Encounter (1)
"Miss Lee Sera, please stand by. We're nearly at the drop point."
"Understood."
Inside the helicopter, the radio never stopped crackling.
Lee Sera stared out through the open air with a flat, empty gaze.
"......Tch."
She turned the same disgust over and over in her mind. A fight was waiting, and still the feeling would not die down. Whatever anyone else might say, there was only one cause.
The Commander.
She had always been revolting. Just now, she had been worse.
The more Lee Sera circled that thought, the tighter her chest grew, packed shut until she could hardly breathe. She couldn't endure it any longer.
"Pilot. I'm dropping here."
"......What? But—"
"Just open the door."
The helicopter door swung wide, and Lee Sera threw herself out without a backward glance. Sitting there in a daze, she would never have been able to forget it: the pride the Commander had ground underfoot.
Whump—
She hit, and the asphalt split apart beneath her. A tremendous cloud of dust roared up all around the impact.
......My body feels stronger than it was.
She had dropped bare from several dozen meters up, and there wasn't a scratch on her. That wasn't all. Lee Sera was certain of her ability. Right now, even a B-Rank Angel—she could flatten one in an instant. She was sure of it.
A lonely stretch of road, nothing left on it but abandoned cars. The civilians had been evacuated long ago. No one was here but Lee Sera.
"......"
No one, unless you counted the Angel burning inside its halo.
Its body was violet. It wore the shape of a human being whose muscle had swollen past all reason, and yet its face could not be seen. A robe grown into the flesh itself was drawn down deep over where a face should have been.
"You."
"......"
No answer. It could understand human speech. It could not speak it.
"Commander."
It resembled that bitch so closely that her skin crawled, and her mood curdled further.
With a slow, strangely dignified grace, the Angel began to walk toward her.
"Get lost."
She shut her right eye once, then opened it. The trigger.
Telekinesis
What followed was a result no one had foreseen.
A splintering crack.
"S-Sera. What did you just do? Just now—for an instant—"
Luna's voice spilled into her ear, thick with confusion. Even Lee Sera could only stare, eyes wide, turning in place. She hadn't grasped what had happened.
"The Angel? Where did it go?"
Had it hidden itself? In that single blink?
......No.
When she looked again at the place where it had stood, she saw it: the Angel, crushed flat, driven through the asphalt and buried in the ground beneath. Violet fluid poured from the body. Across the face the robe had hidden, tentacles shaped like human organs twitched, faint and fine.
And then the twitching stopped.
"Huh?"
B-Rank. A higher entity that even Lee Sera, the strongest unit in Korea, could not be sure of defeating. That higher entity had just had its life taken by a single use of her ability.
......Why?
Why? Why had she grown this strong?
Rotors hammered the air. From the broadcast helicopter that had been filming the scene to Luna Luvia, briefing the situation from the Command Center in the Commander's stead, every one of them held to silence. So did the military units that had thrown every weapon and piece of equipment they had into a cordon several layers deep. Across the shared radio net, there was nothing but quiet.
"Ha...."
Now, truly, the Security Bureau had no one who could replace her. Which meant the Commander.
You'd better be ready.
The price for trampling Lee Sera's pride was anything but small.
......And yet.
Without thinking, she touched her own cheek. She was certain of it. Just as she herself would have done, the Commander had meant to strike her hard across the face—and at the very last instant, as if she simply could not bring herself to do it, had let the strength go. All Lee Sera had felt, in the end, was the warmth of the Commander's hand.
"..."
Was it still there? She couldn't tell.
Kim Hana.
The medical officer could not hide her horror.
"Who did this to her? Who?"
One glance was enough. The Commander's condition was grave. Her unconscious body shuddered in fine, relentless tremors.
"What are you standing there for? Get that jacket off, now!"
She tore the suit away and checked the signs on the skin. Along the flank, the pelvis, and the small of the back, the flesh had gone a bruised, deathly black. Everywhere else she was pale past all reason, the cold sweat slicking her until that white skin threw back the infirmary lights.
Kim Hana laid a careful hand against her side. The flesh was rigid. Something inside was swelling taut.
"This is a retroperitoneal hemorrhage no matter how I look at it. Why wasn't she brought here before it got this bad?"
