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"Hey rookie, this is your first time out on a Special Assignment, isn't it?"
Mitsuru Kanie smiled sheepishly, as he got into the car beside Officer Yasuke Saito, who had been assigned as his temporary partner. "Does it show, Sir?"
Saito, a middle-aged investigator with a broad face and graying hair, only shrugged and started the ignition. "Just remember that there's a reason we're not going out there in uniform. Most of the perps we deal with have a real problem with police officers, and they're not shy about expressing those feelings." He glanced over sideways at Kanie. "Try not to make yourself a target, okay?"
"Yes Sir!" He straightened his back automatically and raised a hand in salute.
Saito grimaced and shook his head. "Rookies," he muttered under his breath, turning the steering wheel to back them out of the station carpark. "Will you at least stop calling me 'Sir'?"
"Sorry, Officer," Kanie sat back sheepishly, but he couldn't help being excited. After nearly two weeks, it was finally happening, what he'd been waiting for since putting his name in for a transfer to Section Four of the Foreign Affairs Division.
He was going to see a Contractor in action.
Kanie had fought for the assignment, based on little more than the rumor that Section Four's special task force was supposed to be the secret unit that handled disturbances caused by Contractors. He was fascinated with them, the mysterious group of humans who had developed supernatural powers after the appearance of the Hell's Gate.
He'd only caught a glimpse of one once, a beautiful dark-skinned woman who had brought the rain with her on a cloudless summer day. No one had told him that she was a Contractor, but somehow Kanie had just known by looking at her.
The police radio crackled. "The suspect is at Shinjuku Central Park. Repeat. Suspect is at Shinjuku Central Park. All Section Four members converge on target."
"All right, kid. Hold on." Saito turned the wheel abruptly, causing the car to swerve across several lanes of traffic, nearly colliding with back end of a truck. Kanie yelped and raised his arms to shield his face, but Saito only laughed. "You're jumpy, aren't you?"
Kanie bit back a comment about setting a bad example by flaunting road safety. Instead, he only shook his head. "It's nothing."
But in truth, it was frustrating. Kanie had only gotten where he was by striving to be as close to a model police officer as he could. But when he'd arrived at Section Four, suddenly his encyclopedic knowledge of the police rules and protocols didn't seem to apply. In spite of being in such a high-level section, most of the officers were very casual and operated by their own looser, rougher standards of behavior. It was the results that mattered here, not the methods. Minor conduct violations that Kanie had once thought of as unacceptable were treated as commonplace. The other new recruits had adjusted quickly, but Kanie, somewhat disillusioned, was having a harder time of it.
But he didn't want to think about that now.
Section Chief Kirihara was already on the scene when he and Saito pulled up at the entrance of the park. She was a striking figure in her dark suit and high heels, the only woman in a group of men, and yet completely at ease in the leadership role. The Chief was conferring with an older officer that Kanie didn't recognize, and then she was calling them to attention, her voice sharp and commanding.
"Section Twelve and Park Authority have already evacuated and cordoned off most of the park. Our priority is to keep the target in this area and away from the hotels and the government buildings until the Special Interceptor Unit arrives. We're looking for a man in his late fifties, about 1.8 meters tall, between 80 and 90 kilograms. No identifying marks. He was last seen near the homeless encampment near Kumano shrine."
"Do we know what kind of abilities we're dealing with, Chief?" someone called out.
"Information is still being confirmed, but initial reports suggest that the Contractor is at least a Level Three threat." she answered quickly. "Possibly GC-1594 or XW-003. I promise you'll know more as soon as I do. Right now we need to establish a perimeter to keep the public out. You two - " She pointed to Saito and Kanie, "head for the shrine and secure the south side. Stay in radio contact and await further instructions. Kono and Matsumoto, take the north side."
"Right, Chief! Let's move." Saito was already making his way to one of the pathways leading into the park's interior, motioning for Kanie to join him. Kanie hurried to follow, glancing back at Kirihara over his shoulder.
