Wärme [ˈvɛʁmə]

“Have you been feeling any different than when you first arrived here in the last few hours? Since yesterday evening, to be specific. Has there been any major shift in your mood, not taking the use of Kälte into account?”

“I don’t think so. Well, I did start to feel relatively warm for a little while, but nothing else, really.”

“Interesting. To conduct further examination, I fear we need a more invasive method of testing. If you could please remain calm, and not move. Insertion of a small blade into the proximal left thigh will take place in exactly sixty seconds. Please relax.”

The table’s metal restraints snapped into place before the speaker even finished their sentence.

Resistance is futile and may result in serious injury, so for your own good and that of this entire facility, please remain totally still throughout the entire duration of testing.”

I should have known that thing on the ceiling wasn’t entirely harmless after all. A small cavity on the torture device slowly opened, revealing a scalpel primed for deep tissue penetration.

“As per the contract the Japanese government has signed with us regarding the subject of your bodily autonomy, you should really not have any complaints as of this moment.”

So I’ve been sold by the government? I thought the human rights thing would be automatic, at least Araki made it sound like it. But there’s actual paperwork involved? That’s just twisted. And why are they talking so monotonous? Is this seriously an everyday occurrence? I’m pretty sure this counts as torture.

“I…”

“Oh, would you consider this torture? As I just stated, the consent of a weapon is not necessary to conduct testing, so your opinion does not matter.”

The blade still kept lowering itself unmoved by my mental pleas for mercy.

“Insertion will commence in 10”

A sharp, piercing sensation surged from my left leg. The blade slowly folded back into the torture orb from the ceiling, readying some sort of spray above the wound instead.

I looked down on my legs, only to witness the blood flow quickly subsiding. Merely seconds after that deranged lunatic let a blade pierce my thigh, the wound had already almost closed. The affected area began heating up in the process, getting far hotter than the pleasant warmth I had felt over last night.

Shortly after, when the metal restraints opened back up, there wasn’t even superficial scarring left.

“Impressive,” the same voice I had just heard over the speaker said.

A rather tall man with eyebags reaching deep into his skull leaned in the opened doorframe.

“Many Traumata have secondary healing propositions, but it seems yours is exceptionally pronounced. It’s as if it were another Traumata entirely. And that I haven’t seen before. Consider yourself lucky, you’re truly something else, even amongst Traumata.”

I considered the worst consequences pummeling his face into the ground could potentially bring. I was in good graces with one of the higher-ups right now, but wasting a potential favor on something as mundane as this didn’t seem like the most reasonable act.

“The results from the algorithm should have arrived by now.”

He casually pulled out a smartphone, stared at the screen for a few seconds and then gave his verdict.

“There you have it. Exceptional. Absolutely exceptional,” his eyes lit up. “You truly are something else. If I had my way, you’d never leave this room again. It’s… beautiful.” Sudden tears of joy rolled down his face.

Apparently this entire department was filled to the brim with insane people. Not even Satoru could qualify as mentally stable based on what he last said to me. Shouldn’t there be actually qualified, sane professionals leading medical experiments?

“It’s actually real. It’s been an honor to have you here. May we meet again soon in the future, because I must quickly depart to deliver these results to Mr. Wada.” He grabbed my hand and shook it violently, running off the second after.

“Please excuse him, he’s just overjoyed to have finally found a worthy specimen for his research. You don’t need to worry about it.” Another “scientist” suddenly appeared behind me as I left the room.

“You’ve been requested for a mission by Special Agent Araki. He’s still recovering from his previous injuries, so you’ll find him two corridors down to the left, it’s hard to miss.”

After less than a week of being ordered around, I already grew accustomed to just mindlessly walking toward a predetermined destination. Was I the protagonist of some mediocre RPG to them?

I was too busy to even think, and that after an actually pleasant last night’s sleep.

Two corridors down, to the left. Can’t miss it. If he says so I wouldn’t be too sure about that, but whatever.

I turned toward a large room outfitted with high-tech medical equipment and eight perfectly laid out hospital beds. The only one currently filled was by Araki, who waved at me, a satisfied smile on his face.

“Come here, kid.” He waved me towards him.

