Hunter x Hunted? [Ch. XIX, Nine]

Quote of the Day: “Science is a candle in the dark, and it is up to us to carry that torch no matter how dark the darkness may be.” – Nine, quoting some famous scientist, probably.

Hi there, Alejandro! I am back and we just came back from- you know what, I won’t give any spoilers about what we accomplished today! ‘Heh!’ (as Canta-chan likes to say).

So, uh, firstly – a bit of a bombshell to drop out of nowhere but – the Dark Field ceased to exist for some reason. Sherlock and Canta told me it happened just a bit before midnight… actually, it probably happened while I was writing the previous entry and I didn’t even notice it somehow. I was too, uh, engrossed in writing to you, Alejandro. So, I couldn’t use any of the superpowers and buffs and stuff that I grew up using. That was debilitating (now that’s a big word Ik I am using correctly) and also kinda made me feel ‘lighter’ than usual throughout the day, for a lack of better words.

I woke up when I heard a huge crash right beside the window. I saw huge scaly claws cleave through the room beside ours. Shouts and screams and yells poured in from all directions. I saw Sherlock and that Plume guy run with Tumble and Calendar tucked in their arms, and the girls were bleeding really badly.

Instinctually, I tried to use the Field to implement Perception Acceleration however I felt literally nothing. Like, the sense inside my head that allowed me to do that felt like it’s a lie or something. I tried to detect others’ Field Signatures (yeah, Alejandro, I have come a long way in the last month) but I sensed nothing, as if the sense itself wasn’t real in the first place. I ran and tried to amplify the speed to lightspeed but well, as with everything else Field-related, it didn’t work – as if it was never even real.

So, I just ran and shook hard real Nine Nine real hard before dragging ‘em by his hands and running down the stairs as the dragon slammed into the other part of the building. I couldn’t think straight so I just ignored the litany of corpses, blood, gore, and entrails and one of what looked like the insides of an intestine… yeah, maybe I didn’t really ‘ignore’ them per se, I just kept it to the back of my head as I ran past through all that… wait, that’s the definition of ignorance – I have kinda gotten used to all that shit in the last couple of years of being an Agent so it’s not that much of a deal to me anymore.

Anyway, after coming out of the building we took a breather and I explained to Nine what’s going on so far (as far as I knew).

And, well, after this point, my memory really ain’t as clear as I’d like it to be.

That’s going to be a running theme for this diary entry, I guess.

I remember following the same direction Sherlock went, but then I also remember something like a huge fire breath’s shockwave knocking me over. Apparently, I went unconscious. And when I woke up, I saw all the remaining Japanese refugees haggardly looking at various parts of their body while being stunned af.

Then I saw Canta’s sister Tumble and her bestie Calendar just straightening up right beside me before starting to babble something in fluent Japanese that I couldn’t quite understand.

No, Alejandro, just watching anime doesn’t teach you freaking Japanese. Nine is an exception, because he actually studied that stuff unlike me.

Then, recognising me, Tumble yelled, “Six-chan! So glad to see you! How are you feeling?”

“I feel…” I paused to kinda process the stuff actually happening around me. “More fine than ever actually. At least, physically speaking. I am just confused as hell. What’s even happening? Also, is it just me or are y’all too having problems with the Field?”

“Oh yes!” Tumble replied. “My sister, Calendar-chan, Thena-san and Sherlock-san were talking about it at midnight. I was listening to music, so I didn’t really hear what they were saying. Calendar-chan, tell us what happened.”

“No, no, wait-” I stopped them. “Let me take that back. Let’s start with talking about exactly where we are right now.”

“Oh…” Tumble apparently realised something before continuing. “Etto… Okay, so, this is Torikoe Shrine a few blocks northeast of Akihabara and about a kilometre north of Asakusabashi station. I saw Plume bring you over like ten minutes ago while I was trying to stop my hand from itching the extremely sensitive knee which had a tourniquet around it.”

“Uh… I don’t get what you mean…? Why’d you have itchy, sensitive knees?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it!” Tumble chuckled as she took out a lollipop from the right pocket of her trousers. She patted her ankles and feet before putting the lollipop in her mouth. “A chunk of building fell on these legs that basically sawed off everything below my knees. Sherlock had to… uh… what’s shiketsutai (?) called in Japane–fuck, I mean English? Calendar-chan?”

“Tourniquet,” came the curt reply. “You literally just said it.”

“Arigato! Yeah, so, Sherlock had to tourniquet my knees to stop the bleeding because my lower legs were cut off, you know? My knees felt really itchy after that and I felt really light for some reason,” Tumble said it all out loud without any hesitation.

I wanted to ask how she recovered so fast as her legs were intact right now, but then I tried to process it for a moment. Tried to imagine the scene. Ignored it ‘coz the image made me seethe, then continued.

“Where is Nine? Where are the others?” I asked, trying to change the topic.

“They are upstairs, I think,” Calendar replied with a loud mutter.

