Vol 2 Chapter 1 (1/2)

Chapter 1 Part 1

Everything had happened in such quick succession that my mind was nearly overloaded, but I couldn’t just stand around forever.

The first battle began at 10.

That was when a public execution would be broadcast live nationwide.

“Right now it’s…just past 8.”

I had less than 2 hours until it began.

Where was this crucial match being held?

Itou Helen had been walking out in the open not long before. Even if the Bright Cross had taken her away, they couldn’t have taken her too far. And that blue bunny girl had said their home ground was Kukyou City, so they had to be nearby. The Bright Cross still had its roots in this city.

Where had Itou Helen been captured and where had she been taken?

“Maxwell, call the police.”

“No. And send them where? We do not know where the victim or perpetrators are, so no police officers can be sent in.”

“You saw what they were showing on TV! There had to be more than 100 million witnesses. How can they not stop this!?”

“No. They cannot be accused of anything if this is a recording pa.s.sing itself off as a live broadcast or if it is entirely fictional. It could also be a live broadcast from outside the country while only pretending to be inside j.a.pan. The police would first have to do some investigation to determine whether or not j.a.panese law even applies to those ‘on the television screen’.”

“We only have 2 hours.”

“Sure. And that is likely why they felt comfortable announcing this so boldly. They decided that no one can stop it now.”

“…Dammit.”

The Bright Cross was not just some insane moron uploading videos to the internet, so they would think about how to cover their a.s.ses.

So if they’re going this far, did it mean they had a system in place to make sure they couldn’t be charged with a crime?

…Wait, uploading videos?

“Maxwell, can we leak the data of the true Colosseum onto the internet? Do that and everyone should be able to tell how horrific this really is!”

“No. What you have is merely simulation data and not actual witness information. In other words, it does not qualify as evidence. …And the underground facility was cleared out.”

The Bright Cross covered everything up in reality while we had divulged the truth in virtual reality.

If the two came into conflict, the Bright Cross would win.

And yet they were the ones that abandoned their underground facility because they knew it was inconvenient for them!

I couldn’t rely on the police.

Leaking the truth onto the internet would accomplish nothing.

No one was on my side.

“What do I do?”

The Bright Cross had surpa.s.sed our simulation.

They had upgraded their cruel Colosseum to the level of national authorization.

And one of the combatants there would be Itou Helen, an undercla.s.sman from my school.

“What can I even do now…?”

What could I do?

I didn’t need unrealistic heroic fantasies here. I could wait until later to complain about how weak and powerless I was.

What was truly within my grasp? How far would my hand reach?

I didn’t know where the Bright Cross’s new headquarters were or where Itou Helen was being imprisoned now that she had apparently been captured.

What I wanted was information.

If I could locate either the Bright Cross or Itou Helen, I could find the other. That undercla.s.sman who was apparently a witch had been abducted by the Bright Cross, so she would have been brought to one of their bases or hideouts.

I didn’t have much time.

I didn’t want to waste any of it.

So even if it was a roundabout route, I had to take the definite course ahead of me. That way I wouldn’t run into dead ends later and have to make pathetic U-turn after pathetic U-turn.

Which meant…

“…Erika and Ayumi.”

Those two had once overcome the Bright Cross’s final test and been given the freedom to live in human society. They had a connection to all this, so they might be able to give me a hint if I asked.

However.

Once I returned home and opened the front door, Erika and Ayumi both immediately attacked me.

“Orahhh! What happened to my melon bread, Onii-chaaan!? Fuguuu!!”

“Oh, dear. This is a problem. Your big sister prefers to avoid these more inappropriate methods, but you leave me no choice.”

Yes.

I had never resolved the melon bread issue back home!

“Gyaaahh! If both of you perform a cross armlock on an arm, I can never escape! I can’t even tap out!!”

And you both know that performing an armlock means holding my arm to your crotch, don’t you? I’m not letting you do additional damage by going all ‘kyah, pervert!’ after the fact! Especially you, negligee big sister. Based on the feeling on my arm, you aren’t wearing any underwear, are you!?

