Chapter 224: Life and Duty

Although he had lost one arm, Akira did swing his blade with all his might. But even so, it amounted to nothing to Tsubaki as she was able to stop it with no effort at all.

Akira was confused. After all, Tsubaki just suddenly appeared out of thin air. There was also the fear from how Tsubaki was able to stop his blade so effortlessly, the suspicion as to why she was here, and the fact that he ended up attacking someone connected to Alpha. 

In contrast to his confusion, Tsubaki was smiling gently at him.

“Don’t worry, I have no wish to fight you. So please sheath your blade.”

Akira could not do that since he was still in the middle of a battle. He suddenly remembered about Airi and the rest of the girls and quickly glanced around to check on them. That was when he was surprised. Other than him, everyone was unconscious.

Akira’s confusion only got deeper as he looked back at Tsubaki. His guesses only served to give more questions than answers.

“…Why did you save me?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Then why are they unconscious?”

“Probably because their local network connection had been suddenly cut-off, which placed them under an immense burden. They relied too much on the head of the node to process data. Losing the head caused a big amount of data to stream to their individual nodes. I bet they couldn’t withstand the stream of data and fainted.”

Her answer only caused Akira to be even more confused as he did not understand what she mean at all. Nonetheless, Tsubaki smiled and continued.

“It wasn’t me, and that’s the most important part.”

Tsubaki let go of his blade. Akira was still not sure what the heck was going on but he sheathed his blade. If Tsubaki had no wish to fight him, it was a good thing for him as well, after all, he did not have any hope of winning in the first place. He understood at least that much.

“…So then, what do you need from me?”

“Just some small talk, if I may.”

Akira thought that it might be bad to have a conversation with Tsubaki without Alpha around. But at the same time, he also thought that it would be a bad idea to tell Tsubaki that he had lost connection to Alpha. So he deliberately stiffened his expression and gave a vague reply.

“Sorry but I’m busy right now, can you save it for later? Like, you know, with all these fighting around the area…”

“In that case, I can guarantee your safety while you’re having a conversation with me, how about that?”

“…Uhhh, I’m basically so close to fainting already. I don’t think I can talk for long…”

“Don’t worry, you can have this to help you.”

Tsubaki offered a capsule to Akira.

“This is?”

“Some kind of medicine.”

Akira could not help but frown.

“…Some kind? So it’s not exactly medicine?”

“It depends on your definition. For example, let’s say that there’s a treatment to fully grow a prosthetic arm, with the same effect the form of a pill, which applies to normal people with biological bodies. Will you still call that medicine? I guarantee that it has no bad side effects. Well, that was only an example though, this one won’t let you regrow your lost arm, my apologies.”

Akira hesitated, but he decided to take that capsule and swallow it. Medicines were indispensable especially when he was already in such a bad state. So he could not refuse it just because it was a suspicious capsule.

The moment Akira swallowed the capsule, he could feel it immediately take effect. The stinging pain in his head quickly retreated together with the pain all over his body. It also greatly helped him recover from his fatigue. The medicine was extremely effective as always, although he found that weird, he decided to put that question for later thinking that it might be normal for old-world medicines.

“This place is rather dirty for a friendly chat, shall we change location?”

Tsubaki just ignored the atrocities on the floor and started walking casually. Akira glanced at the unconscious girls and thought that it might be a good idea to finish them while he still had the chance. But since it did not seem Tsubaki would wait for him to do that, he decided to just leave and followed Tsubaki with a conflicted face.

After Akira and Tsubaki left the place, someone else appeared in the room. That person went to what was left of Katsuya. As he stepped closer and closer, he left footprints on top of the pool of blood. The image on top of those footprints distorted and showed a cyborg in a black coat. That cyborg had just disengaged its optical camouflage.

The cyborg was a guy with a head completely made of metal. He peered at the dead Katsuya and lightly sighed.

