Chapter 72: Who Killed Whom?
This is impossible!
How could it be? Stunned, the man watched Mumei standing firmly before him, slightly catching her breath as though she'd barely exerted herself.
As one of the young lord's ears, resilience was a quality he was required to have.
What he couldn't understand, however, was how Mumei, who had seemed so dulled and absorbed in childish play, was now stronger than ever.
He might have understood if she'd only anticipated his armed hand, but she had just overpowered him outright with sheer speed.
That kind of speed went beyond that of a Kabaneri—it was more like… a Tsuchigumo.
Just thinking of that devilish name filled the man with dread.
…
The scuffle outside quickly drew the attention of armed samurai.
"Lady Mumei! What happened?" they asked, seeing Mumei dusting off her metal boots with a casual tap.
"Hmm…" Mumei thought, realizing even she hadn't expected her downward strike to be quite that powerful. Had she not pulled back a little, the man might've been crushed into an unrecognizable mess.
Now, what excuse should she use?
"He… he said he was going to take me outside to see some giant fish and do some fun things… but then he started acting strange and doing all sorts of odd things," Mumei said in an unusually gentle, delicate voice, her tone soft and tearful.
"I refused, and he tried to threaten me with a knife and gun!"
"Thankfully, I have just a tiny bit of self-defense skill, so I managed to get away unharmed."
…
The investigating samurai stared in disbelief at Amatori's limp, battered form at Mumei's feet.
Just a bit of self-defense?
"Hey, you punk. Trying to pull this on a kid?" one of the samurai scoffed, prodding the man with his steam rifle.
"You're lucky you targeted Lady Mumei. If it had been some other girl, she might not have gotten away so easily."
"Oh, Lady Mumei—Lady Ayame and the others are discussing the battle strategy. They said to let you know if we ran into you," another samurai said to Mumei.
"Got it. I'll head over now," Mumei replied. "As for him, give him some basic treatment and then lock him up. He hasn't done anything unforgivable yet."
"Yes, yes, Lady Mumei is so kind."
…
Watching Mumei's slender figure walk away, one of the men muttered, "I gotta say, Lady Mumei's got the kind of figure most girls her age don't have."
"Indeed. That's what you'd call natural talent."
…
"Dull claws will always be discarded…" the man thought to himself bitterly, staring after Mumei's retreating figure. He watched her cool, indifferent expression as she looked back at him.
The refugees' accounts revealed that about three days prior, a "Black Smoke" surged over the walls, overtaking Yashiro Station in an instant.
In the Koutetsujou's engine room, Ikoma was gathered with the others, discussing a strategy.
A map was spread across the table as Ayame, Kurusu, and the other samurai, along with the Kabaneri, were analyzing it.
Thanks to Ikoma's remarkable inventions—the explosive piercing bullet and the blade reinforced with Kabane heart membrane—he'd earned his voice in their discussions.
On the route out of Yashiro, the tall observation tower that once stood proudly over the fortress now lay sprawled across the tracks, as though mangled by some massive creature.
Their plan was to head to the station's boiler room, ignite the main furnace, and have the steam mechanic activate the central steam crane to lift the wrecked observation tower.
Though the boiler room had become a Kabane nest, by moving carefully along the crane's scaffold, the Kabane would only be able to approach in small numbers, making them easier to handle.
Just then, Mumei entered, settling onto one of the steps.
"Oh, Mumei, do you want me to repeat the plan?" Ikoma asked, looking over at her.
"No… I'll only listen to Kurumi-nee."
…
"About Miss Tokisaki… we haven't seen her around, actually," Ayame said, her brows furrowing slightly.
"Oh my, Ayame, were you looking for me?" Kurumi's familiar teasing voice drifted in from outside as she stepped in, her wooden sandals clicking lightly.
"Ugh…" Kurusu muttered irritably.
"Oh, Miss Tokisaki. Would you like to listen to our battle plan?" Ayame, who'd grown accustomed to Kurumi's alluring and gentle demeanor, asked.
"I have a general idea of the plan, but there's one thing I need to warn you about," Kurumi said, her tone serious.
