Chapter 120: A Single Bullet

At the very moment the Prime Minister issued an emergency declaration to all members of Parliament, to the entire nation, and indeed to the whole world—

Aboard the *Lambri*.

Manami Mizuhara was breathing slightly heavily, yet her expression remained composed, as though the fierce battle just moments ago had barely taxed her strength.

Her hand was clamped tightly around Lieutenant Colonel Darcy’s throat. Though his face had turned livid, he was utterly unable to break free from those slender, seemingly delicate hands.

Behind Manami and the lieutenant colonel, the Mizuhara couple huddled together in the passageway, clinging to one another. They stared ahead with expressions resembling those of people struck by a thunderbolt from a clear sky.

Yet the object of their astonishment was not the American soldiers at the end of the passage, dozens of gun barrels trained squarely upon them.

It was their daughter—the one standing firmly between them and danger.

“Little Mana…”

“Manami…”

Makoto Mizuhara let out a wavering sigh, as though she were on the verge of tears. Shingo Mizuhara’s voice, however, sounded sluggish and leaden, like a round stone halted halfway down a mountainside by a barrier of grass.

At the sound of their voices behind her, a trace of loneliness flickered through Manami’s eyes.

But it vanished almost at once.

Still gripping Lieutenant Colonel Darcy by the throat, she faced the soldiers and took one step forward.

One step.

“Clear the way…”

She spoke the words in Japanese, but the instant they left her lips, Manami realized her mistake. She immediately repeated herself in fluent English:

“Move aside—if you still want your commanding officer to live.”

Ever since she crushed the blood-red crystal, an uncanny power had awakened within her. Manami Mizuhara felt as though both her physical abilities and the sharpness of her mind had undergone a leap beyond anything she had ever experienced in her life.

The warm current that had once flowed continuously into her body while she wore the Kamiki pendant paled utterly beside this power. It was not even one ten-thousandth as formidable.

And once that power had spread throughout her body, memories from her earliest childhood to the present began rising and flickering through her mind like fragments from the ocean floor.

Manami’s English grades had never been particularly good; they were merely average. Even an outstanding English major would encounter considerable difficulties in spoken language without prolonged communication with native speakers from an English-speaking country.

Yet in that instant, after becoming a transcendent being, Manami felt that her mind had never been clearer.

It was a wondrous sensation, as though every single thing she had ever seen had suddenly become perfectly distinct.

Even the English she had never made much effort to study became, in an instant, a volume within easy reach on the shelves of her mind’s library: every word she had seen, every book she had read, every English-language film, every sample of standard speech recorded during class…

The moment she awakened, all of it was assimilated into her as though it had always been a part of her.

Thus, Manami Mizuhara expressed her intentions with absolute clarity.

And the soldiers before her understood every word.

They exchanged nearly imperceptible glances. A hint of uncertainty appeared in their eyes, and the steady positions of their bodies began to waver.

“Please move aside.”

Manami took another step forward.

The gap in the soldiers’ formation widened.

Some tried to maintain their combat stance. Others feared for the life of their commanding officer. Still others were wary of Manami herself.

The power she had just displayed had already surpassed the limits of humanity. She possessed the brutal force of the monster King Kong and the agility of a white-throated needletail. Even without their commander in her grasp, they had no confidence that they could hunt down and capture such a monster.

“I said, move.”

Manami advanced another step.

“Let me leave—with my parents.”

Another step.

It was enough. The opposing formation had been torn open wider and wider. Once she broke through the passage and reached the uppermost deck, she would be far freer to act.

So she thought.

But then Manami Mizuhara noticed a problem.

Her parents were still crouched behind her, unmoving.

It was not a serious issue. She only needed to turn around and tell them to stand.

Manami half turned toward her parents, who were still clinging to one another.

“Dad, Mom—”

Before she could finish, a sharp whistle tore through the air.

“Bang!”

Manami’s pupils contracted instantly.

Because she was looking over her shoulder from the side, she caught the scene in the corner of her eye.

Her body formed the dividing line.

Her parents were on the left.

The soldiers were on the right.

In that very instant, something shot toward her at tremendous speed from the soldiers’ side. By the time the gunshot reached her ears, the bullet was already almost past her eyes.

But she was not its target.

If the bullet continued on its course—

Then the one it would ultimately strike—

Would be her parents.

In the space of a heartbeat, Manami’s mind operated like a high-speed computer, taking every condition into account and reaching its final conclusion.

There was only one thing she could do.

Manami Mizuhara made her decision.

She thrust out her hand.

Leaning forward,

she placed her arm before the bullet like a shield and intercepted it head-on.

“Chk!”

Blood sprayed in every direction.

Yet the instant the bullet sank into Manami Mizuhara’s flesh, the pulsing muscles forced it back out. The wound that appeared on her arm clotted the moment the blood surfaced.

“Whew…”

Manami shifted her gaze from her shaken parents to the soldiers’ formation. On the side nearest the passageway, a young soldier with a deathly pale face and a faint tremor in his arm still held his firing stance, white smoke curling from the muzzle of his weapon.

He caught her attention at once.

His eyes were filled with shock and terror.

He was not the only one staring. The other soldiers were also focused on the bullet head lying on the floor, its surface marked by a faint smear of blood. A collective hiss escaped them.

“…I see. An accidental discharge.”

After making her judgment once more, Manami Mizuhara confirmed that this was indeed the truth.

Her heart eased somewhat.

But she had relaxed too soon.

For just moments before, she had made a fatal mistake.

To block the bullet that had accidentally been fired toward her parents, she had swung out the arm closest to its path and intercepted it.

The problem was—

That was also the arm with which she had been gripping Lieutenant Colonel Darcy’s throat.

Thus, in order to stop the bullet, she had instinctively flung Darcy aside just before striking out with her arm.

The lieutenant colonel crashed back-first into the wall of the passageway before falling facedown onto the floor.

But he had not lost consciousness.

On the contrary, he was perfectly lucid.

And with astonishing speed, he snatched up a firearm from the floor and aimed it at Manami Mizuhara and the parents behind her.

“Open fire!”

The order he had been unable to utter before finally rang out.

Long accustomed to obeying commands, the soldiers pulled their triggers without hesitation.

Several light bulbs had already been shattered, leaving the passageway flickering between brightness and darkness. One shrill rush after another tore through the air.

Manami Mizuhara’s pupils widened instantly. Instinctively, she stepped in front of her parents, spread her arms, and tried to shield them.

Bullets came shrieking toward her, splashing tiny bursts of blood across her body.

But that was not what concerned her.

When she turned her head,

she saw the Mizuhara couple’s pale, bloodless faces—and beneath their tightly entwined bodies, a pool of blood steadily spreading across the floor.

Manami Mizuhara stared at them.

Then she let out a piercing cry of grief.

End of Chapter