“I guess even the emergency life support system will not save him. It might be too late but I guess I’ll still clean this up. In the worst-case scenario, it can at least be a good material to use.”

The guy took out his blade and cut Katsuya, who was already cut into two, horizontally into 4 different pieces.

Tsubaki took Akira to the roof of the building. There, she looked at what was going on around the building and said with a rather pained voice.

“It’s such an awful view, don’t you think? In the absence of the caretaker AI, or an AI that has decided to abandon their area, most of such areas end up like this. It is really lamentable. Do you still remember the area under my care? It’s like heaven compared to this place, isn’t it? That’s because I’m faithfully fulfilling my duties.”

“Ah, right, I see.”

Akira was a Hunter. Basically, he was on the side of those who helped to cause the awful state of the ruin. He ended up interpreting Tsubaki’s words as a roundabout way to sarcastically reproach him. The awkwardness caused him to only be able to give an equally awkward reply.

“So then, what do you want to talk about…?”

Akira tried to get into the main subject in order to run away from the awkwardness. Tsubaki just smiled and stared at Akira, who stiffened his expression and stared back at her while fighting back the urge to look away.

“To be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t expect you to be the one to survive. Ah, please don’t take this wrongly. I do evaluate you highly. Although, I can’t deny if you say that I don’t care whichever one survived. But please keep in mind that I didn’t do anything to make the result agree with my original prediction.”

“I-Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Although when Akira looked back at this exchange later, there would most likely be a lot of questions spawning from that statement. But he did not have the leeway to think about it at the moment. And since he did not ask anything, Tsubaki also did not explain anything further.

“…So then, let’s get into the main subject. I’ve come to you with an offer.”

“An offer?”

“Yes. As I mentioned before, working as a caretaker AI is not easy. So I want you to help me do exactly that. Of course, I’m planning to give any kind of payment that you want as long as it’s under my capability. Even the trash from my area should fetch a good sum of money outside. If you want it, I can also give you other things as well. I can also pay you with something else, for example, a right to live inside my area. If it’s possible, I want to get down into the details right now, would that be okay with you?”

“Wait just for a sec there!”

“Yes. Please calm down and ask me any questions you have. If it’s something that I can answer, I’ll gladly answer them for you. I promise I won’t lie. So calm down, and think carefully of what you can get from this deal.”

Akira looked so confused. He was overwhelmed by all the questions that suddenly popped out of his mind. And since Tsubaki just stood calmly and gracefully next to him, it made his expression stick out even more.

Akira managed to gather his focus and reminded himself to calm down. He repeatedly took deep breaths. Every time his mind wandered to pursue one of the questions that popped up in his mind, he shook his head to get his mind back on track. He did so while still controlling his breathing. Thanks to that, he was able to force himself to calm down.

Akira heaved a final big sigh. With this, he had fully returned back to his usual self. After using his calm mind to think of his options, Akira then gave his answer.

“I’m sorry but I have to refuse.”

Tsubaki raised her eyebrows.

“May I ask why?”

“Well, as I said before, I’m in the middle of a request from Alpha, so I would have to get your offer through Alpha first. And actually, at the moment, I can’t connect to Alpha at all. So it’s rather problematic for me if you bring me that offer right now, you see…”

“I already know that you can’t connect to Alpha. That’s exactly why I approached you with my offer right now so that she won’t get in the way.”

“Like I said, I hope that you would get that offer passed through Alpha first though…”

“I did say that I will answer any of your questions as long as I can answer them and I did promise not to lie, this includes questions about her as well, you know. After all, this is important to guarantee a smooth negotiation. At the moment, you can ask me anything without her getting in your way of knowing what you ask from me. Isn’t this a good chance for you as well? Don’t worry. You might be worried that she would know of this conversation, but I can guarantee you that won’t happen.”

Tsubaki said so and smiled gently at Akira. But in contrast to that, he noticed something suspicious.

“In that case, let me ask you why you can say that with 100 per cent certainty?”