When he had first joined Section Four, Kanie had thought that the Chief was someone that he would have some common ground with. She had a reputation for being a strict commanding officer, a strong idealist, and seemed to be at least as much of a stickler for the rules as Kanie was. Moreover she was smart, and she was fair, and she'd clearly earned her position. Kanie liked her style and her temperament, and was looking forward to getting to know her better.
But only that morning, after she'd lectured a fellow officer at length on the health hazards of cigarette smoke, he'd spotted Chief Kirihara nonchalantly slipping an open pack of cigarettes into her purse before she went to lunch. It was a small thing, but the hypocrisy had bothered him. Kanie wondered if all her talk about justice and duty was only that – talk. She had a long list of special skills, and maybe putting up a good front was one of them. Maybe it was expected of everyone, and none of the police really believed in the letter of laws at all. That thought had put him in the bad mood for the rest of the afternoon, until the order for the Special Assignment came through.
"What was that?" Saito had stopped short in the middle of the pathway. Kanie nearly collided with him as he skid to a halt. This area wasn't particularly well lit, and they weren't even halfway to the shrine yet.
"The Contractor maybe?" Kanie suggested.
Saito frowned at him. "It would be just our luck." He glanced around warily, one hand hovering over the revolver at his side.
Kanie took a few steps back, listening intently. He could still hear the faint roar of the waterfall they had passed in the entryway courtyard, and then a muffled sort of booming noise off in the distance. A moment of silence, and then another, louder sound like of a crack of thunder somewhere in the trees ahead of them. Kanie squinted into the darkness, trying to make out the cause of the disturbance, feeling his heart thumping faster and faster in his chest.
Saito was on the radio. "I think we've found the target, Chief. No visual yet, but – "
A loud crunching sound, and then a huge shadow lurched out on to the path. In the dim light Kanie couldn't make any features, only a black, massive thing that loomed above them, at least three meters tall, possibly more. He felt the blood drain from his face as the creature turned, and a pair of glimmering eyes looked down at him from an impossible height. "Oh my God."
He felt a tug on his arm. Saito was pulling him out of the way, still talking on the radio. His voice remained calm, only he was speaking more quickly now. " – Identity is confirmed as GC-1594. Repeat. The target is the Contractor GC-1594, also known as The General. He's heading west, toward the center of the park."
The radio crackled. "I copy. When you can, retreat to the fall back point and await further instructions."
Saito pulled harder on Kanie's arm. "Don't fall apart on me now, kid. We gotta go."
Somehow Kanie got his unsteady legs to cooperate, and he headed down one of the of the side paths with Saito, letting the monster pass unhindered. It was moving slowly, taking large, heavy steps that made the ground rumble with the impact of every footfall. As it came further into the light, Kanie could see that the figure was covered in a layer of soil. No, its whole body seemed to be made up of soil. He could smell the rich, wet scent of upturned earth that it left in its wake. "Wh-what is it?" he whispered.
Saito sighed. "That is GC-1594, AKA former General Isamu Adachi, AKA 'The General.' He's a Contractor who has a power called geokinesis."
"He moves rocks with his mind," Kanie supplied the definition automatically, still staring. "And dirt and other things, I guess." He watched as the General continued to lumber down the path, and now he could see that the soil was actually encasing the figure of a normal-sized man, barely visible through the muck. It was like he was wearing some fantasy mecha-suit armor, only made of dirt.
"And he's strong as an ox and a nut job to boot," Saito added, shaking his head. "The old man's usually a resident at a rest home not far from here, but every so often he goes off his medication and ends up on a bender like this. He should be locked up, but he's got political connections and all sorts of medical complications, so the prosecutors won't touch him."
Kanie swallowed thickly. He didn't know how Saito could be so unruffled. This Contractor was nothing like the one he'd met. This was a terrifying, destructive force, beyond anything he'd been prepared for. "So what do we do?"
