn how to do such things?! That couldn't have been part of your assassin training, could it?!" he was still a bit bitter over the previous events. Tina just glanced up at him, with a confused look on her face.
Tina: "Actually, that was part of it! Learning the art of seduction is something all assassins have to master to graduate from assassination school! If anything, that class is among the easiest to pass, next to lock-picking!" that raised so many questions in the boy's head. Questions like: why was there even an assassination school in existence? Who would fund such a horrible place and in what country would it be held? Why would such a school accept to teach children as young as her? And who in the world could she use her "seduction" skills on given that she's only ten!
Rentarō: "I regret asking…." there was nothing to add to that conversation. He wanted to inquire for more details but he knew that would only lead him to a road of madness. Some questions are just better left unanswered, after all.
Tina: "By the way, I would really appreciate it if you didn't bring this up with Kisara-san. I'm sure she would scold me if she ever learned about what I just did…." that felt awfully unfair to him.
She was the one that had broken into his house and forced him to undergo extreme mental stress. If anything, it would have been in his best interest to alert Kisara of her behavior to ensure that she would never repeat it in the future. Discipline is sometimes needed.
Still, he knew that Tina most likely was innocent, for the most part, and he did believe her when she had said that Enju had claimed to her that they did such things together. Those lies actually sounded in line with what Enju would have said, which made Tina's claims feel believable to him.
Rentarō: "Don't worry! This will be our little secret!" he accepted, trying not to make a big deal out of it and letting the conversation die, as this was an unpleasant topic for him.
Tina: "Just out of curiosity, did you and Enju also have dirty secrets that you kept from Kisara-san?" that question was unwelcome, for more than one reason.
He wanted to deny it immediately but instead, seeing how now he also had in his grasp a secret of hers, he felt like it was only fair to reveal to her something from his personal life too.
Rentarō: "I wouldn't really call them 'dirty' but yes, we do have our little secrets too!" he replied, prompting the girl to raise her eyebrows.
Tina: "I wonder…...what they could be. Is Enju even still a virgin, onii-san?" naturally, his lack of transparency only fueled this girl's overly active imagination.
Rentarō: "OF COURSE SHE IS! I'M NOT A PREDATOR TRYING TO PREY ON LITTLE GIRLS! IF I WAS, YOU WOULDN'T EVEN BE HAPPILY EATING YOUR MEAL, RIGHT NOW, TINA! ESPECIALLY NOT AFTER LAST NIGHT!" he burst out, before diffusing a bit and trying to regain his composure.
The girl didn't respond at all at his comment and simply just continued to eat peacefully, almost like his outburst had never happened.
Rentarō: "And also, you shouldn't be doing stuff like this to me! If Enju was here today, she would have been very angry with you! She gets jealous really easily around other women!" he brought out what was already a well known fact in Enju's circle of friends.
Tina: "I knew that already! Then again, I wouldn't have minded it at all at this point! If she was here, I would have been happy to accept her anger…." that last statement left the boy a bit speechless, as he realized that he wasn't the only one who had been sad the past couple of days.
Rentarō: "You miss her too, don't you, Tina? She was your friend, after all…." he remarked, with a sober tone.
The child nodded.
Tina: "She was my best friend. I got along really well with her. I'm really sad that she ran away…" admittedly, that was the answer he had already suspected. He was mostly sure about that so he had no real reason to ask other than to keep the conversation alive. But now he regretted having brought this up.
Rentarō: "Do you hate me, Tina?" he suddenly shifted gears and asked something entirely unexpected for her.
Tina: "Excuse me?" she asked, completely confused now.
Rentarō: "Do you hate me for having spared Enju's life when she was like that?" he recalled the events of what had transpired after Enju's transformation.
This was a topic he didn't expect to bring up, especially this early in the morning but, alas, since they were already talking about Enju again, he figured he might as well.
Tina thought about it to herself while he just waited for her answer.
Tina: "No, I don't hate you, onii-san! Even so, I don't agree with what you did to her…." she replied calmly while finally finishing the cereal in her bowl. "I don't think it makes sense for you to make her suffer the way that she probably did. I think she must have gone through a lot of pain because of your actions..." she was honest about it, conveying her true opinions over the matter.
The boy was a bit disappointed by her reply but was still thankful for its bluntness.
Tina: "Still, I'm sure you had the best intentions when you did that! I don't doubt that in the least!" after drinking the remaining milk directly from the bowl, and munching on the last slice of toast, she placed the bowl back down. "Thank you for the meal, onii-san! It was delicious!" she showed her gratitude to him.
