Chapter 6 – Rebellion 2
“Hajime… Hajime!”
Amane was shouting. She was waving her hand within the fog.
Wait, Amane. I’m coming, too.
No, don’t. You can’t come, Hajime.
Why now, Amane? Let me come, too.
But Amane was disappearing. She disappeared as the fog wrapped around her.
Wait, Amane.
Where are you going, Amane?
Wait. Please, wait.
“Hajime… Hajime!”
When he woke upon his arm getting grabbed, the siren was still ringing.
It was apparent that the anesthetic was still in effect, being that he had fallen asleep again.
Azumi’s face was right before his eyes. Her comrades could be seen behind her as well.
“Hold tight, I’ll cut these off for you.”
Using large cutters, her companions managed to cut apart the thick leather belts that had been restraining him.
He could feel his blood flow return to his limbs.
“Are you all right? Can you get up?”
“Yeah, I think so…”
But just as he raised his upper body and lowered his legs off the bed, his knees collapsed.
Azumi, who had quickly moved to catch him, was about to stumble along with him, but thankfully her companions supported them at the last second.
“Sorry… I think I’m still having trouble waking up.”
“It’s fine. We’re gonna get you out of this godforsaken place as soon as possible.”
Hajime left the room while borrowing Azumi’s shoulder while her armed companions protected them.
Upon entering the passageway outside, a mixture of gunshots and shouting could be heard from outside the building.
He already had a guess at his location beforehand, but the scene outside the window confirmed that he was within the hanging garden.
“…So you’ve decided to revolt.”
“It was a lot sooner than we originally planned, though.”
He could feel Azumi’s breathing up close.
“What about him… What about Satsuki?”
“It’s because of Satsuki that we rushed our plans. I don’t know what the hell happened, but for some reason he got arrested by the Guardians even though he’s a captain. He really is Lame-tsuki… He ended up attacking the Guardians without thinking. It was probably because he wanted revenge on what they did to those grannies…”
Azumi’s eyes teared up.
So those old ladies were killed… Hajime was reminded of the sharp eyes they had hidden behind their friendly smiles.
“In the end, that’s apparently what caused everyone to get wrapped up in this revolt. Thirty minutes later, everyone here came to save me using Satsuki’s information. I’ll admit that if it weren’t for him, I probably would’ve never made it out.”
“…And what about the Admiral?”
“Everyone’s looking for him right now. He’s most likely in the office on the top floor, but there’s apparently a ton of guards to go through… Do you want to come with us? Or rather, could you please come with us?”
“Sure.”
Hajime responded before thinking. He wanted to see it through for some reason. He wasn’t sure if it was either the revolt or the Domed City he cared about.
“Great!”
Azumi’s voice was excited.
How did things get like this?
Having separated from the others who were heading for the top floor, Satsuki had returned to his room and was questioning himself.
When his subordinates had pointed their guns at him, he ended up instantly attacking back. He shot them with his concealed pistol. He knew that he was upset over the old ladies getting killed, but even he was surprised at how he reacted.
As a result, his actions were of course deemed as literal betrayal towards the Admiral.
“Let me say this at least. I truly do think of you as my younger brother, and what exactly is wrong with that?”
Satsuki thought about the days when the Admiral took him in and selected him to be the captain of the Guardians.
“The predecessor took me in and raised me. If I were to say that I am merely doing the same thing to you, would you be upset?”
“Then, by all means, think of me as your older brother.”
From a stray dog into a pet dog. The joy of being expected to be an excellent hound, as well as meeting those expectations. He looked up to him as a brother, even holding feelings towards him that went beyond that, but in the end he was nothing more than a dog.
Satsuki recalled that nightmare.
That dark and cold scent of stainless steel had at some point changed to a sweet fragrance, and the suffocating fear he once felt had transformed into the kind of relief one would feel in their mother’s womb.
He wanted to embrace that dream, even if it belonged to someone else.
At that moment, he received a message on his portable terminal.
It was just one word, “HELP.” It was from the Admiral.
Without having any sort of plan in mind whatsoever, Satsuki quickly reloaded his pistol and returned it into its holster.
On his way to the door, he was instinctively about to look at the mirror as a force of habit, but he quickly turned away. He didn’t want to see the face of a traitor.
Upon exiting the elevator at the highest floor, he could hear gunshots.
It was a gunfight between the Anti-Admirals and the Guardians protecting the Admiral’s office.
Azumi and Hajime Aikawa could be seen in the back, presumably having met up at the laboratory.
He felt like something moved inside him upon seeing the two of them so close together, but no emotion came from it.
No one had noticed his arrival yet.
After quietly sneaking away, Satsuki opened the steel door leading to the emergency staircase using the master key he always carried around with him.