Saito shrugged. "Not much we can do. Bullets won't penetrate his shell, and he doesn't respond to reason – learned that from personal experience. The Chief will call in the Special Interceptor Unit like she usually does to take care of him. You and I just need to keep an eye on the old boy until then." He clapped Kanie on the back and started up the path again. "Let's get going."
"We're following it?" Kanie blinked in surprise. "Didn't the Chief tell us to retreat?"
"Someone's got to keep track of the target's movements." Saito grinned at him. "You'll be fine. The old man doesn't move very fast, so as long as you keep your distance you won't get clobbered. Well, unless he starts throwing boulders around, but that usually only happens if he's provoked."
Kanie paled. "I don't know."
"Come on, kid." Saito's voice was softer, coaxing. "I won't let anything happen to you. And you don't want to miss all the action, right?"
The reassurance was genuine, and Kanie found it easier to breathe. The fear was passing, leaving him with a palpable sense of relief and a little sheepish embarrassment for having reacted so strongly. What was he thinking? He was a police officer and this was his job. This was the assignment he'd asked for.
Kanie straightened his spine and marched himself forward. "I'm coming, Sir – ah – Saito."
The General's movements were haphazard, but easy to track. He left a trail of mud and soil on the pathways, and trampled the underbrush in a noticeable pattern. From the radio communications, it was clear that most of the other Section Four officers were busy clearing out the few stragglers from the homeless encampment. Chief Kirihara asked for updates periodically, warning them not to engage the General directly.
Kanie was impressed by how steady and composed everyone was in spite of the circumstances, but he was still doubtful of their tactics. Observing the General tearing through the park, upending huge trees and leaving deep furrows in the ground when things got in his way, Kanie was feeling less and less certain that this would end well. Saito hadn't been exaggerating the Contractor's strength, and there was no sign of him tiring or any of his power diminishing. Kanie knew that Contractors had to pay a Remuneration for the use of their abilities, but whatever the General's was, it wasn't slowing him down.
"He's coming back around toward the main entrance." Saito was on the radio again when they paused to rest, reporting in to Chief Kirihara. "I think he's going to try and break out of the perimeter."
"Do what you can to hold him back, and let me know if he changes course. The Special Interceptor Unit will be here in a few minutes, so we just need to hold out until then." A pause. "I'm sending Aoba and Hajime to back you up."
Kanie was incredulous. "How are we supposed to hold him back?" he asked when Saito put the radio down. "It would take a tank to stop him."
"We don't need to stop him." Saito got to his feet and drew his revolver. "We just need to slow him down. Follow my lead, kid."
And before Kanie could protest, Saito was running out into the open, charging straight down the path towards their target. "Saito!" Kanie shouted.
"Hey you!" Saito shouted, coming alongside the General and waving his arms over his head to try and attract the monster's attention. "Stop where you are right now! I mean it!" The General didn't seem to notice him, and there was no break in his stride as he continued to trudge toward the park entrance.
Saito refused to be ignored, circling around, and dodging the pendulous swings of those gigantic arms. Kanie had caught up to him, but hung back out of the way, not sure what he should be doing.
"I warned you!" Saito came up right behind the General, then raised the revolver and fired twice, straight into the earthen mass of his back. From where he was, Kanie couldn't tell if the bullets had impacted. They just seemed to be swallowed up in all that dirt without a trace.
But it got the target's attention.
The whole, huge weight of that hulking body stopped, mid-stride. Then it began to turn, pivoting and revolving until the General was looking down at Saito. Kanie's heart nearly stopped, but Saito held his ground. For a minute, it was a silent faceoff, the grotesquely powerful Contractor and the forty-something career cop with graying hair, both staring at each other, neither willing to give an inch.
Kanie moved in closer and drew his gun, ready to shoot if the General attacked. He hadn't used a firearm in the field yet, though he'd expected he would have to. He just didn't expect it would be this soon. Somehow his hands were steady as he took careful aim,
"Hey kid?" Saito had shifted his weight, and he took one slow step backwards. Then another.
