i hope u like body horror cause spoilers, there's body horror.
7 "Past ─ ─ The Kiriko case"
when Kiriko arrived at the hall where Erma and Seina had been it was after the equipment was removed by the swat team. she was hot and sweaty and her shirt was sticking to her back. she desired to go home take a bath and go to bed.
At home after she had called Seina and hung up. she took off her clothes and threw them into the washing machine. she went past her kitchen and down the stairs that lead to her basement. she got in her tub and and let out a big sigh of relaxation.
It was a japanise style bath made of natural rocks and juraian wood similar to japanese cypress. it was as large and gorgeous as the house she lived in. She stretched out and relaxed.Her bath was her only luxury in her life.
she reached out to grab a glass of cold tea she had left by the bath for herself with her right hand and she heard her hand speak to her.
----------------
She remembered a time long ago when she was still a girl. It was the first time She had met a beautiful woman who was visiting her village.
"Hello. are You Kiriko-chan? Nice to meet you, I'm Minaho Masaki."
She had come to visit Kiriko's mother.
In the living room a woman named Minaho was talking casually with her mother. it was strange to her that her mother used her honorific words towards her even though she was younger looking then her mother.
she later learned that in the village they had rituals to inform their children they were aliens which is what they were discussing.
But in Kiriko's case she found out on accident when she was young due to a horrible incident.
That night, Minaho got a phone call that was like the beginning of a nightmare.
"What was that!?"
"Kiriko, take Kai and go to your room!"
her mother tsukiko said with a tough expression. kai wanted to watch tv and was mad he had to leave.
"How did you miss that space pirate?"
She only heard bits and pieces of what minaho was saying but she seemed to be panicked like an emergency was happening.
"That assimilation type is truly....! ... That's why I ran away so far ... Good luck, that's it ... .......!"
"So what is your decision, Seto ...? ..... Yes ..."
The telephone call ended.
"What's wrong Minaho?"
"I have to Collect the responsible officials of the village immediately at my father's house! I'm leaving now."
"I understand"said Kiriko.
she felt uneasy but she took kai upstairs and put him to bed and then she snuck out to follow minaho. she had disappeared.
but Kiriko saw her silhouette against the mountain in the distance and followed after her to the shrine.
"Is it an assimilation type bioweapon?"
kirko heard the adults say as she hid behind a bush and listened to the conversations of the adults that leaked out from the inside.
"Yes, I captured a space pirate battleship in this solar system just a few hours ago"
"In addition ... ... In the past few years, cases where space pirates have approached our solar system have been rapidly increasing"
Kiriko didn't understand what katsuhito was talking about.
but from how urgent it was she could tell it wasn't made up or an act.
(I thought that there was something secret about our family, but ... ... No way ... ... nothing like this.)
Kiriko had noticed the incongruities of the people in the masaki family's village and the rest of the Japanese people she met and had noticed something was off .
"These pirates have been tracked by Seto for hundreds of year ... ...."
"Human trafficking, they are experts in kidnapping."
"Is not it a big organization, if Seto's been chasing them long how have they not being destroyed?"
"The scale itself is not very large, but even if we crush it and catch their leader a few times, It just reforms."
"The subordinates just reform it again. it's a real pain."
The bio weapon had been used once before on the nearest inhabited planet next to earth and it sent everything in the ecosystem of a large area of the planet into extinction. it was just a prototype however and they expected they would try to test the full version on the earth since it was the next closest planet.
It was like a virus that spread into every kind of animal first through animal contact, then by water, and then by wind. It was fatal within minutes of infection.
----------------------------------------------------------------Translator note: small organization, always gets a new head, seto is tracking it. If it smells like the shank guild it's probably the shank guild.
Also in the past few years, the only thing that changed was that Seina was born.