“It’s because she will never be able to get through the current jamming.”

“The jamming might fade away in the middle of our conversation though?”

“That won’t happen.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m the source of that jamming.”

Akira’s gaze turned sharp, while Tsubaki still maintained her gentle smile.

“…I’m sure you’re doing it for a reason, but can you turn it off already?”

“I’m afraid I have to refuse.”

Akira’s expression turned sterner. But that was all there was to it, there was nothing more he could do than that.

“It has been quite a long time since you are not under her watch, right? So I recommend you take this chance the best you can.”

“Yeah sure, and this is the price I have to pay for that. My APC is gone, my bike is also gone, both my rifles are broken, and I only have one arm left now. I had more than enough of this.”

“No need to worry, I guarantee your safety at the moment.”

Akira sighed and rubbed his hair with his remaining hand. He went silent to think of a way to fix his situation, but nothing came up in his mind.

“…Let me at least ask you this. It’s not like you’ll kill me if I refuse your offer, right?”

“Of course, I won’t do that. I’ll just leave you here. Although, it’s not like I will do anything more than that even if you consider that the same as me abandoning you here to die. But if you accept the offer, I’ll at least escort you back to Kugamayama city. I’m really sorry but I’m under strict policy as well, so I can’t just leave the area under my care without a good reason. I hope you can understand.”

“I see.”

Akira once again was at loss on what to do next. He was hoping to rely on Alpha’s support to get back to the city, but in order to do that, he would have to make Tsubaki turn off the jamming. Even if he wanted to postpone the negotiation indefinitely, he did not have anything to offer in exchange. It would have been easy if he just accepted that offer, but that would defeat the purpose of contacting Alpha in the first place.

Seeing Akira could not make up his mind, Tsubaki smiled gently at him and suggested.

“If you’re afraid that my request would disrupt your request with her, you can ask me to make sure that won’t happen as one of your rewards and I’ll comply the best I can.”

Akira did not expect it at all. Seeing that, Tsubaki thought that she finally got a reaction from him and deeply smiled.

But after a short pause, Akira then said with a serious face.

“I’ll say this again, but I can’t accept your offer. I have no wish to abandon Alpha’s request. With that being said, if it’s a request that has gone through Alpha, I might consider accepting it. I’m sorry but I have no wish to change my mind about that part.”

Tsubaki raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“Forgive me for saying this, but you don’t know anything about her. For you, she’s nothing but an existence who calls itself Alpha. If you’re afraid of her for having such power with an unknown origin, you may ask things about her from me, I will answer as much as I can. Humans are naturally scared of the unknown and the remedy of that is knowledge. So, is there anything you want to know?”

“…About Alpha, huh? To be honest, I do want to know, but I have no confidence to act as if I don’t know even when I know, so I thank you for your offer but I have to refuse.”

Tsubaki tilted her head.

“I can’t understand you. I don’t see any reason why you would prioritize her request to the point that you would completely refuse my offer.”

“It’s some kind of pride for me. I have no wish for you to understand it either, so no need to think too deeply about it.”

“If you’re okay with it, may I ask for further explanation?”

“I have a huge debt to Alpha. That’s why I want to prioritize her request in order to repay that debt. That’s all… Well, although, to be honest, I don’t think it’s at the top of my priority list though and Alpha tends to complain about that as well. But, you know, that part is not as simple.”

Akira smiled bitterly and deliberately gave a vague answer in the end. Tsubaki did not return that gesture of politeness with gentle politeness, instead, she then asked with a serious face.

“Debt, huh? Is it really something that important to you? She did all of that for her own benefit and goal. That debt is nothing more than a by-product of using you. To be honest, aren’t there times when you had to go through more trouble for her?”