"Yeah?" Kanie's eyes widened as he watched the General move forward in response, not breaking eye contact, not allowing the space between them to lessen by an inch. The man's steps became quicker, and the General kept pace. He was following Saito.
Finally, the man turned and broke into a sprint, tearing back down the pathway in the opposite direction in which they'd come, the General barreling after him. "Run!" he shouted, just before the target let out a ground-shaking roar of rage, and Kanie narrowly missed being flattened by the descent of one rock studded fist.
Kanie didn't need to be told twice, and scrambled after Saito. The older officer turned briefly and discharged his gun again at the General, who paused briefly to shield his misshapen head as the bullets hit. Almost without thinking, Kanie raised his gun, leveled it, and did the same. The delay bought them enough time to put some distance between them and their pursuant-turned-pursuer, but it wasn't going to last. The General was moving twice as fast as he had been, and from his angry grunts and bellows, he wasn't planning to stop.
"Great!" Kanie snapped at Saito, struggling to catch up. "Now he's after us! Now what do we do?"
Saito gave him a sharp look, pulling the radio back out of his belt. "Chief, we've engaged the target and have him moving southwest! Where do you want him?!"
Kanie couldn't hear the response over the roar of the General. The next thing he knew, there was a terrific crash and huge could of dust rising from a few feet in front of him. Kanie nearly tripped over a large boulder the size of a mailbox, and it took a few seconds before the realization sunk in that the General had hefted it at them.
"Back to the courtyard!" Saito yelled, motioning forward with the radio. "The waterfall!"
Kanie didn't have the breath to answer him, concentrating on keeping his feet from stepping over each other as he made his way over uneven ground. He could taste the dust and the debris in the air, and each time the General grumbled and growled, he could swear it was getting louder, closer. The heavy footsteps almost seemed to be on top of his head.
He didn't know how long it took for him and Saito to make their mad dash across the park, but it felt like forever. They both stopped several more times to shoot at the General, and to dodge his retaliatory attacks in return. Kanie's left hand was clipped by one of the smaller stones the General sent airborne, leaving it bruised and stinging. He and Saito were joined after a while by the pair of officers that Chief Kirihara had sent, Aoba and Hajime, who really couldn't do more than they had offensively. But the additional numbers did seem to confuse the General, and slowed the chase down enough that Kanie could pause occasionally to catch his breath.
They arrived at the courtyard to find at least two dozen officers barricading the entrance. The street behind them had been blocked off at both ends, with more police in the distance handling crowd control. Chief Kirihara, heedless of the danger, was front and center, a bullhorn in hand. "The Special Interceptor Unit will engage the Contractor once he reaches the critical area! All other officers fall back!" she ordered.
The General's advance slowed to a crawl as he approached the edge of the courtyard, seemingly wary of the large numbers that awaited him. But nonetheless, he continued to move forward, steadily, even when Kanie and Saito broke away to join their unit.
Chief Kirihara nodded at them as they reached her. "Good work, you two. We'll take it from here."
"Thank you." Kanie saluted, too winded to say anything more. The bright lights that had been set up around the perimeter were almost blinding after all that skulking around in the dark, and he realized from the tightness in his chest how hard he'd pushed himself. He felt every inch the rookie as Saito lead him to the rear of the crowd. It didn't escape his notice that the older man didn't seem to be suffering any ill effects at all.
"Time to get out of the way," Saito told him, as they moved to the back of the crowd. "The big gun's here."
"Where?" Kanie tried to look for the Special Interceptor Unit forces, his curiosity renewed. He couldn't see anyone besides the other officers from Section Four. Maybe they were still waiting outside the park entrance or hidden from view. He craned his neck, scanning for unfamiliar faces.
"He's right over there," Saito pointed. "The Chief's chatting him up."
"Wait…He?"