“It seems like…” I tried to remember what happened before I blacked out. “…I blacked out as the shockwave of a fire breath made me tumble over and hit my head on the concrete. And I was somehow brought here by Plume after that…?”

Yes, I intentionally emphasized ‘tumble’.

“Naw, that’sh noth tha fool varshion,” Tumble said with a lollipop in her mouth. She took it out and twirled it and continued. “Nine-kun brought you most of the way here before Plume saw him just outside the shrine and brought you here to treat your wounds. Your wrists were shattered and you had a nasty cut through your jaw or something, I don’t remember exactly. Then, like a minute before you woke up, everything and everyone healed somehow and even some dead guys were resurrected. Naw ideah how tho.”

After putting the lollipop back in her mouth during the last sentence, she leaned back and looked up at the wooden ceiling and went silent for a moment before looking back at me.

Then, I heard some footsteps descending down the stairs right in front of me.

It was Nine!

“Kyu-kun!” I jumped at him and caught him in my arms. I really missed him.

“I am so glad you’re alright!”

Adding the sentence about how I missed him was sorta redundant now that I think about it but oh well, it’s true.

“You were really heavy though, girl,” he replied.

“Huh?” I was taken aback a bit. “What do you mean by that?! I am barely 60 kilos!”

He jabbed back at me, “Eh, it felt heavier.”

“YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT, COME HERE-!”

So, anyway, lol.

Then Canta came down the stairs and gave a really cool speech. I didn’t get much of it because it was all in Japanese. I later asked Nine about it but I don’t remember much of it. What I do remember is that basically Zero came to SAMAverse-α without even using the Field, healed and resurrected people, went away — and Canta spun that as a chance to recuperate and regroup and try to survive as a group instead of focusing on vague stuff. That’s kinda neat for an impromptu speech, it’s kinda politician-ish, and kinda good leader-ish — and I kinda like that.

But what happened after that revealed the most shocking news of all.

After the speech and the post-speech assurances to everyone, the “special powers” – Canta, Calendar, Tumble, Sherlock, Thena, Plume, Nine, and yours truly – sat around a table to discuss about what exactly happened at midnight yesterday and strategise about how to deal with the dragon.

After a series of questions and Sherlock dramatically revealing things (I forgot Sherlock Holmes is Sherlock Holmes and dramatically revealing stuff is his entire job description), it came to light that Nine’s Non-Existence (I actually forgot that was a thing as it didn’t really bother us in the last month, to be honest) side somehow caused the entire Dark Field to shut down for some reason. Canta somehow hit Nine’s final pin of mental resilience that was still standing, and that led to a domino effect on his psyche and stuff which ended up erasing the Dark Field. Sherlock isn’t sure about the details yet, but as Nine himself admitted, that’s probably what happened and there’s no way to bring the Field back.

We are so screwed.

We didn’t really talk about it in the meeting, but I feel like everyone here has an innate understanding of how screwed we really are. Every refugee, every (former) Field Wielder, and every one of us ‘special powers’ – we all know that this is an emergency of the highest order and an unprecedented situation literally no one could have prepared for.

But, we can’t really do anything about it. I can think of only one guy – yes, him – who can save us, but I am almost completely certain that he doesn’t even care. He probably only cares about Nine, for some reason other than the fact that he’s smart af.

Now, we also have a dragon to deal with.

Nine thought of creating a pseudo-rocket launcher or a ‘potato gun’ of sorts to bring down the dragon, and he assigned me and a few others to bring some essential items from abandoned, nearby hardware stores.

I happily led the team and scampered over like 3 blocks to get all the stuff we needed from 3 different stores. Then, we brought over all the things that he and his little cadre of amateur gunsmiths needed, but apparently I messed something up like always:

“This isn’t what I asked for!” Nine yelled at me, he looked really annoyed as he shook the light grey pipes in front of my face. “I said ‘dark blue’ or ‘dark grey’ or ‘black’! This isn’t dark!”

I tried to brush over it, “C’mon, Kyu-kun, give us a break! This looks grey enough to me! Grey is grey!”

“Yes, sis, that is if you want to die!” Nine’s face convulsed in visible frustration and irritation. “This kinda stuff would burst not even halfway through the amount of pressure that we need! I need dark-grey VP or dark-blue HI-VP pipes! Or we will all freaking die, you stupid idiot!”

I… I don’t know what came over me then, but I felt really hurt for some reason. I knew Nine was right to be pissed off, it’s a really precarious situation after all. But… I dunno, I felt like I deserved some sort of praise instead of an irreverent (...?) chastisement.

I might have just stood there longer than I needed to, then ran off, got to the nearest store, grabbed like ten of those pipes that Nine wanted, ran back and dumped it on Nine’s face, and silently walked away and sat down on the floor inside the shrine.

All sorts of thoughts ran through my head while I sat there with my arms around my knees and my head buried in my thighs. I kinda wanted to sob out loud, but simultaneously felt like the people around me had more reasons to cry than I did. Like, sure, I got trapped in another world and lost my overpowered powers abilities (that sounds like the title of the average slop isekai nowadays) – but this is an apocalyptic world where people have lost their only way to survive.

