Tendo Civil Security Agency.
Kisara nearly drew her sword and cut down a certain eccentric woman the moment she returned.
What infuriated her even more was what had happened to her office. The place had been transformed into something resembling a morgue.
The culprit was Muroto Sumire.
Sumire knew about the panacea in Kisara's possession because Kisara had needed her help monitoring Enju's condition when she took it.
Ever since, the doctor had been trying every conceivable way to get some for herself. Apparently, she had now heard something that confirmed the presence of a certain man at Kisara's side.
So this woman, who practically lived in the hospital basement, had moved her entire workspace into Kisara's office to make it easier to approach him.
She had probably guessed that Kisara wouldn't bring him to see her.
Kisara had only been gone long enough to attend a meeting, and the woman had already moved in.
She certainly worked fast!
As for the Seitenshi, after enduring Kisara's mockery, she had finally apologized. There had been no further attacks.
The journey back had been perfectly ordinary, as though nothing had happened. They had returned to the office without incident.
"Get all this stuff out of here right..."
Kisara's voice caught.
The eccentric woman had held a particular slip of paper in front of her face.
A check.
Kisara swallowed as she counted the string of zeros.
"Is this real? I can actually cash it?"
"Of course..."
Before Sumire could finish, the check had vanished from her hand.
Kisara's furious expression transformed into one of radiant warmth.
"Is there anything else you need brought over? I can help carry it."
She had completely forgotten that she had been ordering Sumire out a moment earlier.
Even Sumire was briefly at a loss for words.
But none of that mattered. Her real interest was the man beside Kisara.
He was handsome, with well-proportioned features and a lean build. He certainly didn't look like a hulking mass of muscle.
Yet that body had displayed such extraordinary speed and power, slaughtering the armed personnel who attacked him.
No ordinary human could do that.
Even the Cursed Children would struggle to match it.
Perhaps he had undergone extensive modification, like the subjects of the New Humanity Creation Project, whose bodies had been turned into partly mechanical organisms.
But now that she could observe him up close, Sumire sensed none of the subtle incongruities that came with mechanical augmentation.
His body appeared to be entirely flesh and blood.
That left another possibility: biological enhancement, perhaps using the Gastrea virus to strengthen himself.
However, she had analyzed the traces of panacea left in its container after Enju took it. The substance had nothing whatsoever to do with the Gastrea virus.
Its properties were nonetheless unlike anything she had ever encountered. It was as extraordinary as the Gastrea virus had been when it was first discovered.
That suggested he might have strengthened himself using some special factor contained in the panacea.
And his body wasn't the only thing that interested her.
There was an unmistakable aura of death about him.
He seemed like someone who routinely walked the boundary between life and death. That would explain the oppressive sense of death clinging to him.
It was almost as though he had fought his way out of hell.
Put simply, this man was dangerous.
Far more dangerous than anyone she had ever met.
She thought she could make a reasonable guess about his personality, too.
He wasn't good at conversation.
No, that wasn't quite right.
Unless they had something worth discussing, he simply couldn't be bothered.
"Muroto Sumire. Former head of the New Humanity Creation Project and one of the Four Sages. Let's make a deal. What would it take to buy your complete allegiance?"
His opening words caught her off guard.
Apparently, he knew her background quite well.
He wanted her to work for him.
"Eradicate the Gastrea from this world. No, simply killing the creatures won't be enough. You'll have to eliminate the Gastrea virus itself. You can start by giving me that so-called panacea to study so I can..."
Sumire abruptly stopped.
He had handed her a briefcase.
A moment earlier, his hands had been empty.
Then the case had simply appeared in his grasp.
That couldn't possibly have been a magic trick.
She glanced at Kisara out of the corner of her eye, but Kisara didn't seem surprised.
Suppressing her curiosity for the moment, Sumire opened the case.
Its contents left her staring.
More than a hundred doses of panacea.
A second later, she turned toward one of the Cursed Children.
Not Enju. She had already reached the limit and couldn't take any more.
Instead, Sumire looked at the girl Enju had brought back from the meeting.
Senju Kayo.
"What's your current corrosion rate?"
"Huh? Twenty-seven point seven percent."
Still somewhat dazed, Kayo answered the question.
"Good. That's within the usable range. Drink this."
Sumire had already taken out a vial, removed the cap, and brought it to the girl's lips.
"Doctor, you're scaring her!"
Enju stepped between them with an exasperated look, making Sumire pause.
Enju had brought Kayo along partly because she was worried about what would happen to her now that she was alone.
An Initiator who lived long enough to be assigned a second or third Promoter often received a cold reception from her new partner.
They would regard her as a jinx.
Otherwise, why had the Promoter died while the Initiator survived?
The other reason was that Kisara had sent Enju a message saying they could take Kayo into the agency.
Naturally, Enju had been delighted to bring her along.
"Um, the doctor's a little weird, but I've taken this stuff myself. It can lower your corrosion rate."
"Lower it?"
Kayo's normally impassive face showed a clear flicker of emotion.
As far as she knew, the only drugs available could suppress the rate of corrosion. Nothing could reverse it.
That would be the equivalent of restoring DNA that had already been rewritten by the virus.
She accepted the vial and drank it without much hesitation.
It wasn't because she trusted them completely.
She simply felt that she had very little left to lose.
Her Promoter was dead.
The president of her agency was dead, too.
She had nowhere to go and no idea what to do next.
Perhaps disappearing from the world wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Then she would never have to kill anyone again.
Yes, she had killed people.
Not because she wanted to.
If she wanted to survive, she had to obey.
After swallowing the entire dose, Kayo involuntarily tensed, paying close attention to what the liquid in her stomach would do.
It felt warm.
The warmth spread rapidly through her body, growing hotter and hotter until it became painful.
She felt as though she were burning.
But it was pain she could endure.
Five minutes later, the sensation finally subsided.
Her whole body felt considerably lighter and more at ease than before.
"Doctor, that's too much! You've taken enough!"
The Initiator named Enju was protesting as the doctor unceremoniously drew blood from Kayo's arm.
"Senju Kayo, from this moment on, you're a member of the Tendo Civil Security Agency. He'll be your temporary Promoter."
Kayo froze when she saw whom President Tendo had chosen.
The man who had killed her former agency president.
Someone she instinctively feared.
It wasn't the devastating power he had displayed that frightened her.
It was the overwhelming aura of death she sensed around him.
If he had merely seemed like someone who brought death to others, that would have been one thing.
But she couldn't shake the feeling that he was some sort of monster himself, something terribly dangerous.
(End of Chapter)
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