And then Kanie saw him, a blond-haired foreigner in a crisp white suit. He couldn't possibly be an officer, the way he was dressed. Even if the man was undercover, those clothes where much too noticeable, too memorable, especially for an assignment like this. But there he was with Chief Kirihara, and having a pretty animated conversation from the look of it. Kanie was confused until he realized he'd seen the man before – a bad photograph in one of the old case files he'd sneaked out of the archives.
"He's a Contractor." Kanie whispered to himself, awestruck.
"Yeah," Saito muttered tersely. "That's why he's the Special Interceptor Unit." His face darkened for a moment, watching the man talk with Chief Kirihara. But then he shrugged and then nudged Kanie with his elbow. "Come on. Let's go find ourselves a good spot. The show's about to start."
Kanie followed Saito to the far side of the courtyard where there were less people, but kept glancing back at the Contractor. He was almost afraid the man in white would disappear if he didn't keep his eyes on him. "I didn't know we had Contractors on the force."
Saito let out a long-suffering sigh. "Officially, we don't. Unofficially, there are a couple who have made deals to stay out of prison, and a few who have special dispensation. To be honest, they're a pretty shady lot, and the brass doesn't call them up too often. Except that one." He jerked a thumb in the direction of the Contractor, who was now walking across the courtyard alone. "They just love him."
Kanie was about to ask Saito what he meant, but the General was right next to the multi-tiered waterfall installation now, and was making loud, aggressive sounds like a predator intimidating a rival beast. Everyone had retreated except for the man in white, who approached at a casual, almost nonchalant pace. He stopped at the edge of the waterfall, less than three meters from their target. "General Adachi?" he called up to the other Contractor. "General, can you hear me?"
There was a low, shuddering groan that emanated from the General, and then an inhumanly deep voice erupted from its gaping maw. "Leave. Me. Alone."
A chill went up Kanie's spine, but the man in white did not seem perturbed in the least. "Sir, I mean no disrespect, but I'm going to have to ask you to come out of that fine terra firma suit of yours, and let these good officers escort you home."
A growl like that of some gargantuan, prehistoric lizard shook the air. "You. Can't. Make. Me."
"I don't want to have to use force, Sir," the man in white replied calmly. "But you're not giving me much choice here. Either you stand down and surrender peacefully, or I'm going to have to get rough with you."
The response was a guttural roar, and then those enormous hands had become fists again, two compacted mounds of earth crashing down against the ground. The other Contractor moved then, leaping up on one of the rocks at the bottom of the waterfall installation. He didn't seem to mind the water, rushing over his feet.
The General charged at him, limbs flailing, but stopped short of the pool at the foot of the waterfall. For some reason he seemed wary of the water, and would only circle the edges of the installation, pacing back and forth in agitation.
Kanie took advantage of the break in action to lean over and whisper to his partner. "Is he scared of getting wet?"
"Yeah." Saito was watching the combatants closely, and was too distracted to grumble. "Too much water and he turns to mud. The old man's senile, but he's not an idiot."
Kanie watched as the man in white climbed up higher along the side of the waterfall. "Hey, how long do Contractors' powers last before they have to perform Remuneration? Shouldn't the target be getting weaker by now?"
Saito shook his head. "The General's Remuneration is pressing his body down against soil or earth. He figured out that if he manipulated the stuff to stay in contact with his body at all times, he wouldn't have to stop for Remuneration at all. So the old man can keep going for as long as he likes. Our white knight's not so lucky, so he's holding back until he has a good shot."
"What's the Special Interceptor Unit's power?"
A shrug. "You'll see."
The ground was shaking again as the General backed away a few steps from the waterfall. Kanie thought he was retreating, but then, his hulking form was back with a huge chunk of sod that had been clawed out of the ground from one of the planters. He threw it at the man in white, but missed, and the dirt made impact with the side of the installation, sending mud cascading over the waterfall. The General growled in frustration, and stalked away again, probably for more ammunition.
The man in white, whose suit was soaked but untouched by the mud, took the opportunity to hoist himself up to the next tier of the waterfall. He moved so quickly that Kanie thought, impossibly, he might be actually walking on the water itself.