“Huh? Onii-chan, what’s this plastic bag?”

“This aroma… Why is there Asamiya melon bread here!?”

L-looks like I have to explain.

“It’s true that Asamiya’s melon bread is a super rare limited product that they only sell 20 of each day, but they also send some to regional retail stores. And for some reason, that somewhat expensive organic vegetable convenience store called Natural Seven is registered with them and gets some of Asamiya’s melon bread! You can thank Maxwell for all that information!!”

Those magic words dispelled the curse of the double armlock.

“Ohhh! So this is the limited edition bread I dreamed of…”

“Oh? You even bought 2 of them. How adorable of you.”

From their perspective, the single bread they had been willing to perform wrestling moves over had doubled into 2. I could only pray it didn’t taste weird to them.

But then Erika and Ayumi both split their melon bread in half.

“Wait, what are you two doing? Can you not fit that much in your mouth?”

“Eh? Well…”

“With only 2 of them, there’s none for you, Onii-chan.”

I was caught off guard by that one.

“Wait, wait. This was a purification ritual to wash away my own sin. I already ate the first one.”

“That doesn’t matter. Your beautiful, kind, and smart big sister has a heart as big as her b.o.o.bs, so she could never eat this while leaving you with nothing.”

It didn’t really add up right. When both sisters handed me a half, I ended up with a whole one. Nevertheless, they both began eating the melon bread with the biggest smiles imaginable.

They may have been more upset that they couldn’t share the bread with everyone than at having it taken from them.

But now that the tense atmosphere was gone, I felt like I could bring up the real topic at hand.

“Erika, Ayumi. I’d like to discuss something with you.”

“Wut ih it?”

“Ayumi-chan, don’t talk with food in your mouth. So, Satori-kun, what would you like to discuss?”

“Well.” I nodded. “Um, about the Bright Cro-…”

Two pairs of glowing eyes seemed pierce my soul.

“Kah…hah…?”

My breath caught in my throat.

They were still only eating melon bread in their pajamas, but the look in their eyes had entirely changed.

“Hmm. If possible, I never wanted to hear that name from your mouth, Onii-chan.”

“There’s no helping that. The pandemonium is out in the open now. It was even playing on our living room TV.”

Yes. That broadcast had played on TV.

That meant my sisters would know about it. They would know the Level 4 Colosseum hidden deep underground had mutated into something else.

Trapped by the brightly s.h.i.+ning light in their eyes, I sat down like a frog cowering in front of a great snake.

“U-umm. An undercla.s.sman at school was apparently captured for this Colosseum, so I’d like to do something about that before the match begins…”

“Ohh? Now that’s interesting. So my super indoorsy and scrawny Onii-chan is going to pick a fight with the great Bright Cross? When did you turn into a warrior of justice chosen by heaven?”

“That’s right. If anything, I think letting Ayumi-chan and me go on a rampage has better odds. Eh heh heh. Not even the Bright Cross’s plans could continue if Kukyou City was filled with vampires and zombies.”

Wait, wait, you idiots.

Aren’t you getting everything backwards!?

“This isn’t a virtual reality built in a disaster environment simulator! There are no continues here!! You can’t fill the real world with vampires and zom-…!!”

As I shouted, my sisters placed their index fingers on my lips.

I stopped speaking and they took over.

“Do you understand that, Onii-chan? We’re talking about real lives here.”

“…”

“Oh, dear. And unlike a vampire or a zombie, a human like you has even less of a chance. I bet you haven’t even imagined what failure means when you’re dealing with the Bright Cross.”

Yes.

Of course they understood.

Those two had survived the true Colosseum in that h.e.l.lish subterranean world, so they knew firsthand how cruel the Bright Cross was.

Would the Bright Cross go easy on me because I was a human like them? Would they overlook me?

Of course not.

If “something” happened, would I be the only one harmed? What about my sisters and parents back home? What about my school and neighborhood? Even the Cla.s.s Rep might be used as a s.h.i.+eld. They would go that far.

Itou Helen was an undercla.s.sman from school.

That was all.

