The Unbearable Chains of Liberty

The Gashadokuro spat me out after Famine went dormant. My spirit could finally rejoin as one piece. While that was still happening, I had already soared through the ceiling.

I reached for Raven’s phone on her nightstand. But my hand passed through it. Oh no. I swept my arm across the other objects on the desk. Nothing. I could no longer interact with the physical world. Raven was too close to dying.

Maybe I could ask some random stranger to call for help. But a normal hospital wouldn’t be enough to treat Raven’s injuries. I needed something better. And I knew just where to get it, as much as I didn’t want to.

Jetting above the cityscape at my top speed, I gazed upon the chunks of concrete blocks below. Unconstrained by the set roads on the ground, the aerial route had guided me to my destination within minutes.

“My host is dying at her house. Quick. Send someone there,” I shouted the moment I entered the back of the van, the one parked near the Kensei Data Center. The abrupt appearance of my ghostly form startled the magical programmers who had been focused on their screens.

There was an exception. A woman didn’t flinch like the rest. She wore a dark-gray skirt suit that was clearly a size too small. Her hair was tied in a ponytail. Her tights-clad legs crossed, feet wrapped with heels. She tried to hide her eyes with sunglasses, but the shades couldn’t entirely cover the glowing red.

It didn’t matter who the woman really was, because at the moment, she was merely a puppet for War to possess. The Red Horseman faced me on a couch that leaned against the front wall. The seat gave off the air of a throne; the image of the room instantly communicated who the head of this makeshift office was.

Without a word, War took out her phone and typed something.

She looked back up at me once she was done. “My mobile medical unit is on it. My personnel are stretched a little thin at the moment, but they will get there in time.”

A sigh of relief escaped me. “Good.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, engulfed in weightlessness.

War smirked. Bad sign, like thunderclouds in an open field. “You owe me one.”

Her words snuffed out the pleasantness in my heart, reminding me why I hated talking to her. “What do you mean I owe you?” I asked.

“Three actually.”

“The last I checked. One isn’t equal to three.”

“First time, I spared the Robin Hood when you stole the mallet. The second time, I healed you after your fight with the drugged-up Famine. And this makes three.” Her logic seemed solid at first glance, but something didn’t sit right with me.

Since when has she ever been so cooperative?

She sent an agent to intercept the mallet thieves, but once she realized that I was involved in the heist, she just let us go, with no attempts to contact me afterwards. Pestilence said she couldn’t find the mallet at E.T.’s lair, but probably, the truth was…

“Pestilence gave you the mallet back.”

War shrugged. “I don’t have it.” I was working on a hunch. If she denied it, I would have nothing to follow up with. But as I thought more about this possibility, something else became apparent to me, something that could force War to erase my debt.

“You can deny it all you want, but I still don’t owe you.” I returned my own smirk to War.

War raised her eyebrows. “Are you resorting to irrationality now?”

“No, it was because you killed Ogusu Genki.”

“Ogusu Genki? Is that a name?” War placed her hand around her mouth for dramatic effect.

“Genki was the only victim who pulled out of the Nohato Village Project before the disaster. I thought E.T. was planning to kill the other early investors, but he didn’t end up making a move. And the timing of the death was too coincidental, right as Pestilence and I were stealing the Hand of Glory.”

“How would I know that you two would steal the hand?”

“I know you. You wouldn’t let Pestilence live with an assassin unless you were constantly monitoring her. After Junk-o died, you probably guessed that I was involved and made preparations. Sure enough, you saw the two of us infiltrating the power plant. And that was when you killed Genki.”

“Why would I go through such an elaborate plan?”

“So I would deal with E.T. for you.”

“Oh? That was an intriguing theory you had there. But it would mean that you had been working for me as a pawn.” She must have expected me to deny it. Perhaps normally, I would.

“I was. You got me.” I would take admitting defeat over owing War, no matter how dry my throat had become after saying this.

“And that your activity with Pestilence had led to an unanticipated death.”

“You killed him. Not me.” This declaration wasn’t only meant for War, but also for myself. It was so I could face the currently occurring deaths that were tugging at my attention again.

“You can talk about theories all you want, but if you don’t have evidence, you can’t prove that I’m involved.”

I expected her to bring this up, and I had already thought of a response. “Then I won’t fight E.T. again.”

“Excuse me?” War sat up straight; her eyes sharpened.

“No matter what E.T. does, I will leave him be. You can deal with him yourself.”

War’s eyes flitted, sizing me up. She probably wanted to find a trace of hesitation in me. But unfortunately for her, I never wanted War to call in any favors. I didn’t want to work for her, and Raven certainly wouldn’t either.

“Sure, your debt is forgiven,” she said with a sigh.

“That isn’t enough. Give me a magical item that can completely heal Raven.” Otherwise, War certainly would only do the bare minimum.

War ground her fist on her lap. The movement was subtle; an average person wouldn’t have noticed. “Greed isn’t a good look on you.”

“You will give it to me because I will help you deal with Pestilence.”

“Why do you think I need help?”

“You need someone to get inside to destroy the servers gradually.” The building had magical defenses that countered explosions, and even if she could bypass them, the sheer volume of information processed within the center made bombing it a catastrophe.

After some quiet thoughts, War scratched her head and spoke again with a customer-service voice. “You should stand by at the hospital. I’ll get the item to you shortly.”

“Am I in the way of something?” I wanted to go back to Raven, but since War wanted me to leave so badly, I didn’t want to comply.

“Yes, I charge for my time by the hour. And your trial period is about to end.” She could have literally drawn money from any bank account she wanted. Plus, she had just criticized me for being greedy.

“You killed a person just to assign work to me. And you are bothered by losing a bit of time?”

“Ask quasi-omniscience. Is murder wrong? See what it answers. It can’t. Should I not have killed Ogusu Genki? Again, you will get no reply. We can only act according to what we believe to be the right path.”

Her hand gestures amplified the condescension in her voice, as irritating as a sudden car horn in the middle of the night. I would have beaten her up if I could have done so.