Rentarō: "You're welcome! And thank you for your thoughts!" he said before grabbing her bowl from the table and taking it to the sink to start washing it. "Anyways, now that we're finished with breakfast, we can go visit Kisara-san! Get dressed so that we can leave!" he ordered her informally. The girl was a bit surprised.
Tina: "What do you mean, onii-san? I'm already dressed!" she replied, making the boy look back at her in pure disbelief.
Rentarō: "You're still in your pajamas, though!" he exclaimed, not even sure how to take that.
Tina: "Yes, I know! These are the clothes I came here with! I'm as dressed as I was when I arrived!" he was left speechless. This girl had no sense of social responsibility, did she? Who the hell walks around town in her pajamas and bunny slippers?! "And, since you're looking so coldly at me, I'll have you know that I came here like this because Kisara-san called to ask me to check up on you while I was already in bed! So naturally, I arrived here as fast as I possibly could!" she reasoned almost as if that logic had any semblance of rationale in it.
Rentarō: "THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAD TO ARRIVE HERE RIGHT AWAY! YOU COULD HAVE TAKEN THE TIME TO DRESS UP AT LEAST BEFORE LEAVING YOUR HOUSE!" he failed to follow her logic. Seriously, how did ten year olds' logic work again? In what way could that have possibly made any sense to anyone whatsoever?!
He just gave up and allowed the conversation to die out, seeing how he wasn't going to convince Tina of the error of her ways. This felt too Tina-esque for her, so him trying to change that would probably be very pointless. It was too ingrained in her innate personality to remove the shamelessness at that point.
Tina: "Also, how are we done already? You haven't eaten a single bite of anything since you woke up! I know because I kept my eyes on you!" she took the milk carton that Rentarō had used to pour her cereal with and then she grabbed another clean bowl from the cupboard. He brought the two on the table along with the cereal box, poured the cereal in the bowl and then a hefty amount of milk in it too.
Rentarō: "I don't need breakfast! I'm not hungry!" he replied stubbornly, finishing up with washing her bowl and putting it on the drying rack next to the sink. "Now give me your spoon too! I need to wash that to-…." she did just as he had instructed, although this time she did that by shoving the said object, filled with cereal and milk, into his mouth.
Tina: "Eat!" was her simple instruction for him as the boy felt the sugary taste of crunchy cereal break against his tongue. He felt the need to vomit it back out but resisted the urge and tried to gulp it down despite his natural hatred towards sugar-filled processed foods.
Rentarō: "What the hell?!" he cried, very annoyed by her action.
Tina: "Kisara-san told me to take care of you while I'll be here! I'm just following her orders, onii-san! If Enju won't be here to keep you in good shape then someone has to!" for the first time that day, the boy suddenly felt like he was part of a family again, a feeling that has been sorely lacking since Enju's departure from his life.
The warm fuzzy feeling of having someone actually take an interest in caring for him was so eerily foreign to him after so much time without it that he finally smiled a bit when suddenly being assaulted with it.
Rentarō: "Thank you, Tina!" he replied, realizing how adorable it was to have such a kid try to lecture him about having an unhealthy lifestyle.
Apparently he really did let himself become reckless the past couple of days when he had been living alone. If Enju were to see him like that, she would surely have scolded him as well. His new loose lifestyle was indeed quite problematic.
He listened to her instructions and sat down at the table, eating the same cereal that she had. Despite not really liking the food he figured he might as well try it since any breakfast was still better than no breakfast.
Rentarō: "Still, never do that again!" he suddenly spoke up again to resume the conversation.
Tina: "Do what?" she questioned.
Rentarō: "Share your spoon with someone else! This is an indirect kiss, you know!" he remembered how Enju had gotten flustered over such a simple thing when he had done that for the first time with her. It was a really pointless thing to worry about, indeed, but it still led her to do way more horrible things afterwards.
Tina: "Geez, that's a very childish thing to say, onii-san! After what happened this morning, is that really your worry now?" apparently, Tina was the more mature one, as she gave almost no thought to it. Which meant, unsurprisingly, that not all ten year olds were that immature. It was just Enju that was prone to overreacting over such menial things.
Rentarō: "….fair point!" embarrassed, he just decided to end the conversation there.
~One hour later, Tendō Civil Security office~
Rentarō: "Yo!" the boy suddenly greeted his employer in her office as she was reading up various articles from the internet.