"Huh???" Everyone looked at her, surprised.
"If my guess is correct, the monster that Yashiro's refugees called 'Black Smoke' is lingering near the station exit," Kurumi continued. "Even if you lift the observation tower, have you thought about how you'll face the Black Smoke?"
"Black Smoke…" The term was unfamiliar, and confusion was clear in their expressions.
Both Kurusu and Kurumi, however, noted Mumei's sudden change in expression.
"Miss Mumei, do you know what Black Smoke is?" Kurusu asked. Although he disliked the Kabane and had little love for the half-human, half-Kabane Kabaneri, he respected the strong.
And in his eyes, Kurumi was the strongest.
"Black Smoke…" Mumei hugged her knees, curling up on the steps, as if she wanted to bury her head in her arms. "It's a massive fused collective, made up of tens of thousands of Kabane."
"A massive… collective?"
"Tens of thousands… of Kabane?"
The group fell silent, chilled to their core.
"Isn't that an invincible monster?"
"No," Mumei said, shaking her head. "Like any Kabane, you only need to destroy the heart to defeat it."
She lifted her head, her expression strange. "At the heart of the fused mass is a single Kabane acting as its core. If you can kill it, the entire mass will collapse."
"But how do we get close enough to attack it?"
"That's your problem." Mumei's voice was somber, as if she wanted to avoid the topic.
…
In the end, they decided to split into small groups to scavenge the city for supplies to restock the Koutetsujou.
Above all, they needed to steer clear of the half of the city likely infested with the fused entity and the boiler room.
Once the meeting was adjourned, Kurumi and Mumei stood on the edge of the station, overlooking the towering fortress.
"Hozumi… you're hiding something… aren't you?" Kurumi said, addressing Mumei as she always did when they were alone.
The unique way Kurumi called her made Mumei's heart flutter, like it was a secret between them alone.
"Kurumi-nee…" Mumei's voice trembled, on the verge of tears. "The core of Black Smoke… it isn't a Kabane at all!"
"That's one of my former comrades in there, Kurumi-nee… The core of Black Smoke… it can only be a Kabaneri!!!"
Black Smoke was a man-made monster.
...
The sky was filled with thick, gray clouds, pressing down as if about to collapse.
"Hozumi… are you afraid?" Kurumi asked, resting against the edge of the tall steel station tower overlooking Yashiro and holding Mumei's hand.
"Of course not," Mumei replied, slightly stunned by the cool, slender hand grasping hers, before slipping back into deep gloom.
"Why would Kurumi-nee even ask that?" Mumei tilted her head and looked at Kurumi.
Their gazes met, and Mumei's pupils suddenly contracted with a look of panic, mirrored in the crimson hues of Kurumi's eye.
In that reflection, she saw… the glowing, fiery lines emerging on her own face.
"No… how…" Trembling, Mumei raised her hands to her face, her fingers glowing faintly in warm orange light. "Why… why is this happening?"
Even though she had been away from her brother's fortress for a while now, the transformation shouldn't have accelerated so quickly.
She even wanted to slip out of her kimono to check if the "mark" on her back, where her heart was, had expanded further.
"I don't want… I don't want to become a Kabane," she whispered, her voice choked with sobs.
…
"No, that's not it," Kurumi said, wrapping her arms around Mumei from behind. "You're not turning into a Kabane."
Kurumi brought her wrist to Mumei's lips, the faint cut on it exuding an enticingly sweet scent.
"You're only growing stronger, Hozumi."
According to Mumei, the Black Smoke was an exceptionally greedy creature.
Whether Kabane, human, or even corpses, it aimed to absorb everything in its path. As a result, the rest of the fortress was actually devoid of many Kabane.
Ayame thus decided that they would first sweep the fortress for supplies.
Indeed, as Mumei had said, the fortress was eerily silent, pools of blackened blood scattered here and there, yet not a single Kabane nor human corpse in sight.
An eerie, unsettling calm.
The collapsed buildings bore terrifying traces of massive creatures crushing through them, their mere appearance sending chills down one's spine.
