Two Problem Children (2)
"Haaah-hahaha! Kid G! There's nowhere left for you to run! Today I'll finally settle this blood-soaked grudge I've piled up against you! I'll chase you to the ends of hell if I have to and I will catch you! Prepare yourself!"
"P-P-Prepare yourself!"
Our black friend Kim Sejin burst into booming laughter, while beside her Valkyrie—Eun Seol—looked ready to die of secondhand embarrassment yet still ended up matching the beat out of sheer reflex. Just picturing the two of them collaborating on anything was hard enough; watching them throw themselves into the exact brand of idiocy only Kim Sejin would invent made a snort of laughter escape me.
Both of them seemed to be wearing masks fitted with Recognition Deterrent Chips, but I'd known their faces long enough that the chips' effect was weak. I recognized them instantly. Most people who'd never met them before couldn't place their identities and simply looked confused, but—
"Is that… Valkyrie?"
"No way, the girl next to her is the Union Leader's daughter! I've seen her before! What are they even doing over there? Were they supposed to be part of the operation?"
The A-class heroes Jumper and Iron Fist naturally knew the two well enough that the chips barely worked on them. They identified the pair at once.
"Hey! Did you two even get clearance to join the operation?!"
"Valkyrie! And you—whatever your name is, Union Leader's daughter! You know barging into an annihilation order mid-operation means we can't guarantee your safety! If you came without knowing that, fall back right now!"
"Union Leader's daughter?! That's not my name, I'm Kim—"
"Hey!"
"Hah! I-I am the dark rising star who will soon rule the underworld! Neither hero nor villain, but the Dark Knight himself—Black Friend! And this is my assistant, Dark Val—"
"Hey!!!"
"Hah! Th-this is my assistant whose identity is shrouded in mystery! Codename, shortened… um… Dakbal!"
Valkyrie whipped her head sideways with a look that said she was ready to devour someone alive. Kim Sejin quietly averted her gaze.
"Anyway! Dakbal and I have something to say to you, Kid G, and that's why we made this difficult trip! We don't care about those heroes over there! Orders, operations—none of our business!"
Kim Sejin's brazen nonsense made Jumper and Iron Fist glance at each other for a moment.
"What do we do about this?"
"Looking at them, they clearly didn't get permission… Best just ignore them and keep going. If they get hurt it's their own fault. This isn't the time to coddle people."
The two A-class heroes dismissed Kim Sejin and Valkyrie and charged straight at me. Iron Fist, who'd been thoroughly toyed with last time, made sure not to stand anywhere near a wall this round, cutting every chance of me using him against himself.
"Kid G! I haven't forgotten last time's humiliation! Today I really will kill you!"
"I keep telling you—the ones who should be fighting me aren't you."
"You think you can beat us when all you do is run?!"
Jumper cupped his hands under Iron Fist and vaulted high; Iron Fist used the boost for a massive running leap and came barreling toward me. At that exact moment Kim Sejin, still on the ground, flung the pebbles in her hand skyward. At her gesture the stones erupted into enormous square pillars of rock that shot up in an instant, blocking Iron Fist's path mid-air and sending him plummeting again. Jumper managed to hop from pillar to pillar and catch him, so nothing catastrophic happened—but they'd lost their shot at me, and both glared down in pure fury.
"Hey, Union Leader's daughter! What the hell do you think you're doing?! You think we came here to play around?!"
"I'm not playing either! I'm the one who's supposed to face Kid G! Dakbal! This is our cue!"
"Ugh… Keep using that ridiculous name and I swear… damn it…!"
Valkyrie unfurled her wings, flew past Jumper and Iron Fist, and closed in on me first.
"Valkyrie! The Union Leader's kid is one thing, but what do you think you're doing?! Have you lost your mind?!"
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, seniors! But there's something I really need to ask—"
KWAANG—!
Iron Fist, seething, threw a punch at Valkyrie; startled, she answered with a punch of her own. The shockwave shattered the rock pillars Kim Sejin had made, and Jumper used the flying debris as stepping stones to leap upward again.
"You want to ask the annihilation target something?! Interfere with the operation one more time and even you two will be treated as enemies and attacked!"