“Well, of course, there are. Those weapon dogs that I encountered after I met her, I bet that dog was there because Alpha was the one who guided that monster to me. After all, it seems that some of the monsters can see her. I bet she did that to confirm whether or not I would really follow her instructions. And it’s the same in Seranthal as well. It was not easy when Alpha suddenly left, but I bet she did that to confirm whether I can face that predicament myself as well as to teach me how difficult it would be without her support. I’m sure she was only gone for a few seconds and then she hid from me afterwards for the next few minutes. After all, she returned right after I got over the situation. It’s completely different compared to now.”

“So why?”

“Even if what she did sort of makes us even, I still feel like my debt to her is bigger. As I said, I have a huge debt to her that I need to repay.”

Tsubkia did not seem to be fully satisfied by that answer, Akira who noticed that smiled bitterly and continued.

“Before I met Alpha, I was only a mere slum kid. Then, I went to the ruins hoping that I would be able to change my life working as a Hunter. Naturally, I would only need to encounter a monster to be killed. That was how much I was worth back then. But after I met Alpha and received her support, thanks to that, I’ve grown strong enough to even catch your eyes. I’ve become strong, she gave me power, that’s just how big my debt is to her. Maybe it’s even bigger than that, you know? Even you only gave me an offer because I’ve become this strong, right? I’m sure you won’t even bother to try contacting me if it was the past me.”

“I won’t deny that, But, that strength is mostly the result of your effort to survive through the hardship and obstacles that you have faced. Of course, she helped as well, but that is because it is beneficial to her. I don’t believe there’s any need to feel that indebted to her.”

“You might be right. But that’s just how meaningful her support is to me. It’s something that I experienced for myself, so I have no wish for others to understand that.”

“Even if it’s something that concerns your life?”

“If that’s what you’re worried about, I already had my life on the line from the start. If I had not met Alpha back then, I would have been dead by now. Not only have I received so much support from her as upfront payment for her request, but the current me is also still far away from being able to accomplish her request. I’m not working as much as I should for the payment that I’ve received. It’s a completely different matter if Alpha says that I don’t have to repay her. But as long as she doesn’t say that, I have no wish to just abandon that debt. That’s all there is to it.”

Akira said so as if to reconfirm his own line of thinking as he smiled lightly.

Tsubaki was caught by surprise. But it seemed that she could understand his argument. Her face softened as she commented.

“You’re a very dutiful person.”

“For a slum kid with no money or power, loyalty and life are the only things that I can offer.”

“Just because you have nothing else to offer, not that many people can do the same, you know. Although, you can always find people who would throw those two things away meaninglessly.”

Tsubaki suddenly seemed delighted and it was obvious from her smile. But Akira found that sudden change of attitude rather strange.

“Very well. I will not prolong the negotiation any longer. After all, I have no wish to sour your mood. It is indeed very regrettable, but I shall back off.”

Right at the next moment, Alpha suddenly appeared next to Akira. Tsubaki had disengaged the jamming.

“Akira! Are you okay!?”

“Alpha?”

Akira was surprised by her sudden appearance, but his gaze shifted to Tsubaki instead of Alpha and Tsubaki returned his gaze with an amicable smile. But that was not the case for Alpha, she immediately glared toward Tsubaki. Tsubaki did not show any particular reaction to that except for her usual gentle smile. As Alpha and Tsubaki were locking gaze, Akira was the only one getting flustered.

“Well then. I shall take my leave now. Akira-san, please do tell me when you change your mind. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Tsubaki gracefully made a 180-degree turn and was about to leave, but she suddenly stopped and turned around to throw a rather capricious smile at Akira.

“Ah, that’s right, I believe I did say this to you before as well. Since you didn’t accept my offer, I’m under no obligation to help you. So I won’t help you regarding the things that I did not say such that she won’t get in the way of our future negotiation.”

Akira tilted his head since he could not understand what Tsubaki was talking about. Tsubaki was still smiling at Akira as she reactivated her camouflage and vanished.

Right after that, the scenes around Akira suddenly shattered. The scene that he saw turned out to be nothing more than images. Soon, a powered suit was revealed behind the shattered images, it was Zalmo.