Tina: "Good morning, Kisara-san!" the small Initiator greeted her Promoter too as they both made their way inside.
Kisara: "Good morning Tina, Rentarō! I see you're both quite joyful this morning!" she greeted them while noticing the smiles on their faces. "Been a while since I've seen you smile at me like that in the morning, Rentarō! Should I take it that Tina actually did get to cheer you up?" she questioned him quite intrusively with a leer on her face.
Obviously that leer was not meant to mean anything devious given Kisara's usually naive personality, but it still perturbed the boy a bit when remembering the events of that morning.
Now, he was a man of his word and he was planning on keeping his promise to Tina to not divulge to Kisara what had happened. Still, he was less than amused by Kisara's comment.
Rentarō: "Yes, you can say that…." he trailed off, still trying to pretend that nothing serious had happened, even though his psyche was still a bit scarred. "But why did you decide to send Tina to my house in the middle of the night? You could have simply informed me last night that she was going to visit me so that I could expect her! Having an assassin sneak up on you while you sleep isn't particularly pleasant, you know!" he left out the more meaty details of that encounter, again, to protect his promise to her.
Kisara: "I had a bad feeling last night, a really bad one about you. I don't usually do this but I was so worried that I decided to have Tina check up on you. Sorry about that!" it felt unusual to hear Kisara talk like that to him. She usually doesn't get worried very easily about these types of things, especially given her past.
Rentarō: "Apology accepted! But, just so you know, I have a phone! You can just call me!" that felt like a more natural way to check up on someone if you expect bad news on their end.
Kisara: "Yes, I could have. But I also wanted to make sure that you're properly taking care of yourself. Which reminds me" suddenly his employer turned her eyes to her Initiator. "Tina, did he eat breakfast?" without any notice, she inquired, surprising the boy.
Tina: "Yes, Kisara-san! But only after I insisted that he do so! Otherwise, he would have surely skipped over it!" she just blurted out that fact, as Rentarō's face turned white.
Rentarō: "GIVE ME A BREAK! I'm doing my best to keep my promise and you just stab me in the back like this?!" it definitely felt that Tina was a really well trained assassin.
Rentarō: "I…." he had no recourse at that.
Kisara: "Well, Rentarō? What do you have to say for yourself?" suddenly, he felt that this wasn't anymore a serious workplace setting. This felt like a family sitcom all of a sudden for him.
Rentarō: "What are you? My mother?! I don't need you guys to worry about my lifestyle!" he suddenly lost it, feeling how they were both ganging up against him all of a sudden.
Kisara: "As your employer, it's my duty to make sure that you're operating at maximum performance, Rentarō Satomi! Skipping meals ain't gonna help you achieve that, I know for a fact!" she tried to reason, although he only glared back at her.
Rentarō: "You're not one to talk! When was the last time you took a shower since you moved into this office?!" suddenly, this conversation took a turn for the worst, as Tina just jumped on the couch that she usually sits on and grabbed a bag of popcorn to eat from. This was going to take a while.
Kisara: "T-that's none of your concern! And just so you know, I do eat breakfast every morning!" she tried to justify, although she knew that Rentarō knew her almost as well as she knew herself.
Rentarō: "Yes, I know. Sometimes that's the only thing you eat…." he mentioned, before inhaling deeply to calm himself down and trying to let go of the stress and anger. "Look, let's just calm down for now! This isn't productive!" he was the first to sign an armistice to cut back on the tension in the air.
Kisara: "Yeah….you're right! Sorry, I'm just a bit stressed after spending the whole night reading about how to file for bankruptcy and stuff! I didn't get any sleep in!" she reported matter-of-factly.
Rentarō: "And you complain about my lifestyle choices…." he surreptitiously added before noticing her sudden glare towards him and immediately backed down once again. "Sorry….I'll stop now, for real!" he commented, before trying to shift the conversation in another direction. "Still, what bankruptcy?! Is Tendō Civil Security going bankrupt?" given their situation, that question felt so senseless that Kisara was genuinely wondering if he had somehow slipped into amnesia and forgot the past days altogether.
Kisara: "Yes, Rentarō, I'm planning on filing for bankruptcy! Two days from now we'll be hearing the final judgment in our case and there's no way I see us getting out of it without a fine! A particularly large fine, too!" to be honest, that did make sense to him now that he thought about it.
They were clearly very screwed already so it only made sense for them to worry about that at that point.
