The Girl from S.K.U.L.L.

“Y-You’re a girl?!” I exclaimed, though I felt dumb saying it. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t think girls could be villains, I just thought if I ever met a villain they’d be more… In my mind’s eye I pictured Makuma Non, his single green eye piercing my very soul. In contrast, the two green eyes of the villain I currently had pinned down were not doing any piercing. Still…

I stared at the girl who called herself an agent of S.K.U.L.L., taking in her soft features and committing them to memory. So this is what a real villain looks like, I thought, feeling my heart beat faster with excitement at having finally seen one in the flesh. Villains are surprisingly cu-

The villain’s face started to turn red, and before I could finish my thought, she managed to draw in one of her legs and kick me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me and sending me flying back. I landed a short distance away with a light thud, clutching my stomach for the second time today.

The villain leapt to her feet and pointed accusingly at me, her face still slightly red. “H-How dare you accost an agent of S.K.U.L.L. in such a way!” she sputtered. “You- You lecherous deviant!”

I could only cough in response, flecks of spit splattering on the ground as I struggled to regain my composure. They’re fine with blowing up cars and kidnapping people, but sexual harassment is where they draw the line? I thought, struggling to my feet. What kind of evil organization is this?

“I wasn’t trying to feel you up,” I hissed, leaning against the wall for support. “I was just doing my civic duty and holding you until P.E.A.C.E. shows up.”

“Your civic duty?” The villain let out a sharp, haughty laugh. “Please,” she continued, her voice dropping to a low tone. “No one in this world has a sense of duty anymore. They’re all just sheep, content to do as they’re told for the sake of a peaceful existence. They have no reason to do anything else.” She slowly walked over to where her mask had landed, picking it up off the ground and gently wiping it clean. “But we will change that,” she said, putting it on and pulling up her hood. “S.K.U.L.L….” She turned to face me, the green orbs projected by the mask burning with cold intensity.

“…will end world peace.”

Her shadow seemed to loom over me, her voice echoing off the walls, and I felt a chill run up my spine. I was face to face with a true villain, and in that moment I truly believed she could end world peace, just like that… But eventually skepticism crept back in, cultivated from a long history of disappointments, and I began questioning her claims.

“And how are you going to do that?” I asked, pushing against the wall and standing upright. “What can S.K.U.L.L. do that all the other rulers and terrorists and rights movements couldn’t do for the last hundred years? What’s your goal? Why not just give up and live like everyone else?”

“-Why are you still like this? Why can’t you just accept things as they are and move on?”

Green orbs flickered hesitantly. “Th-The Society of Killers United-!” she started, her voice cracking. Her hands trembled at her sides. She paused and took a deep breath, her glowing eyes turning off as they “closed”, before opening again and fixing me with a firm gaze.

“We will do it,” she insisted. “We won’t give up, like all the others before us. We will fight against this rotten, stagnant peace, and we won’t stop fighting until the world belongs to us!” She was on a roll, her voice rising in pitch and volume that her modulator struggled to keep up with. “We are freedom! We are conflict! We are-”

The sound of footsteps approaching gave her pause. “-Hm. It would appear the officers of P.E.A.C.E. are not completely ineffective after all…” She turned, wrapping her cloak around herself with a flourish, and started to walk away, but stopped for a moment. She looked over her shoulder, the cloak obscuring all but her eyes as she spoke:

“Until we meet again.” Then she threw down another smoke bomb and vanished into the darkness. I rushed forward, arm outstretched to grab her, but all I grabbed was smoke as I stumbled into the lingering cloud. I coughed, blinking away the tiny particles of chaff as I swept my gaze around, searching for any sign of the escaping villain. As the smoke finally cleared, I caught a glimpse of her cloak disappearing around the corner, just as the footsteps behind me slowed to a halt. I turned to see a squad of P.E.A.C.E. officers enter the alley behind me, followed by an out-of-breath Captain Homura.

“There you are, kid,” he sighed, dropping all pretense of formality. “You alright? Where’d that skull guy run off to?”

I looked back at the corner where her cloak had vanished.

“I wish I knew…”

Captain Homura and his squad escorted me back on foot; apparently the alleys the villain had dragged me down were too narrow to fit any sort of vehicle through. I glanced over my shoulder to see Homura lagging behind, waving off one of his officers while he paused to catch his breath. Even in a world where good health was easy to come by, the captain wasn’t the most in-shape…

By the time we arrived back at the main street (after stopping several times to wait for Homura to catch up), the restoration system was deactivated, and the temporary safety barriers had been retracted. However, as we approached the scene of the incident, I noticed the car the villain had set fire to, completely intact, and frowned.

“What happened to that car?” I asked, pointing at it. “I thought personal vehicles weren’t connected to the restoration system?”

Before Captain Homura could answer, another voice chimed in: “They’re not!”

I turned to see the officer from before with the flag sticker on his shoulder walking over to us, grinning. “The car was never damaged in the first place!”

“But- But that’s impossible!” I exclaimed. “I saw it happen! Sh-” I “They shot that weird rifle at it and it caught fire, even shorted out and burnt to a crisp!”