I.E. Kiriko is learning that Seina attracts pirates to earth.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Kiriko jumped out of the bushes and ran off. she surprised Katsuhito and Minaho.
she tried quickly to get to Seina but the path to his house was two miles away and she couldn't make it there on bike in time. she remembered there was a scooter at the foot of the shrine and it had a key in it (since it was a house in the country and there was no one who would steal it.)
So she stole it. she was in elementary school and she didn't have a licence but her mother taught her how to drive a motorcycle in case of an emergency.
"Seina!" she was worried that Seina would be the first victim of such a thing and when she arrived to his house her fears had become reality.
the lush green landscape near his home was dead silent she couldn't hear any barks or any insect noises that she expected to hear.
she sensed a nearby predatory animal that had been infected hiding and noticed it was coming at her. she froze on the spot instinctively and didn't move.
It confused the animal but it found a new prey. Seina came outside and it began moving towards him.
"No!" Kiriko got off of the motorcycle and ran after him recklessly she grabbed the animal. she felt a bad feeling in her right hand. an intense instinctual hatred. she felt like she wanted to vomit but she didn't let go.
"Seina-chan! Run away ......!" Kiriko shouted to warn Seina.
she felt her right hand disappear as it melted into her and it deformed into a shape without fingers. it grew two eyes and a long horizontal mouth that laughed. she shouted but her voice didn't come out. her left hand blocked off her mouth instinctively so Seina wouldn't hear her scream and come running to her aid.
(I have to get away from here)
she began to walk away as she endured the intense pain coming from her arm. she was fighting her fear more than she was fighting her pain.
a copy of her face emerged from her right arm it assimilated her arm and giggled as it spoke to Kiriko through her mind.
── Hey, do you like that girl?
(I have to get away ... from Seina)
─ ─ So, who's Seina.
(I have to get away ... ...)
─ ─ Why? Do you like him?
(i should get far away ...... I Should ......)
── Then let's be together. My body and mind ... with yours.
(Apart ... ... ... ...)
This body is mine.
(............)
── you are my sacrifice ... my blood meat.
(...── What?)
(I will protect Seina ... ....)
It was that feeling that supported Kiriko's spirit and that thought was saving Kiriko.
── gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!
"eh?" Kiriko said
she felt her right arm as well as the thing in her mind disappear suddenly. her arm was severed from the base. the last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was minaho with a glowing sword and the stunned clone of her face on the ground.
-----------
"Although we have determined that the captured target is the core, we are doing a precision scan the area that we found it in, just in case, but there have been no abnormalities recognized at the moment within a 30 mile radius."
---
when she regained consciousness minaho thanked Kiriko for her bravery. Kiriko didn't recognize the other person next to her.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine." said seto to Kiriko gently but with power in her voice.
She looked at her right hand. it had been regenerated like it hadn't been severed in the first place. there was no further aftermath from that nightmare but sometimes Kiriko could hear her right hand speak.
---
"What should I do?" it was speaking to her and revealing her inner desires that she refused to acknowledge.
while in the bath Kiriko opened up a holo-monitor screen to watch Seina sleep. his roommates, who were still wearing bags on their heads, were asleep but Seina was tossing and turning under his covers.
"Seina-chan ... don't you know about this yet?"
they weren't on earth. sleep was easy to control.
Kiriko accessed the systems of Seina's room and sprinkled sleep-introducing perfume.
Seina got tired soon began snoring quietly.
"Oh yeah, I should also remove that mark."
It was very expensive to use the program that would remove those marks but with Seina's finances it wasn't a big deal.
"It will be tough from here on out starting tomorrow. Please have good rest."
The mark disappeared from Seinas happy looking sleeping face.
"hehe ... ... cute"
"hehe ... ... cute"
she heard a voice parrot back at her from behind her.
"Kyaaaaaaaaa !!!" she was surprised to hear a voice behind her and she got up suddenly and hit her head and fell over into the tub.
Amane who was peeping in on her laughed
" are you Alright?"
"..............."
"Oh, you have that expression on your face like you have lots of questions you want to ask me." Amane said with embarrassing smile.
