The Thing You Must Not Touch (5)

To be honest, going on a rampage wasn't exactly a pleasant experience.

I was... a person. Just an ordinary one. I'd never been remarkably righteous—if anything, I was a petty, timid soul with more jealousy than sense. I'd gone ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and taken a job with a villain organization, the kind comics portray in the worst possible light. A villain organization, so naturally I'd clash with magical girls, and I'd joined knowing that full well.

So I took the hits and endured them. Hayun didn't know my face anyway, and I'd heal overnight. I'd kept the jealousy I harbored toward her hidden away quite well over the years—and now, here I was, stringing together one excuse after another to declare that I couldn't take it anymore. I was at least somewhat aware I was doing it.

But what could I do? I was no sage, just an emotional human being like everyone else. The vessel I had for holding down the feelings surging up from somewhere deep in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my chest was simply too small and too fragile to keep swallowing them.

A thunderous boom rang out.

I could see people fleeing, screaming. Among them were the ones pointing fingers at me, holding up their smartphones to snap photos and shoot video. Guess they had no idea how serious this was?

I leapt up at the high ceiling and smashed it with my hammer. Dust came sifting down over everyone's heads. Sure enough, James's claim that the building was sturdy hadn't been a lie. Well, considering magical girls could storm the place, of course they'd have to build it tough.

Only after the white dust began drifting down onto their heads did those people finally start running and screaming too. Guess they did value their lives after all.

It wasn't everyone yet, but plenty of people were making it out—and above all, the first-floor staff were moving with drilled precision, ushering them toward the exits. This was a company that had already been blown up once before; fail to respond quickly in a situation like this, and the fallout would obviously be enormous.

"Let's go up."

I said it toward the machine James was piloting.

"I knew you'd start wrecking everything the moment we arrived."

James's voice carried out through the speaker. The cockpit was quite sturdily enclosed. Before it had sealed, that section had bulged into a little rounded dome, which had struck me as vaguely cute—but for a drone with four thrusters mounted front and back, it was actually a rather sleek shape. It looked like someone had snapped the nose off a fighter jet model and stuck a drone underneath.

Was it built that way so it could chase me down whenever I flew off at speed? Eh, didn't matter. What mattered was that it could harness my mana to follow me, and that it was relatively safe to ride. Thanks to that, I could afford to move a little more violently.

Without bothering to answer James, I swung the hammer.

Clack.

Just as I'd managed once before, the rear of the hammer unfolded, glowing bright. The circuit was spinning fast, and naturally, energy jetted backward from the thrusters the open hammer revealed. Riding that thrust, I hurled myself forward with everything I had.

The frustrations still unresolved, this situation, the fear that I might fail, the hesitation about facing Hayun—it felt as if all of it had been left behind me. Refreshing.

The air inside the building was thick with the dust my rampage had kicked up, and people's screams still rang in my ears—and yet, as I ran full tilt, the wind rushing past my ears quieted all of it, if only a little.

Running at full speed, I hit the stairwell landing and drove one foot straight down into the floor. From any other angle it would have meant a sprained ankle at best, but my foot punched clean through and pivoted. Plowing through the staircase, I spun round and round on that planted leg as my axis. Swinging left, I drew the hammer head in close, and the moment I felt it graze past the door, I flung it straight out ahead of me.

Like a hammer throw, I completed the rotation in one unbroken sweep. The thrust never faltered, so the hammer head whipped around me in a blindingly fast circle.

CRASH!

And I slammed it into the landing door with everything I had, obliterating it. The door caved inward without even managing a proper crunch. The bottom hinge held, barely; the top one was blown clean off. The door slammed back against the wall, hung there a beat, then dropped to the floor in tatters.

One more rotation, and I kicked off the ground and surged ahead, sprinting forward as I smashed the walls on all four sides.

Fssht, fssk.

Small flames flared beside and ahead of the hammer, tracking my movements—the auxiliary thrusters James had added after watching me fight last time. They looked like something out of a missile-launch video. Thanks to them, I could whirl the hammer in every direction without ever staggering.

Decorations hanging in the corridor shattered and fell. Dents pockmarked the walls, and several doors were smashed to pieces. People burst out of the rooms, caught sight of me, and scrambled right back inside. None of them came out again.

Stone chips, dust, metal shards, and splintered wood flew everywhere. My hair was probably gray with it by now. Whether any of it clung to my clothes or not, I didn't care one bit—I just kept running.

There was a faint smell of burning, too. Had I scorched the carpet by striking the floor before the auxiliary thrusters fully shut down? Or maybe it was the smell of air being burned for thrust.

Sprinklers burst open overhead. Alarms wailed from every direction. Some announcement seemed to be playing, but I leapt up and smashed the speaker, leaving nothing but a crackling hiss.

From every spot I passed, people came pouring out in a panic, screaming as the water rained down on their heads.

I had no intention of demolishing the whole building. What I destroyed was a single path behind me. There was only one of me—not nearly enough to level the entire place, and time was a little short, it seemed.

