7

 “Oh, hey Kazuko, wanna go get some ice cream?”

A pair of high school girls walking down a main city street stopped in front of Tosuke’s ice cream shop.

“Really? When it’s this cold?”

“This place is almost always bustling. Come on, I’ll treat you!”

“Fine then. But Touka, isn’t the reason you like this place because of your boyfriend? You should really be eating it with him.”

“Eh, seems fine to me. We sit next to each other at the same prep school. Isn’t that close enough?”

“Honestly...”

One of the high school girls, Suema Kazuko, seemed exasperated, but she wasn’t entirely against her friend’s cheerful insistence, so she joined her, and they both lined up for ice cream, peering over the counter.

“I’ll have that one with the kiwi sauce, then.”

Suema had quickly decided, but the other girl, Miyashita Touka, was scrutinizing the flavors intently, struggling to choose.

“Hmm, lemme see…”

“Come on, hurry up. We’ll be late for class.”

“Mmmm… Then I’ll go for the chocolate mint! That’s always a classic!”

“‘Classic’. You’re only saying that cause it’s the first one you ate with your boyfriend, aren’t you?”

“Hey, don’t sweat the details,” said Touka, chuckling embarrassedly.

Their ice cream was served. Money and ice cream crossed hands, and the two of them began to eat as they walked down the road.

“It does taste good, huh!” said Suema with admiration. Mmm-mm, she nodded as if to savor the deliciousness, and turned to Touka. “Doesn’t it?!”

At this moment, Touka was, for some reason, staring at the ice cream.

“…This is strange,” she whispered.

“What’s wrong?”

“It doesn’t taste the same… What does this mean?”

Her tone was very unlike that of a girl; it was like a man’s voice. Suema frowned in puzzlement, but Touka continued to murmur.

“For what reason could it have changed? …Something must have happened.”

Still affixed to her green ice cream with black sprinkles, Touka, as if someone other than her had taken her place, cautiously took another bite of the ice cream as if to confirm.

* * * * *

The weather that morning couldn't really decide what it was. One could say it was sunny, another could say it was cloudy, and neither would have been wrong.

The opening of the venue was scheduled for 2 p.m., but visitors had already gathered a little after 12. There were a lot of girls and couples, but a decent number of older men were mixed in too. It was proof of how far-reaching the ice cream’s popularity was. Though the free admission was effective, it caused the turnout to be much higher than expected.

The schedule was moved forward and the large gates to the hall were opened at 12:30. The visitors entered, abuzz with chatter and excitement.

Ghosts, Frankensteins, Draculas, witches… The staff were cosplaying all sorts of slightly spooky mascot characters as they distributed the ice cream. Everyone headed to their personal favorites and began eating them contentedly.

Twenty minutes after opening, the venue had already reached full capacity. One might even be convinced that virtually everyone who’d been frequenting Tosuke’s ice cream establishments was present.

“Looks like we’ve got quite a turnout…”

The clamor had even made it through to the waiting room. Tosuke let out a great sigh. He had complex feelings about all this. He was feeling reluctant about going out there in front of everyone, but it was truly gratifying to think about how much everyone loved his ice cream. The two thoughts intermingled, and his chest was filled with an indescribable feeling.

Nobody but Tosuke was present in his private cabin.

“………”

Still, Tosuke thought about the people who should have been there with him in that room, if things had been how they used to be. But Kusunoki Rei was now the general product development manager for a cake company, and Teratsuki Kyouichirou was no longer in this world.

Not only that, but there had been an incident in February involving faulty construction with one of the buildings he’d posthumously built, in which the first people who entered had ended up trapped inside for several hours. It caused such an uproar that even the police had had to be dispatched. Because of all this, Teratsuki had turned into a laughing stock. Affiliate companies had also suffered from the repercussions and were closing across the board. His achievements in life had gone up in smoke, and now went ignored by the general public.

Tosuke’s company had been completely removed from Teratsuki’s, so it was unaffected by the commotion, but Tosuke didn’t know how to feel about that at all. Was he supposed to feel sad? Angry? Or coldly ignore it all? …He couldn’t settle his feelings into one concrete emotion.

“Kyouichirou, how far am I supposed to go…?” he murmured to himself.

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere.” It was the voice of a man.

He turned to find a man with strange bodily proportions, morbidly obese, but with long and slender limbs.

“Marco-san?” Tosuke looked surprised. “I didn’t notice you there. When did you come in?”