The elevator he arrived in had access only to the highest floor, so if he wanted to get to the floor below it, his only options were to either go back to the first floor and use another elevator, or to use the staircase.
Upon descending one floor down, he entered one of the meeting rooms.
He went out to the veranda and climbed onto the handrail, just barely managing to reach his hands onto the overhang of the floor above.
It was the window frame of the well-known 360 degree panorama window of the Admiral’s office.
That south portion of it was the only part of it that didn’t have a fixed fitting. He would be able to enter the office from there, as well as escape.
Luckily, in this man-made Domed City, wind did not blow.
Satsuki grabbed onto the window frame, making sure not to look down. After pulling himself all the way up in one motion, he came across the Admiral standing right in front of him.
He must have expected that Satsuki would come through the window, and immediately opened the window for him.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Satsuki.”
“Are you hurt at all?”
Upon entering the room, Satsuki examined the Admiral’s face, which was devoid of any fear or unease whatsoever. However, the tumor peeking out from his bangs seemed to be just the slightest bit flushed.
“I’m perfectly fine, thank you. However… that window won’t work as an escape route. Do you happen to know any way we can exterminate those pests?”
Gunshots could be heard coming from outside the door intermittently.
Satsuki had obviously arrived through the window because he couldn’t exterminate them, but he knew that the Admiral wouldn’t understand that kind of explanation.
As he thought about that, Satsuki grew surprised at his own feelings.
Until just a little while ago, he had sworn to do anything as long as it was for the Admiral’s sake. What in the world happened to me? Did I change, did he change, or did something else change?
“There’s no need to descend.”
The Admiral’s eyes grew wide.
“…What is the meaning of this, Satsuki?”
The Admiral had spoken those words upon seeing that Satsuki was pointing his pistol at him.
“That should be my question. For what purpose did you take me in?”
The Admiral didn’t respond. His eyes were dead. There wasn’t a single hint of emotion within them.
“Please answer me!”
Satsuki’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Suddenly, artificial sunlight came shining down through the canopy.
The moment he turned around, he saw numerous winged Undead bump into the 360 degrees panorama window.
“The Undead!”
He felt an enormous shockwave shake the entire hanging garden.
Even so, the window did not break. He had heard from the Admiral that the military-grade window was made of a special glass that would withstand even an attack from a rocket launcher.
“I see, so these are the Undead. What fascinating creatures.”
The Admiral walked towards the window with a scrutinizing gaze, completely ignoring the fact that he was being held at gunpoint.
Right then, the gunshots coming from behind the door ceased.
Without any hesitation whatsoever, Satsuki turned around to determine if the gunfight had come to a conclusion, but right at that moment, a large sound rang out, and the large panorama window shattered and collapsed into the room.
Satsuki immediately stepped back and shifted his gun, but it was too late.
The large droves of Undead had flown in and swung their iron talons into the Admiral.
Fresh blood sprayed onto Satsuki’s clothes, and the blood-covered Admiral collapsed.
“Admiral!”
At the same time, the door was knocked down and Hajime came rushing in.
“Henshin!”
He transformed into that strange-looking form of his while running and charged into the Undeads.
In just a second, he had torn apart a good number of the monsters, and he continued to repeatedly attack the Undead from all directions as if they were his playthings.
It was a ghastly scene, with the blue blood of the torn apart Undeads spraying all across the room.
It was the same as the battle within the graveyard. There was a single cold-blooded beast before Satsuki’s eyes.
At the very next moment, that beast changed into a grotesque crustacean-like form.
Satsuki felt himself grow frozen from its ominous and evil appearance.
“Hajime…!”
The sight had caused Azumi and her companions to stand stiff as well.
The collapsed Undeads disintegrated, and silence returned.
Upon noticing Satsuki’s presence, she looked at him with questioning eyes.
“Satsuki, when did you…?”
Right then, the Admiral let out a dying groan.
“Hajime Aikawa… I’ve finally seen your true form… I wanted to know the truth behind that appearance of yours, but it appears that I’ve finally run out of time…”
He then passed away with a small smile on his face. His bangs gently brushed down and hid his tumor.
At the same time, Hajime’s transformation reverted and he fell on his knees with a stagger. It was clear that he was being struck with a different kind of pain than last time.
“Are you all right, Hajime?”
Azumi had rushed in and was rubbing his back.
Satsuki looked down on the Admiral’s remains in a daze.
He could do nothing but simply look down at the man that had departed without saying a single thing to him, the man he once yearned for as more than just an older brother.
Suddenly, his intense emotions surged and exploded.
“Who the hell are you?! What the hell are you?!”
He drew close to Hajime and violently shook him by the collar.
“Stop, Satsuki!”
He knocked away Azumi who came in to stop him and held Hajime up.
“Say something!”
It wasn’t rage, interest, or curiosity that fueled him, but rather some kind of insanity.
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 