Rentarō: "I'm genuinely sorry, Kisara-san! I know that I failed you!" he bowed as deeply as he could muster in front of her desk, showing his remorse to her.
Kisara: "I know you are. But that won't help us in any way at this moment! Honestly, I already kind of saw this coming even before I started this company. I had a feeling you'd fail at your job at some point and do us in like this! I just tried to have faith in you and ignore those warning signs!" that felt especially hurtful. He felt bad having Kisara say that to him in such a sober and relaxed tone, even though this news was devastating for both of them.
Rentarō: "I really am sorry, though! If only I would have been more careful, I could have killed Enju properly…" now he was definitely regretting his previous decisions, although with little consequence at that point.
Kisara: "What's done is done now, Rentarō! No need to obsess over the past! We have a job to do!" she tried to change the topic again, as this depressing conversation was starting to get on her nerves. "On a related note, are you ready for the trial?" she asked what now felt like the obvious question to him.
Rentarō: "I don't know what you mean by 'ready'. I'm as ready as I always was! I can't really afford a lawyer for defense, nor do I think it even makes sense to hire one given my case and I'm already planning on pleading 'guilty'. So, at this point, my future is already decided!" he admitted shamelessly. Kisara couldn't really say that she was surprised by that resolution.
Kisara: "You still planning on just giving up?" exasperated, she didn't even try anymore to change his mind. It would have been a fruitless endeavor, knowing him.
Rentarō: "There's nothing to defend, Kisara-san! I'm guilty! And I'll have to face my punishment for what I did! I'm just sad that your company had to be the collateral damage in this process" that was a simple yet very direct way of admitting his guilt.
Kisara couldn't be mad at that honesty. Hell, that was what she liked the most in this man. He would worry a lot when an outcome was uncertain and there were many factors at play in deciding it but, conversely, he was very direct and pragmatic when the outcome was inevitable. Even in the face of prison and losing his job, he still handled it surprisingly well and with a calculated and mature demeanor. He was not afraid of his punishment, he was ready to take it like a man.
And, if nothing else, that was a quality that she really did appreciate in him.
Tamaki: "You really are something else, Rentarō!" a sudden voice came from behind him. Tamaki and his little sister made their surprising appearance in the office, walking in casually while approaching the man in question. "If nothing else, I respect your transparency! You're an honest man!" he said while extending his arm for a handshake.
Rentarō just stood there, taken aback at this display, not sure what to make of it.
Rentarō: "What are you doing here?!" he questioned while thinking if he should accept the handshake or not.
Tamaki: "I was feeling guilty for what happened last time and I came here to patch things up with you, for what it's worth! I know I didn't do much up until now but I want you to know that me and Yuzuki are still your allies! And we're here to help you find Enju, especially in these last few days when you're still free and….you know….not in prison yet!" that came across as more awkward than it should have but this clumsy delivery felt authentic at least.
The man smiled in response, in an understanding manner, before closing in to do the handshake in cordiality.
Rentarō: "Thank you! Me and Kisara cannot afford that many people to help us find Enju!".
Tamaki: "I know! That's why me and Yuzuki will help you search for her for free! And, if we won't find her by the time your trial will finish, and you'll still have to go to prison afterwards, we'll continue to search for her and rescue her, if she'll still be in her human form! You have my word!" he said what he had planned to say since the beginning.
Yuzuki: "Yeah, and we'll finish your job for you if she won't be in her human form…" came the less than friendly reply from Tamaki's sister, although still in an honest way.
Still sensing trace amounts of spite in that reply, her brother nudged her with his arm.
Tamaki: "Isn't there something you'd want Rentarō to know, Yuzuki?" he asked in a forceful tone as the girl looked away shyly from him.
Yuzuki: " (sigh) Yes, there is!" she suddenly and unexpectedly bowed in front of Rentarō. "I'm sorry for what I said last time! That was a bit insensitive of me!" she admitted in a more formal tone, which felt very much unlike her character.
Kisara: " 'a bit' is an understatement!" she remarked dully but then kept her mouth shut.
The boy receiving the apology didn't know how to react. On the one hand, he was happy that she had acted in the way that she did, since she actually allowed him to realize why his actions had been to harmful to Enju. As such, seeing her apologize for expressing her honest thoughts didn't really make sense to him and he was sure that Tamaki had a hand in forcing her to act regretful.
Still, on the other hand, it still felt a bit nice to see her show a bit of remorse for her actions.
