Chapter 40
Chapter 40
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: Juni
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"Where did you learn our language?"
Tora suddenly switched to Satadi and asked. Jain responded in fairly natural Satadi.
"I learned it from someone who had served for a long time in the Ituha support unit."
"Ah, I see. That's some real dedication."
She had figured that anyone SAU would send as a dedicated watcher in a place full of all sorts of bizarre superhumans would know plenty about the Satadi tribe.
But she hadn't expected fluency in the language. It wasn't exactly useful outside of chatting with Ituha, given how few speakers there were.
Tora asked,
"What about the Ituha caught your interest, Lieutenant?"
"That a human could be that strong."
Jain spoke without the slightest hesitation, as if reciting words etched into a plaque in her mind.
"And once they form a pact of faith, they devote their entire body to it."
Her pale brown eyes looked straight at him.
"I wanted to be like that."
"......"
Tora fell silent. Suddenly snapping out of it, Jain couldn't understand why she was saying any of this.
"Aren't you going back to your room?"
Tora propped his chin up with an oddly slow motion.
"Do you really need to be so wary of a vampire who doesn't even drink blood?"
Not drinking blood didn't make him any less of a vampire. If anything, it made him more dangerous.
"It's bedtime."
Tora gripped the armrest of the sofa and stood.
"Fine. I wouldn't want to get on the lieutenant's bad side after a few drinks."
He headed for the door. Jain followed to lock it behind him. But just before the door, Tora turned back suddenly. In that low, sweet voice, he said,
"Good night."
"Good night."
Jain just gave a quick farewell, eager to get him out. Tora let out a long breath and chuckled, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
Tora left, and the door closed. Jain stood there for a while, hand on the closed door, lingering on the smile he'd left behind. Then she jolted back to her senses.
'No, not me.'
Hadn't she seen with her own eyes all those women throwing themselves at Tora? She didn't want to be one of them, or to be in the position of fending them all off.
***
"Isn't she quite to your liking?"
One Ituha asked. Tora shrugged.
"Even if she is, she hates my guts."
"Is there a woman out there who hates the boss?"
"I respect her all the more for hating me for real."
"You've got weird tastes, boss—ignoring all those women who fawn over you and chasing the ones who can't stand you."
Another Ituha poked him in the side.
"Hey."
Tora was exasperated.
"You think I'm a total pushover, huh?"
"No way. You're our esteemed boss."
Tora shook his head side to side. He glanced back at the hotel lighting up the night street.
"Let's go."
He turned and said. The Ituha followed.
"Boss."
Suddenly, one Ituha spoke while looking somewhere.
"If you wanted to put me at ease, you should've just sung me a lullaby."
A voice rang out. Everyone froze, as if the song "Stay Right There" had started playing.
In the shadows between dark alleys, Jain stood with her arms crossed. She was dressed for going out, in a jacket and jeans. Tora gave a wry smile.
"I thought it'd worked."
"You're not much of an actor."
Tora sighed.
"It's not that I'm underestimating you, Lieutenant. It's just no place for a human."
The Ituha were treated as barely human anyway, so she was wisely sitting it out.
Jain uncrossed her arms and stepped forward.
"You're right. I am human."
"So..."
"Do you know what it takes for a human to become an SAU operative?"
Jain walked past Tora, taking the lead as she spoke.
"No need to answer. You'll have figured it out."
Tora looked up at the sky and swallowed a sigh. Special forces types just couldn't stand being left out of dangerous spots.
They treated it like torture to realize they were useless—no matter what anyone else thought.
"Don't die then, Lieutenant."
Jain stopped and turned. Tora's face was serious.
"If you die, I won't be able to forgive myself."
Jain realized at some point that Tora had started calling her by her rank.
It meant he'd been acting too, to some degree, to put her at ease. The friendly act, the constant flirting.
Jain spoke expressionlessly and walked on ahead.
"Why would you feel responsible if I die? I don't get it."
Murmurs came from the Ituha behind them.
"She's got some guts."
Tora rolled his eyes and shot a fierce glare at the Ituha.
"Cut it out before I really chew you out."
***
Tora pulled something from his pocket.
"A few days ago, when the lieutenant stepped out, someone handed this over."
It was a leather necklace with an ivory carving pendant, sealed in a plastic bag, soaked in blood.
The blood had dried almost black, looking like mud, but everyone there knew it was blood. And it was familiar. Jain glanced at Tora's neck, where an identical one hung.
"Is this Captain Rato's?"
Tora nodded.
"Matty carved it for him."
"Did you catch the person who delivered it?"
"Just some passerby. Said he got paid to pass it on."
Jain looked across the darkened street.
"So someone's watching us."