“Listen. I really pondered killing you when I recovered, but then I heard about Matsumoto taking you under her wing and reconsidered. That’s way worse than death. Not a single Traumata user she’s taken in survived longer than a month so far. There’s actual betting pools set up throughout the facility. It’s a blast.”

“What do you want from me, Special Agent Araki?”

“You can call me Hideki. Just Hideki. Anyone who can manage to injure me deserves that honor.”

Is it really an honor to call a middle aged, depressed man by his first name? I’ll just treat it like his dying wish or something.

“Alright, Hideki. What is it you want from me?”

“We’ll go out together. Later today.”

“Not interested.”

“Okay, calm your horses there, kid. I’m happily married, have been for twenty years and plan on staying it another twenty. Besides, you’re out of my preferred age group, and, as far as I was made aware, aren’t even interested in men. I may be a bit old, but I’m neither senile nor stupid. It’s a mission. A simple patrol, that’s it.”

I almost felt sorry for assuming an ill intention from him, until I recalled him getting joy out of telling me I had no rights.

His breath was still heavy, and he was slightly wheezing when he spoke. But if he didn’t care, then why should I?

“Before we head out, though, I’ll need to retrieve something pretty important. Just follow me and try not to get lost. And tell me if you feel Matsumoto near you, because that woman, dear lord. She shakes me to the marrow. And I don’t just mean metaphorically. Ever since she first arrived here after that Landslide on ’07, I get chills whenever she’s around. And she was just a kid back then. It’s a whole other beast now, I’m sure you know.”

He jumped from his bed, raring to finally do something after being restrained to his bed for more than a day. His arms slightly jittered as we continued walking.

We passed a completely dark room, filled only with a dimly illuminated, large pool of water. Inside, there were seven people, fully submerged in the pool, forming a seven-pointed star around a central server structure, towering from the lowest depths of the pool all the way to the ceiling, and possibly beyond.

Araki must have noticed me briefly stopping by the glass door, and my subsequent look of disdain and horror, because he just started talking.

“Oh, you saw that, huh? Don’t worry, that’s just our state-of-the-art surveillance system. I have no idea how it works, or where those people always come from, but they somehow communicate directly with our satellite network in orbit to search for abnormalities regarding the flow of traumatic energy. That’s how we found you in the first place.

Maybe ask Matsumoto about it on your next mission or something, she’s more knowledgeable about other Traumata users than me. But really, there’s no need to worry, you won’t end up like that as a frontline fighter. In fact, I’ve been the first person in five months to actually use that recovery room. Most of us just die on the spot. You should know.”

Without any further mention of what just happened, we continued walking, until we reached a large vault door.

“Could you look away for a moment? Can’t have you knowing the combination after all.”

I, of course, obliged his request and briefly turned around. After hearing exactly twenty-five entries into the panel I just turned around, seeing as he still wasn’t done typing.

“What’s the point of the door if it takes that long to open? Isn’t that a bit counterproductive?”

“Some things inside there could be worth the entire GDP of nations, if converted to real value. So I don’t think so.”

Slowly, the vault door rolled into the wall beside it, revealing an entire corridor of weapons of almost any kind.

“All of these are capable of severely damaging spiritual entities. Most of them are centuries old, so don’t touch anything. We still don’t know what some of them are capable of, since all users of them died while using them. It’s all weapons connected to folkloric curses and that kind of thing, granting them the ability to not only be imbued with your own spiritual energy without breaking, but also outputting their energy of their own and amplifying the output of the user significantly. With the obvious drawback of worse side effects.”

We walked through the entire corridor, dozens of rows of swords lining the walls. But Araki kept going. He kept walking until we reached the end of the corridor.

There it was, a single blade on a sword stand, at the center of the wall. A small plaque on the table below it read: “The Blade that cut Tokugawa Ieyasu.”

He handled the alleged cursed blade with utmost care, kneeling down before its stand to carefully slide the tang into his tsuka, while granting it the respect a blade of such legend deserved. After firmly attaching it, he gently secured the mekugi peg.

The whole ordeal appeared perfectly rehearsed over centuries.

Araki rose from his knees and sheathed the sword, casually strolling out of the vault without saying another word.

“Pretty impressive, huh? You young in’s always stare like that when you see a true master at work.”

He let out a belting laugh, briefly swinging his arms over my shoulder.