The samurai fanned out in squads, raising torches high and escorting the civilians as they carried Yashiro Station's supplies back to the Koutetsujou.
The station was abandoned in such haste that the supplies left behind were substantial—more than enough to support the Koutetsujou's journey to Kongokaku.
A temporary smile found its way onto everyone's face, a rare glimmer of hope that made the burden of survival worth the cost.
Kurumi's clones even managed to loot a local treasury, collecting a stash of thin, rice-cracker-shaped coins.
…
But nothing could top the joy of the steam engineers when they found and restored a 48-type guard cannon from the abandoned fortress, spending half a day successfully mounting it onto the Koutetsujou.
"With the 48-type, we could blow the 'Black Smoke' to bits, right?" Sukari, a young steam engineer, asked, leaning on the cannon's barrel with a smug grin as he tapped on it.
"That wouldn't work," Mumei shot back immediately. "'Black Smoke' is always accompanied by countless Kabane, especially around its heart, which is heavily shielded by Kabane."
"Even a 48-type blast couldn't kill it."
"So what should we do…" Mumei's words seemed to deflate everyone's spirits.
"If you bombard it enough, the Black Smoke's body might eventually disperse, revealing its heart," Mumei explained.
"Then… you kill her, and it's over."
"Her?" Ayame caught the wording.
"Oh… I meant it," Mumei murmured, lowering her head.
…
June was nearing its end; it had been nearly half a month since they fled Aragane Station.
Night was falling and the sky was growing darker. With the thin crescent moon still absent, the atmosphere was dim and thick.
The Koutetsujou was perched on a high rail, just a stone's throw from the steam crane. Under the shroud of night, the scaffolding appeared fragile, and the hundred-meter drop below was pitch black. Falling would be fatal.
The samurai were polishing their weapons, preparing for the assault. Their task was to escort the engineers to the steam crane and then navigate the scaffolding to reach the boiler room and ignite the central furnace.
Once the crane lifted the toppled observation tower from the tracks, they would swiftly return to the Koutetsujou, ready for their final showdown with the Black Smoke.
Kurumi and Mumei sat on the train, staring into the abyss beyond.
"Tell me, Hozumi," Kurumi said, resting her chin on her hands as she sat on the edge of the train, "are you afraid of becoming like that 'Black Smoke'?"
"Having comrades…" Mumei's voice wavered as her gaze shifted.
"Yes," she replied. "If I lose my usefulness, then I'd be discarded by 'Brother,' right?"
"Oh… your 'Brother,' is it?" Kurumi's voice softened, though her eyes narrowed.
It irritated her deeply.
"Brother…" Mumei echoed, staring out toward the city's edge.
There, she could sense a massive concentration of Kabane—a storm of Black Smoke.
"You know," Kurumi said, ruffling Mumei's hair, "you could call me 'Onee-sama.'"
"Onee… sama?" Mumei stammered, blushing.
"That's so embarrassing!"
"Is it now?" Kurumi asked, covering her face in mock distress. "Oh, how you wound me."
"Kurumi-nee, please don't act like a child!" Mumei sighed helplessly.
"Oh? Does Hozumi think I'm just an old has-been?" Kurumi leaned in, her warm fragrance filling the space between them.
That sweetness… Mumei recalled the taste of Kurumi's blood, so cool and sweet, like a tempting catnip for a kitten.
Swallowing hard, Mumei replied, "Of course not. Kurumi-nee is always the prettiest."
"Good girl!" Kurumi teased, gently tugging on Mumei's cheeks, feeling a delightful firmness different from the soft sweetness of sakura-mochi. Mumei's cheeks were tender and resilient, uniquely satisfying.
"But seriously…" Kurumi tilted her head back, "are you sure you don't want me to kill this 'Black Smoke'? After all, she was your comrade."
"No," Mumei replied, clutching her knees to her chest. "I'll end her myself."
"May she find peace and rebirth in the next life."
…
Mumei fastened the Kabane heart-membrane-coated blade onto her twin pistols, the steel shimmering faintly in the dark with bright, fiery patterns.
The battle was about to begin.
She turned to look at Kurumi.
"Onee-sama." (Elder Sister).
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