Akira and Zalmo were both equally surprised. Zalmo’s surprise could be heard from the powered suit’s speaker.

“Akira!? What a coincidence!”

The powerful radar of his powered suit did not detect any signals, that was also the case for Akira as well – he was not able to detect Zalmo at all. It was thanks to the powerful camouflage that Tsubaki used to encapsulate him.

Akira compressed his time perception by pure reaction. During that time, he exchanged words with Alpha through telepathy.

“Alpha! Can you do something about that thing for now?”

Alpha, who was next to Akira, smiled and casually said.

“Of course, no problem. But, both your body and equipment are in a pretty bad shape, so you might have to do something a bit reckless.”

“Just a bit, okay? I’ve done more than enough crazy things for today.”

Akria smiled bitterly and allowed Alpha to take over his augmented suit, allowing him to completely regain his superhuman physical ability. Moreover, he dumped all the remaining energy he had to increase the power output of his augmented suit way past the safety limit. It was bordering close to getting himself killed. Then, Akira leapt forward like a master to close the distance.

The powered suit immediately tried to open some distance between them while trying to shoot Akira down. But Akira was too fast. Zalmo could already see him ready with a blade in hand from the powered suit’s camera. Akira swung the blade down when Zalmo was still out of the blade’s range.

Right at the next moment, the blade could no longer maintain its form and started to crumble. It turned into dust and was carried away by the wind. Due to Alpha’s support, Akira was able to execute a masterful swing with that blade.

The light extended out from the blade reached the powered suit, splitting it into two. The blade cut so smoothly across the powered suit as if either the blade or the powered suit, or maybe both, were just illusions.

The limiter of the blade was already rewritten by Alpha. With its safety feature off, the blade had to be handled with utmost precision in exchange for its overcharged power. Even a small misstep would release a sharp wave of light that would have killed its user. With such a dangerous weapon in hand, Akira executed a quick powerful slice. Alpha was able to accomplish such an act with such a volatile blade and such heavily damaged augmented suit.

Zalmo’s powered suit was split in half as each piece fell down. Due to its weight, the ground shook and Akira was barely able to maintain his balance.

[I had so much trouble fighting that thing. But with Alpha’s support, it ended in a blink of an eye, huh? And here I thought I’d gotten pretty strong… I guess I still have a long way to go…]

Akira returned the bladeless handle back to its sheath. He then looked at Alpha with a frown.

“Alpha, with this, I have no weapons left. Are we going to be okay?”

“Yes, probably.”

“Probably?”

Akira could not help but make a conflicted expression in reaction to that vague answer, Alpha pursed her lips and commented.

“I was able to get back my connection with you just now, so I still don’t fully understand the current situation. That’s why I can’t say for sure. If you have any complaints, you can send that to Tsubaki. She’s the one responsible for the jamming.”

“Yeah, I heard that too.”

Alpha raised her eyebrows.

“You knew?”

“She told me.”

“I see.”

Just like Akira who answered indifferently, Alpha also gave an apathetic reply. But deep inside, she felt a strong suspicion.

As usual, although Alpha was smiling from the outside, she was digesting and calculating information while smiling. Due to the jamming, Akira lost his connection to her and he must have gone through a lot of crazy things when that happened. Moreover, he had lost an arm. There would have been no surprise if he looked at Tsubaki with hostility. But Akira did not seem to have any grudge against her. If the loss of his arm was because of something that happened while they lost contact, there was a need for Alpha to know what had transpired.

“Akira, it would be great if you can tell me what happened while we weren’t connected.”

Akira heaved a huge sigh with an exasperated look on his face.

“…A lot, really a lot of things happened. I’m super tired right now, so I’ll tell you later.”

“Alright, later then, okay?”