The officer shook his head, still grinning that Cheshire grin. “Nope! Check this out.” He came up next to me, holding up the rifle the villain had been carrying earlier. “Hologram rifle! I’ve never actually seen one before, but basically you aim one of these at a small individual system,” he explained, pointing it at the car, “and BAM!” He pulled the trigger, and I watched as the car suddenly burst into green flames again, startling the technicians investigating it. “Basic functions shut down, display systems are overridden to project flames, and the whole thing turns black! Neat, huh?” Beside me, Captain Homura shook his head in exasperation.

The officer reached around and tapped a button on the side of the rifle, and the flames immediately disappeared, the car returning to its original color. “I heard they were invented as an alternative to real weapons, simulating damage to adaptive systems to scare people without hurting them, but apparently being able to actually shut down a system’s functions was still considered dangerous, so it was scrapped… Now, where do you suppose they got this?” he asked, eyes narrowing as he tilted his head curiously, still smiling…

“We’ll let an evidence scan figure that out, once it’s safely locked up, Fugura,” Homura growled, snatching the rifle out of his hands. “You know the rules, don’t make me report you again.”

Officer Fugura smiled mischievously. “Of course, of course,” he agreed, starting to walk away with his hands folded behind his head. “I wouldn’t dream of it… Hage-tan~!” he teased, suddenly leaning in close.

“Grrr… Damnit, Fugura, it’s Nageta, not Hageta!”1 Homura barked, shaking his fist at him. “And I’m not bald, my hair is just very fine!”

“Of course, whatever you say, Hageta-san!” Fugura called back, laughing as he strolled over to the technicians he had startled.

“I swear, one day…” Hageta- er, Captain Homura muttered, glaring at the officer’s retreating back. After a while he finally remembered I was here and turned to me with a forced smile. “While you’re here, would you like to answer a few questions for me?” It was obvious that he would rather I just answered them anyway, but P.E.A.C.E. guidelines made most questioning optional to avoid causing unnecessary conflict. Still, I would have felt bad for not answering him after all the trouble he went through, so I agreed, following him to his transport.

“You mind if I record this?” he asked. “I’d prefer to write this down on paper, but the higher-ups are saying that written reports are too easy to falsify. Like AI isn’t advanced enough to fake an audio recording…” he muttered under his breath.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t mind.”

Homura nodded and reached up to tap a button on the side of his helmet’s frame, causing a little blinking red dot to appear on its protective field, signaling that he had started recording. “This is Captain Homura Nageta of the Japanese P.E.A.C.E. department, Area 19, Section 2. The date is 08-09-2251, and the time is 19:10. I am interviewing-” He paused, prompting me to answer.

“Kanahei Shuuya.”

Captain Homura nodded and continued. “-Kanahei Shuuya, a civilian who was captured during an incident today involving an unidentified person. Mr. Kanahei, did you recognize the perp- person who kidnapped you in any way?” Homura asked. He had clearly been about to say “perpetrator”, but that was considered accusatory language and could lead to him being reported.

I shook my head; “No,” I answered, truthfully. To be fair, I probably wouldn’t recognize her if she was anyone from around here anyway; outside of my parents, who came to visit occasionally, the only people whose faces I really remembered were Mirai-san and my best friend Shin.

“Right, and did this person say anything to you? Anything suspicious, names, locations, that sort of thing?”

“Nothing in particular,” I replied. “The same stuff you heard before about being an agent of S.K.U.L.L., being here to end world peace… Though I suppose they did call me a-” I paused; do I really want them to know I was accused of being a pervert by a literal terrorist? “-An annoying pest,” I finished lamely. “But I did find out what S.K.U.L.L. stands for! The Society of Killers United against… uh, something. They didn’t get to finish.”

Homura sighed, shaking his head. “So, standard terrorist wannabe-type, mysterious leader, works for the society of killers or something… Anything else? Did you get a chance to see what they looked like?”

I thought back to the girl being pinned beneath me, her wide green eyes blinking up at me, and felt my heartrate quicken again. “No,” I replied, the lie effortlessly rolling off my tongue. “I have no idea what they looked like, their mask stayed on the entire time.”

The captain let out an annoyed snort. “Tch. Figures,” he grumbled, reaching up and tapping the button on his chest again to stop recording. “Alright kid, if that’s all then you’re free to go. I ‘preciate you answering my questions.”

“It’s no problem at all, sir,” I replied, bowing respectfully.

As I walked back to my waiting apartment, I couldn’t help but think back on the day’s events, and specifically to my interview with Captain Homura; why did I lie to him about seeing her face? I wondered. She’s a villain, a member of an evil organization, she said so herself! So why did I-

“S.K.U.L.L…. will end world peace.”

I came to a stop and looked up at the moon, a single bone-white sphere glowing in an otherwise uniform black sky.

“Do I… want conflict?”

NEXT: The Purpose of Conflict!

Notes

1. Hageta (ハゲた) means “bald” in Japanese.