"Kinji... Let's kill Aria together,"
Kana clearly said.
Kill Aria?
"What... are you talking about Nii-san!?"
My forehead broke into a cold sweat.
The dusk sky gradually shifted into deep night sky with each passing second.
The wind blew through the uninhabited man-made island where we are right now. Hearing my question, Nii-san...
"???"
...perching himself on one of the wind generator's propellers, he just slightly inclined his head.
...Oh, that's right.
Whenever Nii-san cross-dresses as Kana, he loses recognition of himself as "Nii-san".
"Kana, wait for me. I'll be right there."
Thus I changed my way of referring to him. As if I was ascending a steep hill, I clambered over the crooked wing of the plane wreckage that I caused from the result of the emergency landing back in the hijacking incident in April.
Kill... Aria?
I tried to convince myself that it must have been some kind of a joke...or that I must have misheard it.
Kana... Nii-san is always right. More than anyone else in this world.
He fights for the sake of the powerless, defending them. He never asks for a monetary reward from the poor upon helping them.
No matter how strong his adversaries are, he always faces them without fear despite awareness of their danger.
With that said, why would those words come out of Nii-san's mouth?
"You abandoned your little brother for half a year...and when you finally show up, the first word you say to him is 'Kill Aria?' Lay off the joke Kana, this is not funny."
I approached Kana, stopping at the farthest point that the wing can take me.
The distance from here to the propeller where Kana is sitting is about 2 meters.
It's in leaping distance. But the difference in height is significant. It would be the end for me if I slip and fall towards the ground. This is an artificial island so the ground is fortified with concrete.
"It wasn't a joke. I will take Aria's life tonight."
Kana spoke in her beautiful voice filled with hardened resolve.
"Aria H. Kanzaki. That girl...is a seed of evil. It is the ally of justice, in other words, Tohyama lineage's calling to vanquish evil."
That line sent a chill down my spine.
Justice.
There has been no precedent where Kana had failed in carrying out her mission after saying that word.
---This is bad---
Kana, right after reappearing from her sudden disappearance, for I don't know what reason, is really serious about killing Aria.
I can't really fathom her real intention. My mind is confused at what was happening that I couldn't reason things properly.
However, one thing that is certain is that if I don't stop her now, Aria will surely die!
Being impelled by that apprehension, and after taking a glance at the ground 15 meters below, I closed my eyes and flashed in my mind the scene of Aria a while ago, delighted by the propitious news of the prospective release of her mother.
And then...
"Kana!"
I leaped towards the propeller, where Kana is sitting.
Leaping towards the propeller, with the same width of a bench, is an effortless task but...
The propeller tipped to one side from the weight of two people.
"Ugh...!"
The sudden sway made me shudder, but I immediately crouched down, adjusting my center of gravity while fixing my balance.
On the other hand, Kana did not appear to be unnerved one bit.
"Exodus 32:27---'Each of you put your sword on your side, and go to and from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.'---Follow me, Kinji."
Kana, after reciting a verse from the Bible, stood up. The Tokyo city's illumination in her background.
"Aria is still young. We can easily kill her while she doesn't have a partner."
"Hold on a bit, Kana!"
I shouted. My voice quivering from the mixture of rage and astonishment.
"You...disappeared for half a year...and then suddenly tell me these things! Do you have any idea how I felt!? Up until now I thought you were dead! And then you show up yourself out of a sudden and then telling me things like 'Let's kill Aria'! What the hell is going on!?"
Ahh... I never thought that I would yell at Kana.
I myself can't believe that I am going up against my brother. The person I admired for his strength, for his virtue, and for being able to perfectly utilize the power of Hysteria Mode.
But even more unbelievable was what Kana had said earlier.
"...I see. You have been through a lot of difficulties as well."
Kana's gentle voice.
"What...do you mean?"
"It was too obvious for my eyes. It's vexing to admit, but it seems I-U is developing people even outside."
I-U.