"Th-that's…"
"That would be inconvenient. I've finally found an opponent worthy of me—I can't have extras like you getting in the way."
"!! Kid G, you bastard…!"
"Pardon me a moment."
Ever since I'd claimed Eve, I'd been able to craft all sorts of tactical tools. One of them was the fog produced by Eve, who had been transplanted with cells from the Japanese hero Mist. The fog could be freely scaled at the user's will—small enough to seal in a bottle or wide enough to blanket a city—and its density was just as adjustable. The real Mist's fog could also induce severe hallucinations, auditory illusions, delirium, and total communication blackout, but since Eve only had a transplanted version of the power, hers was limited to blocking vision and cutting communications. Even so, it was more than enough—especially because the fog could be bottled and detonated whenever needed. Exactly like right now.
I uncorked the bottle and released Eve's fog. Under the will of Eve herself, hovering far above, it spread wide across the area around the police station.
"W-what is this? I can't see—"
"That guy was only supposed to have clones and door-opening, right? What the hell is this?!"
In seconds a thick fog that blocked even a hand in front of one's face settled over everything. Jumper and Iron Fist, for whom clear sightlines were critical, panicked completely. Vision fully cut and the dense fog jamming communications so they couldn't even receive operator support, they were helpless. Valkyrie and Kim Sejin were just as blinded; they flailed and tried to radio each other, but the fog's interference made that impossible too, leaving them wandering in the white haze.
I, on the other hand, had Eve's support from above and could track exactly where everyone was. With everyone's sight blocked, I leapt straight at Valkyrie. Mid-air I seized her around the waist and dragged her earthward.
"Wha—?! What, what is this?!"
"Hello, first time meeting you, Miss Chicken Foot. Name's Kid G."
"You… you…!"
"We're currently freefalling, you see. Terribly sorry, but would you mind handling the landing for us? Toward where your friend is. I'll give you the directions."
"Grr…!"
Valkyrie thrashed in panic, trying to shake me off because I was clinging to her waist, but she quickly gave up, spread her wings, and followed my instructions toward Kim Sejin. The instant we neared Kim Sejin through the fog I snatched her around the waist as well; she yelped in shock.
"Eek, who is it?!"
"Who else? The guy you've been screaming for, you black friend."
"Huh? Th-this voice is Kid G?"
"Miss Chicken Foot, sorry, but could you take us somewhere I'm about to point out? Personally I'm dying of curiosity about what on earth the two of you are doing here. We don't have much time, so let's hurry."
"D-don't call me by that name!"
With one arm locked around Valkyrie's waist and the other holding Kim Sejin, the three of us landed in the rear courtyard right beside the police station building. Thanks to the fog, no one managed to track our flight path.
"All right then, our black friend and Miss Chicken Foot. What exactly are you two doing here?"
"At last we meet, Kid G! Do you have any idea how long I've waited for this day?! If I listed every grudge I hold against you it would take three days and nights without sleep!"
"What did I even do to you that counts as a grudge?"
At my answer Kim Sejin stamped her feet in rage.
"What did you do? You're seriously asking what you did?!"
"No, we never even met, so what could I possibly have—"
"Eve!"
"…?"
"I clearly said the position of Kid G's assistant was mine! And you accepted it! Yet you threw me away, shacked up with that prototype Eve girl, and formed a two-person outlaw duo?! This horrible betrayal! My wounded heart! How are you going to take responsibility for this?! Take responsibility! Give me back my stolen assistant seat!!!"
I waited for the rest of the rant… and then it was so absurd I couldn't even laugh. Valkyrie looked equally stunned; she stared at her friend with her mouth hanging open.
"You… you dragged me all the way out here for that? You said 'grudge' so I was actually worried about what this bastard might have done to you…"
"'That'? Do you know how important this was to me?! The two-person outlaw duo of Kid G and Black Friend is already water under the bridge…"
"Okay, fine, that explains you. But why did our Miss Chicken Foot join in on this idiot's nonsense?"
"Huh? I-I…"
Valkyrie hesitated, mumbling for a long while, then answered while carefully looking away.
"I… still can't believe what you said! Eve suffered terrible things in the past, but the people who did that are all dead now… so I came to catch you…"
"You're lying."
