Chapter 8: Liquidate

The second option required ten thousand of these so-called ‘credits’, while, as he recalled, he had only 400.

That left only the ‘Liquidate’ option.

And while he could not say for certain what each different option entailed, it was not a hard guess.

‘Convert to servant’ meant he’d keep Nohara around as some sort of slave, probably.

‘Liquidate’, would dispose of him in exchange for ‘credits’.

In this odd way, he did own Jacky Nohara’s soul.

He would be the one choosing what happened to him, even though it was a fake choice.

However…

“You’re fucking dead. When I get my hands on you… I’ll…”

Still fighting the chains, Nohara was now growling at him like some wild beast.

“...”

Haruto remained silent. Reasoning with the man was no use at all. From the beginning, it hadn’t been.

The girl was right.

It wasn’t a matter of ‘How could you?’, but ‘Can I?’.

And ultimately… Despite any hangups he could have, and despite what his innate morals told him…

“I am going to take your life, Nohara.”

He found he had no problem killing that man at all.

The burly guy looked towards him, suddenly quieting up, and immediately resumed his thrashing and struggling.

It wasn’t that Haruto had anything in particular against him. That guy simply freaked him out. From the outset, Haruto had decided he would survive that race, no matter what. If he had to choose between his own life and someone else’s, he would choose his own side no matter what. Even if he could have taken Nohara in as some ‘servant’ or some such, surely someone as like  him was not to be trusted.

“I’m sorry if it bothers you. However, I am sure you would have done the same, wouldn’t you?” the boy muttered, strangely calm.

He brought his finger to the option on the left, tapping it with his index finger.

“I’ll find you!! I’LL FUCKING FIND YOU, YOU HEAR ME!? AND THEN I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU INTO FUCKING —”

The floating screen vanished from sight.

Before he could finish his rant, Jacky Nohara’s body started to waver in place, overtaken by some otherworldly force. Struggle as he might, the middle-aged man could not get rid of what was coming to him.

He thrashed some more, heaved for air, punched the air, and cursed a few last words in a voice that could no longer be heard. However, it was no use.

There was something in the man’s chest. His gray shirt seemed to have been taken by some odd spiral-like entity, being strewn around in place, in a whirl, until eventually it started to lose its shape. The spiral soon spread to the man’s legs, arms, to his neck, to his face. He was being sucked in by the spiral. Slowly. Gradually ceasing to exist.

The man’s body shrunk in size, now with barely any form left to itself, until eventually it was entirely engulfed by the spiral, drowning out his desperate, final cry.

An instant later, Jacky Nohara was gone. Not a piece of him had been left behind. ‘Liquidated’, so to say.

Haruto checked his inventory, and, just as promised, his total credits were now 5400.

“Wow… Now, that was cold!”

He heard the redhead’s amused voice echo about. She was still sat on her motorcycle a few feet away.

Clearly, she was trying to mock him. But truth be told, she wasn’t all that far off. He did not feel much about what he’d just done. Perhaps it was the fact he’d had no choice, but…

The boy shook off his doubts. He was alive. Several people had tried to kill him since he’d arrived here, but at least until this moment, he was still alive. He had to take some pride in at least that and move forward. What was done was done, wasn’t it?

He glanced down to his right arm. Ever since the burly man’s car had blown up, he’d suddenly lost track of the shrill pain he’d felt up until that point, and for a moment Haruto would think it to be due to the brief shock he’d gone through. But that wasn’t it.

The checkerboard cloud was gone. He could freely move his right arm about now, because it did not hurt even a little bit.

Taken aback, Haruto took a look at the hellish scenery left ahead by the motorcycle girl, and, much to his surprise, it seemed to be disappearing as well. The burning oil receded unexplainably, disappearing amid the asphalt. The burning buildings drew back to normal, the flames that clung to them put out by the wind that did not exist.

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Not a single burn could be seen on either surface.

The street the two former students now stood in had been returned to the exact same state it had been in before they’d reached it.

“That’s nice, too.” commented the motorcycle girl with a shrug. “This world has a way of ‘curing itself’ whenever someone tries to make a mess of it. It usually only kicks off once an event is over, though.”