Rentarō: "It's OK! You were just expressing your true thoughts! If anything, I like it when people are blunt with me rather than deceiving!" seeing how she had received his forgiveness, she rose to an up-straight position once again, to resume the previous conversation.
Yuzuki: "Thanks! But, for the record, I still think what you did to Enju was wrong!" comically enough, she still didn't let go of that argument, exasperating her brother.
Tamaki: "Yuzuki!" he tried to lecture but was stopped.
Rentarō: "It's fine!" he interrupted his fellow Promoter. "Tina was just as honest with me as she had been, this morning! All Initiators find what I did as wrong and I cannot fault them for that! In the end, I made a poor decision and I need to take responsibility for it!" and with that said and done, Rentarō finally decided to change the topic one last time.
Rentarō: "Then, I'll be counting on all of you to help Enju while I'll be incarcerated! Please protect her to the best of your abilities! And…..if need be…..please do the right thing to her that I couldn't do myself!" he then moved his hand in his suite and pulled out an envelope, showing it to everyone else in this room.
Rentarō: "This letter is for Enju! I don't know if you'll even find her still in her human form but, if you will and I will be in prison by that time, please, give her this letter from me! That's my last request for all of you!" suddenly silence filled the room, as the gravity of that statement sank in on everyone there.
Nobody wanted to take that letter since they knew what a grave responsibility it meant and how important this must have been for him.
Kisara: "OK! I'll give it to her!" she was the first one to say that, rising from her desk and taking the letter from him. "You also have my word, Rentarō! We will do what is needed for Enju! If nothing else, you can leave her in our hands!" it felt reassuring having had all of their blessings.
Tina: "Yes, and we will visit you every week, onii-san! I'll promise you that!" while that hilariously sounded way more depressing than she had intended for it, it still came across as heart warming.
At the end of the day, he still had powerful allies, willing to help him in his time of need. And that, to him, meant a lot. It meant to him that even if he won't be able to be there to help Enju, there were still other people who could instead.
~One day later, Sumire's office~
Rentarō: "I give up!" he cried out, too exhausted to continue his previous conversation with Sumire. "This is impossible! We've searched every single district, turned over every rock and asked every single person we could! This is meaningless!" the desperation was seething from his body language, as the teenager dropped onto a seat next to the table she was also standing at.
Sumire: "So, finally lost the energy? I admit, I wasn't expecting for you to last for as long as you did, Rentarō-kun!" the doctor reported bored, as the was paying attention at the pot of stew that she was brewing.
Rentarō: "I don't get it, Sumire-sensei! How can this be so hard! It's just one city!" he tried to explain, even though the doctor was really not impressed.
Sumire: "Rentarō, you're trying to find one single child in a two million square kilometers (almost 850 square miles) city! Even with your party of five, there's only so much area you can cover in the span of three days! Your task was prone to fail from the very get-go! I'm surprised that none of you had the mental capacity to realize how futile it was in the first place!" sometimes Sumire is just so cold and blunt with her logic that it genuinely cuts through Rentarō's pride a bit too deep.
Rentarō: "None of us are really good at accepting defeat! Besides, what other choice do I have? I want to find her!" she knew that. He had told her his goal over the past days at least four times already. It wasn't even funny anymore.
Sumire: "There's only so much that being dedicated and doing hard work can get you in this life! Some tasks are doable and you genuinely need to invest a lot of energy into completing whereas others are just a fool's errand. One of the keys to success in life is knowing how to tell the two apart!" her casual lack of regard to the failure of his honorable mission wasn't particularly pleasing for him.
Rentarō: "Then what would you have suggested I do, sensei?" feeling fed up with the bad luck he seemingly had for the past couple of days, he began trying to take in alternate opinions.
Sumire: "Nothing" she responded with too simply. "Given your situation, there's nothing you could have done to find her! Then again, I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to be found by you in the first place!" after feeling like the stew was ready, she closed the fire and grabbed a heat resistant glove to grab the container filled with food before approaching the table.
Sumire: "Just accept it, Rentarō! She wants to be left alone! Sometimes the best course of action is to leave a woman alone when she wants to be left alone!" she began pouring the food into their bowls so that they could enjoy their dinner together. "Fun fact: that's another key to success in life. I'm being very generous with you tonight!" that didn't help him that much though.