Like, back home, people can be killed by Field Wielders but they are always resurrected and are often better off after that. Everyone can live however they like, go wherever they want, do whatever they want to – as long as they don’t harm others. No one goes hungry or dies of sickness, no one is discriminated against, and no one is forced to do anything against their will – except, again, in extraordinary circumstances like rogue Field Wielders.

But here, people are dying in droves, scouring abandoned malls for food, drinking water out of the sewers, and trying their best not to be turned into a hideous monster by the universe resetting itself – and it’s not even their fault that they are in this situation.

It’s… tantalisingly chilling when you strip away everything you take for granted and realise that you didn’t really appreciate the things you should have.

While my head was buried in thoughts like these, I felt a soft hand gently pat my head. I lifted my head from my thighs and looked up to find Canta looking at me with an adorable little frown, and Plume leaning against the wall and staring at my face nonchalantly.

Startled, I freaked out and yelled, “How long were you two standing here?!”

Canta smiled while still softly rubbing my hair. “Just a few minutes, don’t worry about it. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m fine, just a hard day, I guess.”

Then, suddenly, for just a couple of seconds or so, she paused as her smile faded and her hand froze. She murmured something along the lines of “Dabu-suta… desu ne?” (probably a shortened form of ‘double standards’…? I have no idea) but I couldn’t really understand it. She very slightly raised her hand from my head for just a moment before quickly putting it back and smiling again. I didn’t really say anything because my instincts told me not to pry too much into it, but Plume asked her about it in his usual stoic and long-winded Victorian speech:

“The metamorphosis and instantaneous recovery did not go unnoticed, Miss Koto. Does your rationality find time itself too fain to stasis and verisimilitude (…?) such that no amm amendment nor alteration should affect affection once ambulation is already underway?”

I have no idea what that last line means, and I don’t even know if I wrote that correctly but I think it definitely has something to do with the first sentence (I hope so, at least).

“Uh…” Even Canta paused for a couple of seconds to process what he said. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

I was too confused about what he said to focus on Canta’s strange behaviour at that moment (in hindsight, I should have focused on her) “Bro, are you okay? Like, where did you even learn to speak English like that? Shakespeare? Like, I have met Shakespeare and even he makes more sense than you.”

“Dickens, Charles Dickens.” Plume replied quickly. “I have merely been commanded in a comprehensive erudition of all things Charles Dickens in every singular manner: audiobooks, ebooks, hardbacks, and visual novels. My abilities on the subject range from memorisation of A Tale of Two Cities to the cognisance of the entire lexicon used by him throughout his life.”

I replied, “Sheesh, sounds rough. So, you can’t speak normally? Also, I have read Dickens too but he doesn’t sound like that all the time-”

“With all fortitude, the possibility remains. However, the expectancy and the efficacy of conventional speech from my labia remains a platitude of–”

“Stop, stop, I get it, I get it! You don’t have to explain anymore, I get it. I am sorry I ever asked you.”

We sat down and talked about random stuff like this and other chit-chat for the next couple of hours. I got to know that: Canta Koto actually plays the koto (it’s a Japanese string instrument), Showerstream was actually Canta’s Vice President in the Student Council, Plume’s parents are British but he was born and brought up in France, Tumble used to be a really popular gacha game streamer, Canta’s parents were really strict and they were both high-earning accountants, Plume is really into late 19th Century history and loves wearing clothes from that age (this explains his cape and the rest of his attire), Calendar used to be the high school Archery champion, the oldest refugee (her name is Miyamoto Mahiru and she is 106 IIRC) in Japan and the youngest (a 5-year-old) both love Demon Slayer, and Plume knows nine languages and can speak in them fluently – among many, many more random stuff.

It’s fun to have friends to hang out with in the apocalypse, ngl.

But, oh well, all games must have a pause button. In this case, it was a loud booming blast and a sudden jolt from the ground followed by a loud parade of “TAIHEN!!!! TAIHEN!!!!” roaring across the temple.

Canta jumped up from the floor and ran ahead to see what’s going on while Plume and I followed behind her. We reached the courtyard and saw people panicking and running inside the shrine while the even more panicked ones tried to run outside. Canta started ahead and stood right in front of the few ultra-crazed ones who were about to dash into nowhere in their sudden madness.

I didn’t quite understand what they said in high-pitched yells, as it was all in Japanese. I recognised some stuff like “Mita! Ryuu wo mita!” (“I saw a dragon!”…?) and “Koko ni kuruyo!” (It’s coming here) – and that was enough for me to understand what caused that noise.

The same thing that almost killed me a few hours ago.

Canta was doing her best to handle the situation till a certain girl ran into her back and both fell down.

“Sumimasen…”

Canta looked back, starting to apologise, before recognising a familiar face. It was Showerstream!

Shower (I am just gonna write Shower instead of Showerstream from now ‘coz I feel real tired rn, so pardon my laziness, Alejandro) apologised back, “Suma, Canta-chan!” as she pulled her up.

