If it were not for needing to receive the data being transmitted from the hospital, Mikoto and Yuko would have made contact with them long ago.
Because it was not being sent through a normal network, but via satellite, it was relatively slow.
Even so, they had already confirmed that the other side's medicine was indeed effective against the living-dead virus.
From a distance, they had also seen Madam Takagi demonstrate it personally: in full view of everyone, she was bitten by a living dead, then drank the medicine, and did not turn.
Once all the data finished downloading, they were about to make direct contact with the other side. Who would have thought the other side was also preparing to depart the Takagi residence, with the goal of collecting more pharmaceuticals for a second batch of the so-called "Hundred Medicines Sealing" process?
As a result, Mikoto hurriedly joined their team, while Yuko needed to remain behind to hold the fort in Senyou Village.
On one hand, she had to investigate what kind of cooperation agreement Souichiro had reached.
On the other hand, she felt that Souichiro's side did not have any particularly strong tactical depth. If people from Syringe attacked, they would likely struggle to hold.
Right now, Tokonosu City needed someone with Souichiro's resolve to consolidate the remaining forces. They could not allow Syringe to plunge the city into even greater chaos, let alone allow Syringe's backer to successfully raise an armed faction and turn the city further into Syringe's experimental ground.
Yes, in this city, Syringe had a major financier. Their patron was the Shidou family, second only to the Takagi family.
So Souichiro could not be allowed to die casually.
"So that means the Shidou family's spy has already penetrated deep into their internal structure and built a new power base, the so-called Trinity Faction," Saya said in a low voice, pushing up her glasses.
No wonder, before departure, he had deliberately emphasized one instruction: if they encountered any member of the Shidou family, no matter who it was, shoot on sight.
In the corner of her eye, Saya glanced at Rei. Knowing the Shidou family was this rotten only made Rei's expression sink further.
If Koichi were down there on the ground right now, and it fell to her to execute him, she probably would not feel much psychological burden at all.
Saya's gaze returned to the Black Label member, Mikoto, who came from an "illegal organization," albeit one that was an enemy of Syringe.
Yet the person Saya couldn't stop looking at wasn't Mikoto's affiliation.
It was that Mikoto looked far too much like Rei.
Not the identical "twin" kind of resemblance, but rather a resemblance that was hard to describe.
That disgusting fat otaku would have put it this way: the "silhouette" and "vibe" were like a perfect cosplay.
The biggest differences were hair and eye color.
Rei was orange-blonde, with brown eyes. Kiba Mikoto, on the other hand, had long silver hair and golden irises.
Both used guns as their weapons, but one wielded a spear, while the other used a revolver.
"When you left the school, you should've just shot that Shidou bastard dead," Saya said.
Back when they took the bus out, she had seen that man survive and loiter around the parking lot. Saya felt that, with his capabilities, killing Koichi would not have affected their escape at all.
As for why he did not kill him back then, Saya could understand it now.
On one hand, he urgently needed to produce Earth Elixir, and he also needed people who would obey.
If he started indiscriminately killing people from the outset, and the victim was Koichi Shidou, a man who was extremely good at disguising himself, then in the eyes of the students in the school district, Koichi was practically a "second teacher."
If he had simply shot him without explanation, no one would have dared to get on the bus.
As for the fact that he had said he would kill a student on the spot, Saya had assumed at the time that he really was that cold-blooded, to the point she was nearly scared weak in the knees.
But once she calmed down afterward, she realized the student who had been killed had something wrong with him. He had likely already been bitten, just not yet showing symptoms, and he was clinging to false hope as he tried to sneak onto the bus.
"Ah, I'm not complaining. I just think that wasn't—no, that was…" Saya hurriedly tried to explain.
She saw his brow tighten slightly, and she panicked for no reason. Even though she understood perfectly well why he had not killed Koichi, the words jammed in her throat and refused to come out, leaving her stumbling and incoherent.
"I know you're not complaining, so you don't need to panic like this," Kain said with a shrug. "It actually makes me a little uncomfortable. It doesn't match your character setting."
Even so, he truly hadn't expected the Shidou family to be one of Syringe's financiers and partners.
If that was the case, then the Shidou side would never be allowed into the Takagi household again.
Then he looked at the girl in front of him again, the heroine from Triage X—Kiba Mikoto.
He hadn't expected her to exist in reality, and he hadn't expected her to look this much like Rei.
Of course, this heroine was far stronger than Rei.
Whether it was righteousness, personality, or sheer willpower, she outclassed Rei by a wide margin.
They were both high school girls, yet Mikoto had already begun to "uphold chivalry and justice," executing the kind of darkness that the law could not punish.
"Your partner, that what-something-Ran?" Kain asked.
"What 'Ran'?" Mikoto looked confused.
Then, a name surfaced in her mind.
"You mean Arashi Mikami," she said. "How would he be my partner? If the living-dead outbreak hadn't happened, I was supposed to evaluate him that day to see if he was qualified to join Black Label. How could he possibly have been paired with me? Though, now, I suppose he counts as a probationary member of Black Label."
"Probationary member?" Kain's eyebrows lifted slightly.
That diverged from the plot he knew.
In the story he'd seen, the protagonist had already been teamed up with her for some time, and then they ran into the "first discovery" arc where the zombie plague was spreading through the city.
But that was "similar," because it had not been exactly like the living dead in full. It was more like living corpses. In the plot he remembered, the early stage was mostly violent frenzy, like rabies.
Now it seemed that if the two works existed in the same shared world, then the real situation differed significantly from the manga.
He could not treat the manga's storyline as absolute truth.
"…Does Arashi Mikami have some kind of problem?" Mikoto asked, unable to stop herself from tensing up.
This man seemed to know far too many secrets. Could it be that Arashi was someone Syringe intended to plant inside Black Label?
"No. He should be fine," Kain said. "As for cooperation regarding Earth Elixir, you can discuss it in detail with the Takagi household later. I expect you'll arrive there soon anyway."
"No time?" Mikoto frowned. "Director Mochizuki already dispatched a helicopter. At most, it'll be just over ten hours."
"And can you guarantee you won't be hit again by Syringe's aerial firepower?" Kain asked.
"…No," Mikoto admitted. "Then taking cars would be safer?"
"Didn't I say there's no time?" Kain said. "Besides—"
He cut off mid-sentence.
"Look at the sky."
As he spoke, his gaze swept out the window.
He had not noticed the high-altitude abnormality immediately, because he had been talking to Mikoto and not paying attention to the outside, much less the upper sky.
The one who noticed first was Saeko. She tugged at him and shoved his attention toward the window.
"The sky?" Mikoto pressed her face to the glass, angling her eyes upward.
Her pupils widened.
She saw something dragging a streak of light as it cut across the night sky.
"That's a missile," Shizuka said, confused.
As the driver, she had a better angle and could see the anomaly more clearly.
"A missile? Could it be—?!" Souichiro's face changed.
At first, even though he recognized it as a missile, he didn't feel a strong sense of danger. No matter what, it wouldn't be aimed at Tokonosu City.
But then he thought of something, and his expression turned grim.
The worst-case scenario he had mentioned might be about to happen—
A high-altitude nuclear detonation.
(End of Chapter)
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