The Instinct Awakens
The afternoon of the day after that incident. As luck would have it, I was in a good mood. I even went to a bar I normally wouldn't have visited on my own and, with uncharacteristic generosity, treated myself to a round. How should I describe it? It felt like I'd gone from being the trash at the bottom of society, a person with no tomorrow, to an optimistic new graduate full of dreams and schemes for the future. Getting drunk and talking about what comes next. When you think about it, this is ordinary human life. Of course, it might be a life far removed from what passes for human existence in this era. After all, in just over a decade the whole world had been turned into a wasteland. Infrastructure still functioned, but inside everything was rotting away in abundance. So perhaps I was quite blessed to have even this small mental comfort.
Yeah. This is what living feels like.
The version of me that doesn't fight isn't me at all. I spent my whole life on the battlefield. It's an era more familiar with blood and steel than peace. Fighting is the only thing I can do. When I lie down in bed, the battlefield still unfolds behind my eyes, yet in reality I was simply rotting away in silence. I have to fight to prove my worth. That's the only way to survive. Maybe that's why I even developed the delusion that the corporation had discarded me because I could no longer fight. Forgetting all cause and effect, the past in my head arbitrarily broke apart and reassembled itself. The conclusion this false delusion reached was simple: I had been abandoned by the corporation because I could no longer fight. I had lost the value of my existence and been reduced to disposable trash that wouldn't matter if it disappeared.
But now it's different.
I can fight. I'm not a useless human. I'm not livestock that does nothing but consume food and take up space. I have purpose. Even if that purpose can only be found in battle, I still have purpose. That was the realization I gained yesterday.
My smile reflected in the golden beer filling the mug. I forced the liquid down my throat. It tasted only bitter now. As I drank, I recalled the events of the previous night.
The gangsters gathered in that tunnel were, as expected, nothing but trash. Every last one of them looked tough on the outside, but inside they were no different from ordinary people who'd only learned how to pull a trigger. Their accuracy was garbage, which meant they had no chance of easily defeating me as I methodically picked them off with a single pistol and three magazines.
Once the pistol ran dry, I snatched one of the rifles they'd been using. The recoil was so fierce it actually made suppressing enemies harder than with the handgun. Still, the gap in skill was so vast that it didn't hinder me as much as it should have. After about a dozen of them had gone down, they finally seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. The ones who'd been brazenly exposing themselves and spraying bullets at the start now began to take cover behind pillars and wrecked cars, slowly tightening their noose. It was more organized than before, but they apparently didn't realize using abandoned vehicles for cover was a terrible idea. Two or three more went down while hiding behind car doors that were quickly turning into sieves.
…Tsk.
But the time I'd spent controlling my fire hadn't been insignificant. While I focused on precise shots, they were wildly spraying bullets from every direction, gradually closing in. In the end, I still won. It wasn't a perfect victory, though. I failed to stop the last one from getting right up close.
It was probably their leader—the biggest man who'd been blocking the tunnel entrance. Once I noticed him, he had already emerged from the shadows and was charging straight at me.
"Ugh…!"
And that's where I made the wrong call. If I'd been in my right mind, I would have known my current body was weaker than his and at least tried to lessen the impact. But the previous battle had already sent my mind spiraling back to the past. I'd forgotten I'd become a frail girl. So instead of defending, I chose to stand my ground and counter. The result was my body being sent flying pathetically through the air.
"Guh…!"
When was the last time I'd felt this weak? A single punch from a healthy adult male had turned my entire body into a bloody mess. Not a single organ or bone inside me was unharmed. Most of them were already reforming thanks to the shape-memory alloy, but the impact had still been massive. Unexpected pain hammered every inch of me.
"Ha, haha…!!"
Yet for some reason my mind remained perfectly clear. No, it felt even more alive than before. My vision was sharp, my breathing fierce. I'd never felt more alive than in that moment.
"Hup…!"
With a clear head, I endured the pain, immediately grabbed the submachine gun lying nearby, and opened fire on the man rushing in for a follow-up attack. I pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Tatata-tang.
"Kk, kuhk…!"
Finally his body collapsed with a heavy thud. Even that steel-like frame couldn't withstand dozens of bullets. The man writhed on the ground.
"Haa, you're still alive?"
What cockroach-like vitality. I felt a strange sense of kinship.
But I need to finish this properly.
I forced my screaming body upright and picked up another gun, walking over to him.
"W-wait…!"
His face, illuminated by the light coming from outside the tunnel, was twisted with raw terror. Even someone who had acted so arrogantly at first couldn't escape fear when death was staring him in the face.
I pulled the trigger without hesitation, putting a bullet through his skull. I was about to grab some medicine and leave when his next words made me freeze.
"You…"
"Hm?"
He was staring wide-eyed at the gun pointed at him. No, not at the gun—at my arm beyond the muzzle.
"Are you… a Hound?"
The unexpected question momentarily froze my thoughts. But I quickly regained my composure and answered indifferently.