Dusting herself, Canta shouted something really loud and then hugged Shower. Shower said something along the lines of “Suma, demo sa, Ryuu ga yattekuruyo!” (“Sorry, but uh, the dragon’s coming here!”)

I didn’t understand much of what they talked about in the next minute or so but I ran along with them into the open grounds of the shrine. As we ran, I saw Plume and a random Japanese man starting to evacuate people, several old folk and pregnant women following Tumble, and a bunch of children holding each other’s hands and squealing “Choo-choo!” following Calendar. The last one made me smile for a moment before I smacked my head against a wall in the corner with a loud thud.

The kids and the girls looked back at me and the former laughed out loud. Canta walked back and lent her right hand with a soft smile.

I said, “Remember, kids! Always look straight ahead while you are running,” as I stood back up, with another bout of laughter following it.

It’s good to hear children laughing in the apocalypse, even if they are laughing at you being silly. No, wait, correction: *even more so if they are laughing at you being silly.

Uh, wait a minute, now that I think about it, did those Japanese kids even understand what I said? Did they just laugh for the heck of it? Alejandro… am I dumb?

ANYWAY!

We went to the grounds where the pseudo-gunsmiths were doing their stuff. Shower rushed straight ahead to Nine, who was sitting in a corner and writing to his Jesse, while Canta talked with Sherlock and Thena. I… just stood there silently because I had no idea what to do at that moment.

I am really awkward when it comes to dealing with my genuine emotions, Alejandro. Give me a break.

Nine scribbled something super fast in his pocket diary and then put it in his trouser… pocket (duh). He then stood up, closed his eyes for just a second, rubbed it (I have never seen him rub his eyes before), glanced at Canta and Sherlock, before turning back to Shower.

“We haven’t finished yet,” said Nine. “We still have to attach the Schrader valves and the extended handles. We need more-”

“I can do that right now, just give me 30 seconds.”

With a snap, Thena picked up the yet-unfinished potato cannons one-by-one, filled ‘em up, and snapped nuts and bots and valves and stuff into them really quickly. Her eyes were glowing while she did all that, before inserting the final piece of ammo inside the gun and walking back to us.

“We probably still need a few test trials, but my readings say that we can be 99.99867% sure that this is fine.”

“Uh…” Nine looked both stunned and visibly irritated. “Why didn’t you tell me that you could just do stuff like that? We could’ve been done with this like an hour ago.”

“It took me several hours to recalibrate my systems,” Thena replied. “All of my body used to directly harness energy from the Field to function, I worked with all the stored-up energy I had from the emergency backup storage and barely managed to switch to solar energy this morning. Don’t fucking test me, boy.”

That last sentence was said in an extremely hostile manner for absolutely zero reason.

“Dear Secretary.”

Those two gentle words from Sherlock were enough to calm her down.

“I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry.”

Nine and Thena both apologised in stereo.

The situation’s just getting on everyone’s nerves, I guess, even mine now that I think about it.

Thena, Nine, and Shower picked up the three guns and started running toward the main street. Canta and I followed. We went down the main road and started heading west. Plume and Sherlock joined us after a bit.

“I have a theory,” Shower said. “The dragon is heat-seeking.”

“An easy deduction,” Sherlock replied. “It has attacked the elementary school in the south-east, has it not?”

Shower looked at Sherlock, bewildered, “How did you know?”

Nine replied, “He managed to notice the direction where the roar was coming from and connected the dots. Most likely, the kotatsus’ and the geysers’ heat were the main infrared emitters and that might have attracted the dragon.”

“I went running towards Taito Ikuei when the dragon attacked because…” Shower rolled her eyes before sighing. “I forgot that we were supposed to group up at Torigoe for emergencies. Taito school’s the second biggest refugee center, etto, I thought I should just go there… A few even followed me there, Idk what happened to them. I did alert the refugees there about the dragon, but it seems like the dragon followed me instead of you… It’s probably not my fault but… *Sigh*”

“It’s fine, they’ll be fine,” Canta patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. They’ll be a-okay.”

“I sure hope so.”

Then Nine asked, “But why is it heat-seeking?”

I chimed in, “Maybe because it’s a dragon?”

“Uh…” Nine thought for a second while looking down at the road. “Matches the vibes of a dragon but doesn’t exactly explain it, now, does it?”

Canta said, “Since the dragon is mostly gas, maybe hotter places let it float better? Or maybe the Dragon Proximus is associated with stuff like volcanoes or hotter places in general, the dragon is naturally attuned that way?”

“The former necessitates confrontation pertaining to more physiological factors, while the latter validates an inquiry into the ontology, provenance and genesis of the draconian entity.”

“Right, Plume,” said Nine, “although this doesn’t exactly matter at the moment, we should look into it after we slay the dragon.”

I felt like Nine’s mood had changed a lot since he yelled at me. He seemed a bit more calm and composed for some reason. Does he feel bad or something?