If I weighed her against my sister sand the Cla.s.s Rap, it was obvious who would win out.

Was it really worth going this far to rescue her?

What did I want to do?

I thought.

I contemplated.

And then I raised my head again to face those two who knew true h.e.l.l.

“That’s all the more reason I have to stand up to them. If there’s any risk of them laying even a finger on the people I care about, of course I have to destroy them.”

Yes.

That’s right.

The Bright Cross had already done that. They had built a strange execution facility below the city I had been born and raised in, they had mercilessly disposed of countless Archenemies, they had placed Erika and Ayumi on the chopping block, and now they had reached for an undercla.s.sman at school.

Who could say for sure that it would end there?

Tomorrow I might find Erika or Ayumi being threatened on TV. If the Cla.s.s Rep or I became an inconvenience for the Bright Cross, they might claim we were some random Archenemy or another to have us killed in a battle with the undead.

“Anyone who’s willing to abandon someone else will be abandoned by others.”

Heat boiled in the pit of my stomach.

And I let that heat out in the form of words.

“I think an honest person will sometimes run into trouble, but someone who refuses to save anyone will eventually not be saved by others. I don’t want to end up like Itou Helen there on the TV screen. And because I don’t, I’ll save someone who’s in that position now. I have to save her! It doesn’t matter how well I know her!!”

After all, I would never want to see Erika or Ayumi maliciously displayed on the TV screen.

I would never want to see odds placed on their chances as people bet on or against them.

I had no idea if Itou Helen would come to save us if our situations were reversed.

But that was no reason to abandon her.

I wanted to live with pride.

I wasn’t going to live a life where I hung my head and held my stomach whenever I caught sight of the name Itou Helen!

“This time it’s real. There are no redos or continues here.”

Dammit.

It was obvious once I said it. It was so simple.

And that’s why I can’t afford to fail! I refuse to give up on her here! I will not let them drag us away from the path of normalcy! Will I save Itou Helen? If I couldn’t say ‘of course’, how could I call myself human!!!???”

Erika and Ayumi looked dazed.

They might have been shocked at how vague my “plan” was.

“…If only everyone in the world was like you, Satori-kun.”

“?”

Erika muttered something under her breath.

“It’s nothing. Anyway, I refuse to take my precious little brother anywhere dangerous, so I’m not giving you any hints. I won’t tell you anything that would lead you to the Bright Cross.”

“Kh.”

“But, Onii-chan, you’ll still head out alone to save Itou Helen, won’t you?”

“Y-yes. Of course I will. If you two won’t help out, then I’ll go do it on my own! Why wouldn’t I!? How is that girl any different from us!?”

“Then go look into it on your own,” said Erika with a sigh. But she had more to say. “Satori-kun, the Bright Cross is large. Incredibly so. But giant organizations have their own holes.”

“They do information warfare differently, Onii-chan. You can do 3 things with information: gather it, spread it, and hide it. The Bright Cross exists all around the world, so they specialize in gathering and spreading information. But that makes them very poor at the hiding part.”

“Ah.”

Now that they mentioned it, we all knew of the Bright Cross.

The CIA was the world’s largest intelligence agency, but being a household name the world over was a bad thing for them. They had not worked to be well known. They had simply become well known after growing so large.

Why had the Bright Cross left their underground facility?

Because I had discovered it.

They had feared receiving a perfect attack based on ma.s.sive simulation data.

They had feared it?

Such a large organization had feared me?

“…”

I couldn’t let them distract me.

I had to look back over the situation.

Who, where, and what had been involved in this incident surrounding Itou Helen? What was the deepest darkness here? My sisters had said the Bright Cross was so large that they could not fully hide their own existence. That was why they had forcibly set up a situation where no one could touch them even if they were seen.

“Thanks, Erika and Ayumi. I’ve finally seen what I have to do.”

My sisters shrugged in an exasperated sort of way.

Sorry I’m such a terrible brother.

But I have to go. I have to stand up to this wicked and unreasonable absurdity.

And so I turned my back on the family waiting back home and spoke two simple words.

“I’m going.”