Picking her helmet back up, she brought it up to her head once again, intending to lead.

“Well, not that this whole ordeal is taken care of, I guess I’m off to –”

“Stop.”

Tilting her head in puzzlement, the girl turned toward Haruto, who locked her down in a stare he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of doing ever before in his life.

“... Oh? You’re telling me to stop. Me? You’ve got some nerve for a peasant on a beginner's car…”

Something had made him, though. Something about that strange girl just triggered him deep inside.

Raising his voice, he addressed her once again.

“Who the hell are you…?”

Perking up with a sneer, she ominously answered.

“H.E.L.L.F.I.R.E., as you can see.”

She pointed to an empty space above her head. Or rather, it had appeared to be empty at first. The moment he focused his sight on that place, an arrow-esque symbol appeared, pointing back down at the girl, and further up the very same letters she had spelled out to him.

“H.E.L.L.F.I.R.E.? … What is that even supposed to mean…?” Haruto asked again, in utter bafflement.

“What, you ask?” she grinned. “Exactly what it says on the tin… ‘M-a-e-k-a-w-a’, is it?”

The boy looked upwards. If she had something like that over her head, signaling her name to him, it was likely he had one as well, even though he couldn’t see it himself.

“It’s been a while since I’ve met another Japanese person.” she continued, still grinning. “In any case, this is my wheel-name. You may choose one for yourself, or you may otherwise be awarded one by fellow Cyberacers. General rule, though, it is best to do the choosing yourself, unless you want to be ridiculed by everyone you come by.”

The girl kept talking, but Haruto no longer listened. His gaze was still locked onto the moniker above her head.

Wasn’t this supposed to be the afterlife? From what people had always told him, this was supposed to be the place where all souls were sent to be judged, ‘naked and true’, so to say. Simply put, some sort of inescapable ‘court’ where people would be seen the way they truly were, no charades to hide behind. But if that was so, then why on earth would that place have such a setting, with the explicit purpose of hiding one’s identity?

Well, it was true he could still see the girl’s face just fine now. If he’d known her in life, then of course he would recognize her without any impediment, but…

(I mean, what does it matter, in any case? It’s not like I’d suddenly figure out who she was just from knowing her actual name… However…)

He realized that, surprisingly enough, he did recognize something about her, now looking closely…

This ‘H.E.L.L.F.I.R.E.’, as she called herself… It was obvious he’d never remember someone he hadn’t even met, but he could at least recognize the school uniform she was wearing. Simple, but fancier than the usual highschool garb. It belonged to a girls-only private school, from the same city as him.

The badge on her blazer sold him on the idea entirely. He was not making a mistake.

(What was its name again…? One of those boneheads from class would never shut up about it. ‘I wanna go there’ and ‘I wish I was a rich girl’ or some such drivel… Come on… I think  it was… Kabuto…? Kagayaku? Or was it Kogan, maybe…? These schools and their weird names…)

In the end, he gave up. He couldn’t pinpoint the name of her school, but he was sure it was nearby his. He was used to always seeing a few girls with the exact same uniform she was wearing walking around similar paths to the ones he took every once in a while, so the two schools couldn’t be far apart to begin with. That aside, he couldn’t remember much more than the fact that it was a high-end rich girls’ school, well-known enough everyone from his class would gush about this and that about it.

(So that means we are from a similar area in Japan…)

Even if that knowledge alone didn’t take him very far, the boy supposed he should keep it in mind. Two people from the same city would naturally have more in common than two people from different continents, so he at least figured they’d be used to more ‘similar’ things, or some such, and thus think similarly as well in regards to their surroundings. Well, that was all just him ruminating to himself at that point.

(Then again, she’s not a ‘new arrival’ like me… Who knows how long she’s been in this place, even?)

For all he knew, she could have been there for ages and be more used to that ‘so-called’ Chariot City, anyway.

It was a stupid idea to think he could get into her head, in the first place.

He couldn’t fight off someone like that, was he crazy!? He had to run while he still could, before she decided it would be fun to scorch him next. Or rather, he wanted, yet, he could not.

Without even noticing it, he’d been staring at the girl’s moniker for several seconds, utterly lost in thought, and as if in response to the shown interest, another screen popped up before him.

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