“What’s the plan right now, exactly?” Nine asked after a few seconds. “Where are we heading? Where exactly did y’all evacuate the people to? If the dragon’s coming from the south-east, why are we going west? What did we build those guns for?”

“Oh right, I’m sorry I forgot to tell you!” Canta chuckled self-deprecatingly. “Sherlock and I made a plan about an hour ago about what to do when the dragon attacks. You were writing your diary, so we didn’t disturb you then. We had decided that if the dragon were to attack Torigoe, we would evacuate the refugees a bit up north and disperse them in various abandoned hotels and restaurants across the area so that they aren’t all gathered in one place. Meanwhile, the rest of us can go through a really tall residence tower southwest of here and start a humongous fire out of building rubble and stuff to lure the slow dragon.”

“Wait a minute…” Nine stopped running. “IIRC, isn’t there a hospital right across the road to the 38-story tall tower you are talking about? You wanna make a fire out of a hospital?”

We all stopped in our tracks before Canta facepalmed, “In front of the hospital, Nine-kun. Also, there’s no one in the hospital, and all the medical equipment has already been taken out, don’t worry – I’m a hypocrite, not a fool.”

“That makes sense… but why do you think you’re a hypocrite?”

“Well, because I am sel-”

“HALT!”

Plume suddenly put a finger to his lips after shouting.

And even though none of us knew what was up or why he was shouting, we all shut up. And I have no idea why we did that. Like, Idk if it was his calm and stoic personality or just the strangely affirmative way he said it, we all just went silent.

Shower muttered, “What is it?”

Plume ignored her and closed his eyes while silently walking away from us towards a corner in the street, backwards.

I really wanted to lol (yes, lol stands for ‘laugh out loud’ and no one has used it in that context since pre-history) because he looked like he was moonwalking.

And then there was a growl, a jump, a flutter, a kick, a chop, a rustle, a soft yowl, and heavy sounds on the concrete slowly receding.

We are all mesmerised by what had just happened. It all happened so fast that my eyes couldn’t even keep up with it.

“Tora ka?????” (“A tiger?????”)

“Heh, hory shitttt!”

“I used baritsu to accomplish the same feat when I was in the Sundarbans once.”

“That was… actually cool.”

“Supernatural reflexes, like, I had no idea there was another person from our world who could think or react to stimuli that fast without using the Field.”

And at last, I shouted, “That was so freaking dope, I hope you didn’t beat that cat up too bad.”

Just as I said that, Plume stylishly rewore his cape and my brain finally processed what happened.

Plume slowly walked back to the corner of a wall with faded graffiti to lure the tiger into attacking him. Then, somehow – and I know that word is pulling a humongous weight here – he managed to step aside and turned around with perfect timing, put his cape over the tiger’s face before it even landed, and then he followed it up with a palm strike right below the tiger’s jaw (Nine later told me that Plume probably targeted the ‘mandibular complex’ or whatever it’s called), an elbow to its shoulder, and then twisted his knuckles to hit the tiger right behind its ears before it even registered what had happened. He did it all with his right hand in a strangely flowy sequence.

I have watched some dubbed Chinese classics, but to see shit like this happen right in front of my eyes was an entirely different thing. I had no idea that something like this could even happen. Who is this guy??? Why had I never heard of him before??? I am still extremely shook but simultaneously mesmerised by what he did, Alejandro. Like, hot damn, dude looked like those manhwa protagonists but in a Victorian-era costume at that moment – you get what I mean, right?

The tiger had left out a soft yowl as Plume had given it a final kick right in its stomach. It writhed, trapped in Plume’s raven-black cape, before he took it off while it slowly backed away. I could spot a scar in its face and a slight limp in its front right foot as it ran away.

Sherlock pat Plume’s shoulders as the latter softly breathed a sigh before saying, “Ambulation must be our following proceedings,” before nonchalantly walking away – and we all followed him, without any words.

After a small break-in at a nearby hardware store where we got ourselves some really-heavy earmuffs and some masks (Thena and Nine were tweaking them for something) for some reason, we got our first look at that tall residential building we were supposed to set up our guns at, we got another dragon roar boom through our bones – and it felt much closer this time.

“Heh, time to start a fire!”

Canta pointed towards the rubble of a huge convenience store, completely decimated. Some charred remains of debris were scattered on the ground – the concrete and the road beneath them had large dents, so they probably came flying from the high school attack in the morning (the high school’s literally like 4 blocks away from here).In front of the konbini, there was an abandoned petrol pump still surprisingly intact. The extended roof, however, had been crushed by debris which crashed into some abandoned cars outside a garage.

“Shower, Six, gather some inflammables,” Canta ordered. “Plume, Thena, Sherlock – get some of that petrol and diesel. Nine, come with me.”

Shower and I got into the remains of the convenience store and gathered some ropes, cloth, toiletry, shopping bags, and tons of cardboard boxes. We gathered 'em all in front of the petrol pump as Sherlock and Thena put all the gasoline and petrol and stuff on the humongous pile. I had no idea where Nine and Canta went, they just headed off towards that tall building when we headed into the store.

