Hearing someone calling her name—and feeling a tap on her shoulder—Mikoto Kiba jolted awake.
She almost snapped straight into a defensive stance, only to realize it was Ms. Yuko waking her.
The sunlight was blindingly strong now. It was already midday.
And she was still so sleepy.
After all, she and Ms. Yuko had been tailing that group since last night. They watched them bustle all the way into morning. When things finally quieted down, it looked like the group had gone into a rest cycle.
But during that time, Mikoto and Ms. Yuko had realized something.
The drug those people were making might genuinely work against the D99 disaster.
That little girl last night seemed to have developed symptoms—most likely infected—and could only be carried in by her father.
Then that man fed her a dose of something, and the girl recovered almost immediately. She could walk again and looked completely fine.
After that, the group got even more fired up, manufacturing something with growing excitement. Then, once the sun rose high enough that it would shine into the room where they were working, they drew the curtains over the glass windows, blocking any view of what was happening inside.
Now, at noon, there was movement again. They were coming out one by one.
Mikoto noticed something abnormal: a sizable number of the Dead had wandered near the hospital entrance again, drawn to the vehicles.
This time, the man and the sword-wielding girl did not intervene.
Instead, the other students stepped up.
They still looked scared of the Dead—but at the same time, they seemed oddly reassured, as if they no longer feared something.
It was almost like—
"It looks like it really does target the mutated virus caused by D99. If they're not afraid of infection… does that mean what they made is a vaccine?"
Ms. Yuko couldn't help murmuring, dazed.
A vaccine a bunch of high schoolers could make. It sounded like a joke—yet the scene in front of them said otherwise.
She wasn't foolish enough to think a vaccine for a D99-derived virus should be easy. If the recipe looked "simple," then something in the underlying logic had to be the real trick.
But the fact that even high schoolers could assist meant it wasn't truly impossible.
If it were manufactured with industrial machinery, mass production would be absolutely feasible.
"Mikoto. Mask, on."
Ms. Yuko wasn't doing it out of habit.
Those people knew they were being watched—and not only were they not stopping them, they were openly letting them see enough to understand what was happening.
Which meant one thing: the other side wanted them to know.
Ms. Yuko had already formed a hypothesis—a fairly optimistic one.
"Okay."
Mikoto immediately pulled her backpack forward and, as usual, used a mask to cover her mouth and nose.
They needed to inform everyone in Black Label immediately—inform Director Mochizuki.
Because Director Mochizuki had prepared extensively for this apocalypse, especially in terms of medical supplies.
If this group could be persuaded to cooperate and relocate to the Mochizuki facility, production could begin right away.
…
Tobioka City.
Naturally, it was no different from any other city now: the streets were crawling with the Dead.
If there was any difference at all, it was that the mayor had handled the initial catastrophe relatively well—at least saving more citizens than most other cities.
The main reason was that the mayor and Masamune Mochizuki, the chairman of Mochizuki General Hospital, were old acquaintances.
He even knew Director Mochizuki's true identity.
So when the outbreak began, Mochizuki General Hospital immediately became the most stable zone remaining in the entire city.
Even so, the hospital—despite being the largest in the city, with a vast footprint—was still far too small to shelter everyone.
But beneath it was an unimaginable refuge space.
A Black Label base.
Now, its entrances had been opened, allowing many civilians to take shelter inside.
Inside the hospital's conference room, the secretary, Fiona Lan Winchester, abruptly interrupted the meeting and handed a satellite phone to a sickly-looking elderly man—Masamune Mochizuki.
"I understand. I'll have Fiona compile and transmit inventories of our medical supplies and equipment over to you. Also, we can't spare anyone else to support you right now, so… I'm counting on you."
Fiona didn't know what he had heard on the call, but in all her years by his side, she had never seen such a strong emotional reaction from him—nor had the Tokonosu City field team ever relayed information this shocking.
"Fiona. In addition to D99, photograph and document our other confidential medical facilities as well. Organize it into a dossier and send it to Mikoto."
Fiona's pupils constricted.
Other than the base's security and defense details, wasn't this practically exposing Black Label's entire foundation?
Director Mochizuki's commands had always been correct.
But this time—
"Mikoto's team found a vaccine that can treat the virus developed from D99. The other side had a group of high schoolers produce it in a hospital overnight."
"T-That's impossible!"
Fiona couldn't help blurting it out.
As someone who had researched D99 herself, she knew how terrifying it was.
How could a vaccine be that easy?
Unless it was a trap.
An Injector trap—using syringes as bait.
As that thought rose, Masamune seemed to read it at a glance.
"Not the Injector. A third party—unknown. And they already clashed with the Injector team Mikoto was pursuing."
Masamune paused, then continued, his voice lower.
"Also, for reasons we don't yet understand, the other party's leader was seriously injured. Even so, when he discovered Ms. Yuko and Mikoto tracking him, they exchanged blows. Neither of them could match him. If he hadn't recognized them afterward as Black Label, then…"
Masamune didn't need to finish the sentence.
They would have ended the same way as the Injector's people.
Fiona was stunned.
"So the Injector aren't a match for him?"
"That's right. The twin sisters—along with their Osprey—were destroyed by him."
If that was the case, then it truly was unlikely to be some "friendly-fire" deception from the Injector.
"Also, he appears to know Black Label exists. He knows what kind of organization we are. That's probably why he let them go."
Fiona's confusion deepened.
Someone who knew Black Label, yet wasn't one of them—and was this strong?
Then he was likely D99-enhanced as well.
Could he be—
"Not one of our former people," Masamune said, equally perplexed. "He's young."
Someone only a few years older than Mikoto, yet not Injector—so what other force could manipulate D99 to this extent?
Who else could produce a "Red Night" besides them?
The only remaining line of reasoning was the original team—someone else must have stolen the work.
…
The Injector.
Their organization name came from the "Jet Injector" plan.
A project built on D99 research, meant to obtain the final form of divine power: immortality.
That was the theory.
But they severely lacked a vaccine—what they called the red liquid.
Black Label should have it. And Black Label also had the original D99 virus strain.
So the Injector had been trying by any means to get it.
That was why, once the apocalypse began—and once they realized Black Label was involved—they accelerated everything.
More infections meant more samples. With enough samples, a special case would eventually emerge, and a vaccine might be derived.
And with the world collapsing, the Injector could operate far more freely—openly, even.
In a normal world, the Injector might have their own armed forces and even infiltrators embedded in government and military institutions, but in peacetime those resources wouldn't be enough to seize control. If the Injector were exposed, they would be eliminated.
But when nations and the world itself collapsed, the prepared could stop hiding.
They could strike Black Label openly and seize the D99 samples.
However, in the chaos of a new age, the Injector—who intended to dominate the era—suffered an unexpected loss on day one.
Watching the brief footage transmitted just before the Osprey crashed, D fell silent.
That man appeared, killed the twins' younger sister in an instant, then raised an unusually large pistol of unknown model and fired at the Osprey.
The aircraft went down.
"I request permission to take the drug and deal with him."
A tall, broad-shouldered man with a mask and long hair stood, his voice low.
The drug he meant was a half-finished formula.
Half-finished meant unstable.
It also meant severe side effects.
That made most of the room pause.
This "knight" was already terrifyingly strong—yet he still wanted to rely on that substance?
On second thought, maybe it was to avoid any risk at all.
To remove the Princess's enemy, he was willing to pay any price.
How loyal.
Some people sneered inwardly.
"I understand," the Princess said calmly. "Take it and go."
The Princess was, in other words, the current master of the Injector…
(End of Chapter)
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