Chapter Three:
Silent Tears
1
X day of X month
AAAAAAH! I don't know what to say. Yesterday, something TERRIBLE happened to me. Ever since I began writing in this diary, really unlucky things have happened to me! Well, I was just walking along minding my own business like a good girl when, suddenly, I was hit by lightning! My eyes rolled. I fainted all sprawled out like a frog. Yah, that was the first time I have EVER fainted. If I had to be hit by something, I'd want it to be the lottery. But I was hit by lightning and that never gets you even one yen. The only profit I got is I'm not dead.
But, um. Y'know, today I skipped school and my part-time job to rest. I mean, you know it still hurt everywhere, my body. ME! I've NEVER been sick. I spent the day in bed but... when I was still in grade school, I got an award for never being absent, so my teacher's going to be surprised.
Well, the school doesn't matter, but my part-time job.... I'm losing 3,500 yen!!! It's gonna be awfully hard to make up that. My piggy bank is crying, "boo boo" because it's starving. I'm so, so sorry, piggy-chan. Oh, why is my family so poor?! If my father finds out I think we're so poor, he's gonna kill me. He lets me make a decent living. We aren't totally poor. But of course the truth is we are not well-off.
Why did my mom marry a dull man like my father? I want to marry a rich man! The world revolves around money. People get pretty clothes and eat all kinds of good foods, THEN they talk about love! I want to do some sort of big important job. All this just so I can make a profit of one hundred thousand yen.
Today, I had an idea when Kyoko came to visit me. It was really wonderful of her, 'specially as she brought me a chou a la creme as big as a cabbage as a house-gift! Delicious!
This is what Kyoko told me. Someone in the next class over got herself pregnant! So everyone is pooling money to help her get an abortion. This costs about a hundred thousand yen. That's where I got an idea. I'm a genius!
Pregnancy! If I was pregnant... everyone would quietly collect money for me! Hahah, and boy would I say thankyou. Of course, it would be bad if I was really pregnant. First of all, I don't have a boyfriend. Of course, I would only pretend in order to get people to give me money.
So, after Kyoko went home, I started practicing wailing and faking morning sickness. I looked terrible, and then when mother came and said "Why, what's the matter?" I told her, "Oh, woe is me, I'm pregnant!" and she said, "Oh, congratulations!" Fat lot of help she is. For a long time now, I realize my mother thinks I'm a fool.
Today was such an awful day. I guess this was the most dramatic day I've had since I started this diary. Though I still hurt from getting hit by lightning the other day, I went resolutely to school. I couldn't just keep sleeping. So, when I got to school, I went into my act, pretending like I was having morning sickness. "Woe, woe, I'm pregnant," said I. Everyone burst out laughing. No one cared at all. But the rumor spread and so in class the teacher was lecturing. "Hayasaka, you're pregnant eh? Congratulations!" he said.
I wanted to turn into a shell.
I'm not sexy, you know. I'm only an A-cup. But... BUT I'm popular with the guys. Up to now I'm rolling in love letters (okay, only three). But they were only from the underclass girls.
So I went off to be by myself, I was so depressed. Along comes the older girl gang. They're like, into prostitution, stealing and inhaling paint thinner and that stuff. They're, like, "You're Ako Hayasaka?"
So I say, "Yes, I am."
"You're pregnant?"
I'm like "Huh?"
Well you see, the rumor had, um, changed. Now it was that I got pregnant 'cuz I was a prostitute. So they were pissed off 'cuz they figured I'm getting in on their racket.
You stupid-headed girls! You are the ONLY people who believe that I am pregnant! Oh, thank you. Now I can start collecting money.
Uh-uh. That was not why they were there. They took out CHAINS and BOKEN (wooden swords)!! Ge -- ge -- Ako-chan was in a pinch! My mind went blank! I'm serious.