I broke into sweat upon hearing that word from Kana.
I-U is a secret organization resembling a system of school where Riko, Jeanne, and Vlad were members of. I-U is also responsible for placing a false crime on Aria's mother.
"Kana... You were in I-U.....?"
Kana pursed her lips from my inquiry. Silence passed between us together with the night's sea breeze.
"Why!? What were you doing in that kind of organization!?"
Kana shook her head sideways,
"I can't tell you about it yet... I don't want to put you in danger. Kinji, just don't ask anything and lend me your assistance right now."
and responded with that.
A negative emotion between anger and desperation swelled inside me.
Tears, for whatever reason causing it, even blurred my eyes.
"Kinji, you have always followed everything I said. There has not been once that you disobeyed me, right? So come with me."
Kana, with her gentle, nostalgic voice, said those words as if whispering it to me.
Ahh...
You're right.
You're right, Kana... Nii-san.
I always believed in your words. Because you're kind, and strong, and correct more than anyone else I know.
That's why I did everything you have told me and was very happy upon doing it.
"I believe in you, Kinji. That you will lend me your help."
I lowered my head upon Kana's words, and shut my eyes as if to escape from this terrible reality.
Aria, why must you be killed...!
I flashed everything in my mind the different Arias that I've seen from the fights that we have been together, as well as the days that we spent together.
The Aria fearlessly fighting Riko Mine Lupin the 4th, Durandal Jeanne d'Arc, and Count Dracula Vlad.
The Aria who barged into my house one day. The Aria making a mess of peach bun's crumbs around the house. And the Aria watching her favorite animal show and making an excited clamor upon it.
"Come Kinji. We'll finish this work in one night."
The plane wreckage behind me, inside that, is where we each had our first and only kiss with each other.
Once I recalled that recollection, and at the same time of Kana's words...
"----!!!"
Even I don't know what I, myself did.
It appears that I drew my Beretta from the holster.
Aiming it at Kana.
With the Butei High---the place that I spent together with Aria---at my back...
I stood between them as if to protect it from Kana.
"......"
Kana...
...slightly widened her finely-crafted eyes.
What is the meaning of this?
Kana didn't say that, but she is asking me that question with her gaze.
Even I don't have the answer to that question.
Why am I pointing my gun at Kana?
She was the person that I have admired the most!
Why......!?
"...It's not a wise action to blithely show your weapons."
Kana slightly sighed.
"Once you reveal your weapon, your enemy can instantly find out its specifications, its firing range, its ammo capacity, and even its strength and weaknesses. You should remember that."
---Bang!
A gunshot.
However, all I've seen was a flash that flared near Kana's hand.
At the same time of the gunshot...
Pyuu!
A strident sound assailed my right ear.
I know this since I have experienced this in Assault a lot of times before. This is the sound that a bullet makes when it grazes past your ear.
My body swayed to the left in the reflex reaction of dodging the bullet that passed by my right side.
(Ugh!)
I slipped off from the propeller's footing. Fortunately, I had instantly reached for my cable and prevented myself from falling to the ground in time, leaving my body suspended 3 meters below the propeller.
Placing my gun, which I miraculously have not dropped, back in the holster, I glared at Kana.
That was a gunshot just now.
But I didn't see her pull out her gun and shoot it.
I think that was one of Nii-san's techniques called "Invisible Bullet".
I have heard about it from Nii-san's colleagues before. I don't know how it works but just like the name implies, it was as if a bullet discharged from an invisible gun.
You wouldn't know when exactly the gun was actually drawn, when was it aimed, and when it was shot. It was a strike that disables the enemy's counteroffensive, let alone dodge it.
And right now, that skill which Kana had used in subduing countless criminals--- she actually used it on me, her younger brother.
Kana is standing on the end of the propeller...
Bang!
Another flash flared near Kana's waist, unleashing another bullet.
---No, I still couldn't see the gun.