“Does it matter when? You’re so off guard, I could’ve snuck in any time you weren’t looking,” said Spooky E mockingly, a harsh grunt escaping his throat. Globs of chocolate ice cream were plastered around his mouth.

“Hm?” Tosuke narrowed his eyes. Something was off. The Marco he knew didn’t speak in such fluent Japanese.

“It’s all over for you now. I just figured I’d drop by to say hi,” said Spooky E, licking off the mess around his mouth with his slobbering tongue.

“…!” Tosuke’s face stiffened. “It’s…over, is it?”

“Sure is.”

“I see… I knew it. I guessed it would be something like this,” he said dejectedly, shoulders slumping.

“Huh?” Spooky E frowned. “What, you knew this was going to happen?” asked the freakish man, surprised.

“I didn’t know. Not how it was going to happen… But I knew things would turn out like this eventually. It always turns out like this.” He sighed deeply. “Always…”

His manner was that of an old man, weary with years, rather than his usual childish self.

“Every time, without fail, the people I trusted, depended upon… They all left me. Norisuke, Kyouichiro, Rei, everyone… They all leave at some point or other. And now it’s your turn. I have to wonder... Just where did I go wrong?”

Listening to Tosuke whimpering with his head slumped down, Spooky E’s already large eyes grew even larger, until at last he burst into raucous laughter.

“…Bwhuhuhahahahahaha! What, you mean…you were actually relying on me and my brilliance, were you?”

Tosuke was bewildered by the sudden provocation.

“Huh?”

“You really are a lost cause, aren’t ya? A fool to the end. Keh!” he growled spitefully, and glared at Tosuke with upturned eyes. “Idiot! The folks you relied on who up and left were all just using you at their own convenience. They were taking advantage of the fact you had no future, and they milked you for all you were worth. That’s all it was. ‘Left’, you said? Keh. All that was going through their minds was ‘No point using this guy anymore,’ so they threw ya away like a discarded toy!”

He burst into another roar of laughter, and then his expression changed abruptly into something sullen.

“………” Tosuke was taken aback. “…What do you mean I have ‘no future’?”

“What d’you think I mean? It means you’re finished. …Actually, it means you never had a future to begin with.” Spooky E snorted through his nose mockingly. But his face remained sour, like he’d bitten into a bitter bug as he ate his ice cream. “Same as me…”

At this moment, Spooky E scratched at the side of his head covered by his long hair. Tosuke was shocked. Blood oozed out, not least because one of his ears had been cut clean off.

“Your ear…!”

“An enemy got the better of me. Goddamn, I screwed up big time.” Spooky E’s face contorted into an expression of such rage that you could almost hear it creaking.

“An enemy…?”

Spooky E ignored Tosuke’s question and went on.

“That shinigami bastard. I’ll find him, I swear…! …But right now, Mr. Ice Cream? This is about you,” he said, glaring at Tosuke.

“About…me?”

“You’ve been declared as a fraud who tricked Axis. It’s been decided. And now you’re going to be ‘disposed of’,” spat Spooky E, who’d finished his ice cream and was now crunching on the cone.

“W-what are you talking about? Who’s Axis?”

“You’re better off not knowing. Wouldn’t understand even if I told you. In any case, you probably thought you got this far on your own merit, but it’s all been pre-established. You’ve just been moving along the rails set out for you. Keh. …But you’re all outta track now. It’s all gone.” Spooky E gave a heavy sigh as he looked at Tosuke with upturned eyes. “They’re already on the move. They’re gonna kill you, and everyone who was ever involved with you. And there’s no hope of escape.”

“………”

Tosuke said nothing, simply opening and closing his mouth like a fish.

“If anyone finds out I told you this stuff, I’m gonna be in deep water too. Well, practically no chance of that happening. Doubt you’ll even have time to say anything to ‘them’… Heh, then what’s a legend like me doing, telling you all this stuff, eh?”

Here Spooky E’s smile looked faintly self-derisive. Unlike his previous bellowing, it was incredibly weak and powerless.

“………” Tosuke was briefly stunned, but soon came to his senses. “Kill…? What do you mean kill?!”

“It means exactly what it means. You, everyone here at this event, and Furukita Sonoko too. Especially her, I’m guessing.”

“What?!” cried Tosuke. “W-when will this happen?!” he asked, reaching out to clutch at Spooky E. At that point Spooky E grabbed his arm, and he was blown away by the electrical shockwave released from the monster’s palm.