"What if I am?"
He seemed to understand everything from my reaction. He let out a hollow laugh.
"Now that you mention it, I have heard the rumors. All those Hounds disappearing right after the war ended… people talked about it like some ghost story."
"Oh? Is that so?"
"There's no way they would've used a kid like you as a Hound… So that's it. They stuffed you into that pathetic body to neutralize the danger. A classic case of discarding the hound after the hunt."
Click.
I gripped the gun tighter and pressed it hard into his wound. He thrashed and screamed. I shoved my boot into his screaming mouth.
"So what exactly are you trying to say?"
"Kuhk, kuhk! We—we have information you'd be interested in!! So don't kill us!! We'll help you!!"
"I don't know where you get the confidence to spout such arrogance. Do you even know what I want?"
"From the military!! From the corporations! Don't you want revenge on those rotten bastards who treat you differently depending on how useful you are?!"
It was a desperate cry. Maybe because death was right in front of him. Normally I would've pulled the trigger without hesitation. But for some reason, I found myself strangely intrigued.
I pushed the muzzle deeper into his wound.
"Your justification is too weak. Try making up something more convincing."
"Kk, kuhk… Th-that is…"
He'd been writhing in pain, but suddenly his eyes lit up as if he'd remembered something. In a trembling voice, he spoke.
"Right, you came to buy drugs this time, didn't you? Do you think one hit and that's the end of it?"
"Hmm… true enough."
"Y-yeah!! It's not something you swallow once and forget! You need a steady supply to live a stable, comfortable life!!"
"It's a drug. What the hell is comfortable about it? At least make sense, you bastard."
"Urk!!"
"Still, it's not a bad offer. It's true that a comfortable life is pretty far from my reach right now."
His expression brightened a little. He spoke urgently, trying to ride the momentum.
"Right! In this world, how many people can stay sane without those drugs? If you can't live comfortably, at least you can enjoy the feeling of—"
"Stop talking nonsense and get to the point. What do you want from me?"
He swallowed hard. I was already prepared to pull the trigger if his next words were as worthless as before. But the information that came out of his mouth was something I couldn't easily ignore.
"We… we have information on Fang. We know where you can get it."
"…Fang?"
"Yes, Fang. Those monstrous things you Hounds use as weapons. We have the information. We were actually planning to raid the place soon."
I hesitated for a moment. If I stepped into this, it felt like I'd be crossing a river with no way back. This was real crime. The current situation could still be spun as cleaning up gangsters in a sting operation, but getting involved with Fang was something else entirely.
Yet strangely, I kept feeling drawn to it. My hands itched. The thought that I'd regret ignoring this opportunity kept growing stronger.
Now that I think about it.
I looked down at my leg pressing down on the man's body. It was covered in blood and filthy, but it wasn't shaking. Even without taking the medicine, it felt like I had. The conflict in my head grew more intense.
What exactly do I want?
The sound of gunfire that had echoed through the tunnel for so long still rang in my ears. The flashes of muzzle fire, the bullets that would tear huge holes in my body if I made even the slightest mistake—they were vivid in my mind. It should have been terrifying.
But it's comfortable.
Why did I feel such overwhelming peace right now?
I looked at the man holding up both hands and trembling violently.
Is this what I want?
No, that couldn't be right. Who in their right mind would want a battlefield where people killed and died? Anyone would prefer to live safely, stretching out their legs in a warm bed.
I don't know anymore.
Yes. I'd retired, so wasn't it time to rest? The world was a mess with the corporations overhauling the entire national system, but at least it should be livable until I died.
Quietly…
Yes. If I just lived quietly, there shouldn't be any problems. I didn't have anyone to take revenge on. The corporations were rotten, but only moderately so. I had no particular reason to seek vengeance against them.
Hmm.
As I thought that, my body suddenly trembled.
Why am I looking for a reason to fight?
My breath stopped. No, it wouldn't come at all. Explosions that shouldn't be audible kept echoing in my ears. My hand holding the gun shook violently as I squeezed out the words.
"…Fine. Let's work together for now."
"Really?"
"However, if it looks like things will go wrong, I'll abandon you without hesitation and hand you over to the police."
"O-of course! Of course! We won't demand unconditional cooperation!!"
I stared blankly around the area. Then I spotted the remote detonator and micro mine lying on the ground. I picked them up and shoved the micro mine into the man's wound. He convulsed and screamed.
"Shut up."
Ignoring him, I pushed the mine all the way in and set the detonator. It would explode immediately if it moved too far from the flesh it was embedded in.
This should be enough.
A single micro mine could blow up an entire room, so it would suffice.
I showed the remote detonator to the panting man.
"It's a safety measure. A safety measure. If you remove the mine from your body, you die. If the raid fails, you die. Until it's successful, I have nothing to do with any of you. Understood?"
Covered in tears and snot, he nodded frantically.
"Good. I'll leave you my number, so contact me later."
And with that, our deal was made.