That was when the miracle happened. All the blood roared into my head in a rage. Next thing I know, those girls were down for the count! I don't really know how it happened! Suddenly I'm so strong! I'm mighty! I could be a bodyguard for a cabaret! I wonder whether or not that job pays well....
Today I met a bunch of people. First of all, there were a lot of people at the school today for an audience. Writing kanji and an audience (I looked things up in the dictionary to keep from making a mistake). Everyone wanted to be my follower! It was 'cuz I'd beaten the girl-gang. "If Ako leads, we can hang out," everyone was saying and it really pulled me out of a bad mood. And when I went home I was feeling so proud, walking tall, shoulders straight. Until I met that brat.
The brat looked like a third-year grade school student. He had a surprisingly sweet face, really cute. He was wearing knickerbockers. He followed me all the way home from school. "Um, you got some business with me?" I'm now the leader of the girls, you know. Gotta talk to the brat like that.
I mean, that kid grabbed my school bag and took off with it. So of course I took off after him, right? Then, right when we were about at the Shinto shrine, I saw everything from my bag scattered all under the Gingko tree! Textbooks, notebooks, EVERYTHING! Heck, the answers were all written in my books, and it looks like they're all correct answers! I'd bet ten yen on it that the pages were bare white before this! How in... I mean, that little brat solved ALL the problems in just a few seconds! No way!!
And the brat was all grinning in the Gingko tree. So of course I got there and climbed after him as fast as I could. In spite of that, the brat just kept grinning all the time and he was playing with a black crow. I kept climbing. Then, you know something fell on my head. The crow's legs! He'd TORN the crow's legs off and thrown them on my head! He poked his finger into the bird's eyeball, all the way through it came out the other eyeball!
I was so shocked, I fell out of the tree. Looked up at the brat and couldn't see a thing. He seemed to disappear like some magic trick. Some sort of badger's illusion (or just a fox's)? Just like in the old days Grandpa used to talk about before he died. The time he was on the mountain and a badger or a fox appeared and something terrible happened. That was just how I felt. Unreal.
And then someone touched my shoulder. I screamed and leaped up one whole meter. But it wasn't a badger or a fox. There was some stunningly beautiful woman and this drop-dead GORGEOUS guy standing there.
Their names were Aya Odagiri and Ryu Tendo.
2
"Heh? Hoho... acha!"
Ryu and Odagiri had told her everything, and now were waiting through her exaggerated reaction. The three were sitting across from each other at a coffee lounge, and in front of Ako were lined up a chocolate parfait, a banana parfait and a cream soda. She listened to them as she ate one after another.
Really... that lightning that hit me was the Birdnic Wave. And now I'm a Jetman. I can power up. That's why I could beat the shit out of the leader of the girl-gang.
"You..." Odagiri began. "You must use your power to protect world peace. You have to fight the mysterious enemy."
"But..." Ako started. "I don't get it. You can't just pop up and say 'You're a soldier,' and I'm just gonna say 'Right,' and go along? The things you guys are saying are just so... I mean this is crazy!" Seventeen year old Ako gaped at the twenty-eight year old Odagiri, a bewildering older woman.
"See the truth," Ryu said, his voice unintentionally sharp. "The Earth Ship was destroyed and everyone is dead. What happens from now on is -- "
"Right, right, okay. So, can I earn money if I join your little group?" she paused to ask for another raw cream. "Well, can I?"
Ryu and Odagiri said nothing.
Odagiri drew a small breath. Well, Lyta Ooishi and Ako Hayasaka were certainly not warriors. It would be a rush to get them into the group. She would have to start their training from the very beginning. She considered Kaori. That girl was just the same. Thank goodness she wanted to be part of the group. People like this....
Anyway, it was vitally important that they gather all five Jetman. Kaori was still at Lyta Ooishi's. Ryu and Odagiri had to go search for the other Jetman, so Kaori had been entrusted on her own to try to persuade Lyta. She was a sweet girl and perhaps could manage it. Odagiri only prayed it would work out.