Buy enough time to draw every eye, and then—once the eyes were drawn—do exactly what I wanted. That was our plan. This came from experience. Back when I'd made my desperate escape, dragging things out meant everyone's attention had fixed entirely on me. Contrary to what the government, the Federation, and the Company had hoped, footage of me fighting back with everything I had got splashed across the media. Embargoes did next to nothing—someone had already broadcast it live.

Those fleeing people with their cameras and phones. How many of them had already posted online?

Running flat out, I could see the far end of the corridor.

CRASH!

"One more floor."

I muttered it, smashing through the door.

"Impressive."

James replied. With the voice coming out of a speaker, it really did feel like talking to a robot. The drone's looks didn't help.

But there was unmistakable delight in that voice. Terrifying. A robot with emotions. It might just burn the whole world down.

So I was the human traitor collaborating with that robot, was I?

Not bad.

The next floor, and the one above it. Running at full speed, I smashed whatever I pleased. The more I destroyed, the better I got at it. Hitting a fire extinguisher made an even bigger mess in every direction. I smashed a hydrant to turn the area into a shallow lake, and with the thrusters burning front and back, I whirled the hammer around until everything in reach was scorched black.

"Oh, wait. I just had a great idea."

"A good idea?"

At my gleeful shout, James voiced his doubt. The drone tilted slightly to one side, like a head cocked in curiosity—somehow, that made it feel a little endearing.

This time, instead of the opposite corridor, I headed somewhere else entirely, veering sharply mid-run and sprinting toward the center of the building.

There was a whole bank of elevators there. Every single one was descending. I picked the car closest to the first floor.

The elevator doors buckled inward, hopelessly warped. Is this why they tell you not to lean on things? Though technically it was me doing the leaning that broke them. I'm a person too, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠after all.

Then I dropped down the shaft.

Why hadn't I thought of this from the start?

Thud.

It would've been a problem if the car had already dropped, so I landed on the one that seemed to have stopped somewhere around the first floor. I hadn't fully killed my momentum, so the impact rang out loud, and I heard screams from inside at the jolt.

I tore off the maintenance hatch on top and shoved my face inside. Several of the passengers shrieked and landed hard on their backsides.

"What are you doing? Aren't you running?"

When I jerked my chin toward the open doors, they scrambled across the floor and crawled out as fast as their limbs would carry them.

Good. Nobody left, right?

"Which floor did you say the broadcast studio was on?"

"The twenty-second. Practically the top."

"Should've come in through the roof."

"You were the one who insisted on entering through the first floor, weren't you?"

Right. That was me. I'd wanted to give people plenty of time to escape, since I was doing this anyway.

"Well, no matter. Twenty-second floor, huh?"

I grinned and pulled my head back out. Gripping the hammer in both hands, I coiled my legs.

"You can keep up, right?"

"It was designed to track your mana, so it won't be impossible."

James spoke with a sigh threaded through his voice, as if he could already see exactly what I was thinking. It was the voice of a man saying, if you were going to do this, you should have started this way.

Hey, you're the one who told me to destroy as much as possible.

"Fine. Then try to keep up."

I flashed the drone my most show-off grin and launched myself upward.

CRASH!

The elevator I'd been standing on let out a shriek like that, and my body shot skyward.

Twenty-two floors. Could I make it in one jump? Didn't matter. I could just kick off whatever was beneath my feet, as many times as it took.

It was strange. The air in here was thick and stale, my body already soaked through with sweat and sprinkler water and caked in dust on top of it all—and yet, somehow, my heart felt clear. Was it because I was beating the things I hated to pieces with everything I had?

And still, the circuit spun round and round. Maybe my head had started spinning along with it.

CRASH!

The sound carried even from quite a distance away. Ironically, the building still looked perfectly intact from the outside. There didn't even seem to be a fire yet; from out here, the windows merely reflected the setting sun.

But people were pouring out through the entrance.

The first floor of Noir Corporation, standing directly across from Seoul City Hall, was a shopping atrium. Calling it a first floor was misleading—it was a soaring hall with a high vaulted ceiling, which meant it admitted a great many people. Naturally, even on a weekday, the evening hours drew quite a crowd.

Police sirens filled the street, and officers who'd arrived swiftly were herding people out of the building.

Utter pandemonium. That was the only phrase that came to mind.

The message crackling out of the pager left them conflicted.

The magical girls were looking at Hayun. What do we do? That was the look in their eyes.

Only moments ago, they had agreed to come forward and declare that Jieun had done nothing wrong. Rose and Dahlia had favored proceeding a little more carefully. Delphinium, perhaps intent on staying neutral, had kept her mouth shut. Hayun understood them—and that was exactly why she'd persuaded them, laying out what kind of ending awaited if nobody moved. Sooner or later, what she intended to do was the same. If Jieun were arrested for a crime she hadn't committed and dragged into court, Hayun planned to take the stand and testify, doing the very best she could from that witness box.