------
"First of all, I'd like to ask you how you got here."
"Airi taught me the security code"
"And ... what did you come here for?"
"I was asked to build a relationship with my co workers."
"You came in here teasing me!"
A blue streak appeared in Kiriko's temple.
"well no one can stay mad at someone when they brought the sake i brought"
she showed off a booze bottle she had brought proudly
"Wow ... ...."
it was royal tree sake. enough to buy a small continent based upon how much it had gone for in auctions in the past.
"Well in that case... let's go to the living room."
kriko got a wine opener from the kitchen adjacent to the living room and opened it up.
"Hey, why don't we just drink it in the bath?"
"I DO NOT drink alcohol in my bath!"Kiriko said putting cups on her table roughly.
she poured ice into them and the wine into two glasses while mumbling.
"this has such a nice smell" Amane says smelling the wine as she handed a glass to Kiriko
"I've had counterfeit ones before, but the real stuff is way different" Amane said
Kiriko burst out laughing. many copy products were made and put on auction of course because of its rarity, it had many unfounded rumors about it's health benefits so it went for unusually high prices at auction.
but even more dubious knock offs of it were on the market. there were two types. one type was synthesized by a company owned by the person who originally obtained some at an auction. the other knock off was... made by Jurai.
(Minaho-sama ...... does it cause it's just a good business opportunity.)
"To the Celebration of Seina yamada's safe arrival and admission to the academy"
this caused Kiriko to yell at Amane over Kiriko's belief that it was all Amane's fault that he was here. they slamed back a glass and it overwhelmed Kiriko with happiness. so she wasn't as mad. they talked about how good the sake was and then Amane mixed them both a cocktail with it.
Kiriko asked Amane what her story with Seina was.
"No, it is no use talking to you even if you tell you."
she asked Amane what she thought about Seina and told her how Seina had come to her house with her lipstick on his face.
she had a bit of a murderous look in her eyes when she brought it up.
Amane asked if Kiriko was mad because she gave him CPR or because he got caught up in the shock wave of her landing.
Kiriko asked her if it was just CPR.
"Well ... eeehhh ... aaaaaa........."
Amane's eyelids became heavy and she fall over unconscious.
Kiriko shook her but there was no reaction. "Hey...! What's wrong?" then she too blacked out unconscious.
there were nanomachines in the wine that Airi had given Amane to give to Kiriko. around Kiriko a number of light rings spread from her body. they were faint and hardly visible in the dim room they were in.
Minaho reported back to seto the status of Kiriko. seto stood up when she head the news. she had been having tea with her night shift operators.
"What's the status of her guard program?"
"It's in a frozen state"
Washu's entity picture (i think that means her 3rd dimensional god form projection)appeared before Seto's eyes without notice.
And the operators who had tea in their mouths spit it all out at once and bowed.
"Don't mind me. please continue as normal."
"Hey Washu-chan, Kiriko-chan is sleeping, what do you think?"
they discussed using Kiriko as an experiment to test an experimental guardian system and something about a vaccine. *
For now everyone of the main protagonists were sleeping but tomorrow they were in for an uproar.
end of volume
*(I'm not sure if this means they completely removed the virus or not. but it seems like that's what they are implying. this was a hard section to understand.)
After word
kajishima starts off apologizing for it taking so long between novel releases the first was released in 2003 the second was 2005. owch. he wishes he could publish at a faster rate but his main job is keeping him very busy and he has become stretched quite thin. he vows to aim for shorter intervals though. he remarks on how between the two volumes not even a day has passed in the story (in fact no time has passed it begins exactly where volume 1 ends) but the tv version aired several years before this volumes publishing. this book however really only covers the 5th episode.
It took the tv show 2 years to get from episode one to episode 26 but because he could only put in the minimum amount of story about Seina's progress from admission to training to graduation he ended up with considerably less episodes. he is publishing the novels with the intention to show parts of the show he couldn't draw or show on tv.
THE END
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