*Pishi*
A subtle sensation ran near my hands. It left me flabbergasted as I stared at it.
The cable just below the propeller was gradually fraying, hinting at imminent breakage of it.
It seems the second invisible bullet grazed my cable.
What ungodly precision! She didn't choose to sever the cable as thin as a cellphone strap, but instead she went for grazing it!?
"I could have never foreseen this. I didn't expect Kinji to point a gun at me. It's as if a cat had went against a lion."
Kana is making a melancholic and conflicted face.
"Your strength and mine are like child and adult... no, maybe more than that. You are already aware of that difference, are you not?"
Yes. I know that too well.
I have no chance of winning against you even if I am in Hysteria Mode.
"...Yet, you dared oppose me?"
Kana asked, as if that doubt troubled her.
However, I am in no situation where I can give an answer. My cable will tear off soon.
I stretched my hands, intending to go back up the propeller, but the cable isn't used for normal climbing like ropes.
The more tension I placed on the cable, the faster it unraveled. I perceived that from the sway it made.
Then I'll just have to be careful not to sway the cable as I climb up...!
"...Kinji, are you close with Aria?"
Kana, making a troubled face, looked at me with a sidelong glance.
"---Do you like her?"
"What do you mean!?"
"I'm asking if you like Aria."
Being asked, I felt my blood rushing to my face.
"Why... are you asking me that!?"
Already having climbed the cable halfway up, I bared my fangs and yelled at Kana.
After Kana displayed a bit of incredulity, hesitation formed inside her eyes.
"...How can you still be that way despite your situation? I know you had been case-hardened by tough experiences ever since you were small. However, I can't understand it right now. Kinji, where within your heart is that power coming from?"
I didn't answer Kana, thus it seemed like Kana was asking herself instead. I reached towards the cable to climb further. At that moment...
Whoooosh!!
A gust of strong wind blew through the man-made island.
---Butsu---
By being pushed by the sudden gust, the cable got severed.
...And I was engulfed in darkness.
"Kinji... Let's kill Aria together,"
Kana clearly said.
Kill Aria?
"What... are you talking about Nii-san!?"
My forehead broke into a cold sweat.
The dusk sky gradually shifted into deep night sky with each passing second.
The wind blew through the uninhabited man-made island where we are right now. Hearing my question, Nii-san...
"???"
...perching himself on one of the wind generator's propellers, he just slightly inclined his head.
...Oh, that's right.
Whenever Nii-san cross-dresses as Kana, he loses recognition of himself as "Nii-san".
"Kana, wait for me. I'll be right there."
Thus I changed my way of referring to him. As if I was ascending a steep hill, I clambered over the crooked wing of the plane wreckage that I caused from the result of the emergency landing back in the hijacking incident in April.
Kill... Aria?
I tried to convince myself that it must have been some kind of a joke...or that I must have misheard it.
Kana... Nii-san is always right. More than anyone else in this world.
He fights for the sake of the powerless, defending them. He never asks for a monetary reward from the poor upon helping them.
No matter how strong his adversaries are, he always faces them without fear despite awareness of their danger.
With that said, why would those words come out of Nii-san's mouth?
"You abandoned your little brother for half a year...and when you finally show up, the first word you say to him is 'Kill Aria?' Lay off the joke Kana, this is not funny."
I approached Kana, stopping at the farthest point that the wing can take me.
The distance from here to the propeller where Kana is sitting is about 2 meters.
It's in leaping distance. But the difference in height is significant. It would be the end for me if I slip and fall towards the ground. This is an artificial island so the ground is fortified with concrete.
"It wasn't a joke. I will take Aria's life tonight."
Kana spoke in her beautiful voice filled with hardened resolve.
"Aria H. Kanzaki. That girl...is a seed of evil. It is the ally of justice, in other words, Tohyama lineage's calling to vanquish evil."
That line sent a chill down my spine.
Justice.
There has been no precedent where Kana had failed in carrying out her mission after saying that word.