"Right. They know I'm looking for Rato."
Jain looked back at Tora.
"So? Any clues from this?"
"It lets me know who knows the clues."
"Boss."
Just as Tora said that, one Ituha called out.
"Let's go."
He unlocked the warehouse door, chained shut.
Creak. Rattle.
"Come on in."
Tora nodded to Jain and entered first. She followed.
It was so remote, and with no moon that night, the inside was pitch black, without a single light.
Jain was trained to see well in the dark even without night vision, bright-eyed for a human, but there were limits in total darkness like this.
Suddenly, a hand appeared before her eyes.
"Can you see?"
It was Tora's voice.
Jain pressed her wristband to turn on the flashlight.
"Now I can."
Tora let out a hollow chuckle as he watched Jain go ahead.
What a fortress of a woman—agreeing to be bros. He really wanted to see how she'd act in front of a guy she actually liked someday.
Jain scanned the interior. The abandoned warehouse was half empty, half cluttered with discarded junk.
In the middle, a person sat tied to a pillar in a chair. And that person was someone Jain never would have imagined.
The woman who supposedly slept with Rato—the one who oddly resembled Gamal.
Stunned, she looked at Tora, who seemed to anticipate her words and spoke first.
"That time I went looking, she saw me and clocked the necklace right away. Her eyes were like, 'What are you doing here?' She quickly schooled her expression when she remembered about the twins, though."
"Just for that?"
"My gut on this stuff doesn't miss much."
Then Tora pointed at the woman.
"And tracing it back, every link in the chain before Rato vanished starts with her. Logically, doesn't she look the most suspicious?"
"But isn't the evidence pretty thin?"
"People get something stuck in their heads and can't shake it easily. Like how she's 'the one-night stand Rato bumped into' or 'knows nothing about it.' Whoever's behind this is playing on that."
Tora drew an unfamiliar gun from his pocket and aimed it at the woman.
"When it looked like her cover was blown, she started blasting away with this."
Jain looked at the woman.
"But why's she in such bad shape?"
The woman had clearly taken a beating already.
"We roughed her up a bit. Ituha are gentlemen, but we got no mercy for terrorists."
Jain wondered if the Satadi tribe lacked Western lady-respect culture.
But recalling how they'd treated her or Gamal strictly as soldiers—which was what she'd wanted—this woman had gotten proper terrorist treatment before being treated as a woman.
Tora said,
"She admitted slipping something in Rato's drink that night."
"And Captain Rato fell for it?"
"This woman looks like Matty. If there's anyone who thinks of Matty more than me, it's Rato. That guy wouldn't step on Matty's photo."
"Jesus level?"
Jain asked, baffled, and Tora clasped his hands like in prayer.
"That grade."
Jain furrowed her brow and asked, half-disbelieving,
"So the sleeping together part...?"
"Didn't happen. She just said it did. Rato's got skills, but not enough to get it up while he's out cold. Sure, he had a thing for Matty once, back in his wild youth phase..."
Tora caught himself mid-sentence.
"Don't tell Rato I told you this. He'll get mad."
Anyway, Tora looked at the bound woman, headache brewing, and said,
"But she's tough. As expected of someone trained..."
Then Jain brushed past Tora. Before anyone could stop her, she backhanded the woman's cheek.
The smack was loud enough to burst it, startling Tora and the Ituha. Jain grabbed the woman's hair, yanking her head up like she might rip it out. She brought her face close to the woman's cheek and asked in a low voice,
"I'll ask once. Remember—just once. Where's Captain Rato?"
The woman didn't answer. Jain snapped her finger right away. The woman convulsed, screaming.
Tora muttered blankly at the unexpected sight.
"You know this is illegal, right?"
They'd thrown a few punches too—but since Tora the vampire could accidentally kill, the Ituha had done it—and it wasn't quite torture.
Jain turned only her head and said coolly,
"Gonna report me?"
"Not that, but..."
Tora answered before he knew it. Jain stood straight, shrugging off her jacket, and said,
"If you want to find Captain Rato, don't hold back on my account."
The Ituha behind them gave thumbs up. They always found the civilized world's nitpicking about laws and human rights annoyingly restrictive anyway.
For a while, sounds not fit for the faint-hearted echoed. Tora and the Ituha were mostly spectators. At one point, even they winced.
Tora asked casually,
"SAU teaches you this stuff?"
Jain paused.
"They teach it, but I learned this with my own body."
Before he could ask what that meant, Jain turned back to the woman.
She swept back her slightly sweat-dampened hair. Anyway, Jain had to admit the woman was tenacious.
"If you're doing this for money, you're a real idiot. You couldn't spend it anyway."
"It's not... for money."
For the first time, the woman rasped out a response.