Rentarō: "I don't personally consider 'just give up' as particularly good advice!" he replied a bit let down. "But then again at this point there's nothing much more that I can do. The trial is tomorrow and I don't feel good about my odds" he admitted as he suddenly dug his spoon into the stew to eat with her.
Sumire: "Well, for what it's worth, I doubt you'll get life imprisonment. Manslaughter, while very serious, is not harshly punished in Japan. And given how friendly the judge seemed from your descriptions of him, I'd estimate you'd get ten years at most!" she then blew into her own spoon to cool it off a bit before placing it into her mouth and started to consume the food she had cooked.
Rentarō: "Gee, thanks! That still doesn't change the fact that I'll lose at least an eighth of my life in a cell all by myself!".
Sumire: "Oh, that's rather optimistic of you, given your job!" somehow, he didn't exactly know how, but somehow this woman always made him feel very nihilistic about life whenever he would talk to her. She had this talent of inspiring despair that no one else in his life had ever displayed.
Rentarō: "And what life advice do you have for me once I'll be in prison? Care to share any wisdom for that as well?" he sarcastically said, only to immediately regret it when he noticed the sinister smile on her face when she heard that.
Sumire: "Yes! Don't drop the soap!" that face…..he couldn't even begin to imagine what went through her head when saying those words. Needless to say, he felt his blood freeze in his veins when he saw that face.
Rentarō: "Very original!" he replied sarcastically. He hated her when she turned playful with him. It only meant more teasing that was wholly unnecessary.
Rentarō: "Anyways, since this will likely be our last dinner for a long while from now on, I want to share a very personal thing with you!" he began.
Sumire: "Oh? And what that might be?" she asked, genuinely curious.
Rentarō: "Please….get rid of the corpses in this place! Or at least cover them with a cloth or something for the duration of dinner! They always creep me out! Especially that one over there!" he pointed to one corpse in particular that was placed right behind Sumire.
Sumire: "Rude….They're my friends, Rentarō! And after all these years of dining with me, I thought you'd have gotten used to them!" she remarked a bit hurt. "And Fernández over there is my favorite one out of all of them!" he didn't know why but her having named that corpse only made it creepier.
Rentarō: "He's staring at me while I'm eating though!" he complained, hurtfully. "Could you have just maybe closed his eyelids at the very least?! Why did you place him like that?!".
Sumire: "Well, I consider him to be part of my family! As such, I thought it would only make sense for him to be joining us at this dinner! Don't you agree?" being a coroner, it only felt natural for her to not be very squeamish when it came to the dead, that was a fair fact. Still, the fact that she was acting like a ten year old playing around with her dolls was still a bit too eerie, even for him.
Rentarō: "I don't think Fernández would have appreciated you treating him like this if he were still alive! Also, what's with the stereotypical name? Was that really his name?" the woman just smiled before shrugging her shoulders.
Sumire: "I don't remember! I didn't check his name! All I remember was that he was from a Spanish family when he was brought here. As such, I decided to call him Fernández!" he face palmed at that statement.
Rentarō: "That's racist! Don't just make up names for the dead! Do you have no respect for them?! How are you even allowed to handle their bodies with such little regard to th-…" but he was stopped when he heard a sudden alarm coming from the computer in the room.
Clearly perturbed by it, the woman stopped eating, placed her spoon back into its bowl and moved back to the computer to see the reason for this disturbance.
Rentarō: "What's going on?" he asked, now curious as well.
Sumire: "I set up a number of feeds to regularly poll against on my computer whenever news articles were posted from various outlets. It's called RSS! I also programmed pattern matches for these stories whenever they would be discovered so that when they would contain specific words an alarm would sound off!" she began explaining while the boy just stared at her, not really sure what that meant.
Sumire: " (sigh) That means I set up an alarm for when specific news stories are broadcast to the public so that I can check up on them afterwards! It's a more intelligent way of doing things than just mindlessly search the entire city in my opinion; and more efficient!" she informed him as she began tapping specific keys on her keyboard before bringing up a news article off the web.
Sumire: "Oh my…." she began reading the article, along with the boy, surprised at what they were seeing.
Rentarō: "No…..Enju intercepted a Black Bullets shipment truck?! Why would she…."
Author's Note: And here is the Tina story, for those who really wanted to read it. Admittedly, the parts with her were longer than I expected and, because that eventually became so long and I couldn't bring myself to cut anything out, this chapter became particularly long. That and also I still have a lot of content that I plan to cram in the future chapters to end this story already and, due to this, this came out really really long. I apologize for that!