The Suicide Squad, Part 2
The first thing I realized when I came to was that I was falling from above.
What a lovely day. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket on the way home?
Not that it would matter all that much, since I’d already made enough money to stop caring whether I won anything like that or not.
…Although, come to think of it, the reason I’d been able to make that much money in the first place was by trafficking all sorts of drugs and enhancement pills into the underworld.
And the reason I was falling right now was because I’d trafficked drugs, too.
Yeah, somehow I didn’t think buying a lottery ticket would do me much good.
What a life.
Why was it that villains and corporations could commit every kind of evil under the sun and walk away untouched, while only I got to have karma come snapping back at me with perfect timing?
At this point, I was pretty sure the story’s author had it out for me.
Or maybe the world just hated me.
The world had been screwing me over back on Earth, and it was screwing me over here too, so maybe that was just the simplest explanation after all.
Well, if I reinforced my body with mana and landed properly, I’d probably get away with just a broken arm.
Sadly, I didn’t have any handy chemical that could increase physical toughness, so I clicked my tongue, pumped mana into my arms, synthesized an analgesic compound, and prepared for the impact.
Then, someone snatched me from behind.
“...Got you! Blanca, sorry! I don’t have time to explain, so hang on tight!”
It was Jinhyun.
Come to think of it, Yeonhwa and Lapis were clinging to him too, or at least holding on to his hands.
What exactly was that idiot, who’d been doing nothing in the middle of all that chaos, planning to do?
Just as I was wondering that, he wrapped an arm around my waist and drew his mana up.
His hand was icy cold, and his breath came out white.
No way.
And just as I’d feared, I was right.
His hair and eyes turned the color of the sky.
Then a massive block of ice erupted from Jinhyun and swallowed all of us whole.
What I carved into myself was regret, disappointment, self-reproach, and guilt.
I pulled up all those feelings—cold, heavy, and impossible to wash away—without letting them turn on anyone else.
If I had used my ability, Yeonhwa wouldn’t have had to kill anyone.
If I had used my ability, she wouldn’t have had to be shocked like that.
If I had stepped in.
But I hadn’t.
Even while the person closest and dearest to me was struggling, I hadn’t stepped in.
Even when I should have been the one to act, I hadn’t.
Why?
Because I was afraid. If I couldn’t keep my emotions under control, everyone would be in danger.
I ended up fearing the people around me getting hurt even more than my friends getting hurt.
Even with someone suffering right in front of me.
Even then, I had weighed lives in my hands.
I was disgustingly disappointed in myself. I hated myself. And then...
...No. Focus.
The hatred and anger I felt toward my own hesitation weren’t things I should be using right now.
I didn’t need fire, and I was still afraid.
Even now, if I closed my eyes, it felt like that day’s surging flames were right in front of my face.
Once fear swallowed me whole, I wouldn’t be able to control the me that fear devoured.
So I drew up my mana carefully, delicately, and with painstaking control.
And I prayed with all my heart that I would never be nothing again.
That now, I too wanted to protect someone.
My ability, Emotional Manifestation, answered that wish and created a massive sheet of ice that wrapped around everyone.
The lump of ice that appeared in midair in an instant took the impact that should have crushed us, and then shattered to pieces.
But it didn’t soften everything.
“...Kgh!”
I hit the ground and rolled several times across the floor and through the shattered ice.
Even as I tumbled end over end, I kept holding everyone tight and did my best to shield them.
“...Is everyone okay?”
“I-I’m okay... My bones are metal, so you didn’t even need to protect me... th-thanks.”
“I’m okay too... Jinhyun. More importantly, your... ability...”
Lapis and Yeonhwa looked fine. But where had Blanca gone? I looked everywhere and still couldn’t see her.
“...Get off, will you?”
Her voice came from underneath me.
I looked down, and Blanca was pinned beneath me.
Thankfully, she didn’t seem hurt. She wasn’t making a painful face or showing any sign that she was struggling.
The problem was that my forearm was resting right on top of her chest.
Ah.
No wonder the ground had felt so soft.
The expression on her face was so terrifying I honestly thought she might bite my throat out if I stayed like this, so I quickly scrambled off her and apologized.
“S-sorry! I mean, it wasn’t like I wanted to—”
“I know, I know. Just... haah. Shut up and stay still. Nothing happened, got it?”
Blanca scrunched up her face and declared that nothing had happened, then clapped her hands once to gather everyone’s attention.
“All right, let’s sort this out. First, you. Why did you just sit there and not use your ability before, only to use it now? If you’d done it then, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Then, like she was projecting all her pent-up resentment onto me, she scowled and complained about why I’d only used my ability now.
“Blanca...!”
Yeonhwa looked like she was still hurting, but she tried to speak up for me. But Yeonhwa.
