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Last Embryo Volume 1 Chapter 2 Part 1

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Editor: Weasalopes

A few hours later.

The beautiful landscape of Tokyo and its surrounding areas has been completely engulfed by a fierce storm.

Since the afternoon, the weather has worsened considerably. The entire sky has been covered with the storm clouds, and the torrential downpour that incessantly fell from them severely limited the visibility, turned the usually peaceful coats into a maelstrom of roaring waves and even overflooded the mountain rivers that could now swallow entire towns with their muddied waters if only they stood in their ways. All of that made it look almost as if a dragon has descended upon Earth to obliterate everything within its beastly sights.

Due to the sudden shift in weather, the livestock living near the riversides was being washed away by the strong currents together with their pans, fences and other farming infrastructure, disappearing under the water’s surface, never to be seen again. Faced with a natural disaster on such unprecedented scale, even the wild animals were fleeing for their lives in chaos. But, as if the thunder forming in the clouds had a will of its own, lightning continued to rain down from above, each of its strikes taking more and more lives with a thunderous roar that almost sounded like the blood-curdling cackles of an evil monster.

This sentient raging storm made it seem like the earth has turned into a living hell in the blink of an eye. And in this hellish storm, a figure of a lonely man was valiantly making its way forward.

「This… this is much worse than I could have ever imagined!!!」

Clad in a storm coat made expressly for the purpose of repelling the cold rain and cutting wind, Mikado Tokuteru was on his way towards the center of the storm, paying no heed to the forces of nature which seemed hell-bent on not letting him go even a step further, keeping his fiery gaze ever-locked on the path right in front of him. And yet, even though the storm was giving it everything it got, none of its attacks seemed to be reaching him. Everyone who saw such a terrifying scene would just fall to the ground in fear, but Tokuteru didn’t slow down for even a second; moreover, he was maintaining a steady pace the entire time. But that was to be expected.

Because Mikado Tokuteru was not afraid of the storm around him. With every step he made he pushed it further and further away, aiming to reach what was hidden in its center. And the storm, as if it wanted to respond to the challenge he has presented it with, roared with a thundering battle cry that sounded like that on a bull preparing to charge its opponent.

Finally, in the brief flashes of blinding light blooming across the darkened horizon when the lightning was striking the ground, Tokuteru could see the sillouhete of the beast responsible for all of this better with every step, because it finally decided to stop concealing its presence in order to meet the fool who tried to trespass into its domain to crush him head on.

「GEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa…………………………….!!!!!!!!!!!!!」

When Tokuteru stopped, the storm clouds above his head started to converge in front of him, gradually changing their shape into that of a hooved animal with a pair of majestic horn woven from the lightning itself, reaching out into the sky as if they wanted to pierce the heavens themselves.

Its size was truly astounding, but that much should be expected, since Tokuteru’s opponent was the storm cloud itself. Slowly, little by little, the cumulonimbus turned into a giant bull clad in the armor made out of lightning. Even though its body was technically not a solid one, the entire ground in the close vicinity was rumbling and cracking wide open with every step of its hooves, obliterating the trees, hills and the roads with equal ease. The beast which they belonged to, the one who used them to wreck such havoc simply by existing, was the same as the mythical beast after whom the constellation was named.

It was truly a Heavenly Bull which could strike fear into the hearts of even the most fearless of the Gods of War… and yet, Tokuteru was staring right in its monstrously glowing eyes without showing any signs of being scared, even as the bull let out a thunder-like roar and was preparing itself to charge at him.

「Well well well, looks like I am going to be dealing with something really troublesome this time. One glance was all I needed to know that the speed of its growth has already surpassed that of Gugalanna (TL Note: The Bull of Heaven in Sumerian mythology and the first husband of Ereshkigal, Goddess of the Underworld, killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu) Honestly, I don’t know how long I am going to last against him in my current state….」

He prepared himself for a fight against the bull-shaped cloud, and as he did do, his entire body began to glow with a mysterious light similar to the lightning his opponent was using. Witnessing that, the sentient storm cloud’s roars became increasingly more violent, like it was declaring war on the human standing in front of it.

And just like that, with its power continuously growing stronger, the storm has finally descended on Tokyo.

The weather started to become stormy around the time when Saigo Homura, Ayazato Suzuka and Kudou Ayaka finished watching the latest remake of a famous movie after their visit to the bookstore, and were now enjoying a meal in one of the fast-food restaurants around Shinjuku. By the time they arrived back at the orphanage the sky turned as dark as if it was the middle of the night, and the combination of powerful gusts of wind and mowing rainfall was assaulting every nook and cranny of the entire building, quickly flooding the ceilings through the numerous small gaps and holes in the roof, and given how the branches of a tree growing outside of the main gate were ripped off of the tree’s trunk before their very eyes, the possibility of things flying into the orphanage from outside could not be ignored. So while the youngest inhabitants were coming up with a plan that would allow them to protect themselves from any foreign objects coming crashing in even if the glass in the windows were to be broken to bits, our three heroes had their hands full running back and forth and assisting in everything they could help with.

It took quite a while, but they ultimately succeeded in securing their home against whatever the typhoon might try to throw at them, which unfortunately left them feeling quite exhausted. They had another light meal to try and reclaim even a small portion of the energy they had just expended, to no avail. At the end of the day, all three of them just sat on the couch in front of the TV in the living room with bitter smiles on their faces. Homura turned it on in hopes of getting any news coverage about the typhoon and the situation in the city.

「Christ, way to start a Golden Week with a bang, huh? This has got to be one of the worst one in recent years.」

「You can say that again! All the plants we spent so much time on cultivating have been destroyed, so we will have to replant them! All of our emergency rations also went out the window. Literally.」

「That is quite a shame, especially for that aloe you spend so much time on. It was an edible variety, right, Suzuka?」

Homura was watching the news while Ayato listened to Suzuka lamenting about the annihilation of the plants in their garden. Holding an empty teacup in her hand, Ayato stood up from the sofa, most probably to pour herself another cup. Glancing at her back with the corner of his eye, Homura asked Suzuka a question which was on his mind for quite some time now.

「Tell me, Suzuka, why is it that you only address Ayato without any honorifics? Not that it’s a problem, it’s just that I have been curious about it for a while.」

「Ah, that? A reason for it, you say? Well, it’s nothing major or really that important; it’s just that one day I just kinda approached her because I had this realization and I said to her: since we are both the members of the student council and are always together all the time, being all formal with each other just sounds so stiff and boring, don’t you think? Also, I might have used just a teeny-tiny bit of my authority as a student council president to make her accept it as an official directive.」

「I see. That really sounds like something you would do, Suzuka.」

Ayazato Suzuka and Kudou Ayato were both the members of the student council. Also, as unbelievable as it may sound, the one who held the position of the student council president for three years straight ever since the first year of middle school was Suzuka, and she was flawless at doing her job, most likely because of her outgoing personality and the natural ability to befriend everyone she met almost instantly.

「If this crazy weather keeps up, the animal pens in the school might also be in danger. I hope the members of the dietary education committee did something to keep them safe.」

「We probably don’t have to worry about that, because last time I heard, the institute’s and university’s laboratories were engaging in some kind of collaborative efforts to prevent such things from happening.」 Homura muttered, remembering the latest piece of gossip he heard floating around the school just a few days ago.