"I-I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize to me! Apologize to the Commander!"
Cold sweat beaded on Kim Hana's brow.
......What do I do?
She needed a CT, or an ultrasound, to see which organ had ruptured and how much blood had pooled. After that she would have to open her up at once.
There's no time!
If only they had transferred her sooner. If only she had arrived while the Commander was still conscious...... There was no time left for regret.
The nearest major hospital, right now...... no. Even that's too late!
The Commander would not hold out long. Her color had already begun to drain to a terrible pallor. The Security Bureau's infirmary was nothing like a general hospital equipped for surgery. It was a clinic, of a sort, for agents and units—somewhere to treat a mild fever, a bruise, or... to disinfect a wound and wrap a bandage, the way she had done for the Commander only yesterday......
"Huh?"
Kim Hana looked closely at the Commander's hand. The bandage was gone. It should have stayed on for a day or two at least. And the hand......
......What.
There wasn't a single wound. As if, in the space of a day, all of it had regenerated.
In that instant, something flashed through her mind.
"An ability."
"......What?"
"No. It's nothing. Just—wait. Step outside for a moment."
The agent who had hauled the Commander to the infirmary on Luna's orders stared at her, lost.
"You're a man! There's something we need to check, woman to woman, so get out. All of you!"
She drove the others out. When only she and the Commander remained, Kim Hana's eyes went to the box set beside the door. The new Ability Test Kit. The very thing the Commander had refused so stubbornly.
"Maybe......"
Without exception, anyone who possessed an ability had a strengthened body. The degree differed from person to person, but the body evolved itself, at the very least so its owner would not die an absurd death to their own power. Rapid regeneration was one of those traits.
The Commander—don't tell me......
No. There was no time to hesitate. Kim Hana shook her head. Why the Commander had not wanted to be tested did not matter in the slightest. If she possessed even the smallest shred of an ability—
I can save her.
Right now she would do only what she had to do. Only what she was able to do.
From the medical refrigerator, kept at a killing cold, she took a bottle of red liquid. A Regeneration Potion. It drove cells to multiply at a furious rate, helping torn organs and ruptured vessels knit themselves closed. An ordinary person could not use it. Must not. Every cell in the body would regenerate and die without end, collapsing in on itself until the flesh broke down and they died.
She swallowed.
Was it... all right to use? If the Commander was not an ability-holder—if she was only a body that could never become the unit she had longed to be, an ordinary person with nothing but a little luck—
......She dies.
She would die in agony, in a horrific state, every cell in her body coming apart. And Kim Hana could not settle the question with the kit. The test would take more than ten minutes. But leaving the Commander as she was meant death all the same.
Then rather—
"I'll do it."
The responsibility would be entirely hers. She was the medical officer, in name at least, and she had left the Commander unattended until it came to this. It was only right that she carry that much risk.
So she opened the Regeneration Potion slowly, lifted the Commander's head with a light hand, and poured it into her mouth. If the Commander had an ability, she would recover. Kim Hana held that head gently, her own hands trembling, and prayed with everything she had.
Please. Please, please......
And the desperate prayer reached somewhere. The Commander began to convulse, just a little.
"Kugh......"
She brought up the blood that had pooled inside her, and then her face eased, and she breathed. The potion had begun to work.
"Haa......"
Kim Hana let out a shaking breath and wiped the cold sweat from her face. Thank goodness. Truly, thank goodness. She hadn't lost the Commander.
The words slipped out of her before she knew it.
In that moment—
"Medical Officer, may we come in?"
The male agents' voices came through the door.
"Ah, just a moment..."
Kim Hana scrambled for an excuse. The Commander, it seemed, wanted her ability kept hidden. The potion must not be discovered either. If she quietly replaced what she had used later, no record would remain. An excuse...... hmm.
She stared at the Commander's face. Beautiful enough to bewitch even her own sex—and yet those sharp eyes were ringed with dark circles that did not suit them at all.
......Overwork. She would make the story fit that, somehow. That was what she decided.
"You can come in now...... ah."
Unbidden, the thought rose. The Commander. Just what kind of ability did she have, that she had tried so hard to hide it?
Slowly, Kim Hana reached into the box and drew out a single kit.