"November Eleven!" Chief Kirihara was on the megaphone again, as the man in white pulled himself up to the very top of the installation. "The target is approaching on your left! Now would be a good time to put an end to this, don't you think?!" Her expression was taut, lips curved downward in a disapproving frown.
"I'll be just a minute, Misaki!" the man in white saluted her, grinning.
"This is not the time to be reckless!" she scolded him.
Kanie blinked in surprise. Had the Special Interceptor Unit just called the Chief by her given name? And why was the name November Eleven so familiar? Before he could ask Saito, the General was back.
This time he had a tree with him.
Kanie didn't know plants well enough to identify the unfortunate thing by name, but its trunk was at least as thick as Kanie was wide, and about twice as tall. The General was dragging it along behind him by the roots, the leafy branches sweeping against the pavement like a giant broom. Dirt clumps still clung to the exposed roots, and there was a paper lantern tangled up in the leaves.
"Oh, now he's going to get it." Saito muttered.
The General lifted the tree with both hands, like a baseball bat, as he approached the waterfall again. Impossibly, he swung the entire length of it over his head, shaking loose more dirt and rubble. But it was only a practice swing. The General continued to advance, straight toward the man in white – November Eleven – his obvious intended target.
"Secondary and tertiary units move into position for backup!" Chief Kirisaki was shouting. Kanie watched her advance across the courtyard, only a few meters behind the General. She didn't seem to be apprehensive at all, despite all the debris raining down and the vibrations still shaking the ground. Her gaze remained steadily fixed on the target as she directed the men to their positions.
Kanie watched several of his Section Four teammates move out. He started to follow them, but Saito grabbed him by the arm, and shook his head. "It's almost over. Just watch."
He pointed up at the top of the waterfall, where November Eleven was still crouching, watching the General's movements below him. "General Adachi, I'm giving you one last chance to surrender!" he called down to the other Contractor. Give yourself up before you get yourself hurt!"
"I'll. Smash. You. Into. Dust."
With a deafening roar, the General brought the tree up, raising it over his head with both hands. The full length of it towered over the waterfall, throwing a long shadow over the entire courtyard. For a moment, time seemed to slow, and then the whole tree came crashing down on the waterfall, water splashing up in huge founts, leaves and splintering wood flying everywhere.
Somehow November Eleven had avoided the blow, but he lost his footing and tumbled from the crest of the waterfall. Kanie had no idea how he survived the fall, but it hadn't been by chance. The man's descent seemed to slow midway down, and he reached the pool below with hardly any impact at all. Still he staggered to his feet, sloshing through the water and clutching at his head as though in pain.
And then he stumbled, and collapsed to his knees in the water. Trickles of blood were running down the side of his face.
"November Eleven!" The Chief had broken into a run, and then Saito was cursing, pushing past Kanie to get back down to the courtyard, and Kanie knew something was very wrong. He tried to follow Saito, but lost him in the surging crowd.
By the time Kanie had elbowed his way into the clear and found a place where he could see what was going on, the General was trying to pick up the tree again for another swing. His movements were jerkier and clumsier, and he lurched under the increased weight of the sodden foliage. He was still struggling when Chief Kirihara reached November Eleven's side.
Her teeth were gritted as she emptied her pistol into the General's chest and abdomen, causing him to lose his grip on the tree and step back a few paces. She walked around to the edge of the pool, shouting at the fallen Contractor to get up, to pull himself together, and fight. Kanie could barely hear her without the bullhorn, over the crashing waterfall and the gunfire. Other officers from the backup teams were engaging the General too, firing more shots from safer distances, but Chief Kirihara marched straight into the pool and put herself bodily between the General and November Eleven. It was crazy, the kind of thing that was completely against every regulation for a commanding officer, but one look at her face told Kanie that she didn't care in the slightest.