“Guh…?!” Even as Tosuke was rolling across the floor away from him, he heard the brute’s voice.

“You were a failure from the start, and the others have turned into failures. Hmph, you really are pathetic. For folks like us, there’s nowhere to go. Get it?”

By the time Tosuke got up and raised his head, Spooky E was nowhere to be seen.

“Hi there, everyone! I’m Furukita Sonoko!”

When Sonoko took to the specially prepared stage and greeted her audience with the mic, the guests, each eating their ice cream of preference, turned toward her and raised a cheer.

“Thanks for coming today! As it happens, I really love the ice cream here. Don’t you love it too?” said Sonoko, as if she were the presenter of a children’s toy show, and even the older adults replied with an honest “Yeah!”

“I think a lot of you already know this, but I’ve been doing monitor testing for the ice cream here, and out of the ice cream you’re eating here now, there’s one in particular that I once said I wanted everyone else to taste too, because it was just that good. If you enjoy it for me, I’d be ecstatic!”

Sonoko’s words prompted an incredible reaction, the eventgoers bobbing their heads, shouting things like “That’s right!” and “It’s delicious!”. And it didn’t feel like they’d been swept up in the hype either—they really understood what she was saying. It was a rare sight to see at such a large-scale event.

Even the staff, who were made to wear all manner of strange monster costumes, wore smiles that weren’t just for show.

There were several TV stations at the venue too, and they were capturing everything on camera. Their staff, too, were all grinning for some reason or other. You might even be tempted to say that there wasn’t a single soul in a bad mood at this place.

Except for one person… A combat-type synthetic human who’d snuck his way into this event: Squeeze.

“………”

On the outside, Squeeze looked just like your average human. He wore a staff armband and was dressed in a plain suit and necktie. If anyone there were to look at him, they could never have imagined that he’d been brought into existence for the purpose of slaughter. But the reason he was here now was to fulfill that exact purpose, and it was what he lived for: to erase without a trace the experiment that the Towa Organization had used Tosuke to instigate. By now, roughly 70 percent of Tosuke’s ice cream fans—in other words, those deemed to have demonstrated a good reaction—should have been present. There was no way he’d miss out on such a fine opportunity.

Massacre.

That was the mission which Squeeze had been assigned this time. If he perchance happened to fail, then another synthetic human, an eradication-type with a power far more terrifying than anyone else’s, who was monitoring the whole situation, would surely wipe him out, as well as everyone else, in one fell swoop. These people were encircled in a double-layered trap.

“…Furukita Sonoko,” whispered Squeeze, as he watched the girl on stage, smiling radiantly, with a dark gaze. “I’ve got nothing against you or Kigawa Tosuke personally…but this is my mission. Don’t hate me for this.”

He shifted into a stance that would conceal his presence.

There was a loud slam in a corner of the venue. A pile of materials had collapsed.

Having noticed this, the attendees glanced curiously, and Squeeze turned to look towards it. There was Kigawa Tosuke running toward the stage, pale as a ghost, paying no regard to how he looked. Everyone was familiar with Tosuke and his jester appearance, so they began to murmur. “Huh? What’s going on?”

And while all eyes were on him, he screamed,

“…Th-this is terrible! At this rate, we’re all going to die!”

Wha- Damnit! How does he know?! All of Squeeze’s cold composure was blown away.

Tosuke was running toward the stage at full pelt, barging through people and yelling at everyone to run. He was heading towards Furukita Sonoko. Squeeze was now certain that Tosuke knew he was ordered to take down Sonoko.

T-this is bad! I have to hurry!

He set to work on his ability, “Plug”. It had a flaw: a slight time delay was needed before he could launch his attack.

“K-Kigawa-san?” Sonoko looked puzzled. Tosuke reached her with a sprint that far outperformed that of any human.

“Sonoko, run! It’s dangerous he – “

…But it was too late. Just as Tosuke reached out a hand to Sonoko, Squeeze had launched his first attack toward her.

It was an invisible shockwave. The surrounding people wouldn’t have been able to notice that he had even fired. All that might have hit their ears was a high-pitched screech, but it was, in fact, a murder weapon with destructive power capable of rending flesh and cutting bone to pieces…

There was no way Tosuke could have known. Not even Spooky E had told him of this. But somehow, he was able to perceive its approach, for that is the only explanation for the action he took next.