And Hayun happened to be one of the most publicly recognizable magical girls there was. Once the truth came out, the magical girls would no longer be able to keep the 'status quo.' Jieun had no intention of being taken quietly, and above all, the magical girls themselves already knew the whole situation.

In the end, they'd gone along with Hayun.

And yet, here they were, in the middle of this.

"This isn't just her venting."

Hayun said.

"There has to be a reason. I'm sure of it."

"Could be revenge."

Rose said, her expression turning grave.

"The Chairman's office is on the twenty-second floor."

The magical girls knew what Noir Corporation's headquarters looked like, too. They'd never actually expected to storm the place, but there was no telling how a situation like this might unfold. Just as Noir's combatants had extracted a researcher from a Federation research facility, perhaps the Federation had schemes of its own cooking. Thanks to that, even without knowing every inch of the building, they already knew the 'key locations.'

The twenty-second floor of a twenty-four-story building sat near the very top. The twenty-third was a restricted management zone, and the twenty-fourth held the observatory—so as far as the company was concerned, calling it its de facto highest floor wouldn't have been wrong.

"...No way."

If this was an act of terror, then who was behind it? Naturally, the one who stood to gain the most from it. The current Chairman, who had seized the seat after the former Chairman's sudden disappearance—

—and once she thought of that Squeak-alien who'd been at Jieun's side, why Jieun was heading for the twenty-second floor looked painfully obvious.

"We should hurry."

Iris said.

"If someone ends up dead, there'll be no undoing it after that."

Hayun clenched her teeth at those words.

The magical girls turned toward the building.

My rampage didn't stop on the twenty-second floor either.

CRASH!

The moment I smashed through the elevator doors and stepped out, I came face to face with combatants gripping guns. They'd apparently known I'd come out that way, because they'd set up a formation of their own.

The instant I emerged, I rapped the floor several times with my hammer. I was confident that alone wouldn't bring the building down. But no matter how sturdy a structure was, when the floor was struck with that kind of force, the ground beneath anyone nearby was bound to shudder.

Watching the combatants' faces twist in fright, I planted both feet into the floor and let every thruster on the hammer blast fire at full power. The temperature in the space began climbing fast. The flames jetting from the thrusters were hot enough to char and melt everything they touched.

"Get out! Every last one of you!"

I shouted.

"If you won't put yourselves out, I'll put you out myself."

"......"

The combatants exchanged bewildered glances for a moment.

Clatter.

The instant the one at the very front dropped his gun, everything after that happened in a heartbeat.

"U-Uwaaah!"

One of them spun on his heel and bolted with that cry. The one beside him, and the one beside him—every last one of them turned tail and ran for their lives. Not a single one even thought about shooting at me.

Well, they were all just hired hands. All the more so for the suited ones—Earthlings, every one of them. Magical girls, at least, might have believed they could hold me off for a moment, but I was smashing everything in sight without showing an ounce of restraint.

Turns out a slightly exaggerated reputation is surprisingly useful.

Keeping the thrusters burning, I walked.

"The broadcast studio... the studio... Found it."

I found a door and stopped in front of it, dialing back the hammer's thrust a little. The hiss of burning air quieted somewhat.

"...You can rig this stuff, right?"

"Of course. The more 'equipment currently broadcasting live,' the better. It's not as if every piece of it would be hardwired, is it?"

"Alien technology. Impressive."

"Well, it's only possible because we have energy to spare..."

We shrugged at each other. Granted, the drone had merely bobbed up and drifted down a little, but somehow it felt that way.

"...Well, that's everything, then."

"If you escape cleanly, it won't be the end."

James said.

Unbelievable. Even now, at this very moment, he's planning to use me—and yet he still talks so reasonably. Then again, that's how he was back when I worked for the Company, too. Doesn't mean I have to like it.

Gripping the hammer in both hands, I brought it down on the door with everything I had.

CRASH!

"...Huh?"

But the door didn't break. It looked no different from every door I'd smashed so far. There was a dent where the hammer had struck—but from within it—

"Oh ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no, dodge—"

Before James could even finish, everything went white. Pain like I'd been caught in an explosion washed over my whole body—mana shielding and all.

Was this the second time? Strangely enough, that was what I was thinking even as I flew backward into the wall.

But it wasn't an explosion.

CRASH!

I barely dodged the second blow by throwing myself sideways.

"...A robot?"

Relieved the hammer hadn't left my hand, I scrambled back into a stance.

"No...! That's impossible! Noir Corporation doesn't have that kind of technology...!"

I raised my head. The voice was coming from the corridor speakers.

I looked at James. I couldn't see his face, but he seemed too flustered to get another word out.

Thud. Thud.

Massive shapes came walking out, crunching what remained of the broadcast studio's broken door beneath them. They stood half again my size... no, twice it. Their arms were as thick as my waist, and the fists at the ends of them looked impossibly, brutally solid.

What I didn't like was how sleek the monstrous things looked. Like something out of near-future sci-fi—the image of a friendly little security robot. Had they originally been built for exactly that purpose? Getting hit by one of those, of course my mind went blank.

"...I guess I have to fight, huh?"