She kept pulling the trigger until she was out of bullets, and then she still didn't budge as the General retrieved the tree and approached again, ready bring it down on his enemies' heads. She only held her arms open, resolutely shielding the man in white behind her.
Several of the officers had stopped shooting, and were charging toward the General instead, with batons and riot shields and severed tree branches, anything they could get their hands on. It was a foolhardy last ditch effort, but they weren't going to make it in time, Kanie realized. The General had already positioned himself and was starting to turn, gathering momentum and –
"Stop!" someone shouted.
And for a second, everything did.
November Eleven had gotten to his feet. He was a little unsteady, and Chief Kirihara was quick to lend an arm in support, but he waved her away firmly. "I'm all right, Misaki." He looked up at the General. "I'm sorry, Sir, but that's enough. Time for you to go home."
He put out his hands and touched them to the surface of the water. And the water turned white.
No, that wasn't it. Kanie blinked. Ice crystals had formed at the point of contact, spreading out in glistening trails over the dark water, faster and faster. And scarcely five seconds later, the entire waterfall had completely frozen solid. All the rushing, trickling, foaming, and frothing, had been instantly suspended in a silent, almost ghostly tableaux of new-formed ice. A strange chill permeated the evening air as Kanie stared, wide eyed, and jaw agape. It was impossible.
But it was the business of Contractors to do the impossible.
The ice soon made its way to the General's tree, climbing up the branches that had been hanging in the water. Then it spread over the General's hands where they gripped the trunk, then to wrists and arms and on from there. He tried to pull away, to brush the ice from his limbs, roaring with rage, but it only grew thicker. Soon his whole body stiffened and gleamed with frost.
That was why he'd avoided the water, Kanie realized. It wasn't just that he was afraid of his armor turning to mud. The more moisture he came in contact with, the easier it was for November Eleven to freeze him solid. The spray of the waterfall and all the splashing from earlier must have been enough.
"Damn. You. Little – "
There was a loud cracking sound, and chunks of frozen earth began to break off from the General's armor. In less than a minute, the entire, massive figure had crumbled, leaving only the supine form of an old man in striped pajamas lying in the dirt. One withered brown hand rose feebly in the air for a few seconds, but then General Adachi's eyes rolled back, his head slumped, and he mercifully passed out.
When the dust settled, Kanie realized he'd lost sight of the battle's victor. Chief Kirihara was already back on dry land with a towel over her shoulders, calling for damage reports. The paramedics soon arrived to whisk the General away under strong sedation, and then cleanup and maintenance crews were called in. Nobody said a word about the Special Interceptor Unit, November Eleven. As suddenly as he'd come, he was gone.
Still dazed, Kanie did his best to help with the aftermath, cordoning off sensitive areas, relaying instructions to the workmen, and rattling off a quick report to the Chief about how he and Saito had gotten the General to follow them. A much longer one would have to be filed later, with a lot of paperwork, but Kanie couldn't seem to think that far ahead. He was still caught in the emotional high of that fight, a real fight between Contractors that had happened right in front of his eyes. He kept glancing up at the frozen waterfall, to reassure himself that it had been real.
The rest of the evening seemed to drag on, as more police arrived from different units, and an impressive collection of the department bureaucrats gathered to argue over who was going to be responsible for what, and if there was blame to be placed, who would bear the brunt of it. Kanie watched them coldly interrogate Chief Kirihara, and though she didn't seem affected at all by the onslaught, he couldn't help feeling indignant that she had to put up with that kind of treatment. In the end she went of with them in a squad car, leaving a deputy chief in command.
It was only when the courtyard began to clear and Kanie was helping to collect and inventory the last of the equipment, that he noticed his partner was missing. After checking with the rest of the unit to make sure no one had seen him leave, and trying to raise Saito several times on the police radio, Kanie decided to go looking for him.