Suddenly there was a loud banging sound as if a metallic object just fell over. It was from Zalmo who crawled out from the powered suit. His body was also cut along with his powered suit. He had lost half of his body, so it was difficult for him to stand up only with one arm and leg. He was only able to drag his body across the floor, but of course, Akira noticed it.

Zalmo had a grim look on his face. But there was not a shred of fear on his face. He was looking at Akira with amazement instead of animosity. It was as if he was looking at an unknown object, he then finally worded out the question inside him.

“Just what the heck are you?”

“I can ask you exactly the same thing. I’m pretty sure I crushed your head, so how are you still alive?”

“I’m one with the great cause. I will only die when the great cause dies. As long as the great cause is alive, then I will never die.”

“The heck are you talking about?”

Akira rubbed his head, he did not have a single idea as to what Zalmo was saying. But he immediately threw that out of his mind and declared.

“Well, in that case, you can go ahead and die a thousand times!”

Akira only said so and crushed Zalmo under his feet. Just to be safe, he stomped more until Zalmo did not look like a human anymore. A part of Akira was venting as his face was distorted from rage.

“Alpha, do you remember the eight people who attacked Sheryl’s base the other day and there was one of them who was particularly strong? I’m pretty sure I killed that guy but it seems that this guy is the same guy from back then. Wait, he did say that but that doesn’t mean that it is true, right? Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

“I don’t have enough data to confirm if he’s really the same person, so I can only say that I don’t know.”

“I see. And also, we did fight a huge humanoid monster before, remember? That monster returned back from death and I fought him as well.”

Alpha could not help but tilt her head.

“Akira, just what exactly happened when I was not around?”

“A lot of things… Well, I’ll tell you everything later.”

“I see, in that case, can you let me know first if she’s friendly or not.”

Alpha said so and pointed her finger to the sky. Akira looked in the direction that Alpha was pointing at and saw Nelia running in the sky. Even Akira did not expect that at all.

“Just what in the world is she doing there?”

“She’s using forcefield armour as a footing to be able to run in the air. So then, is she hostile? Or not?”

“She’s not hostile… I hope.”

Seeing how Nelia was running at him with blades on both of her hands, Akira could not say for certain that she was there to help him. But in the midst of running, Nelia sheathed her blades, giving Akira confirmation that she was friendly; for now.

Nelia landed next to him, she glanced at the split powered suit first before smiling amusedly at Akira.

“I’m here to help you, or so I want to say, but it doesn’t seem you need it, hmm?”

“No, I’m really grateful. And also, why were you running in the sky?”

“Hm? I was fighting the flying monsters when I saw you, that’s why I came down here.”

It was a very weird answer, but considering that Nelia was a battle maniac, Akira thought that it was completely normal for her.

Not too long after that, a transport aircraft also arrived. Elena’s team who boarded off the aircraft scanned the area and looked worriedly at him.

“…Akira, are you okay?”

“Yeah. Although, I don’t think I can say I’m okay in this state. I’m sorry but I don’t think I can handle any more fights. And also, sorry but can you share some of your medicine? I’ve exhausted mine. I’ll pay for it later.”

Sara gave Akira a whole box of capsules.

“There’s no need to pay, just take all of it.”

“Thank you very much!”

Akira paused, he was not sure how to open the closed lid with one arm. Seeing that, Elena took the box, opened the lid and spilled the contents on top of Akira’s palm. Akira then carried that to his mouth and swallowed all of them in one go. Elena and Sara saw that with a pained expression on their faces.

With this, Elena and Sara thought that there was no danger to Akira’s life. So they then brought him back to the aircraft and let him lie down. Akira was finally able to relax now that he was able to safely meet up with Elena and Sara again. Because of that, all the fatigue that he held back, all the adrenaline he had, flooded his body in one go, causing his consciousness to drift away.

Elena noticed that and smiled gently at Akira.

“We’ll take you back safely, so you can rest easy.”

“I’m sorry… And thank you…”

Akira could only say so much before he blacked out.

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