He launched himself straight into Furukita Sonoko. It happened just as the attack launched. Sonoko was sent flying, leaving Tosuke himself directly in the line of fire. His body was ripped to pieces and whirled through the air.

“!!” Squeeze had realized his error.

From Tosuke’s body spurted sprays of blood, diffusing into the air. Thrown onto the stage, he collapsed. And beneath, pooled liquid from the failed experiment with the pale green skin. Its color was…

“…Huh?”

Everyone was dumbfounded, and then astonished. Then someone cried,

“His blood… it’s green!”

For a moment, total silence descended. But that soon turned into a commotion.

“W-what the hell is he…?”

“H-He’s not human!”

“M-M-Monster…!”

Everyone had seen it. And they all realized that for a moment, this place they were in had become a different world, one that wasn’t an extension of their daily lives. And in realizing this, they lost their ability to make rational decisions.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” rose a scream.

With that as their signal, everyone hurled away the ice cream that they’d been holding and made a mad dash for the exit.

* * * * *

Which brings the story of Kigawa Tosuke to a close.

Heh heh heh.

Under normal circumstances, I, the great Captain Walker, would merely have been playing the role of bystander. I’d had no intention of ever intervening directly. But since that numbskull Squeeze fucked up, it meant I was forced to show off my real ability. Eh, what can you do?

That’s right. I’d been monitoring this guy this whole time. Right from the very start, since he showed himself to the world and began making his ice cream. I’d been watching and waiting for the right moment to “level the playing field”. Well, I rarely had the opportunity to show off my abilities, so if we’re being honest, I was looking forward to something like this happening. Hihihihi.

My power is “eradication”. In simple terms, the way it works is like a “gasoline engine.” I spread a type of gas in a given place, then I “ignite” it, and everyone goes kaboom. It’s fundamentally the same as kickstarting an engine by feeding fuel gas into a combustion chamber and igniting it with a spark plug.

And this gas, it comes out of my body, see. Well, to ordinary people it’d be something like “sweat”, but this stuff doesn’t have to be in a sealed location ‘cause I can adjust the concentration and the spread to a degree. I could spread it over kilometers and kill tens of thousands of people—and that’s exactly what I was trying to do here.

When I say ignite, I don’t actually make it explode. There’s just this component that tears up living organisms, and the gas I spread beforehand triggers a chemical reaction that happens in a snap. That’s right. It’s like if everyone got their skin covered in sulfuric acid, and wearing clothes didn’t mean shit… In fact, picture that but tens of times more destructive. Hehe, yeah, you remember just how explosive the speed that kind of chemical reaction is? Betcha it’d be giving Ice Nine a run for its fucking money!

You’d be turned to sludge like that. Human, bear, tiger, synthetic human. It doesn’t matter. I don’t know if Tosuke is still alive out there, but it doesn’t matter. Everything’ll turn to soup soon. That is, except for a certain mighty Captain Walker. The “sweat” that breaks down the gas comes from my body, so I’m completely fine. All living things around me meet their death, while I stand there without a scratch. Now is that a godly power or what, eh?

The preparations have already been set.

The idiots crammed in the event hall are rushing toward the exit, where I am. But it’s too late for you guys. ‘Cause no one can save you now.

* * * * *

“Haha…”

Standing in front of the exit was, on the outside, a perfectly ordinary man. He was dressed in a suit, his features were serious, and he wore a staff armband. On his chest was a name tag, so that attendees knew how to address him.

It read “Kageyama”.

He had been by Tosuke and the others’ side the whole time, and he had always been monitoring the situation. And now, he was about to reveal his true colors.

“Kageyama-san! W-what should we do?!”

A member of staff wearing cosplay clung to him. But Kageyama looked down at them with a cold stare.

“The fuck you asking me for? Drop dead,” he declared bluntly.

That was the first time in the whole course of events that he had showed his true face. And then…

“I see… So the one at the entrance was indeed the eradication-type. The overseer of this case, ‘The Tender’…”

…said the one in cosplay quietly.

Huh? …Kageyama looked at them, and he noticed that something was strange. The cosplayer wore a black hat and black cloak. It seemed to look like a mascot character from their company, but he’d never seen this particular one before.

Their white face could have been man’s or a woman’s—it was hard to tell which. It was, almost as if a shinigami…

“You’re…” He attempted to inquire, but it was too late for that.

— Crrick.

For an instant, there echoed the sound of a neckbone snapping, then immediately came the wave of attendees rushing to get out as everything was swept away in a maelstrom of chaos.