3
Kaori was very quiet as she watched Lyta at work. Since Odagiri and Ryu had left, she had not spoken a single word. Lyta acted as if she was not even there. His heavy body shook as he took his regular rounds from the pigsty to the tomato field. He scattered the watered-down pig excrement around the tomatoes' roots. Kaori watched everything with increasing interest. This was the first time she had ever seen a live pig, and also the first time she had seen what went into getting ripe tomatoes. You just planted seeds and you got tomatoes that pop up just like round balloons, she had always thought.
"Beautiful," Kaori murmured to the tomatoes. "I didn't know vegetables were so beautiful."
"Yeah, they are," Lyta responded automatically, Kaori's murmur of her true feelings drawing him out. Kaori tilted her head and regarded Lyta steadily, waiting for him to speak again. Blushing, he said, "I -- I mean... this... it makes my tomatoes have a really special color." Because of all the love he poured into his work. Lyta had to fight to swallow his words before he said anything more. He was too shy to speak. "The color, and taste... are special...." Kaori's stomach rumbled softly. As might be expected, her face turned beet red. She really had not thought of eating since breakfast. "Would you like to try one?" Lyta asked very timidly.
"Yes! But... it's pretty sad...."
"Oh, not at all. Tomatoes are happy to be eaten, if you really enjoy the taste." It had truly been a long time since Lyta had spoken to a woman this way. He picked a tomato and handed it to Kaori. She had no idea what to do with it. She had been raised eating things always cooked by a top-class chef. This was the first time she had eaten a tomato that wasn't cut or cooked. "This is how you eat it, look." Out in the fields, he wiped the tomato clean with his sleeve, and then started taking bites out of it.
Kaori wiped her tomato with her skirt and, for the first time since she was born, she opened her mouth as wide as she could and.... "It's delicious!" She was grinning with joy. It was true, the taste deeply moved her. It was even better than French cooking or traditional Japanese food.
Lyta, staring at Kaori, felt the same sudden throbbing in his chest. She's sure a pretty girl, he thought. She looked like a blown-glass doll. From the moment she wiped her tomato on her skirt, and a bit of her white leg had peeped out, Lyta was riveted. I'm glad such a lovely girl likes eating my tomatoes, he thought. He just wanted to see the joy on her face. He almost asked her if she wanted to see the piglets that were born the day before. But in the next moment, his years of bitterness reared up. Lyta denied himself the chance. Can't go, can't go. I was caught up in the moment. Anyhow, he'd only be hurt again. That girl is no partner for someone like me.
His glance fell on the red bracelet around Kaori's wrist. This was the thing that gave the signal to transform into a Jetman. It also functioned as a tele-communicator, to speak with other members of the team and with the base. Lyta remembered all the things that Ryu and Odagiri had told him. Jetman. She's a Jetman. A chill ran up Lyta's spine. This slender child is going to fight the enemy that destroyed the Earth Ship? Who, what is going to protect her smiling face?!
"Eh, what was that?" Kaori said. Lyta came back to himself with a jolt, and listened intently.
There was the sound of the wind in the leaves. Entwined with it they could hear a dog barking and a child laughing. After they heard the laughter, Kaori and Lyta could see the youngster and the dog through the surrounding tomatoes. "Is this trouble? Will they break into the field?" Kaori asked.
"Oh, no it's all right," Lyta said to assuage her worry. Children from the area often played around his field. It was only children Lyta believed should be allowed such a liberty. He knew children needed a playground.
The child and the dog circled around Kaori and Lyta. Among the leaves the boy's figure appeared and disappeared like an illusion. The dog shrieked suddenly, the running footsteps went out, the laughter stopped. Silence returned to this place.
Suddenly, a boy appeared in the shade of the trees and stepped forward to meet Kaori and Lyta. "It's broken," he said, and held out the dog. It neither twitched nor stirred. All four of its legs were folded wrong.