---This is bad---
Kana, right after reappearing from her sudden disappearance, for I don't know what reason, is really serious about killing Aria.
I can't really fathom her real intention. My mind is confused at what was happening that I couldn't reason things properly.
However, one thing that is certain is that if I don't stop her now, Aria will surely die!
Being impelled by that apprehension, and after taking a glance at the ground 15 meters below, I closed my eyes and flashed in my mind the scene of Aria a while ago, delighted by the propitious news of the prospective release of her mother.
And then...
"Kana!"
I leaped towards the propeller, where Kana is sitting.
Leaping towards the propeller, with the same width of a bench, is an effortless task but...
The propeller tipped to one side from the weight of two people.
"Ugh...!"
The sudden sway made me shudder, but I immediately crouched down, adjusting my center of gravity while fixing my balance.
On the other hand, Kana did not appear to be unnerved one bit.
"Exodus 32:27---'Each of you put your sword on your side, and go to and from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.'---Follow me, Kinji."
Kana, after reciting a verse from the Bible, stood up. The Tokyo city's illumination in her background.
"Aria is still young. We can easily kill her while she doesn't have a partner."
"Hold on a bit, Kana!"
I shouted. My voice quivering from the mixture of rage and astonishment.
"You...disappeared for half a year...and then suddenly tell me these things! Do you have any idea how I felt!? Up until now I thought you were dead! And then you show up yourself out of a sudden and then telling me things like 'Let's kill Aria'! What the hell is going on!?"
Ahh... I never thought that I would yell at Kana.
I myself can't believe that I am going up against my brother. The person I admired for his strength, for his virtue, and for being able to perfectly utilize the power of Hysteria Mode.
But even more unbelievable was what Kana had said earlier.
"...I see. You have been through a lot of difficulties as well."
Kana's gentle voice.
"What...do you mean?"
"It was too obvious for my eyes. It's vexing to admit, but it seems I-U is developing people even outside."
I-U.
I broke into sweat upon hearing that word from Kana.
I-U is a secret organization resembling a system of school where Riko, Jeanne, and Vlad were members of. I-U is also responsible for placing a false crime on Aria's mother.
"Kana... You were in I-U.....?"
Kana pursed her lips from my inquiry. Silence passed between us together with the night's sea breeze.
"Why!? What were you doing in that kind of organization!?"
Kana shook her head sideways,
"I can't tell you about it yet... I don't want to put you in danger. Kinji, just don't ask anything and lend me your assistance right now."
and responded with that.
A negative emotion between anger and desperation swelled inside me.
Tears, for whatever reason causing it, even blurred my eyes.
"Kinji, you have always followed everything I said. There has not been once that you disobeyed me, right? So come with me."
Kana, with her gentle, nostalgic voice, said those words as if whispering it to me.
Ahh...
You're right.
You're right, Kana... Nii-san.
I always believed in your words. Because you're kind, and strong, and correct more than anyone else I know.
That's why I did everything you have told me and was very happy upon doing it.
"I believe in you, Kinji. That you will lend me your help."
I lowered my head upon Kana's words, and shut my eyes as if to escape from this terrible reality.
Aria, why must you be killed...!
I flashed everything in my mind the different Arias that I've seen from the fights that we have been together, as well as the days that we spent together.
The Aria fearlessly fighting Riko Mine Lupin the 4th, Durandal Jeanne d'Arc, and Count Dracula Vlad.
The Aria who barged into my house one day. The Aria making a mess of peach bun's crumbs around the house. And the Aria watching her favorite animal show and making an excited clamor upon it.
"Come Kinji. We'll finish this work in one night."
The plane wreckage behind me, inside that, is where we each had our first and only kiss with each other.
Once I recalled that recollection, and at the same time of Kana's words...
"----!!!"
Even I don't know what I, myself did.
It appears that I drew my Beretta from the holster.
Aiming it at Kana.
