It Couldn't Be Helped (4)
I was in the sky.
But the ground below only grew larger, bit by bit, and the stars that lit the earth without so much as a whisper went on watching this world in silence, as they always had.
It was a beautiful night sky. At a glance you could even catch something like an aurora, and if Lena had been here, she would have loved it. The thought crossed my mind that once my body was in better shape, it wouldn't be so bad to come north with her on a trip.
Of course the northern regions were currently a no-travel zone, and clashes between the Corvo Family and the Federation were frequent. But if it ever became peaceful, it wouldn't hurt to come. This world was cursed because of the people in it — not because of the world itself.
With those thoughts, I spread the wings of my suit. The sound of cutting through the wind, and that distinctive northern cold, seemed to pierce my skin and sink straight into my bones. If I were going to bring Lena, I'd have to bundle her up warm.
"There it is."
Once I'd dropped far enough, the target train came into view. It was moving at a considerable clip, but that wasn't a problem. A wingsuit could dive at over four hundred kilometers an hour — a match for most awakeners with any kind of flight, and then some. And if you could vent mana for thrust the way an awakener could, you could go faster still.
"That over there... looks like the Federation army."
Far from the train, a battle was unfolding — gunfire mixed with awakener abilities. Whatever had looked like armored vehicles was already wrecked, and a red light was steadily swallowing the muzzle flashes. Perfect timing. If she spotted me and started sniping, it would be a real headache, but if she was that preoccupied elsewhere, I was fine.
The Corvo Family subordinates inside were plenty strong as awakeners, but they wouldn't be a major problem. You couldn't freely throw around large-scale abilities inside a train like that, and numerical superiority wasn't easy to bring to bear either. More than anything, this kind of muddy brawl was something I had been doing without a break for ten years.
I drew a long breath, then dropped vertically toward the target, gathering mana to absorb the impact the instant I hit.
In truth, any awakener could fly if they had enough mana. The catch was that doing it on raw mana alone burned through far too much of it. And unless you were born with a mana nature built for flight and telekinesis, like the Golden Witch, only a vanishing handful of awakeners could actually fly. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of them. Falling from this height, though, wasn't going to hurt me.
In that split second, I spoke to the mafioso standing watch atop the train.
"...?!"
He stared up at me dropping out of the sky and froze, too startled to even react. Honestly, even with foresight it would have been hard to answer that. I'd used that method on purpose.
KWAANG—!!!
With a thunderous crash, one of the mafiosi went down without so much as a scream. One down.
The rearmost car of the train was smashed by the impact of the landing. I'd still held back enough that it wouldn't derail. The train had been faster than I'd expected, so I'd come down at the very tail — but I had to deal with every mafioso inside anyway.
"...It's a little cold."
Stripping off the wingsuit, which would only get in the way of a fight, I felt the northern chill on my skin all over again. The moment I exhaled, my breath froze white. I somewhat regretted coming in my usual hunting clothes, but the more skin I had in direct contact with the air, the faster I could answer a surprise attack. Better to be cold than to take a bullet or a blade. Still... it really was pretty cold.
"What's going on?! Don't tell me it's a Federation bombing— ghk?!"
The mafiosi came running late to check the car.
"...That's two."
Thud. I'd been waiting on the connecting car; I grabbed the first one to come through and choked him unconscious. The only weapons I'd brought were two daggers, so it would be better to take some off them. Speaking of which, when I searched one, it was all military-grade hardware. Even if the Federation was rotten, wasn't it a bit much for mafiosi to be carrying this stuff so openly?
"We're under attack! Identify the intruder and prioritize protecting the doctor and the engine room!"
Not that I needed to worry about it. Thanks to this, the whole thing would be written off as a covert strike by Federation elites, and the ravens wouldn't come looking for me in revenge. I'd already arranged it that way. Saving Lena was one thing, but I couldn't have her living under the threat of being assassinated at any moment, anywhere.
On that note, I should finish this before that one arrived, if I could. I knew I'd have to fight her eventually — but if I could wrap it up before she got here, that would be best.
I took the mafioso's mask and put it on. I had to take out as many as I could before they realized I was on top of the train.
"Watch the rear. And you two, go through to the other side and—"
Tap.
I slipped a little gift into the car where they were clustered. More precisely, I was returning something of theirs. With the pin pulled.
"Wh— get do—"
An explosion went off, and several mafiosi went tumbling out of the train. They were awakeners, so it wouldn't be fatal — but once they fell behind like that, catching up was no longer possible.
What remained were the sentries who would have noticed me by now and would be watching even the ceiling, plus the escorts for the medicine and the engine room. Probably about seven left. They'd approached in secret, so they couldn't have brought that many, and the Federation's influence wasn't so weak that they could move large numbers of troops at will.