"Y -- you..." started a stunned Lyta, but he broke off. Kaori, struck by the same feeling of instinctive horror, clung to Lyta.
The boy smiled innocently at them. He looked like a third-year grade school student. He wore knickerbockers and his features were as sweet as a girl's. This was the same child who had appeared in front of Ako, when her papers with the questions and answers had been tossed under the gingko tree, and then above her the child had disappeared.
"Play with me," he said, and tore the dog's hind legs in half. Black blood poured out, down to his feet.
"Wh -- wh -- what ARE you?!"
"I know," the boy said, as if to make their acquaintance. Lyta and Kaori backed away from him. "You aren't ordinary humans. You're very strong humans. So let's play together." The boy pursed his cherry lips and blew, whistling. At once, all the tomatoes around the three exploded! Ten thousands of tomatoes bore the surge of the whistle, then one by one disgorged their juice, pouring out like blood.
"M -- My tomatoes!" Lyta screamed. The pigs in their pen were going wild. They tore down the boards of the pen. They were foaming at the mouth. Dozens of the maddened pigs charged at the boy. The tone of his whistle went up. The blood vessels in the pigs swelled. Their bodies bloated like balloons and then exploded. Their stomachs, their hearts, flew into the air through the sunlight. Kaori screamed and the boy's laughter echoed all around them. "S -- STOP!" Lyta bellowed. Raising his hoe high, he rushed at the boy.
The boy simply levitated lazily into the sky. Now that he was in the air, his tune rose again. Now the pitch was beyond the range of human hearing. Kaori and Lyta lost their balance; the ground was starting to shake like liquid. Back and forth the ground flowed and swirled. The pigs' corpses and the wreckage of the tomatoes were swallowed up by the ground.
Kaori was screaming Ryu's name into her bracelet.
4
The southernmost ends of Lyta's fields touched the edge of a developing residential area. Mansions could be seen like dominoes lining the new road that passed by. At first glance it looked like a very pretty place. It was not yet equipped to function as a residential area. All of the houses had yet to be hooked up to an energy supply, a solar system. The drainage system was not yet complete. The streets were still uninhabited. Receiving Kaori's communication, Ryu and Odagiri took Ako with them and leaped into a car. And to those streets fled Kaori and Lyta.
"That... that child..!" stuttered Kaori.
"M... my tomatoes!" The two were so frightened, they were having trouble speaking. Their tongues were tied.
"Calm down. What happened?" Ryu asked, setting his hands firmly on Kaori's shoulders.
Lyta managed to speak sense. "That child destroyed my fields!"
"Ho -- " Ako started to try to make light of this impossible situation. "Riiiight. Is it the Jetman's job to play pranks with that kid?"
"You... you're also a Jetman?" Kaori asked.
"Looks like," said Ako, bowing her head at Kaori's words.
"Let's fight together, then. Pool our power."
"But still," Ako began, cutting into Kaori's quick words, still acting carefree, "Do we get money for this? It seems like risky work. What's our hourly wage gonna be? I'd like 1,500 yen." Kaori quickly opened her purse and wrote out a check for 10,000,000 yen and pressed it to Ako's chest. "One, ten, hundred, thousand," Ako counted the zeros and her eyes went round as saucers. "Ten million...?! Is... is this it?"
"Fool," said a boy. "It's okay. I'll do your homework again." The boy was waiting, standing near Ako.
"That boy... that boy!" Instantly, Kaori dove behind Ryu. Lyta, on the other hand, launched himself at the child.
"You bastard! My tomatoes! My fields!" The boy dodged Lyta's hands and floated up into the sky again.
"Ah! It's him!" exclaimed Ako, also pointing at him. "He's a badger. He's a fox!"
Ryu kept an eye on the boy as he unconsciously moved into position. His soldier's instincts told him what to do. In an instant, the small body burst into flame. Clothes and shoes fried away with a crackle. His black hair changed color to golden flames. Now he was naked. His skin was pale. The lower half of his body was ethereal. Transparent. It was impossible to see if he was a boy or a girl. This was the boy's -- Toran's true appearance.