Part 2

I left the house.

I was exposed to the night air.

It was a true night where even the moonlight looked sinister.

“Maxwell.”

“Sure. Exiting standby mode. User, give me my orders.”

“Check for any calls from around Itou Helen’s home. Start with any calls to the police.”

“There was an emergency call from her home’s landline at 8:03 PM. The call lasted 2 minutes and 45 seconds.”

Well, it makes sense after their daughter was suddenly placed in the ring on TV.

No.

“Unlike me, they would have no way of knowing that’s a real fight to the death. The bunny girl might have mentioned the loser’s body, but that could have just been talk. Calling the police right away seems sudden.”

“Perhaps they thought she was forcibly recruited or abducted. After the police, they called the general reception desk at Kukyou 1st Broadcasting.”

“The TV station is claiming not to know anything either? But how?”

“They claim to have purchased and broadcasted a foreign TV program and thus have not played any role in the production. They say to direct any questions to Socialist Carnalgrad National Broadcasting.”

So that was why.

And did that country even exist?

“Then that’s where we’ll start.”

I could understand the police being caught off guard. The higher ups might be in the Bright Cross’s pocket, but the workers at the bottom would never believe that anyone would be brazen enough to kill people in the middle of a live TV broadcast.

But the way the TV station was brus.h.i.+ng people off was clearly more malicious. I could tell they already had a script to follow.

I doubted everyone working there was also working for the Bright Cross, but they obviously had taken root there.

Kukyou 1st Broadcasting.

I was sure I could find something there.

With any luck, Itou Helen would be there, but if not, I could probably mess with their broadcast equipment to cause a malfunction and perhaps even put a stop to their farce.

“Maxwell, let’s get to the broadcast station. I’ll need your help to get in. Can you do that?”

“Sure. You are the only user I accept.”

I was glad to hear that second par.t

Especially when attacking a TV station could easily get me labeled a terrorist in the newspaper headlines.

It was just before 9.

The trains were still running.

I was on my way to fight an international organization, so it was laughable that I needed my IC card to get there.

It wasn’t even the weekend, but the area around the station was crowded.

The large screen on an electronics store wall displayed a smiling bunny girl colored the bright blue of a rainforest b.u.t.terfly.

“The Colosseum is finally beginning. But, but. I might not know exactly what an Archenemy is, so I wonder if the witch or the mermaid is more frightening.”

“The definition of a witch is too broad to say anything for sure, but a mermaid is much simpler. Unlike in the fairy tales, historical mermaids are man-eating creatures. They sit on stones, lure sailors into the ocean with their alluring song, drag their struggling prey to the bottom of the ocean, and devour them. Truly a stereotypical Archenemy.”

“Oh, my, my. So as most people seem to expect, will the more monstrous mermaid have the advantage here?”

“It’s hard to say. I’ve heard that Itou Helen is a Greek-style witch. More specifically, one based on the Circe tradition. In that case, the more frightening of the two would be…”

It p.i.s.sed me off.

But no one at all was throwing stones at the screen. In fact…

“Don’t pus.h.!.+ Please don’t pus.h.!.+ The tickets are on sale until 9:50! There’s still plenty of time, so calm down, everyone!!”

A young woman was yelling from a stand much like for a local lottery.

“It’s all or nothing! You bet everything on one of the two. It’s the most basic form of gambling and is far simpler than horse racing or keirin. If you don’t know what to do, this tipster will tell you how it’s done. Don’t you want some information to help you make easy money!?”

There were a lot of voices like that near the ticket stand crowd.

I could even see some uniformed police officers here and there:

“Ksshhh! Yes, yes. All of you good kids follow the rules and enjoy this game meant for proper ladies and gentleman. The dancer police would really prefer not to ruin your lovely evening.”

…They were all like this.

Not all of them would be involved with the Bright Cross. I doubted even that strange tipster man had been informed in advance and then simply kept quiet until today. And this had to have been a complete surprise for those dancer police or whatever they were.

“Beautiful j.a.panese High Vision provides a new age of HD for a new age Colosseum.”