"Uh…?!"
"With your upright personality, if your real goal was simply to capture me, you would have formally requested to join the Union's operation instead of pulling a stunt like this. But from Jumper and Iron Fist's reactions earlier, that clearly isn't the case.
"In other words, you kept this secret from the Union, from everyone under it, even from the two people scheduled for today's operation… and came here with this—"
I flicked a glance at Kim Sejin, who was puffing her cheeks out like a blowfish and glaring at me.
"—gullible walking disaster."
"Why am I a gullible walking disaster?!"
"…… How can you be so sure?"
"Call it a fan's intuition after years of following Valkyrie. Now then, please tell us. Why did our Miss Chicken Foot go so far as to hide from the Union just to meet me? Is there something you want to hear from me? Or a truth you want to know? Or did you simply miss seeing my face?"
"……"
Valkyrie finally admitted she could never beat Kid G in a war of words. He had uncannily predicted that her reason for being here was something else entirely—and that prediction was correct. Out loud she had claimed she couldn't accept his words and had come to capture him, but of course that was a lie.
Ever since the day she witnessed Eve's memories, Valkyrie had been drowning in endless powerlessness, depression, doubt, and self-recrimination. It wasn't simply because the annihilation order made a face-to-face meeting with Kid G impossible. Beating and arresting other villains never lifted the gloom; no matter how much people praised her achievements or how loudly citizens cheered, nothing changed. The things Kid G had kept telling her echoed endlessly through her mind after she saw Eve's past. The more thoughts crowded her head, the more she was forced to confront a single question.
Am I… really doing the right thing by being here like this? Is this truly justice? Was the justice I learned and believed in… never justice at all?
At last deciding to face the suspicion inside her, Valkyrie lifted her head and fixed her slightly trembling eyes on the black eyes visible beneath Kid G's white mask.
"You… you always said it. That you only rob people who deserve it… trash who have it coming."
"I did."
"And that the reason you stole Eve, government property, was because the government itself is that kind of organization."
"Correct."
"Then what about this? This police station that steps in to protect citizens' safety and ease their inconvenience whenever heroes can't respond to an incident? Are they also among the 'people who deserve it' you talk about? Is that why you're going to rob this place right now?"
"Exactly."
An immediate answer. Valkyrie closed her mouth again. The real reason she had come here was simple: doubt about whether the thing she had believed in and followed was truly justice. For some baseless reason she felt that if it was Kid G, he could at least give her a minimum answer—and that feeling had led her to join Kim Sejin's idiotic plan just to reach this place.
I want to know.
Where the truth ended and the lies began. Whether the justice she had believed in had been nothing but an illusion. She wanted to find the answer through Kid G.
"…Then show me the evidence."
"Evidence, is it."
"If you really act according to your convictions, and if this police station really has committed acts that go against those convictions, then show me the proof. Show me what's true and what's false."
Kid G merely looked at Valkyrie with an unreadable expression and gave no answer. In the end it was Valkyrie who spoke first again.
"…You're not going to say anything?"
"Heh."
"…?"
"I've been waiting for those words to come out of your mouth at least once."
"?"
Valkyrie tilted her head in confusion; Kid G smiled and clapped his hands together once.
"Excellent, excellent. So basically you're asking me to become the shepherd who guides a lost little lamb, is that it? I'm good at that sort of thing. For my very favorite Miss Valkyrie, I'll put in even more effort than usual today."
"Fa…?!"
Both Valkyrie and Kim Sejin's eyes went round with shock. Kim Sejin recovered first and bellowed.
"Hold on a second, Kid G! What about the two-person duo we were supposed to form—"
"We'll talk about that later separately, so you just wait quietly with Miss Valkyrie, you black friend."
With that, Kid G placed a hand on the ground.
"I'll go fetch something that should prove useful to Miss Valkyrie. The fog will clear soon, so the two of you should hide yourselves somehow. And around midnight tonight, turn on the TV. You have to watch with your own eyes what happens."
Then Kid G opened the earth and vanished underground. For the first time, Valkyrie simply watched him disappear right in front of her without lunging to catch him, and let him go.