"...They'll be awakeners in body armor anyway."
My goal wasn't annihilation. It was to grab the medicine and get out fast. Guns would only weigh me down; they wouldn't do much anyway. I took a few of the daggers the mafiosi used and ran for the engine room. That was where they'd be keeping the medicine — and I needed to buy time against the one who would have noticed by now and would be coming after me at a terrifying speed.
I'd prepared a last resort, but it was an extremely dangerous method, one that could catch me in it too if I wasn't careful. I'd rather not use it if I could help it.
An explosion rang out. One was a massive sound, as if a meteor had fallen from the sky; the other, compared to the first, was little more than a cute firecracker.
"Ugh, it's freezing. Why the hell are you dragging people around with orders all of a sudden?"
"There is an intruder on the train."
Dr. Ethylene seemed a bit irritated at being woken from a sound sleep by the mafiosi.
"An intruder? On this train with a top speed of a hundred and forty kilometers an hour? In the middle of a godforsaken wasteland, and this trip hasn't even been reported to the Federation government yet — and you're telling me there's an intruder?"
"Yes."
That was the truth. Even the colleagues who had gone to check on the explosions were all out of contact. The mafioso assigned to Ethylene's escort was following orders without a flicker of emotion, but he couldn't understand how anyone had boarded a moving train. It wasn't that there were no awakeners in the world who could run or fly faster than a train — there just weren't that many of them.
"Honestly, if you're going to do a job, at least do it properly..."
"My apologies."
"Forget it. It's not like you wanted this job either. Ugh — is there a blanket in the engine room? At this rate I'll freeze to death before the Federation even gets a chance to execute me..."
And yet they had been attacked. Despite watching every direction with care, the rear sentry with detection abilities had been taken out before he could even react. There had been no approaching vehicles, no helicopters, and no mana signature had been picked up. Perhaps the Federation had an awakener with teleportation that even the Corvo Family didn't know about.
"You're supposed to be ravens, and you didn't watch the sky? Or is it because you're ravens that you can't look any higher?"
"The sky, sir?"
"Yeah. Like coming down from up there. Or flying in from space, even."
"..."
The mafioso figured Ethylene was rambling drunk. It wasn't that they hadn't considered airborne troops — but infiltrating from the sky onto a train moving this fast was itself impossible. Every awakener with flight capable of that kind of speed was under surveillance, and if any of them had moved, word would already have come. Even if you calculated the train's position in advance, coming down at parachute speed would just turn you into a honeycomb. There were several awakeners here capable of long-range attacks. Lilac, who was handling this job, was among the very best in that field.
"You idiots. You're tough as hell anyway. Just drop in from the sky. Guys who can take a missile or two — what's with the fuss..."
Even an awakener couldn't do something like that in their right mind. Awakeners were still human. Humans were not animals that could fly, so doing something like that simply was not possible while sane — not unless your mind had been brainwashed like the mafiosi on this train. And even if you did it the way Dr. Ethylene said, you'd have to drop from at least ten kilometers up to slip the Federation's radar. How would that even be possible?
"Anyone watching would think you people were the ones with their heads on straight... I'll be sleeping in the engine room, so handle it yourselves. One piece of advice: you'd be better off just uncoupling the cars."
With that, Ethylene went into the engine room. Inside, an engineer who had already been bought by the mafiosi was running the train, trembling. Ethylene paid him no mind, reclined the seat, and stretched out his legs. Then he drank straight from a bottle of wine he had smuggled in against his coat.
"Want a sip?"
"I-I'm fine, thank you."
"Tsk tsk... If you were that scared of dying, you shouldn't have taken the ravens' offer in the first place. Or did they threaten you?"
The engineer kept silent. At first he had thought he was just taking money to secretly let a few smugglers on board. He had never imagined it would be the Corvo Family. It was too late for regrets. Even if he somehow escaped the mafiosi, the Federation government would find him and inflict a terrible punishment.
"If you want to live, it's not too late. Jump out of here and get into the passenger cars. This thing can run on autopilot anyway, right? I'll watch it, so don't worry about the train."
But wanting to live is human nature.
"There's a border nearby, so dodge the mines and try defecting. Stay on this train and you'll all be holding hands and skipping off to the afterlife together, la-di-da."
Thud!
In the end, the engineer fled while the mafiosi were distracted. He'd die if he got caught, of course — but with a little awareness, he could slip through and survive.
"Mm. That'll do for a will..."
Ethylene watched the engineer run without looking back, and left a brief note on a scrap of paper. And last of all, he gazed with tender eyes at the woman in the photograph in his pocket.
"About time."