You can’t keep collapsing under the weight of old wounds forever.
“It’s okay, Yeonhwa. Now is... the time to face it.”
Reassuring her, I told Blanca why I’d been avoiding using my ability.
Long ago, when Emotional Manifestation first awakened, I couldn’t control it properly.
Because of me, an entire department store was swallowed by flames.
Everyone except me—the source of the fire—died, and even the people who survived had to live with lasting trauma for the rest of their lives.
...My parents weren’t any different.
They were right beside me.
They died in the catastrophe without even getting a chance to escape.
For a child, it was far too much to bear.
Honestly, even now it was hard to bear.
Just thinking about it and saying it out loud made my stomach turn and my whole body tremble.
But then.
Back then, a hero appeared.
A hero who, even with his skin scorched by the flames, told me it would be okay and saved me from the fire—saved me from the blaze I had become.
That hero was Pyro, Yeonhwa’s father.
He retired from hero work because of the injuries he suffered that day.
...And he took in a child who had nowhere to go and gave me a family.
That was why Yeonhwa worried about me so much.
Back when I was little, I’d been, to put it kindly, a walking corpse.
Even now, Yeonhwa was probably just fretting helplessly because she didn’t know what to do.
Sorry, Yeonhwa. I keep making you suffer on my behalf.
“So, I get why you weren’t using your ability. Then why did you use it just now?”
Blanca listened to my story with a troubled expression, then wiped it away and asked me why I’d changed my mind.
“You said it yourself. If you hesitate and end up failing to save someone, no one’s going to care about your reasons. And... I’m tired of hesitating.”
“Jinhyun...?”
“Even if I’m wrong, even if it ends badly, I want to act on what I believe is right. If I keep hesitating forever, I won’t be able to save anyone.”
So I’m saying this to you, Blanca.
If it hadn’t been for you, I’d probably still be hesitating right now.
“Haah, your mouth really does spew disaster...”
After hearing the whole story, Blanca scrubbed a hand over her face like she was drying off sweat.
Yeonhwa came up to me and asked if I was okay now.
She was probably asking whether I’d really managed to shake it off.
“...No, not at all. If I close my eyes, I still see those flames. But... I’m not going to turn away anymore. I’ll face it head-on. And then, for every life I’ve taken away—no.”
I’ll become a hero who saves even more than that.
“Uh... um... sorry, I feel like I’m killing the mood, but... th-the more important thing isn’t that? It’s where we are right now...”
Lapis broke the silence she’d been holding, apologizing over and over while still saying the sensible thing.
“You’re right, Lapis. Painful circumstances, blossoming resolve... those are nice and all, but first we have to get out of here before any of that matters.”
Blanca said that and continued organizing the situation.
“We’re inside the gate right now. Since nothing has shown up so far, that suicide-whatever-the-hell-it-is probably cleared the place out in advance so the villains could be kept inside.”
“Uh... so they used the gate like a kind of transport vehicle?”
“More like they used it like an inventory, not a transport vehicle. Nobody here’s never played a game, right?”
Lapis raised a hand timidly.
Blanca gave a crooked smile, said she was sure Lapis at least knew what a transport vehicle was, and went on.
“But there aren’t any monsters here, and the gate is still up. Which means the anchor keeping this gate alive—a boss monster—has to be somewhere in here.”
“C-couldn’t we just go back the way we came in?”
Lapis raised her hand again and asked Blanca.
Instead of answering, Blanca wordlessly pointed up at the sky with a finger.
The gate we’d come through was already gone.
“In other words, if we want out of here, we have to hunt down a boss monster whose strength we don’t even know, and then break the core embedded in its corpse. Questions?”
This time Yeonhwa raised a hand and asked Blanca, “Blanca. Where did you learn about gates? Aren’t you in the hero department?”
Information about gates wasn’t something non-hunters were supposed to know.
Civilians were only supposed to know one thing: run.
And yet she rattled off gate information so casually that I got curious too.
“Try living outside the safe zones. You’ll learn whether you want to or not.”
“W-wait, Blanca. You lived in the Outskirts?!”
“Later. Later. Anyway, the important thing now is surviving and getting out. It’s not like I’ve got some grand tragic backstory like you two.”
The area where Heros Corporation’s technology for suppressing gate outbreaks hadn’t reached was called the Outskirts.
I had no idea Blanca had come from there.
“Anyway, that’s the situation sorted. What we need to do is clear too. Let’s go. We’ve got to get out.”
Saying that, Blanca started walking into the dungeon as if it were nothing.
“...That really is Blanca, right?”
“Let’s trust Blanca. She already saved us, didn’t she?”
“...Yeah. I guess we should.”
I soothed Yeonhwa and followed after her.
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