By the time we were done setting it up, those two arrived, laughing.

“If I could make the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, I would. Trust me, I would!”

“Hehehe, first thou shalt take out the holy pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three.”

“Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two-”

“Oh wait, I know this reference,” Thena chimed in. “Excepting that thou then proceed to three… five is right out!”

“Once the number three,” Shower popped in, “being the third number be reached, then lob’st thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe-”

I completed it, “-Who being naughty in my sight… shall snuff it. Amen.”

And everyone – including Sherlock and Plume – loudly affirmed, “Amen!”

Just after that, Sherlock tossed a lighter towards the humongous 10 metre-tall pile we’d gathered from like 50 feet away (which we all assumed was a safe distance), and an equally humongous flare rose from the fire in all directions and scraped by my nose.

It was early winter, but the fire made me sweat buckets.

And then my body shook vigorously when I heard another loud roar pierce through the air.

“The dragon’s nearer.”

“Duh!” Canta looked up at Nine and chuckled. “How close do you think it is?”

“About a couple of kilometres away, it’s gone on the other side of the Sumida River for some reason and it’s coming back.”

“The plan’s working as intended then,” Canta said. “Thena and boys, get up the floors in the tower as high as you can.”

“Why not me???”

“Because,” Shower backed up Canta, “Sherlock, Thena, and Nine built the guns and Plume is absurdly strong and skillful. The rest of us would be in their way if things went wrong.”

“Yeah so,” Canta continued, “I just showed Nine the building and he told us that being on the 20th floor would be enough to shoot the dragon even if it’s a kilometre away.”

I didn’t say anything more because I knew they were right… I am useless right now, ain’t I?

Shower handed over the gun she was carrying to Plume as Sherlock and Thena headed into the building. Plume looked at Nine and followed the two 3L-Threes. Nine nodded and then looked at me for a brief moment before following behind them.

Canta, Shower, and I headed into the hospital. We went past the empty reception, smashed windows, broken syringes, passageways filled with cobwebs, hundreds of flights of silent staircases, and a creaky door – to get to the rooftop.

The fire was still burning, I could see the smoke rising from the rooftop. The weather in general was comfortable, warm, and somewhat sunny. The winter sky didn’t have many clouds and I could feel a deathly calm in the air of the 20th floor rooftop of the hospital. There were rusty air conditioning outlets, a generator, and a tin roofhead in the corner.

The school council president and her vice president didn’t talk. The president sat down on the edge of the roof and looked into the distance, while the VP leaned against the semi-human-height wall right beside her and stared towards the ground.

It was the calm before the storm.

And then a flood of fire and rubble smashed into our man-made pile of flames and a hurricane-like gust of wind launched me into the air as a loud roar made it known that a calamity was approaching us.

I shrieked out loud as I saw Canta and Shower get hurled onto one of the AC units. But unlike earlier in the morning, this time, I somehow managed to find my balance as my trajectory landed me on top of the tin roofhead.

Unfortunately, the tin rooftop didn’t like being a bottom and so it instantly broke under the impact of my weight. Instinctively, I pushed off of it as it broke down and did a perfect landing on the floor of the roof.

I just now realised that I am a kinda fit gal even without the Field.

I ran to the two girls and saw that Shower was a bit concussed while Canta was out cold. None of them had lost blood but Canta’s nose was a bit bloody. I looked east and saw the dreaded dragon once again. It breathed a humongous wall of fire that spread across the entire horizon and was slowly melting everything in its way.

Shower shook Canta while shouting something in Japanese. The ground was shaking with the sheer force of the thermal pressure and the building trembled from its very foundation. The dragon shrieked in higher and higher frequencies as it kept spewing fire from its mouth towards every building in front of it.

I looked towards the residential skyscraper, about to yell as loudly as I could, when I heard another boom almost as loud as the swarm of fire. Something zapped straight out of the 20th floor of the residential tower with a thunderous ring emblazoning itself into the very atmosphere.

After a few seconds, another one followed it with the same thunderous uproar. And before I could even hear it, I felt my ears start ringing tintinnabulously (I hope I used that correctly) while I looked at a blindingly bright blue-white blast with yellow-green streaks in the distance where the dragon once was.

A BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM bellowed through the battlefield and I covered my ears in pain (even with the tweaked earmuffs), simultaneously marveling at the spectacular fireworks while it slowly faded away into a rusty mist.

All of this happened in less than two minutes and I couldn’t believe that it’s over.

But, uh, the next few hours are blurred in my memory because my head hurt really badly (it still does, though not as much) for some reason and I threw up like ten times. I somehow managed to princess-carry Canta (Shower told me not to move her neck much) and had Shower lean on my shoulder while walking down the 20 flights of stairs. We met the boys and Thena on the ground floor because Nine had intuited we weren’t doing so well, and he was REALLY right on that one.