"Let's play some more," he said. "Who will be the first to be broken?" And once again, he began to whistle. Every window in the mansions along the street burst simultaneously. The road cracked down the middle in a zigzag.
"You!" Ryu shouted. "Are you one of the enemies who destroyed the Earth Ship?!"
At that moment, under a sudden bombardment, everyone went flying. Ryu rolled on the ground. He scrambled to his feet, then his gaze lit upon an approaching shadow. It was not human. It was a robot, more than three meters tall. They could hear the approach of its massive weight, heavy footsteps. The approaching robot was jet black, and carrying a beam cannon. "Grey!" Toran called. "Hold out your hand. These creatures are my puppets!" Grey didn't answer. His metal body approached step-by-step, each thud of his step causing the ground to vibrate. All the humans were together, trying to hold each other up.
"What... what are we going to do?!" Ako cried, unable to understand what was happening.
"Fight!" shouted Ryu. "We're Jetman!" Odagiri moved quickly to slap bracelets on Ako and Lyta's wrists. Under the power of Toran's whistle, the surrounding mansions split right in half. Grey raised and aligned his beam-cannon. Following Ryu's example, Kaori, Ako and Lyta all used their bracelets. And the four changed.
The extraordinary polymer suits engulfed their bodies. The goggle-helmets covered their heads and hid their faces. Along with their suits came their gun and sword type weapons, the Bird-blasters and the Bringer-swords. The helmets and the weapons had transferred to them from the base, synchronized with their change into armor. At the bracelets' signals, any item they needed would be disassembled at the molecular level and transmitted to reassemble with the Jetman who needed it.
The four had changed. They stood, and the sunlight hit their reinforced suits and reflected in a rainbow of colors. Grey fired his cannon at them. "Fly!" Ryu shouted. The four leapt easily into the sky. Their jumps carried them ten meters. Humans who were bathed in the Birdnic Wave had greater strength than normal people. Though that power was usually suppressed, they could use it to maximum effect when they wore their suits.
There was an explosion below them. It hit the fissure Grey's first blast had made and left a round crater. Ryu aimed his Bird-blaster at Grey from the sky. The high-energy beam hit the robot's chest, and pushed him back leaving tracks in the road under his feet. Not stopping, Ryu brandished his Bringer-sword over his head. He hurtled down towards Grey's face, his gleaming sword struck, he tore at Grey. The robot used his arm to deflect the sword, but it was cut through and knocked away. Cords shot out from the robot's shoulder and pulled the flying arm back into place in an instant.
"Damn it!" cursed Ryu.
Kaori, Ako and Lyta were escaping. The three did not know how to fight, yet. Toran's whistle rose in pitch. The tiles of the collapsed mansions hurtled toward Ryu to strike his body. He fell with a groan. Odagiri shouted, "RUN AWAY! We can't possibly win now!"
They all fled, racing through the empty streets. No, they could not prevail yet. Not until they had the power of all five together. There was still one more.... They had to collect the last soldier. After that battle, Toran's laughter would never leave Ryu, Ako, Kaori and Lyta's ears.
That evening, Ryu secluded himself in his room at the base. Alone, he postured facing an imaginary enemy. He did not waver, though sweat poured and his body steamed. They did not yet know the enemy's true shape, object or the scope of its power. He felt humiliated by defeat and impatience. His body's muscles trembled ever so slightly. Suddenly he noticed a blotch in the palm of his hand.
"Rie..." he choked out. This was Rie's mark. Before she had been sucked out into the void of space, she was clinging to his hand. The blotch appeared now. He could almost feel her there, unseen, giving him courage.
"...Rie...." And now he wept for the first time since he lost her, wracked with grief. Closing his eyes tight, biting the back of his hand to hold in the sobs, his body bent as he continued to weep.