With the Butei High---the place that I spent together with Aria---at my back...
I stood between them as if to protect it from Kana.
"......"
Kana...
...slightly widened her finely-crafted eyes.
What is the meaning of this?
Kana didn't say that, but she is asking me that question with her gaze.
Even I don't have the answer to that question.
Why am I pointing my gun at Kana?
She was the person that I have admired the most!
Why......!?
"...It's not a wise action to blithely show your weapons."
Kana slightly sighed.
"Once you reveal your weapon, your enemy can instantly find out its specifications, its firing range, its ammo capacity, and even its strength and weaknesses. You should remember that."
---Bang!
A gunshot.
However, all I've seen was a flash that flared near Kana's hand.
At the same time of the gunshot...
Pyuu!
A strident sound assailed my right ear.
I know this since I have experienced this in Assault a lot of times before. This is the sound that a bullet makes when it grazes past your ear.
My body swayed to the left in the reflex reaction of dodging the bullet that passed by my right side.
(Ugh!)
I slipped off from the propeller's footing. Fortunately, I had instantly reached for my cable and prevented myself from falling to the ground in time, leaving my body suspended 3 meters below the propeller.
Placing my gun, which I miraculously have not dropped, back in the holster, I glared at Kana.
That was a gunshot just now.
But I didn't see her pull out her gun and shoot it.
I think that was one of Nii-san's techniques called "Invisible Bullet".
I have heard about it from Nii-san's colleagues before. I don't know how it works but just like the name implies, it was as if a bullet discharged from an invisible gun.
You wouldn't know when exactly the gun was actually drawn, when was it aimed, and when it was shot. It was a strike that disables the enemy's counteroffensive, let alone dodge it.
And right now, that skill which Kana had used in subduing countless criminals--- she actually used it on me, her younger brother.
Kana is standing on the end of the propeller...
Bang!
Another flash flared near Kana's waist, unleashing another bullet.
---No, I still couldn't see the gun.
*Pishi*
A subtle sensation ran near my hands. It left me flabbergasted as I stared at it.
The cable just below the propeller was gradually fraying, hinting at imminent breakage of it.
It seems the second invisible bullet grazed my cable.
What ungodly precision! She didn't choose to sever the cable as thin as a cellphone strap, but instead she went for grazing it!?
"I could have never foreseen this. I didn't expect Kinji to point a gun at me. It's as if a cat had went against a lion."
Kana is making a melancholic and conflicted face.
"Your strength and mine are like child and adult... no, maybe more than that. You are already aware of that difference, are you not?"
Yes. I know that too well.
I have no chance of winning against you even if I am in Hysteria Mode.
"...Yet, you dared oppose me?"
Kana asked, as if that doubt troubled her.
However, I am in no situation where I can give an answer. My cable will tear off soon.
I stretched my hands, intending to go back up the propeller, but the cable isn't used for normal climbing like ropes.
The more tension I placed on the cable, the faster it unraveled. I perceived that from the sway it made.
Then I'll just have to be careful not to sway the cable as I climb up...!
"...Kinji, are you close with Aria?"
Kana, making a troubled face, looked at me with a sidelong glance.
"---Do you like her?"
"What do you mean!?"
"I'm asking if you like Aria."
Being asked, I felt my blood rushing to my face.
"Why... are you asking me that!?"
Already having climbed the cable halfway up, I bared my fangs and yelled at Kana.
After Kana displayed a bit of incredulity, hesitation formed inside her eyes.
"...How can you still be that way despite your situation? I know you had been case-hardened by tough experiences ever since you were small. However, I can't understand it right now. Kinji, where within your heart is that power coming from?"
I didn't answer Kana, thus it seemed like Kana was asking herself instead. I reached towards the cable to climb further. At that moment...
Whoooosh!!
A gust of strong wind blew through the man-made island.
---Butsu---
By being pushed by the sudden gust, the cable got severed.
...And I was engulfed in darkness.