While Sherlock and Thena were applying first aids to all of us, Nine and Plume talked about how glad they were not to lose their eardrums. Nine said that he was a bit dizzy, but the rest of the shooting group was fine… somehow.

They are freaks of nature, that’s how, Alejandro. Are you satisfied?

The earmuffs that Nine and Thena cranked up from some ruins worked well enough because, apparently, all of us would have lost our hearing from those loud booms and the potato cannon if it weren’t for those heavy, puffy things – and hearing loss isn’t really the best-case scenario in an apocalypse.

Thena and Plume shot two of three potato cannons at the 20th floor there. Thena fired first, but it somehow got deflected by the wall of fire. Plume shot next and got it right in the dragon’s underbelly. Thena was really mad that she calculated trajectories and parabolas and angles and stuff in her robionic eyes and still missed it while Plume did it by, in his own words, “Mere instinct.”

Nine on the other hand chatted a lot about how Canta and he decided our hideout where we – Canta, Shower and I – could be simultaneously safe, be able to watch the dragon, and run over in case of an emergency. He was really glad when Thena said that our injuries were ‘within strain limits’ (whatever that means) and he was even more glad when Canta came back to consciousness less than half an hour later. She was pretty dizzy and had a really bad headache like me, but was still able to hold a conversation with her regular ‘heh’ interspersed between sentences.

Then, for the next half an hour, all of them TALKED. And I mean it, Alejandro, they TALKED. Even Plume chatted aloud in Victorian English.

All of them talked about the dragon’s specifications, possibilities of other dragons, what alternate plans they came up with, what could the exact components of the dragon be, how detailed the next designs of the gun should be, whether we should go and check out the dragon’s body, the exact sequence of events that could have gone wrong but didn’t – it seemed like hours of thought process being condensed into several sentences. So many hours of preparation for barely two minutes of action.

It’s insane.

And I couldn’t process it all because I had a really bad headache.

Sometimes, Alejandro, I really feel out of place in the midst of all these freaks of nature. I don’t really have much of a specialty except for being fast and punching things hard, and a decent singing voice I guess. But oh well, here I am.

Now, after Canta and Shower headed off to check out the refugees and the adults (Thena, Sherlock and Plume) went off to check out the dragon’s corpse, Nine stayed behind with me as I was still recovering from my headache and dizziness. I had started to recover by that point, but I wanted to say sorry to him in private, so… you get what I mean.

But, for some reason, he too headed off towards the ashes of the former bonfire of random-stuff-that-we-shoved-together to look for something after the rest left.

I sighed and looked up at the sky, and the moon looked back at me. Even the stars seemed so calm, after the storm was over. It was probably really late in the evening. It was then I realised why Nine loved the night sky, and I kinda felt sad that I'd never talked with him about it.

Speaking of Nine, I looked around to see him approaching me with something in his hands. He sat beside me on the same piece of rubble I was sitting on and handed me a small cardboard box. I looked at him, confused, and he replied with a smile and told me to open it.

It was a lightbulb.

Befuddled, I stared at him in incredulity.

Then Nine looked down at the ground, and said quietly, "I'm so sorry for snapping at you like that before, Six. I didn't mean to hurt you or be mean, I swear."

"It's fine!" I replied. "I know that we were just a bit tired of the stuff that's happened and we were both nervous, just in different ways… But… what’s this?"

Nine looked up at my face, really surprised. "You've really changed in the last month, sis, haven't you?"

"I could say the same, y'know?" I chuckled. "Thanks for today…"

"For what?"

He seemed honestly confused.

"For... the gun and the dragon and the shit??? Yk that was really important stuff, right???"

"Oh..." He facepalmed. "Eh, don't worry about it. It's just me finally being useful to y'all... after all, it's because of me that you are all in this situation."

"Shh, shut up, it's okay." I leaned towards him and scrubbed his long hair. "It's not like you wanted to do it, it's not like you wanted to be born from the genes of that bastard and it's not like you don't care about us, right?"

He looked down again, then silently looked up at the moon and sighed a heavy sigh. I haven't ever seen his face like that, so weary and so... sad. I don't have words to describe it but he looked really, really, really sad for a second there before going back to normal.

I still had no idea why he handed me a lightbulb but, oh well.

"Y'know... Kyu-kun..."

I say, trying my best to convey my feelings with inadequate vocabulary (seriously, Six, you should try orating or some stuff to know how to talk), "You... have always been really good at science-y stuff, Nine, and I... like... I knew that, I just didn't think much about it. Like, I knew you were crazy good and that you are really smart and stuff but I didn't exactly deem much importance to it... you get my drift? And it's because of you that we are still alive right now, so..."

He replied... calmly but gently, "I know what you mean, sis. I know what you mean."

"Y'know? I've never asked you this before, but, what really triggered you to get into science? Like, what's your motivation? I'm sorry I've never asked you this before but-"

He interrupted me, "C'mon, don't be so apologetic, Six. It doesn't suit you, in fact, I should be sorry. Also, this lightbulb that I just got from that hardware store is a token of my apology."

"I have no idea what you’re talking about, just tell me what I asked."