And it was really only by luck that he happened on November Eleven again,
It was out by the park's tiny shrine that he saw him, alone. Kanie stopped dead in his tracks when he realized that the figure lounging by the shrine's entrance was NG-2287, aka November Eleven, aka Jack Simon. He remembered now, that November Eleven was a former agent of MI6 and one of the most notorious Contractors from the Hell's Gate era. Nearly his entire file had been redacted, and the parts that were still readable all emphasized how dangerous he was.
His white suit had dried, mostly, though it was now more of a muddy gray than white, with streaks of dirt here and there. He had an unlit cigarette in his fingers.
Not daring to intrude, but too curious to walk away either, Kanie found himself stepping off the path and into the tree line, ducking down behind the bushes. He watched November Eleven light the cigarette, and grimace slightly as he took the first drag. The man only seemed to relax as he exhaled, watching the smoke rise up into the night air. Smoking was his Remuneration, Kanie realized. The Contractor was wearing the same look of mild disgust that Kanie usually saw on the faces of those who were sensitive to cigarette smoke.
"Got a light?" At the sound of the familiar voice, Kanie ducked down lower into the brush, eyes widened. But he wasn't mistaken. Chief Kirihara was walking down the temple steps. Her hair was down and her eyes were tired, but there was a warmth to the smile on her face. One hand disappeared into her jacket as she came up beside him, then re-emerged with the pack of cigarettes Kanie had seen earlier that day.
"Smoking is a horrible habit," November Eleven chided her gently. "You ought to be more concerned about your health, Misaki." But he held out the lighter for her, and waited until she raised a cigarette to her lips. The look on her face as she inhaled was striking – a peculiar mixture of revulsion and contentment.
"Hey," came a loud whisper behind Kanie. "Stop gawking, kid."
Startled, Kanie looked over his shoulder to find Saito leaning against a tree a few feet away. Sheepishly, he got to his feet. "I'm sorry. I came looking for you and I was just – "
"Shh." Saito put a finger to his lips. "I dropped a few ammunition clips when we were out here, so I came back for them. Sorry if I worried you." He glanced back at the Chief and November Eleven, before jerking his head toward the path. "We should be getting back to headquarters. Let those two have a minute, huh?"
"Yeah." Kanie turned away reluctantly, and followed Saito through the trees without argument. But questions were racing through his head. When they paused by a park bench, a good distance away from the shrine, he couldn't keep his mouth closed any longer. "They're together, aren't they Sir?" he asked Saito. "I mean, that's why the Chief smokes, right? Even though she hates it. Because he has to."
Saito stopped short gave him a long look, as if sizing Kanie up. Then he shrugged. "Chief Kirihara doesn't smoke. She just makes exceptions."
Kanie laughed in disbelief. "Exceptions? So the rules don't apply to Contractors?"
"Rules are fine, but when you're dealing with people who can do the things they do, sometimes rules aren't enough." Saito's face darkened slightly, eyes narrowing in thought. When spoke again, his voice was heavier. "The Chief knows that better than anyone. When she bends the rules or makes exceptions, she always has good reason to. So I respect her decisions, even when I don't agree with them."
"Like about November Eleven," Kanie guessed.
Another shrug. "Among others." He was trying to pretend like he didn't care, but Kanie knew better. He hadn't reacted so strongly at the waterfall for the Contractor's sake, but because he'd known what the Chief would do – what she'd been willing to do.
Maybe it was the late hour, and maybe it was all the physical exertion catching up to him, but Kanie's patience had run dry, and he wasn't ready to accept anymore vague half-answers. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked his partner straight in the eye. "I think Contractors are amazing, but I know they're dangerous, and I know what our Section exists for. No offense Sir, but do you really think that someone like November Eleven, with his background and his kind of power can really be controlled by the police? Sooner or later we're going to be fighting him, just like we had to fight the General."
Saito frowned. "You don't understand, kid. They never actually apprehended him for any crime or coerced him or anything. He made a deal for his services voluntarily. With Chief Kirihara."
"Yeah?" Kanie was doubtful. "So what did he get out of it?"
Saito's frown deepened. "She married him."
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The End