"Um..."

Nine, who usually doesn't stop talking about his interests, stopped in his tracks to think about what made him interested in them in the first place. He seemed to have a lot of thoughts in his mind from the moment he handed me the lightbulb and he’s still organising his thoughts.

I waited patiently, like he always does for me. Then, after a minute or so, he finally said:

"I... I don't exactly remember why I started learning stuff, and chose the ‘path of knowledge’. I don't even remember when I first read a book or when I first got to know my numbers. I was probably like 2 years old when I first knew what multiplication meant and by the time I was 3 I got really engrossed in knowing stuff, like that time I hacked NASA's backend to launch a normal rocket. So, it must have been between me learning multiplication and me hacking the Normal Aeronautics and Space Administration HQ backend where I got my motivation..."

He paused again, trying his best to think back.

"I... I think I remember a very specific memory now. It was really long back, way before I knew what Math even meant. I just loved to look at pictures and... Zero gifted me a space encyclopedia on my first birthday. Who knows what he was thinking when he did that? All I know is that I still have that encyclopedia on my desk in our room. What I do remember from back then, however, is a really vague memory of 'Oooo!!! I like!!! Want more!!!' and I never stopped from there, ha."

"Eh...? I don't remember that, and I was probably older than 3 when it was your first birthday. How do you remember that?"

"I dunno, sis. Some people remember really random stuff while the others treasure the most important moments of their lives in their memories forever. Me, however? I probably fall in the middle of those categories, kek."

Nine really got hooked when it came to the subject of memories for some reason. Maybe he was feeling nostalgic, and I really can't blame a guy lost in space and time to be nostalgic in an apocalypse after slaying a dragon now -- can I?

I still had no idea about the significance of the lightbulb though.

"There was this one book Two gifted me when I was five, and I really loved reading it even back then." He then looked at me and smiled a strange smile before continuing with: "There was this one line that book that might tickle your pickle -- Science is a candle in the dark, and it is up to us to carry that torch no matter how dark the darkness may be. What do you think this means?"

"It... means that no matter the circumstances, we should never stop looking for new stuff to learn...? Like, isn't that what Science is all about? Oh wait, is this lightbulb a meta-?"

Nine stuttered.

"I... I probably would have said a lot more than that, but brevity is the soul of wit. You've grown a lot, Six, haven't you?"

He leaned towards me and pat my shoulders, like he was really proud of me or something.

"Hey, hey, hey! Wait a minute! Why are you acting like... so much older than me?! I am your older sister! I-I am supposed to be the one praising you for growing up! This isn't fair! Hmmph!"

I pouted, placed my hands on my hips and looked away grumbling. Nine laughed.

"You still haven't changed, Roku-chan, have you?"

“OH SHUT UP OR I WILL SMASH THIS LIGHTBULB ON YOUR STUPID SMARTASS HEAD!”

He guffawed and smacked his thighs in laughter.

After that bit, he took out a couple of batteries, a battery holder, and a bulb socket from his trouser pockets and took that lightbulb from me. He looked around and then climbed up to the roof of a nearby shed and sat down.

“Now, what the hell are you doing up there?”

“Oh, don’t worry, just screwing around,” Nine replied, lifted the little circuit up high, attached the socket to the wires of the battery holder, attached the lightbulb to the socket, and then finally put in the batteries.

The lightbulb shined brightly under the moonlit sky, outshining the stars themselves. For one moment, I felt something strange, something similar to butterflies in my stomach but not really in a romantic way, but in a… poetic way.

“We are humans!” he cried out. “Even in darkest days and neverending nights, we have survived through ingenuity, innovation, and ideas close to sheer madness! We have conquered the highest mountains and the bottomless seas! We have reshaped planets and entire galaxies! We have defeated disease and hunger itself! Even when we are put in the most darndest of situations and even when we have lost everything else, we still keep living! We still keep striving! We still keep hoping! No matter the world or timeline, no matter if gods themselves have abandoned us, no matter if the challenges we face are impossible – we still keep going! THAT makes us humans! THAT makes us alive!”

Uh, yes, okay. True, can’t deny that, to be honest.

“And I,” Nine raised the lightbulb and the circuit above his head, “the Agent of Love himself, I will find a way through every situation. I have fallen into despair, I have given in to fear, I have surrendered to hatred itself – never again. I will make the Dark Field return! I will find a way, somehow – scanning through every bit of knowledge I know about the world, discovering and inventing new possibilities and ideas – I will learn how to get it back. I will learn! I will know!”

If this were any other situation, I would have laughed out loud at how cringe all of that sounds. But, well, this is exhilarating and I’m getting excited.

I clapped for my Kyu-kun, I was really glad that he managed to fight whatever was wrong with him ever since we got into this world.

Even if the Field never comes back, and even if we are stuck in this world as mortals scavenging for our lives, I will not be afraid.

Why? I knew you would ask that, Alejandro.

Because there is a light that never goes out.

Next Chapter: Raining Cats and Dogs